Murdoch papers open fire on BBC
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by vgdesign

By Dominic Timms, Media Guardian

Newspapers controlled by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch laid into the BBC this morning, seeking to place the blame for the death of government advisor David Kelly firmly at the feet of the corporation.

"BBC in crisis as Blair mood swings," splashed the Times, claiming it was the corporation, rather than a battered Labour government, that was "fighting to save its credibility."

The paper alleged the BBC may even have "sexed-up" its own coverage. "It is now the BBC that appears to have deliberately deceived viewers, listeners, its board of governors and parliament about the origins of this extraordinary battle with the government."

"You Rat," was the splash headline in the Sun, which rounded on Andrew Gilligan, claiming that he was branding Dr Kelly "a liar" in a bid to save his job. >>More

>>The full text of the BBC's Statement

BBC: CBS backs down on Lynch movie
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by vgdesign

American TV network CBS has admitted it was unwise to propose a television movie to Jessica Lynch about her experiences in Iraq while also discussing a news interview with the former prisoner of war.
...
Betsy West, a CBS News executive, wrote to the Lynch family suggesting a two-hour documentary on the Private's ordeal but the letter also noted the company's interest in making it into a TV movie.

"CBS Entertainment 'tell us this would be the highest priority for the CBS movie division'," the letter stated.

CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said they should have done things differently.

"Maybe that went over the line. That was not respecting, possibly, the sanctity of CBS News," Moonves said on Sunday. >>More

The FCC Under Fire
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by vgdesign

The commission's controversial loosening of media ownership rules meets steadily rising opposition - By VIVECA NOVAK, TIME

Populist outrage is threatening to undo a controversial effort by the FCC to loosen restraints on media megaliths. In the Senate last week, seven Republicans joined 28 Democrats to schedule a rare "resolution of disapproval" to overturn new FCC rules that would let companies like News Corp. and Viacom expand their media holdings in local markets. Then in the House, defecting Republicans fueled a 40-to-25 committee vote to reverse part of the FCC's action.

Now it appears that the chief architect of those rules, FCC chairman Michael Powell, may not stick around for the fight. According to industry sources, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell has told confidants he'd like to leave by fall, and three of his four top staff members are putting out job feelers. (Powell has denied he's leaving soon.) His most likely replacement, sources say, is either Rebecca Klein, who is head of the Texas public-utility commission and was on the staff of Governor George W. Bush, or FCC commissioner Kevin Martin, who helped the Bush team count votes in Florida in 2000. >>More

Dems to start ad campaign on Bush's truthfulness; GOP claims it's misleading
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by vgdesign

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press

Democrats said Sunday they will launch a new television ad in Wisconsin accusing President Bush of misleading Americans on the threat from Iraq.

Republicans warned broadcasters not to air the ad, scheduled to start Monday, calling it "deliberately false and misleading."

The Democratic National Committee has been raising money through an e-mail campaign that started July 10 to help pay for an ad that sharply questions President Bush's veracity on Iraq's weapons.

The ad says: "In his State of the Union address, George W. Bush told us of an imminent threat. ... America took him at his word."

The video shows Bush saying, "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The ad continues: "But now we find out it wasn't true. >>More

Bush deserves to be impeached
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by vgdesign

By ERIC MARGOLIS, Toronto Sun

... A torrent of lies poured from the administration, all aimed at justifying a war of aggression, thwarting the UN Security Council, ending UN inspections in Iraq and grabbing Iraq's oil riches.

Virtually all administration claims about Iraq's weapons had been disproved by UN inspectors before Bush went to war.

Exposed as fakery are the "drones of death;" aluminum tubes for centrifuges; chemical munitions bunkers; mobile germ labs; hidden Scuds; links to al-Qaida and "poison camps;" Saddam's smallpox; Saddam's secret nuclear program.

And the biggest canard of all: Bush's absurd claims there was "no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised," and that it "threatened all mankind."

Thanks to the shameful complicity of the U.S. media, which amplified White House propaganda, Americans were led to believe Iraq attacked the U.S. on 9/11, and was in league with al-Qaida.

Bush's faux war on terrorism was redirected, by clever White House spin, into a hugely popular campaign against Iraq.

The failure to kill terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was covered up by the rush to kill Saddam.

The litany of lies produced by the White House and its neo-con allies would be farcical were it not for the deaths of so many Americans and Iraqis.

Of course, all politicians lie.

But lying to get one's country into an unnecessary war is an outrage, and ought to be an impeachable offence. >>More

The spies who pushed for war - A MUST READ
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by symbolman

The OSP had access to a huge amount of raw intelligence.

It came in part from "report officers" in the CIA's directorate of operations whose job is to sift through reports from agents around the world, filtering out the unsubstantiated and the incredible. Under pressure from the hawks such as Mr Cheney and Mr Gingrich, those officers became reluctant to discard anything, no matter how far-fetched. The OSP also sucked in countless tips from the Iraqi National Congress and other opposition groups, which were viewed with far more scepticism by the CIA and the state department.

There was a mountain of documentation to look through and not much time. The administration wanted to use the momentum gained in Afghanistan to deal with Iraq once and for all. The OSP itself had less than 10 full-time staff, so to help deal with the load, the office hired scores of temporary "consultants". They included lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous rightwing thinktanks in Washington. Few had experience in intelligence.

"Most of the people they had in that office were off the books, on personal services contracts. At one time, there were over 100 of them," said an intelligence source. The contracts allow a department to hire individuals, without specifying a job description.

As John Pike, a defence analyst at the thinktank GlobalSecurity.org, put it, the contracts "are basically a way they could pack the room with their little friends.>> More

So if BUSH is not responsible (and who wants him running Since he Isn't?) then WHO exactly WERE these people. The Public wants NAMES. The Public wants DATES. We want the INFORMATION. NOW. We also want IMPEACHMENT and EXPULSION of these Criminals.

Fraud Traced to the White House
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by symbolman

How California’s energy scam was inextricably linked to a war for oil scheme.

This story begins with the California energy crisis, which started in 2000 and continued through the early months of 2001, when electricity prices spiked to their highest levels. Prices went from $12 per megawatt hour in 1998 to $200 in December 2000 to $250 in January 2001, and at times a megawatt cost $1,000.

One event occurred earlier. On July 13, 1998, employees of one of the two power-marketing centers in California watched incredulously as the wholesale price of $1 a megawatt hour spiked to $9,999, stayed at that price for four hours, then dropped to a penny. Someone was testing the system to find the limits of market exploitation. This incident was the earliest indication that the people and the state could become victims of fraud. The Sacramento Bee broke the story three years later, on May 6, 2001.

Today, Californians are still paying the costs of the debacle while according to state officials the power companies who manipulated the energy markets reaped more than $7.5 billion in unfair profits.

During those early months of the Bush administration, and even during the prior transition period, Dick Cheney was deeply involved in gathering information for a national energy policy. The intelligence he gathered would provide justification for a war against Iraq but would also place White House footprints all over a fraud scam. This is how it all happened.>> More

A former Special Forces soldier responds to Bush's invitation for Iraqis to attack US troops.
Posted Monday, July 21, 2003 by symbolman

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months.

He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw.

He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.

This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie.>> More

Why A Special Prosecutor's Investigation Is Needed To Sort Out the Niger Uranium And Related WMDs Mess
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003 by symbolman

The heart of President Bush's January 28 State of the Union address was his case for going to war against Saddam Hussein.

In making his case, the President laid out fact after fact about Saddam's alleged unconventional weapons. Indeed, the claim that these WMDs posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war.

Now, as more and more time passes with WMDs still not found, it seems that some of those facts may not have been true. In particular, recent controversy has focused on the President's citations to British intelligence purportedly showing that Saddam was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

What I found, in critically examining Bush's evidence, is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems, and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons was false, fabricated, exaggerated, or phony.>> More

Uranium purchase discredited in Washington long before Bush speech: report
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003 by symbolman

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa was widely discounted in US intelligence circles months before President George W. Bush mentioned it in a key speech, it was reported.

Separately, The Washington Post also highlighted another now discredited claim that Bush made in the run-up to war with Iraq -- that Saddam Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack in 45 minutes.

Bush made the assertion in September 2002 in remarks at the White House Rose Garden and in one of his weekly radio addresses, attributing it to the British government.>> More

BUT, on at least one occasion he made the SAME claim WITHOUT attributing it to the British and you can read that >> HERE (September 26, 2002) AT THE WHITE HOUSE WEBSITE. Do not be fooled - these are calculated lies. He knows exactly what he is doing and what the results of these remarks would be - DEATH, both for the Iraqis and our Troops who are dying and suffering daily while he RELAXES at HOME. COWARD. LIAR.

US troops detain Iranian TV crew in Iraq
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003 by vgdesign

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

An Iranian television team has been detained by US forces in Iraq since July 1, a journalist in Baghdad said.

Two reporters, an interpreter and a driver from Iran's Channel 2, were arrested by US troops as they filmed a documentary near the southern town of Diwaniyah, Gholem Reza Koutchak said, the Baghdad bureau chief of the station's parent company, Islamic Republic Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

The US soldiers brought them to a base near Diwaniyah despite their protests they were making a documentary around the region, which is mainly Shiite.

On July 7, US troops grabbed their personal belongings from their hotel in Karbala, midway between Baghdad and Diwaniyah.

The Iranian consul headed to the army base in Diwaniyah last Tuesday to inquire into the matter, but was told the journalists had been transferred to the US prison at Baghdad international airport. >>More

Tangled Up In Web Of Lies
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003 by vgdesign

An elaborate pattern of presidential lies and excuses made this unnecessary war possible, what will it take to end this folly? - By Regis T. Sabol, Intervention Magazine

Oh, What a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive

It certainly was a tangled web last week with War Minister Donald Rumsfeld and National Insecurity Advisor Condy Rice telling us that George Bush lied when he said he lied in his State of the Union address about the bogus claim that Iraq was developing a nuclear weapons program. To revive a phrase from the Watergate era, that lie is no longer operative. Honest, folks, Rummy and Condi said, we’re telling the truth this time.

That the Bush Gang should find itself entangled in a web of deceit should come as no surprise to anyone who has ignored the regime’s smoke and mirrors act to justify going to war against Iraq and has paid attention to hard evidence. In Bushland, just as in war, the first casualty has always been the truth.

Consider the following:
Bush & Co. now justifies the war on the grounds that America has liberated millions of grateful Iraqis from the hands of a cruel tyrant. They seem to have conveniently forgotten that liberation of an oppressed people was the last of a series of excuses the Bush regime used to justify invading a sovereign nation that represented no immediate threat to our country.

Here are the original claims made by the Bush propaganda machine: >>More

FAIR MEDIA ADVISORY: Bush Uranium Lie Is Tip of the Iceberg
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003 by vgdesign

Press should expand focus beyond "16 words"

Five months later, the truthfulness of one claim in George W. Bush's State of the Union address has become the focus of growing media scrutiny. The attention media are paying to this single assertion should be part of a larger journalistic inquiry into other misstatements and exaggerations that have been made by the Bush administration about Iraq.
...
Does the uranium claim indicate a larger pattern of deceptive claims made about Iraq? At minimum, the following assertions made by the Bush administration also deserve media scrutiny: >>More

Final Email to Pal Tells of 'DARK FORCES AGAINST HIM'
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003 by vgdesign

Sunday People, UK

TRAGIC Dr. David Kelly wrote to a journalist pal about "dark actors playing games" just hours before killing himself.

The devastated expert made his mysterious remarks in an e-mail to New York Times  reporter Judith Miller but made no mention of being depressed or suicidal. Miller - herself the subject of controversy over sources quoted in an article on the hunt for Iraqi weapons - believes Dr Kelly was referring to the Ministry of Defence and intelligence agencies.

She had contacted him to see how he was coping after his grilling by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

In the New York Times  yesterday, Miller revealed how Dr Kelly had emailed an unnamed reporter just before his death - but colleagues name her as that journalist.

She wrote: "In an email message to a reporter sent hours before he left for his walk, Dr Kelly gave no indication that he was depressed.

"He said that he was waiting 'until the end of the week' before judging how his appearance before the committee had gone and referred to 'many dark actors playing games'. Based on earlier conversations with Dr Kelly, the words seemed to refer to people within the Ministry of Defence and Britain's intelligence agencies - with whom he had often sparred over interpretations of intelligence reports." >>More

Italy Journalist Says Gave U.S. Iraq-Niger Papers
Posted Saturday, July 19, 2003 by vgdesign

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian journalist said in an interview published Saturday she gave documents on Iraq seeking uranium from Niger to the U.S. embassy in Rome in 2002 to try to find out if the information was credible.

The documents have become central to a charged debate over whether President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, knowingly or not, made exaggerated claims over Iraq's nuclear weapons program to justify going to war.

A senior State Department official said Thursday the United States had acquired the documents from "a private source, non-governmental," in Rome.

Elisabetta Burba, a journalist with Italian current affairs weekly Panorama, said it was she who handed over the papers to the U.S. embassy in October 2002 after acquiring them from a source she could not name but who was not linked to Italian secret services.

"I knew the documents could represent a huge world scoop...but there were many details that I found unconvincing," Burba said in an interview with daily Corriere della Sera.

She said after checks in Niger failed to satisfy her that the documents were reliable, Panorama decided not to publish the story. >>More

REP. PETE STARK’S Statement on Events Surrounding Way's and Means Mark-Up
Posted Saturday, July 19, 2003 by vgdesign

July 17, 2003

“Much has been made today about my conduct in the Ways and Means Committee markup of HR 1776. Let’s be clear. I am not the issue here. Never was I approached by a police officer or questioned about what happened.

“The issue is that the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee called the police to throw Democrats out of a room where they were meeting to determine how to respond to a bill we first saw this morning. It is yet another step in their continued effort to shut out Democrats and stifle debate.

“Sometimes I feel so passionate about an issue that I am not as diplomatic as I should be. Whatever was said, I never physically threatened anyone. I did exchange words that were not becoming of my office. I regret that.

“Republicans are using my intemperate words as a diversionary tactic. Republicans cannot stand up and defend the calling of the police to remove Democrats from a room in the people’s House. Chairman Thomas’ behavior today should not be allowed in a democracy. It’s reminiscent of a police state, not America. That’s the issue.” >>More

>>Contact Pete

Partisan brawl stops House in its tracks: Cops called, invective flies
Posted Saturday, July 19, 2003 by vgdesign

By Marc Sandalow and Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle

... The details of the incident that prompted the debate remain in dispute.

Democrats said their frustrations began two minutes before midnight on Thursday, when they were handed a 90-page GOP substitute for a 400-plus page pension reform measure and were told they would be asked to vote on it Friday morning.

When the committee convened, Democrats called for the substitute to be read in its entirety as a way to stall for time. They then left Stark -- a 30-year veteran of Congress -- as their sole representative in the committee room, as they huddled in a room known as the library, next to the hearing room.

Within minutes, an aide to Thomas approached New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the top ranking committee Democrat, and told him that the chairman wanted them out of the library. Rangel told him no. Moments later, a Capitol police officer arrived and ordered Rangel to leave. He refused. That prompted a call to the House sergeant at arms, who also failed to get Rangel and his Democratic colleagues to leave.

Meanwhile, in the committee room, Stark was raising doubts that the full text of the measure was actually being read.

"Its eloquence overwhelms me, Mr. Chairman," he told Thomas, "just like your intellect does."

The complaints prompted Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., to tell Stark to "shut up."

"Oh, you think you are big enough to make me," Stark responded, according to witnesses. "You little wimp. I said come over here and make me. I dare you. You are a little fruitcake. You are a little fruitcake. I said you are a fruitcake."

Thomas then ordered the reading to be suspended, a common practice, asked whether there were objections and immediately dropped his gavel.

"I object," said Stark.

"Too late," Thomas responded, according to the transcript. One witness said Stark then leveled a string of obscenities at Thomas, which were not recorded in the transcript. Stark denied it, saying he had called Thomas only a "fascist." >>More

['We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more' - Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)]

Senator Bob Graham: The Dishonesty Of the President
Posted Saturday, July 19, 2003 by vgdesign

The administration of George W. Bush is looking more and more like a bait-and-switch operation. Much like a profiteer who advertises a too-good-to-be-true deal to lure customers into his store, this White House is willing to shade and manipulate information to sell its policies to the American people and our allies around the world.

But that cynical strategy erodes our government's credibility at home and abroad. It must stop.

To justify a pre-emptive war with Iraq, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other high-level officials selectively used - and may have misused - intelligence information to make the case that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to his neighbors, to U.S. interests in the Mideast and even to Americans here at home.

The most egregious example: The president declared in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa for production of nuclear weapons - when in fact that information had been discredited at least three months earlier. >>More

Media's War Boosters Unlikely to Voice Regret
Posted Saturday, July 19, 2003 by vgdesign

Media Beat by By Norman Solomon, FAIR

The superstar columnist George Will has an impressive vocabulary. Too bad it doesn’t include the words “I’m sorry.”

Ten months ago, Will led the media charge when a member of Congress dared to say that President Bush would try to deceive the public about Iraq. By now, of course, strong evidence has piled up that Bush tried and succeeded.

But back in late September, when a media frenzy erupted about Rep. Jim McDermott’s live appearance from Baghdad on ABC’s “This Week” program, what riled the punditocracy as much as anything else was McDermott’s last statement during the interview: “I think the president would mislead the American people.”

First to wave a media dagger at the miscreant was Will, a regular on the ABC television show. Within minutes, on the air, he denounced “the most disgraceful performance abroad by an American official in my lifetime.” But the syndicated columnist was just getting started.

Back at his computer, George Will churned out a piece that appeared in The Washington Post two days later, ripping into McDermott and a colleague on the trip, Rep. David Bonior. “Saddam Hussein finds American collaborators among senior congressional Democrats,” Will wrote. >>More