New Details on F.B.I.’s False Start in Anthrax Case

November 26, 2008

By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — A federal court on Tuesday unsealed documents that shed new light on why F.B.I. anthrax investigators spent years pursuing the wrong man, Steven J. Hatfill, who was exonerated by the government this year and received a $4.6 million settlement.

Search warrant affidavits said that Dr. Hatfill filled prescriptions for the antibiotic Cipro, the preferred drug for treatment of anthrax, two days before each of the mailings of anthrax-laced letters in September and October 2001. Under questioning by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he denied taking Cipro at that time, the affidavits said.

The documents report that Dr. Hatfill spoke of serving in a Rhodesian military unit accused of starting an anthrax epidemic in 1979, told an acquaintance that it would take a “Pearl Harbor-type attack” to awaken the United States to the bioterrorist threat and kept an anthrax simulant in his apartment. They said Dr. Hatfill had access to the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks while working at the Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., from 1997 to 1999.

In August, after the suicide of another researcher who worked at the same Army laboratory, Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, the F.B.I. said it had concluded that Dr. Ivins alone had carried out the anthrax attacks, which killed 5 people and sickened 17 others.

The Justice Department then made public search warrant affidavits laying out circumstantial evidence against Dr. Ivins, including symptoms of mental illness, late hours in the laboratory before the mailings and genetic evidence linking the mailed anthrax to a supply in his laboratory. But no definitive evidence has tied Dr. Ivins directly to the letters or to the site of the mailings in Princeton, N.J., and many of his colleagues and friends have said they do not believe he committed the crime.

The Hatfill search warrant material shows how an accumulation of claims from acquaintances can cast an innocent person in a highly suspicious light, said Mark A. Grannis, a lawyer for Dr. Hatfill. As an example of how innocent details can be made to look suspicious, Mr. Grannis said Dr. Hatfill was taking Cipro, a widely prescribed antibiotic, after sinus surgery in 2001.

Search warrants, Mr. Grannis said, often use hearsay and unconfirmed information to convince a judge that a suspect is worthy of further investigation.

“Whether or not it was right for the government to rely on this kind of information to obtain a search warrant in 2002, we know in 2008 that Steven Hatfill had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks,” Mr. Grannis said.

The F.B.I. affidavits were used to obtain a search warrant in August 2002 for Dr. Hatfill’s apartment and a basement storage room in his building in Frederick, Md., as well as his car and a storage locker he rented in Ocala, Fla. The agency had conducted a search with Dr. Hatfill’s permission two months earlier, but it was considered inconclusive.

In searching Dr. Hatfill’s apartment, investigators seized biological equipment, glass laboratory slides, plastic tubing and a gun silencer, among other belongings, the documents say.

Dr. Hatfill was never charged in the anthrax case, but the searches and government leaks identifying him as a leading suspect drew widespread news coverage. He lost a teaching job at Louisiana State University after officials at the Justice Department, which was paying for the courses, objected to his employment. For months, F.B.I. surveillance teams followed Dr. Hatfill every time he left home.

Dr. Hatfill later sued the F.B.I. and the Justice Department for leaking information about him. A separate lawsuit he filed against The New York Times was dismissed and a lawsuit against Vanity Fair magazine was settled.

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Lobbyist Getting The Boot From Obama?

Published on Thursday, November 13, 2008 by The Independent/UK

Obama Acts To Drive The Lobbyists Out of Washington

by Leonard Doyle

The leader of Barack Obama's transition team has delivered some bad news to the hordes of lobbyists plying their trade in the fancy restaurants and faceless offices along Pennsylvania Avenue: they are not welcome.

A dog passes in front of a mural painting of US President-elect Barack Obama in Venice Beach, California. Mr Podesta, Obama's transition manager, unveiled what he said was "the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history," and declared "that the undue influence of Washington lobbyists and the revolving door of Washington ceases to exist." (AFP/Gabriel Bouys)

John Podesta, the transition chief, has revealed a set of draconian new regulations aimed at curbing the excessive influence of lobbyists, as Mr Obama promised throughout his election campaign. They are to be denied their normal role of greasing the wheels of the new administration's costly transition to power by paying for office space and staff between now and the inauguration on 20 January.

Mr Podesta unveiled what he said was "the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history," and declared "that the undue influence of Washington lobbyists and the revolving door of Washington ceases to exist."

The White House and the Capitol are the two most impressive buildings in Washington but power is really along Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street, where the top-tier lobbyists arrange access to decision-makers and cut backroom deals for special interest groups.

Now, in the dying days of the Bush administration, an unprecedented frenzy is under way as Washington's legal and lobbying establishment tries to get its hands on some of the $700bn (£470bn) financial rescue package for clients before a deadline of tomorrow.

One of the top firms is Alston & Bird, which boasts it has the former Republican presidential contender and senator, Bob Dole, on its books. But Democrats are no slouches at lobbying either. The national co-chair of Mr Obama's election campaign, former Senator Tom Daschle also works for Alston & Bird though not, we are assured, as a registered lobbyist. Instead he provides "high level advisory and strategic advice" to the company.

To cope with the crush of lobbyists at its doors, the Treasury Department hired Jeb Mason, a 32-year old Texan who wears cowboy boots and hat to work. A former White House aide of the political adviser Karl Rove, he is now the point of call for the hired guns of the banking industry, insurance and credit card companies lining up to get some of the taxpayers' billions.

Talking about the dozens of phone calls and emails he gets from lobbyists, he told the New York Times, "this must have been how the Politburo felt".

Mr Obama's transition team is planning to hire about 450 people, who will be divided between Washington and Chicago, at a cost of about $12m. Less than half of that amount will be paid for from the public purse and Mr Obama is planning to fund the rest by asking the more than 3 million people who poured small amounts of money into his campaign to make up the rest. No incoming president before him has had access to such a potential well of money and his team has already sent out emails offering "Victory T-shirts" in return for fresh contributions.

Ever since Ronald Reagan's day, corporations and law firms have picked up the tab for presidential transitions. To avoid even the appearance of abuse, the Obama team is limiting private donations to a maximum of $5,000 and will disclose the names of all donors. "So you'll see our contributions... to the transition prior to the inauguration, yes," Mr Podesta said.

One problem the Obama transition team faces is that some of the brightest Washington brains it might want to hire for the transition and later in government are already registered lobbyists. "I've heard the other complaint, which is we're leaving all these experts on the side... We're leaving all the people who know everything out in the cold," Mr Podesta said. "And so be it."

Mr Podesta, who is himself the head of a think-tank, the Centre for American Progress, says that any lobbyists who are hired will be banned from working in areas for which they have previously lobbied.

And anyone who turns to lobbying after gaining insights and contacts working on the transition for the next 69 days, will be barred for 12 months from lobbying the new administration on a subject area they worked on.

The restrictions are viewed as pious hopes by many in Washington. Former president Bill Clinton tried to restrict lobbyists and failed. President Bush did little to stop their growth and they are now a multibillion-dollar business of influence. Even if Mr Obama succeeds in limiting their access to his administration, Congressmen and women are particularly soft targets. For many politicians, getting elected and serving a term or two is merely a rite of passage on the road to a lucrative Pennsylvania Avenue career.

© 2008 The Independent

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U.S. religious groups want Obama to ban torture

It would be a great first step, but only that. Let the investigations begin and we'll go where they lead us, no matter how hurtful and nightmarish the revelations. No more can be swept under the national carpet. It's getting to lumpy to walk on.

Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:03pm EST

By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A coalition of more than 200 religious groups urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday to sign an order, once he takes office, banning torture by any federal government entity.

"This is an opportunity where one official could ... with one stroke of a pen, really change history here," said Linda Gustitus, president of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

The group, which has been pressing the issue since 2006, also wants the U.S. Congress to establish a special committee to investigate the use of what the Bush administration has called "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on terrorism suspects detained after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

President George W. Bush has said the United States does not practice torture. But the Central Intelligence Agency has admitted using waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, on three occasions. Critics consider waterboarding torture.

"We want a full accounting," Gustitus said in a telephone briefing from Washington. "We know that we tortured people ... the country needs to come to grips with this."

The Bush administration has been under fire both at home and abroad for its interrogation and detainment practices, particularly at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

During the campaign both Democrat Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, said they wanted the detention center at Guantanamo closed. Obama takes office on January 20.

Revelations of prisoner abuse by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq caused an international outcry in 2004.

The coalition said it was mounting events on Wednesday at locations across the country, including a demonstration outside the White House, and was lobbying members of Congress on the issue. It was also dropping off its petition to Obama's representatives at his offices in Chicago.

The coalition said more than 240 religious groups have joined in the effort, including representatives of Roman Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Sikh communities.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

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Get Out of Jail Free Card for Bush?

Here's hoping it doesn't work

Is Bush's kindness to Obama really a "get out of jail, free" card?

 

One of the many surprising developments over the last week has been both the speed and extent of the graciousness that President Bush and his team have shown to President-elect Obama, especially considering how long and how hard-fought the 2008 campaign turned out to be, and the Democratic standard bearer's frequent and unusually harsh criticism of the GOP president out on the trail.

On the morning after Obama's victory, Bush could have easily phoned it in and offered up a bland, pro forma congratulation, but instead he went before the cameras in the Rose Garden with highly laudatory praise, saying that American voters had "showed a watching world the vitality of America's democracy and the strides we have made toward a more perfect union."

He didn't stop there. Bush invited Barack and Michelle Obama to the White House ASAP -- the visit that in fact took place yesterday -- for both a humble tour of where the 44th president and his family will live and a substantive discussion of the issues that have boiled over during Bush's watch, especially the ravaged world economy. The images that these meetings produced of a peaceful and cooperative transition have been reassuring to Americans, and to the world.

 It's difficult, however, to get any frame of reference for Bush's handling of the transition: The last real time that the White House changed hands from a president of one party to a president of the other party that hadn't defeated him personally, under normal circumstances, was in 1968; it also happened in 2000 but the Florida recount led to a warped and shortened transition.

Sometimes, according to Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is the best one. With his approval rating at or even worse than any president since modern polling began, it's surely possible that Bush is smart enough to see that a gracious transition could be a baby step to restoring his reputation down the road. In that same vein, an early solution to the economic mess under President Obama would mitigate some of the damage to Bush's reputation there.

I believe those factors are present, but we should also not suspend all cynicism in the euphoria of the moment of Obama's election. We should never forget that same president who was so welcoming to Obama is the very same president whose war cabinet authorized torture practices and rendition of terrorism suspects, massively expanded government spying in a web that caught untold American citizens, launched (as just reported this week) secret military strikes around the globe, and through the abuse of signing statements and other unprecedented tactics treated the Constitution, its separation of powers and international law like pieces of crumpled up waste paper. No hailing of Obama's "awesome" victory erases that stain.

And so one of many, many difficult decisions that Obama and his team will faces during his first 100 days in the Oval Office will be this: Should the new president's Justice Department take a more aggressive pose toward investigating this unprecedented White House power grab and some of the toxic symptoms that flowed from that, from waterboarding to the firing of U.S. attorneys for raw political reasons.

I've been following this back-burner issue much more closely than most. That's because his only comments on the subject came back in April, when I had the opportunity to raise the issue with him when he appeared here in Philadelphia before the editorial board of the Daily News. A summary of his answer is that while he seeks to be a forward-looking president, he would likely want his Attorney General to make at least a preliminary inquiry.

Here's a snip of what Obama said then:

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity.

A follow-up story published in Salon in August took the story a step farther:

Prosecution of any officials, if it were to occur, would probably not occur during Obama's first term. Instead, we may well see a congressionally empowered commission that would seek testimony from witnesses in search of the truth about what occurred. Though some witnesses might be offered immunity in exchange for testimony, the question of whether anybody would be prosecuted would be deferred to a later date -- meaning Obama's second term, if such is forthcoming.

That being the case, do you honestly think the Bush, Dick Cheney, and Co. are not seriously worried about this possibility? If you don't believe that, you haven't been paying close attention to the full-story of the Bush administration and its steady reach for executive power. In fact, many of the administration's most audacious moves have been accompanied with memos that seem to serve one primary purpose: To shield White House officials and those who carried out their orders in the field from future prosecution.

This is the best-known example, from 2002, pertaining to the use of torture in interrogating suspects:

Lawyers in the Justice Department had written a classified memo, which was extensively reviewed, that gave formal legal authority to government interrogators to use the "enhanced" questioning tactics on suspected terrorist prisoners. The August 2002 memo, signed by then head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee, was referred to as the so-called "Golden Shield" for CIA agents, who worried they would be held liable if the harsh interrogations became public.

But other controversial and arguably unlawful policies have been justified with official memos or documents. This week, the New York Times reported on a hitherto secret 2004 order by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that okayed attacks on al-Qaeda sites around the globe:

Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provides a legal rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.

When you combine all these memos, secret orders and signing statements with the Bush administration's long record of seeking to foil investigators from Congress and elsewhere asking for documents, emails and testimony from former White House officials, and it all adds up to one thing: A president and vice president who have long dreaded what a Democratic president might learn, and what he might do with that information, come Jan. 20, 2009.

With this as a backdrop, comes now the sudden Bush charm offensive. Now, there's a debate to be had about whether justice requires that past criminal acts be pursued, even after an administration has yielded its power, or whether the greater good of a forward-looking nation means that violations of the law should be forgiven, as President Gerald Ford decided in 1974 when he pardoned Richard Nixon. Whatever the right solution is, Bush is smart enough to know that he's complicating Obama's decision by seeking to connect with him as an Oval Office teammate so quickly out of the gate. Is the 43rd president's graciousness really his "get-out-of-jail free card," if not for him then for some of his White House underlings?

The more that it looks like Obama and Bush had worked together to solve the economic crisis, the more jarring it might sound to many Americans to learn that a criminal inquiry is underway -- even though the sad facts of the last eight years would seem to justify exactly such a probe, at the minimum. Politics, like war, is ruled by the art of deception. Don't be deceived by everything you heard coming from the Oval Office yesterday, and in the name of justice, let's hope that Obama and whoever he named as attorney general are not fooled, either.

Posted by Will Bunch @ 12:57 PM  Permalink

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

All right, already!

O.K. We've heard enough. We'll keep this site as our news site and refer seekers of all types to our new site:

 http://weveonlyjustbegun-pelican693.blogspot.com 

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

This pretty much says it all......

...and from Faux Noise, no less

A visibly moved Juan Williams reacted to the news that Barack Obama was elected President of the United States shortly after the race was called on Fox News Tuesday. Williams called it "stunning," noting that African Americans were barely able to vote until just 43 years ago, and saying, "I don't care how you feel about him politically, on some level you have to say this is America at its grandest."

His full comments:

It's a stunning sight. It's incomprehensible. Even a year ago, I wouldn't have thought this was possible. That an African American man could be elected President of the United States. When I think of it from a historical point of view, and you go back and think of people, that fact that black people didn't have the right to vote in this country. There were only black men until 1870. In 1870, black men got the right to vote and of course it didn't mean much until going forward until 1965 and the Voting Rights Act. And at that point, Linden Johnson said the Democrat Party lost the South forever and there was no possibility really of full enfranchisement that said black people could somehow be the leader of the United States of America. This is truly an incredible moment of American history. I can't think of another country in the world where you could have a significant minority that was once so maligned and so oppressed finally have one of its sons rise to this level. This is ah... I don't care how you feel about him politically, on some level you have to say this is America at its grandest, the potential, the possibility, and what it says for our children. Black and white, the image of Barack Obama and those little girls in the Rose Garden in these years to come. I think it's just stunning.

Read more Election Reaction here.

Read more about Election 2008 coverage here.

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

Obama wins in earliest vote in Dixville Notch, N.H.

Let's hope the nations follows!

Obama wins in earliest vote in Dixville Notch, N.H. DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. -- Democrat Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch, N.H., where the nation's first Election Day votes were cast and counted early Tuesday. Obama defeated John McCain 15-6. Independent Ralph Nader was also on the ballot, but received no votes. The first voter, following tradition established in 1948, was picked ahead of the midnight voting and the rest of the town's 19 registered voters followed suit in Tuesday's first minutes. Town Clerk Rick Erwin says the northern New Hampshire town is proud of its tradition, but says the most important thing is that the turnout represents 100 percent vote. President Bush won the vote in Dixville Notch in 2004 on the way to his re-election. Created: 11/3/2008 | Updated: 11/3/2008

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

WARNING: Bin Laden About To Weigh In?

Analysts: OBL Could Speak Out in an Effort to Prove His Relevance

OH, Bull Shit! If he "speaks out," it will be for the same reason he spoke out before; To help the Goopers, which helps him.

Does anyone really believe this guy is still alive?

By PIERRE THOMAS

Oct. 30, 2008—

Multiple senior government officials tell ABC News the intelligence community is anticipating a message from Osama bin Laden before or just after the presidential election.

As we race toward Election Day, sources say a number of intelligence analysts have concluded it is critical for al Qaeda's top leader to be seen or heard, if only for public relations purposes. Those analysts believe that if bin Laden is not heard from, he runs the risk of being considered irrelevant or impotent. (Or Dead!) The U.S. intelligence community has some indication that there is some confusion among Islamic radicals about their leadership.

According to sources, the full weight of the intelligence electronic eavesdropping and human sourcing is right now desperately looking for any hint of a bin Laden statement. So far there is only rumor, no hard evidence a message is coming, officials said.

Why are they so desperately looking? Why do we care what OBL has to say, even if he is still alive?

Interestingly, the U.S. government may be the reason why bin Laden could have some problems getting a message out, officials suggested to ABC News.

The United States is engaged in an intensive effort to disrupt the use of the Internet by Islamic radicals. Message boards and Web sites have been targeted. Some officials believe that if bin Laden is not heard from, some will conclude he may be dead.

Another source cautioned against such speculation, suggesting that bin Laden is most concerned about his own safety at the moment, and might increasingly fear for his life.

The sources tell ABC News the U.S. government is quietly engaged in a high-tempo moment attacking al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where U.S. officials fear the terrorists have found a safe haven from which to stage plots against Afghanistan, Pakistan and throughout the world, including the West.

A review of published reports about drone attacks in the tribal region suggests the United States may have more than tripled the number this year, compared to 2007, especially in recent months. One official tells ABC News, "We have killed a lot of senior leaders. They [radicals] are having a really bad month."

Another source agreed, noting that in recent weeks the No. 4 ranking leader in all of al Qaeda had been killed in a drone attack. The source said the hit, which was reported in The New York Times, was a huge deal and was surprised it had not gotten more play. The game plan is simple, the officials said. Keep al Qaeda off balance and scrambling.

There had been growing fears, not based on any specific intelligence, that al Qaeda has been likely plotting to attack the United States before the election, or during the transition to a new presidency. Homeland security officials are calling it a Period of Heightened Alert, or POHA, which ABC News first reported in last summer.

Sources confirm that there is an intensive effort all across the U.S. government to play offense. As of now, there is still no specific, credible evidence pointing to an imminent attack on the U.S. homeland. But that's clearly not stopping the government from being incredibly active at what it sees as a critical moment.

In 2004, bin Laden released a message in the days just before the election. Though some believe that the message affected the outcome in favor of President Bush, exit poll data do not support that notion. Among voters who called the tape "very important" in their vote, Kerry won, 53-47 percent. Among those who called it either very or somewhat important, the vote was 50-50. It was among those who called it unimportant that Bush won, by 56-43 percent.

ABC News' Gary Langer contributed to this report.

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

Obama Holds Leads in Key Swing States as Election Nears

Friday, Oct. 31, 2008

By Michael Duffy / Washington

With less than a week of campaigning left, Democrat Barack Obama is holding stable or growing leads over Republican John McCain in Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, according to a new set of TIME/CNN battleground-state polls conducted by Opinion Research Corp.

Obama leads McCain among likely voters by 51% to 47% in Ohio, a 4-point margin that has not budged since last week's TIME's survey. But he now leads McCain by 52% to 45% in Nevada and by 52% to 46% in North Carolina, margins which are both slightly larger than those reported by TIME in its surveys a week earlier.

The new statewide surveys also show Obama leading McCain in Pennsylvania, the key blue state in which McCain is making a last-ditch, major push to score an upset, by a comfortable 12-point margin of 55% to 43%. But Obama still trails his Republican rival in McCain's home state of Arizona by a 7-point margin of 46% to 53%.

Clinging to a narrow lead in Ohio, perhaps the most closely contested state in the nation, Obama continues to perform best with women of all races, who back him over McCain by a narrow but crucial 55% to 43% margin, a slight improvement from a week before.

But while Obama's performance among women in Ohio was firming, his support among men was weakening. Men in Ohio now favor McCain and Sarah Palin over Obama and Joe Biden by a margin of 51% to 47%, compared to a gap of 49% to 47% a week before.

Among Ohio's white males, meanwhile, Obama appears to be falling faster: they now favor McCain by a 14-point margin of 56% to 42%. Just a week earlier, Obama was 10 points behind with this group. Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, who has come to represent something like a mascot or a rallying cry for the McCain campaign, hails from a suburb of Toledo, Ohio.

White men in Pennsylvania, by comparison, favor McCain too, but by a narrower 50%-46% margin, the TIME/CNN poll found. Women in Pennsylvania are more comfortable with the Democratic nominee than their counterparts in the Buckeye State to the west, though the difference is less dramatic. Keystone State women back Obama by a margin of 57% to 42%.

But the differences among key groups in Ohio and Pennsylvania are minor when compared with the demographic breakdowns in North Carolina. Though Obama leads in North Carolina by 6 points overall, McCain leads Obama among white women by an overwhelming margin of 62% to 32%, a ratio that is virtually identical to the margin reported by white men, who favor McCain 64% to 34%.

In Nevada, by contrast, Obama has seen his lead overall grow from a 4-point margin in late August to a 7-point margin in the latest TIME/CNN poll. Most of that growth, the data shows, comes from independents, white men and voters making less than $50,000 a year. McCain's overall support in the state — 45% – is only 1 point higher than it was two months ago.

The polls were conducted over the phone from Oct. 23-28. In Arizona, 807 likely voters were surveyed; in Nevada, 684; in North Carolina, 667; in Ohio, 779; and in Pennsylvania, 768. Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, while Nevada and North Carolina had a margin of 4 percentage points.

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

Abu Nidal, Notorious Palestinian Mercenary, 'Was A US Spy'

Why Does This Not Surprise Me In The Least?

Secret papers claim the feared assassin was hired to find links between Saddam and al-Qa'ida.

By Robert Fisk

October 25, 2008 "The Independent" -- -Iraqi secret police believed that the notorious Palestinian assassin Abu Nidal was working for the Americans as well as Egypt and Kuwait when they interrogated him in Baghdad only months before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Hitherto secret documents which are now in the hands of The Independent – written by Saddam Hussein's brutal security services for Saddam's eyes only – state that he had been "colluding" with the Americans and, with the help of the Egyptians and Kuwaitis, was trying to find evidence linking Saddam and al-Qa'ida.

President George Bush was to use claims of a relationship with al-Qa'ida as one of the reasons for his 2003 invasion, along with Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Western reports were to dismiss Iraq's claim that Abu Nidal committed suicide in August 2002, suggesting that Saddam's own security services murdered him when his presence became an embarrassment for them. The secret papers from Iraq suggest that he did indeed kill himself after confessing to the "treacherous crime of spying against this righteous country".

The final hours of Abu Nidal, the mercenary whose assassinations and murderous attacks in 20 countries over more than a quarter of a century killed or wounded more than 900 civilians, are revealed in the set of intelligence reports drawn up for Saddam's "presidency intelligence office" in September of 2002. The documents state that Egyptian and Kuwaiti intelligence officers had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Khalil al-Banna, to spy for them "with the knowledge of their American counterparts". Five days after his death, Iraq's head of intelligence, Taher Jalil Habbush, told a press conference in Baghdad that Abu Nidal had committed suicide after Iraqi agents arrived at the apartment where he was hiding in the city, but the secret reports make it clear that the notorious Palestinian had undergone a long series of interrogations prior to his violent demise. The records of these sessions were never intended to be made public and were written by Iraqi "Special Intelligence Unit M4" for Saddam. While Abu Nidal may have lied to his interrogators – torture is not mentioned in the reports – the documents appear to be a frank internal account of what the Iraqis believed his mission in Iraq to be. The papers name a Kuwaiti major, a member of the ruling Kuwaiti al-Sabbah family, as his "handler" and state that he was also tasked to "perform terrorist acts inside and outside Iraq". His presence in the country "would provide the Americans with the pretext that Iraq was harbouring terrorist organisations," the reports say.

"Coded messages indicate that the Kuwaitis asked him indirectly to find out whether al-Qa'ida elements were present in Iraq. Our conclusions were confirmed when he [Abu Nidal] started to mitigate his actions with irrational answers when asked about the data against him. He attempted to sidetrack his answers by not being specific and referring to historical matters. It was noted by the investigators that he went from short, ambiguous and unclear replies to generalities ... he seemed perturbed ... But once he became convinced of the weight of the evidence against him concerning his collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence, he realised that his treacherous crime of spying against this righteous country had been exposed ..."

Abu Nidal was no stranger to Iraq. He had operated from Baghdad, Damascus and the Libyan capital of Tripoli when the regimes wanted to use him as a "gun for hire". It was Iraq which paid him to organise the attack on the Israeli ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov, in 1982, an attempted assassination which prompted Israel to accuse Yasser Arafat of responsibility and to begin its disastrous invasion of Lebanon, and Colonel Muammur Gaddafi later established a close relationship with Abu Nidal. In 1985, his crazed gunmen attacked Israeli-bound passengers at Rome and Vienna airports, killing a total of 18 people. His biographer Patrick Seale, who suggests that for some time Abu Nidal even worked for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, has written of how, when he feared treachery in his own ranks, a suspected spy would be buried alive, fed through a tube for days and then – if Abu Nidal's "court" deemed death appropriate – a bullet would be fired down the tube.

His own interrogation at the hands of Saddam's secret police, will therefore appear equally appropriate punishment for so cruel a man. Among the other crimes of which he was accused in the Iraqi intelligence report was the preparation of 14 booby-trapped suitcase bombs to be used on foreigners – Swiss and Austrian, according to the intelligence file – in the northern Kurdish area of Iraq, at the time a US-supported "safe haven", and an attempt to recruit new members for his so-called Fatah Revolutionary Council among Palestinians wounded by the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza who were recovering in Baghdad hospitals.

There are some oddities in the report and some unanswered questions. It says, for example, that Abu Nidal originally infiltrated Iraq from Iran on a false Yemeni passport years earlier, but that this was facilitated by his own representative in Kuwait, named as Nabil Uthman. Abu Nidal was said to have communicated to Kuwait via coded messages sent through Lebanon and Dubai. The papers give his date of birth as 1939 – he is believed to have been born in Jaffa in what was then Palestine in 1937 – and state that he resided in Libya in 1984 but "had no links with the Libyan authorities". He is also stated to have been imprisoned by the Egyptian security services for two months. The man who is said to have provided Abu Nidal with a "safe house" in Baghdad was interrogated in 2002 alongside the Palestinian and is named as Abdulkareem Mohammed Mustapha.

Could Abu Nidal really have entered Iraq from Iran, whose own intelligence services, would surely have questioned him? Could Abu Nidal have lived in secret in the Baathist state of Iraq without Saddam's own mukhabarat finding him? And for how long was he interrogated? The documents give us no answers to these questions.

His end is, however, recorded bleakly. "Upon being asked to accompany those charged with guarding him to a more secure location to continue the interrogation procedures, he requested that he be allowed to change his clothes. On entering his bedroom, he committed suicide. Unsuccessful attempts were made to resuscitate him ..." Nothing is known of the fate of Abdulkareem Mustapha, only that he was "submitted to court". But we do know where Abu Nidal now lies.

"The corpse of Sabri al-Banna", the final report concludes, "was buried on 29/8/2002 in al-Karakh's Islamic cemetery [in Baghdad]. Until a final resting place is found, a marker designates the place of burial and it was documented on video as well as on still photographs as 'M7'." No "final resting place" for this savage man appears ever to have been found.

Years of terror: A man as feared as Bin Laden

Abu Nidal, was once as feared as Osama bin Laden. His most notorious attacks included:

*1978 His "Black June" movement blamed for murdering PLO members in London, Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Kuwait and Rome.

*1982 Israeli ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, shot in Mayfair, leaving him permanently paralysed.

*1984 Jordanian airliner attacked by rocket on take-off from Athens. Assassinations included the British cultural attaché in Athens and the British deputy high commissioner in Mumbai.

*1985 Egyptian airliner hijacked – six passengers murdered and 60 killed when the plane is stormed by Egyptian commandos

*1985 Gunmen massacre 18 and wound 120 in attacks on El Al ticket desks at Vienna and Romeairports, bottom left.

*1986 Machine-gun attack kills 22 in a synagogue inIstanbul; at least 20 passengers and crew are killed when Pan Am jet hijacked in Karachi, bottom right.

*1988 Nine killed and 98 wounded when gunmenattack the Greek cruise ship the City of Poros.

(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.

OPEC Cuts Oil Output

Surprise, surprise!

All the more reason to get off our addiction to oil!!!!


CNN) -- The Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange began the week Saturday with its largest decline in four years, a reaction to the world's tumbling markets and oil prices, an economist said.

Gulf Cooperation Council financial officials met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday.

The index for all stocks finished the day down 536 points, or 8.7 percent, and several sectors dropped almost 10 percent, according to the Web site for the exchange, known as Tadawul. Saturday is the first day of the week according to the Saudi Arabian calendar.

But there's little reason to worry about the drop, according to John Sfakianakis, chief economist for the Saudi British Bank. The precipitous drop in stock values is probably related to the tumbling U.S., European and Asian markets, as well as the falling price of oil, the economist said.

"It shouldn't be a benchmark for the well-being of the economy," Sfakianakis said.

After the markets closed, the state-run news service reported that King Abdullah announced that he would deposit 10 billion riyals ($2.67 billion) into the Saudi Bank of Credit and Saving. The "royal gift" will be used for loans to citizens, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Under Saudi law, no company or sector can lose or gain more than 10 percent of its value in one day, Sfakianakis said.

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• Stocks bomb as dire warnings shake markets
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Saudi stocks fell as financial officials from Gulf Cooperation Council states met in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to discuss the international economic crisis. King Abdullah also met Saturday with U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt and U.S. Ambassador Ford Fraker.

Insurance agencies, banks and oil refineries were among the Saudi companies to hit the 10-percent threshold in Saturday trading, according to the Tadawul site.

Trading was cut off for companies whose values dropped 10 percent, in accordance with Saudi law, Sfakianakis said. Any purchases or sales of those companies' shares made after the cutoff will be represented in Sunday's transactions, he said.

Also, several sectors came within fractions of a point of hitting the threshold, including hotel and tourism (9.93 percent), real estate development (9.9), media and publishing (9.89) and retail (9.86).

Although all indices fell, according to the Tadawul Web site, the energy and utilities sector fared the best, losing only 6.4 percent of its value in Saturday trading.

Despite the stock plunge, Sfakianakis said, the Saudi economy remains strong and is showing signs of real growth in its gross domestic product.

Oil prices -- a staple of the Saudi economy -- will probably rise again, and the Saudi banking system is healthy and "one of the best capitalized financial sectors in the world," he said.

Light crude closed Friday at $64.15 a barrel, down $3.69. It was trading at more than $130 a barrel over the summer.

Investors are expected to jump back into the Saudi markets as the declining stock prices yield more and more bargains, he said.

"The news is not that bad," Sfakianakis said. "I'm very optimistic about the Saudi economy."

Gulf Cooperation Council financial officials released a statement Saturday saying they had taken precautionary measures to stem the effects of the world financial crisis and stood ready to confront further developments, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

The group also announced that it would sign a free-trade agreement with the European Union by year's end, the agency reported.

"The growth of the economies of the GCC countries is expected to continue with good rates," the agency reported.

The GCC comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

(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.

More Gooper Outrages of The Week............

What the hell is wrong with these people?

They have run the country into a ditch at about 150 mph. They are screaming about socialists while their fascism is what has brought about this catastrophe for the American people. If there is socialism in this country it seems it is for the CEOs and other "deciders" at the top of the multinationals and American corporations, who are are benefiting from the government bailout.

Socialism for the wealthy and capitalism for the rest of us. I don't think that's going to work very well.


On the heels of Michele Bachmann channeling McCarthy when she called Barack Obama anti-American, another Republican has decided to say something truly offensive and outrageous. Enter Republican Robin Hayes of North Carolina at a McCain rally...



And after he said it – taking a cue from GOP'ers before him, he did what any desperate Republican might do – lie and deny he said it!

Problem is, just like Bachmann, he was caught on tape.

This is GOP outrage #2 of the week and it has never been clearer that in these last 13 days Republicans will do or say ANYTHING to hold onto their power. Democrat Larry Kissell – who fell just 329 votes shy of beating Rep. Hayes two years ago – is up right now in the polls and on the verge of winning this seat. We all know it's time for Republican Robin Hayes to go.

However, we could lose in this seat if we aren't prepared to fight back. Kissell is being hit from all sides with dishonest attacks from Hayes and national Republicans. We need urgent resources to expose their lies and continue our hard-hitting ad campaigns in these districts. We can't yield an inch or back down. Contribute now.

A gift from you today could make the difference in too-close-to-call races.

Contribute $20, $35, or more to get urgent money into these districts and others like them to fight the lies.

We have to make an immediate decision if we are all in to defeat these two Republicans and others like them. With your support, we can commit to defeating Bachmann and Hayes right now and removing them from Congress.

Thanks,


Brian Wolff
Executive Director, DCCC

(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.