Faked intelligence on Iraq part of a pattern of White House dissemblance
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by symbolman

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A leading Democrat in Congress accused the White House of a broad pattern of dissemblance in making its case for waging war on Iraq.

Carl Levin, senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), refuted White House claims that now-discredited reports that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material from Africa was an isolated case of Washington using dodgy pre-war intelligence.

"The misleading statement about African uranium is not an isolated incident. There is a significant amount of troubling evidence that it was part of a pattern of exaggerations and misleading statements," he said in comments delivered from the floor of the US Senate.

"The President's statement that Iraq was attempting to acquire African uranium was not a 'mistake.' It was not inadvertent. It was not a slip. It was negotiated between the CIA and the NSC," he said, referring to the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council.

"It was calculated. It was misleading," said Levin.>> More

'Guilt By Association': The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the U.S.
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by vgdesign

Anti-Muslim incidents up 15 percent in past year - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

A report released today by a prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group indicates that anti-Muslim incidents in the United States increased by 15 percent over the previous year. (Numbers rose from 525 confirmed incidents in the 2002 report to 602 in this year's study.) The Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) report - the only annual study of its kind - details incidents and experiences of anti-Muslim violence, discrimination and harassment during the past year.
...
In addition to the direct acts of discrimination and violence, the report looks at the impact of post-9/11 government polices, usually related to the USA Patriot Act, that have had a negative impact on American Muslim civil liberties.

Those government actions featured in the report include the March 2002 raids on Muslim families and businesses in Virginia and Georgia, the Special Registration program for Muslim visa-holders, and the "voluntary" interviews conducted with thousands of Iraqi-Americans. The report also outlined the increase in Islamophobic rhetoric by evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. >>More

PUBLIC DOUBT GROWING QUICKLY AS BUSH'S WAR STORIES UNRAVEL
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by symbolman

What they're really saying is that they don't want to get straight answers about how in God's name the President of the United States could possibly foist such a colossal lie on the world and what role top manipulators in the White House played in pouncing on the bogus information the CIA had already had serious doubts over.

Field Marshall Rumsfeld says he became aware of the fraud in March, and you have to assume the president was aware of the truth also. Why then did they wait until July to confess?

What's worse than the now-admitted "mistake" -- and you can bet there are many others -- is the deliberate rhetorical connection repeatedly made to tie Saddam and Iraq to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

That is the biggest lie of all, but it worked so well in convincing the Congress and the American people that the two were inseparable partners in terror that Bush and company will never admit to that whopper.

As they scramble to cover up the deceptions for war with Iraq, the Bush people are doing a marvelous job in covering up the truth about intelligence information the government possessed before Sept. 11.

Note this very well. George W. Bush never wanted an independent commission to investigate the events leading up to the worst terrorist attack in American history. He fought its creation and now he's doing everything he can to scuttle its work.>> More

A MUST READ!

A Firm Basis for Impeachment
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by symbolman

Does the president not read? Does his national security staff, led by Condoleezza Rice, keep him in the dark about the most pressing issues of the day?

Or is this administration blatantly lying to the American people to secure its ideological ends?

Those questions arise because of the White House admission that the charge that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger was excised from a Bush speech in October 2002 after the CIA and State Department insisted it was unfounded. Bizarrely, however, three months later --without any additional evidence emerging -- that outrageous lie was inserted into the State of the Union speech to justify the president's case for bypassing the United Nations Security Council, for chasing U.N. inspectors out of Iraq and for invading and occupying an oil-rich country.

We now know that before Bush's January speech, Robert G. Joseph, the National Security Council individual who reports to Rice on nuclear proliferation, was fully briefed by CIA analyst Alan Foley that the Niger connection was no stronger than it had been in October. It is inconceivable that in reviewing draft after draft of the State of the Union speech, NSC staffers Hadley and Joseph failed to tell Rice that the president was about to spread a big lie to justify going to war.

We now know, and perhaps the White House knew then, that the inspectors eventually would come up empty-handed because no weapons of mass destruction program existed -- not even a stray vial of chemical and biological weapons has been discovered. However, that would have obviated the administration's key rationale for an invasion, so lies substituted for facts that didn't exist.

And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.>> More

British media draw their guns
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by vgdesign

Media Mix by Peter Johnson, USA Today

Since the buildup to the war with Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken it on the chin from the media. The British media ordinarily grill politicians, but in this case they have been particularly feisty, empowered by opinion polls that showed most Brits wanted nothing to do with invading Iraq.

Until now the American media, which by nature are less aggressive than their British counterparts but probably are taking a lead from polls and politicians that supported the administration's war stance, have gone relatively easy on President Bush.

But this week the media have hit the administration hard with questions about Bush's State of the Union statement that Iraq was acquiring uranium from Niger, one of the adminstration's justifications for war.

And with the 2004 campaign heating up and Bush's approval rating dipping, his administration is being grilled harder than it has been in months.

Experts say the questioning will get sharper as summer progresses. >>More

[Stay tuned for "As The Worm Turns"!]

"That's the News": Merle Haggard's new song about the ongoing war in Iraq
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by vgdesign

Not at peace with events - By Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times

As arguably the most gifted country music songwriter since Hank Williams, Merle Haggard has given his fans dozens of songs over the last 30 years that they'll never forget; tales of yearning and heartache that chronicle the life of the common man with uncommon character and grace.

But Haggard has also written at least one song that some people will never forgive: "The Fightin' Side of Me," a love-America-or-leave-it anthem that was all over country radio during the height of the Vietnam War.

Though the recording struck such a nerve with Haggard's core country audience that the words "Fighting Side" still appear on the red, white and blue T-shirts on sale at his shows, the song raised considerable ire among liberal Americans. So it felt like a redefining pop-culture moment last week when the white-haired performer sang a new song about the war in Iraq that even liberals might applaud.

Haggard's "That's the News" is a thoughtful, provocative commentary in which he asks why the U.S. government and media give the impression that the war is over although Americans are still dying in the Middle East. >>More

Suddenly it's over / The war is finally done
Soldiers in the desert sand / Still clinging to a gun.
No one is the winner / And everyone must lose
Suddenly the war is over / That's the news.

Politicians do all the talking / Soldiers pay the dues
Suddenly the war is over / That's the news.

President Defends Allegations On Iraq
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by symbolman

Bush said the CIA's doubts about the charge -- that Iraq sought to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore in Africa -- were "subsequent" to the Jan. 28 State of the Union speech in which Bush made the allegation.

Defending the broader decision to go to war with Iraq, the president said the decision was made after he gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

Bush's position was at odds with those of his own aides, who acknowledged over the weekend that the CIA raised doubts that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger more than four months before Bush's speech.

Since last Monday, the administration has offered changing explanations for that statement. At first, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the statement was simply wrong because it "was based and predicated on the yellowcake from Niger.">> More

Wow. If they keep this kind of work up then TBTM will have to go out of business. Actually there IS that little problem with LIMBAUGH BRINGING HIS RIGHT WING VIEWS TO ESPN. (Time for an Action Alert!)But this is REAL reporting. We like it.

Murdoch's Extended Reach
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By Jeffrey Chester, The Nation

We should be worried once again about Rupert Murdoch. For unless swift action is taken, Murdoch--and the conservative political causes he supports--will soon become an even more powerful presence in the United States and the world.

Murdoch is on the cusp of fulfilling a longstanding ambition that will finally give him a global network of powerful orbiting, interactive, direct broadcast satellites. Imagine a torrential downpour of dozens of Fox News Channels targeting major US cities; a super-broadband site continuously promoting the viewpoints of the Weekly Standard; and the ability to focus similar political messages simultaneously in Asia, Europe and North and South America.

Murdoch's proposed control of DirecTV, the country's leading direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service, will ultimately harm the interests of those seeking greater political and social justice, let alone quality news and entertainment programming. >>More

Tell Your Elected Officials to Stop Murdoch's DirecTV Takeover! >>Take Action

A Call for International Assistance, Not Isolation
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

Remarks by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, July 10, 2003

On August 22, 1920, an article written by former Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence appeared in one of the great newspapers of London, the Sunday Times. This legendary British military officer -- better known as Lawrence of Arabia -- began his commentary with a sharp warning about his country's occupation of ancient lands in the Middle East:

"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster."

Colonel Lawrence concluded with an equally sharp question: "How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?"

These were the observations some 83 years ago of a British soldier who had studied the history of the Middle East, fought alongside Arabs in the Great War, and understood the anger of those who lived under the administration of a distant power.

His observations, which might have been considered academic in the months before U.S. and British troops began their advance into Iraq, now appear prescient. >>More

PAUL KRUGMAN: Pattern of Corruption
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

More than half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now bogged down in Iraq, which didn't have significant weapons of mass destruction and wasn't supporting Al Qaeda. We have lost all credibility with allies who might have provided meaningful support; Tony Blair is still with us, but has lost the trust of his public. All this puts us in a very weak position for dealing with real threats. Did I mention that North Korea has been extracting fissionable material from its fuel rods?

How did we get into this mess? The case of the bogus uranium purchases wasn't an isolated instance. It was part of a broad pattern of politicized, corrupted intelligence. >>More

Bush Defends CIA Intelligence as 'Darn Good'
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by symbolman

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Monday defended the quality of CIA intelligence as "darn good" as he tried to put out a firestorm over his disputed allegation that Iraq sought uranium from Africa for nuclear weapons.

Having just returned from Africa, Bush and his White House team found themselves facing tough questions about whether he misled the country to justify the Iraq war, as U.S. troops there die on average of one a day under attack by Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) loyalists.

Democrats and even some Republicans were raising questions about the president's use of faulty intelligence when he said in his State of the Union speech last winter that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

"I think the intelligence I get is darn good intelligence. And the speeches I have given were backed by good intelligence," Bush said.>> More

Darn good? What is this, ANDY OF MAYBERRY? As DARN GOOD as the intelligence that allowed YOU to LIE and kill hundreds of US Troops on a WHIM in IRAQ? As DARN GOOD as the Intelligence that allowed both YOU and the CIA to backslap each other and give them a big raise for NOT PROTECTING THOSE 3000 AMERICANS that were SLAUGHTERED on YOUR WATCH on 9/11 while YOU READ A BOOK? THAT Darn Good? As DARN GOOD as the other NINE LIES YOU told to fool CONGRESS into Voting for your insane War? The phrasing would actually be "Darned Good" but you can't help but screw that up too - oh he who "says what he means and means what he says." IMPEACH this IDIOT before he kills us ALL - DARN GOOD.

Intelligence Unglued
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by symbolman

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Intelligence Unglued

The glue that holds the Intelligence Community together is melting under the hot lights of an awakened press. If you do not act quickly, your intelligence capability will fall apart—with grave consequences for the nation.

The Forgery Flap

By now you are all too familiar with the play-by-play. The Iraq-seeking-uranium-in-Niger forgery is a microcosm of a mischievous nexus of overarching problems. Instead of addressing these problems, your senior staff are alternately covering up for one another and gently stabbing one another in the back. CIA Director George Tenet’s extracted, unapologetic apology on July 11 was classic—I confess; she did it.

It is now dawning on our until-now somnolent press that your national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, shepherds the foreign affairs sections of your state-of-the-union address and that she, not Tenet, is responsible for the forged information getting into the speech. But the disingenuousness persists. Surely Dr. Rice cannot persist in her insistence that she learned only on June 8, 2003 about former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s mission to Niger in February 2002, when he determined that the Iraq-Niger report was a con-job. Wilson’s findings were duly reported to all concerned in early March 2002. And, if she somehow missed that report, the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff on May 6 recounted chapter and verse on Wilson’s mission, and the story remained the talk of the town in the weeks that followed.

Rice’s denials are reminiscent of her claim in spring 2002 that there was no reporting suggesting that terrorists were planning to hijack planes and slam them into buildings. In September, the joint congressional committee on 9/11 came up with a dozen such reports.>> More

We've heard from these gentlemen before. They were correct the last time and they are on the mark once again. Let's reinstate them and let THEM run the Intelligence Agencies with actual INTELLIGENCE once again.

Bush admits to putting 16 word statement in State of the Union Address
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by symbolman

Take Back the Media Watcher witnesses Bush live on CNN - and tapes it.

"...thing it's important to realize is, we're constantly gathering data, subsequent to the speech the CIA had some doubts, but when I gave the" unintelligible(lots of stutter/babble here) "when they looked at the speech it was cleared, otherwise I wouldn'a put it in the speech..."

We will be glad to supply a sound file as soon as it's received.

So does he mean what he says and says what he means or NOT? Remember this is just ONE of many LIES. See BBC link on the MANY Lies told by both the British and American MisLeaders. Where's CHENEY By the Way?

Media Moguls' Meet for Annual Retreat
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, The New York Times

SUN VALLEY, Idaho, July 12 — Like a gaggle of migratory birds, dozens of private jets return each July to the tiny airport in nearby Hailey, Idaho. There they unload titans of finance and the information industries, like Warren E. Buffett, Bill Gates and Michael D. Eisner, for a week of meetings, mountain biking and barbecued burgers here in Sun Valley. It is part of the annual media mogul summer camp organized by the investment banker Herbert Allen.

A year ago, the gathering felt like a hungover morning, full of remorse and recrimination over mergers and acquisitions consummated in the giddiness of the Internet boom. But when the moguls returned last week, with media stocks up from the lows of last summer, many seemed ready for a little hair of the dog, and at cocktail hour the conversations turned once again to speculation about who might be buying whom.

"Corporate Cupid," said the fund manager Mario J. Gabelli, summing up the mood as he left a picnic lunch by the resort's swan pond. "Big lovemaking, big deals out of this thing; you are going to see a lot." >>More

Core of weapons case crumbling - NINE More LIES
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by symbolman

Of the nine main conclusions in the British government document "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction", not one has been shown to be conclusively true.

The confusion evident about one of the claims, that Iraq sought uranium from Niger despite having no civilian nuclear programme, is the latest example of the process under which the allegations made so confidently last September have been undermined.

The nine main conclusions and the broad evidence which has emerged about them are these:

1. "Iraq has a useable chemical and biological weapons capability which has included recent production of chemical and biological agents."

No evidence of Iraq's useable capability has been found in terms of manufacturing plants, bombs, rockets or actual chemical or biological agents, nor any sign of recent production.

A mysterious truck has been found which the CIA says is a mobile biological facility but this has not been accepted by all experts.

2. "Saddam continues to attach great importance to the possession of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles... He is determined to retain these capabilities."

He may well have attached great importance to the possession of such weapons but none has been found. The meaning of the word "capability" is now key to this.

If the US and UK governments can show that Iraq maintained an active expertise, amounting to a "programme", they will claim their case has been made that Iraq violated UN resolutions.>> More

Those "16 simple words" that Rice and Rumsfeld keep braying about in lockstep are only the CANDLES ON THE CAKE. The American people have been sold a PACK of LIES, and now it's time for ACTION. WE DEMAND an IMMEDIATE Investigation into the falsehoods foisted on CONGRESS and THE PUBLIC for this Needless war that is daily killing and maiming OUR TROOPS! Write your CONGRESS and DEMAND THIS. WRITE THE MEDIA and DEMAND THIS. TAKE THIS TO THE STREETS.

Glimpses of a Leader, Through Chosen Eyes Only
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By ELISABETH BUMILLER, New York Times

The official White House photograph of President Bush, splashed across the front pages of the nation's newspapers last summer, showed him striding vigorously on a Camp David trail, just hours after he had been sedated for a colonoscopy. It was a flattering portrait of a fit chief executive, ready to take up the nation's business once again.

And no wonder, say photojournalists: the president had selected and approved the photograph's release to the news media.

Eric Draper, the chief White House photographer and the only photographer allowed at Camp David that weekend, had shown Mr. Bush the small image of the picture in the back of his digital camera. "I said, `What do you think about this?"' Mr. Draper recalled in an interview in his West Wing basement office last week. "And he said, `O.K., that's good.' " >>More

George Galloway: Political death of a usurper
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

An unwinnable war in Iraq and the deceit that led to it have destroyed the credibility of the prime minister

"Now does he feel/ his secret murders sticking on his hands;/ now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;/ those he commands move only in command,/ nothing in love: now does he feel his title/ hang loose about him, like a giant's robe/ upon a dwarfish thief."

Thus Angus spoke of the Scottish usurper Macbeth, whose ambition led him deep into a river of blood. Less poetically, Clare Short, Mo Mowlem and Robin Cook are saying much the same of their former cabinet colleague. I predicted before the war that Iraq would be the political death of Tony Blair, and it is now almost Shakespearean how the pain from his self-inflicted wounds is written across his face.

It is as if he is physically diminishing before our eyes as his authority bleeds into the sands of Iraq. >>More

Debasing democracy?
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

A Tampa pirate radio activist says an FCC proposal favoring media conglomerates can be detrimental to us all - By BILL DURYEA, St. Petersburg Times

On June 2 the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 (three Republicans versus two Democrats) to enable media conglomerates to gobble up more radio and television stations and newspapers in the same market.

One of the people most alarmed by the increasing consolidation of mass media is Kelly Benjamin, a former Tampa City Council candidate and sixth-generation Tampa resident, who operated a pirate radio station in the 1990s that was shut down by the government.

Benjamin, 28, spoke with the St. Petersburg Times  about fomenting democracy on the left of the dial. >>More

MEDIA-EGYPT: Anti-American Press Pays the Price
Posted Monday, July 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service(IPS)

The regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak continued its crackdown on media earlier this week as the police banned an anti-American weekly.

The July 2 issue of al-Sadaa of the al-Takaful political party could not come out. Staff are negotiating with security authorities to get the newspaper back on the newsstands.

The newspaper issued a statement that chairman of the newspaper board and secretary-general of al-Takaful, Esam Abdel Razek was summoned by security authorities and told that there were ”security concerns” about its editorial policies.

The newspaper was launched in February as the United States prepared to invade Iraq. From its first issue the newspaper took a strong position against a war.

The logo of the newspaper is the U.S. flag being stamped upon by shoes. In one front page story it asked U.S. ambassador to Egypt David Welch to ”shut up”. Welch had been writing letters and articles in newspapers calling on journalists to tone down their opposition to the war. >>More