Thursday, March 01, 2007

U.S. News for March 2007

3-31-07
Any Casus Belli Will Do
by Gordon Prather
According to Russian intelligence, U.S.-allied armed forces in and around the Persian Gulf are being readied for an attack on Iran in the very near future.

However, the pretext for the attack may not be related to the increasingly frantic, but totally unsubstantiated, charges that the Iranians have a nuclear weapons program, deep underground and so well hidden that not even the Likudniks know where.  Continue . . .
Any Casus Belli Will Do

Gonzales Offers Defense on Prosecutors’ Dismissals
WASHINGTON, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Friday defended his statements about the dismissals of eight United States attorneys as his aides prepared for his Congressional testimony that they regard as crucial to his survival.  Continue . . .
Gonzales Offers Defense

Hicks’ sentence reduced to nine months
Sydney/Washington - Australia will not commute the nine- month sentence a Guantanamo Bay military tribunal handed convicted al-Qaeda supporter David Hicks, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Saturday.

‘The sentence would be fully carried out,’ Downer told national broadcaster ABC. ‘I say that with a bit of passion because we take a very strong stand against terrorism.’ Continue . . .
Hick’s Sentence Reduced

3-30-07
Sampson points finger at ex-boss
He says that Gonzales played a role in firings
WASHINGTON — For six hours Thursday, Utah native D. Kyle Sampson endured a grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee that likely gave momentum to Democrats pushing for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ resignation.
Sampson testified that Gonzales was “inaccurate” in saying he was not involved in the Justice Department’s plan to fire U.S. attorneys.
“I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals is accurate,” Sampson said.
And Sampson, the once rising star in the Bush administration, did not come away unscathed in his first public appearance since resigning in the wake of the political scandal.
Democrats blasted him even after Sampson admitted he botched the termination of eight U.S. attorneys.  Continue . . .
Sampson Points Finger

Senate approves ‘08 goal to bring troops home
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday defied a veto threat by President George W. Bush and joined with the House of Representatives in backing a timetable for withdrawing American combat troops from Iraq.

In a mostly party-line 51-47 vote, the Democratic-controlled Senate told Bush to start withdrawing the troops this year with the goal of getting all combat soldiers out by March 31, 2008.

“The ball is in the president’s court. We have done what we needed to do” by passing a bill with even more money for the troops and veterans than Bush requested, said House Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.  Continue . . .
Senate Passes Out of Iraq Bill

3-29-07
American Kangaroo Court Claims Its First Victim
By Amy Goodman
It is appropriate that a person from Australia, home of the kangaroo, should be the first one dragged before the kangaroo court at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. David Hicks, imprisoned there for more than five years, pleaded guilty Monday to providing material support for terrorism.

The case of Hicks offers us a glimpse into the Kafkaesque netherworld of detentions, kidnappings, torture and show trials that is now, internationally, the shameful signature of the Bush administration. Hicks’ passage through this sham process affords us all an opportunity to demand the closure of Guantanamo and an end to these heinous policies. Conditions may soon exist to shutter the prison, with George Bush’s lame-duck status, the Democratic takeover of Congress, the possible departure of Guantanamo’s arch-defender and architect, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and, if recent reports are true, a desire to close the prison on the part of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. These bogus military commission trials amplify global contempt for the Guantanamo prison.  Continue . . .
Hicks in Kangaroo Court

3-28-07
Dems: Bush Must Accept Iraq Timetable
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional Democrats are showing no signs of backing down on their rebuke of the Iraq war, insisting President Bush will have to accept some sort of legislative timetable in exchange for the billions of dollars needed to fund the war.

“We would hope that the president understands how serious we are,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., after the Senate voted to uphold a proposal in a war spending bill calling for the troop withdrawal.  Continue . . .
Bush and Timetable

3-27-07
Republicans Won’t Block Spending Measure With Troop Withdrawal
By Nicholas Johnston
(Bloomberg)—Senate Republicans won’t block an emergency spending measure even if they fail to eliminate a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, since President George W. Bush plans a veto, lawmakers said.

``Our troops need the money, delay serves no purpose,’’ said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. ``We need to have enough time here to get through the veto process and re-pass the bill.’’ Continue . . .
Republican Senators Won’t Block Spending Bill

3-26-07
Senator: Some See Impeachment As Option
WASHINGTON (AP) - With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush’s own party said Sunday. Meanwhile, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican leader harshly…
Impeachment May be Option

3-25-07
US to help China transfer frozen N Korean funds
BEIJING: A top US treasury official arrived in Beijing yesterday to help settle the transfer of North Korean funds at the heart of stalled talks over the country’s nuclear weapons programme.
Daniel Glaser, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, would “offer assistance in addressing the issue of North Korean-related funds frozen at Banco Delta Asia”, the treasury department said in a statement.
“The policy and diplomatic issues have been solved, this is now down to implementation,” Glaser said in the statement.  Continue . . .
US to Help China Transfer Frozen Funds

3-24-07
US House approves 2008 troop withdrawal from Iraq
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The US House of Representatives on Friday voted to impose a Sept. 1, 2008, deadline for withdrawing all American combat troops from Iraq, prompting a quick veto promise from President George W. Bush.

In a mostly partisan 218-212 vote, House Democrats succeeded in attaching the deadline to legislation spending more than $124 billion in emergency funds, most of it for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.  Continue . . .
House Passes Troop Pullout Bill

New documents show Gonzales approved firings of US attorneys
Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Newly released documents contradict Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ claims that he was not closely involved in the firings of eight US attorneys.

Documents released Friday night by the Justice Department show Gonzales actually approved plans for the dismissals.  Continue . . .
Gonzales Actually Approved Firings of US Attorneys

3-23-07
Congress pauses on the subpoena front
Lawmakers say they want to allow time for negotiations with the White House about the firing of U.S. attorneys.
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Congress called a timeout Thursday in its confrontation with the Bush administration after a Senate committee voted to authorize subpoenas to compel White House officials — including political advisor Karl Rove — to testify about why eight U.S. attorneys were fired last year.

Democrats said the voice vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, following a similar move by a House subcommittee Thursday, would strengthen their hand as they sought more information from the White House about the dismissals, which critics say were politically motivated.  Continue . . .
Congress Pauses on Subpoena

We have no chance of censoring the Internet
Judge warns lawmakers
By Nick Farrell
US LAWMAKERS should stop wasting court time by drafting vote-winning bills that will attempt to censor the Internet.

Senior US District Judge Lowell Reed said that it didn’t matter if the bills were saving children from porn perils, or the world from terrorists, if they resulted in web censorship it was pretty likely they were unconstitutional.

Reed blocked enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act which is the second go that lawmakers have made to stop online pornography at the source. He said that the 1998 law was unconstitutionally vague and said it could have a chilling effect on Web publishers.

He implied that North American minors would suffer more if First Amendment protections were taken away from them than any amount of porn they see on the net.  Continue . . .
Judge Rules it Better Not to Censor the Internet

3-22-07
Bush v. Congress v. high court
By Mark Silva
Chicago Tribune
In forbidding his top aides to testify publicly and under oath on the firings of eight federal prosecutors, President Bush faces a potential legal battle with Congress that he may not be able to win, experts say, making a compromise more likely.

The White House insists that preventing Karl Rove and other key officials from providing sworn public testimony is a matter of executive privilege.

Yet the Supreme Court, while recognizing the right of the president to assert a constitutional confidentiality in many instances, has said there is no such thing as “absolute privilege.” Continue . . .
Bush v Congress v High Court

3-20-07
Is popular YouTube ad big trouble for Hillary?
Obama denies any connection to the ‘political phenomena of 2008’
BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—The riveting “Big Sister” YouTube ad attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton—produced by an anonymous creator to benefit Barack Obama—launches a new chapter in presidential campaigning.

“This will be the political phenomena of 2008,” said Democratic consultant Steve Jarding.  Continue . . .
Anti-Hillary Ad on YouTube

Scientist accuses White House of ‘Nazi’ tactics
By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON—A government scientist, under sharp questioning by a federal panel for his outspoken views on global warming, stood by his view today that the Bush administration’s information policies smacked of Nazi Germany.

James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, took particular issue with the administration’s rule that a government information officer listen in on his interviews with reporters and its refusal to allow him to be interviewed by National Public Radio.

“This is the United States,” Hansen told the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee. “We do have freedom of speech here.” Continue . . .
Scientist Accuses White House of Censorship

3-19-07
Weekend anti-war demonstrations continue from coast to coast
SAN FRANCISCO: For a second consecutive day, thousands of protesters flowed through the streets of several U.S. cities to call for an end to the funding of the Iraq war or the immediate return of U.S. troops.

Demonstrators converged Sunday in San Francisco, New York, Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere to mark the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and call on President George W. Bush to heed what they said was the will of the people.  Continue . . .
War Protests Continue for Second Day

3-18-07
War Protesters, Supporters Rally in D.C.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Denouncing a conflict entering its fifth year, protesters across the country raised their voices Saturday against U.S. policy in Iraq and marched by the thousands to the Pentagon in the footsteps of an epic demonstration four decades ago against another divisive war. A…
War Protesters Rally

3-17-07
CIA spy says cover blown by own side
Valerie Plame, the former CIA spy at the heart of an Iraq weapons scandal, yesterday blamed the Bush administration for “carelessly and recklessly” blowing her cover, saying it was ironic that her own government had destroyed her career rather than an enemy state.

Ms Plame’s identity was disclosed in the press in July 2003, four months after the invasion of Iraq.

She was giving evidence to a Congressional committee, some of whose members claimed the Bush administration deliberately leaked her name in an act of personal vindictiveness after the agent’s husband, the former US ambassador Joe Wilson, wrote an anti-war article in the New York Times.  Continue . . .
Plame Blames Bush Govt Over Leak

3-16-07
E-Mail Indicates Rove Role in Firings
WASHINGTON (AP) - White House political adviser Karl Rove raised questions in early 2005 about replacing some federal prosecutors but allowing others to stay, an e-mail released Thursday shows. The one-page document, which incorporates an e-mail exchange in January 2005, also indicates Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was considering dismissing up to 20 percent of U.S. attorneys in the weeks before he took over the Justice Department.  Continue . . .
Email Shows Rove Involved

Senate Says No to Retreat
A United GOP Rebuffs Bid by Democrats
WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party’s presidential field is dividing over the question of funding American soldiers in Iraq, with senators Obama of Illinois and Clinton of New York voting with an 82-to-16 majority for a Republican resolution against cutting any money for troops in the field. Senators Biden of Delaware and Dodd of Connecticut were in the minority.

The vote, along with the narrow 50-to-48 defeat of a binding resolution calling for the withdrawal of soldiers from Iraq by March 31, 2008, was a major victory for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, a Republican of Kentucky who quietly worked for two months to persuade his caucus to vote together.  Continue . . .
Senate Chickens Out

3-15-07
Pelosi’s Betrayal
“Antiwar” Democrats cave on Iran
Read it and weep:
“Top House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush’s authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over Iraq. Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran. Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy.”

This settles at least three matters once and for all: To begin with, the president has been given the green light to attack Iran. Withdrawing this provision from the spending bill is an act not just of complicity, but of open collaboration with the Bush administration’s war plans. When the bombs begin to fall, and the Democrats rise up in a yowl of righteous indignation, the president will be quite justified in doing this.  Continue . . .
Pelosi’s Betrayal

Court says U.S. can ban medical marijuana
By Adam Tanner, Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO—A California woman with an inoperable brain tumor may not use marijuana to ease her pain even though California voters have approved medical marijuana, a U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday.

In a much-watched test case on medical marijuana, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found there is no fundamental right to use marijuana for medical purposes. The ruling agreed with a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision.  Continue . . .
Medical Marijuana

3-14-07
Cheney at AIPAC: It’s the U.S. and Israel Against All Comers
By Matthew Rothschild
The Bush Administration seems to believe that a belligerent United States and an intransigent Israel can take on all comers.

So it was that Dick Cheney went to AIPAC’s convention in Washington on Monday to heap praise upon this lobby, which defends every illegal act that the government of Israel commits.  Continue . . .
Cheney at AIPAC

White House in the dock over lawyer ‘purge’
Tim Reid in Washington
A RAPIDLY growing scandal over the sacking of eight US government lawyers reached the Oval Office today amid evidence that the White House tried to cover up the involvement of President George W. Bush and his top aides in the dismissals.
The revelation transformed what had been a simmering controversy into a full-blown scandal after emails showed that top aides to Mr Bush were deeply involved in the dismissals – and at a much earlier date than they had previously admitted.
Continue . . .
White House Emails Found Asking to Sack Lawyers

3-13-07
White House Said to Prompt Firing of Prosecutors
WASHINGTON — The White House was deeply involved in the decision late last year to dismiss federal prosecutors, including some who had been criticized by Republican lawmakers, administration officials said Monday.  Continue . . .
White House Said to Prompt Firing of Prosecutors

3-12-07
Playing Monopoly
With Iraqi Money
by Loretta Napoleoni
The biggest transfer of cash in history took place from May 2003 to June 2004 when the U.S. Federal Reserve of New York shipped $12 billion in bills of various denominations to war-torn Iraq. Over the course of one year, a fleet of C-130s carried, from New York to Baghdad, 484 pallets weighing a total of 363 tons and holding 281 million bank notes. This is not an advertisement for a new board game but the summary of a memorandum prepared for a meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, which is examining the “reconstruction” of Iraq under Paul Bremer.  Continue . . .
Playing Monopoly with Iraq’s Money

Gonzales Said To Stonewall a GOP Query
Probe of Leaks Are at Center of Inquiries From the Right
By JOSH GERSTEIN
The top Republican on the House’s main investigative committee, Rep. Thomas Davis of Virginia, is charging the Justice Department with stonewalling his inquiries about the FBI’s assertion that it closed several leak investigations because of a lack of cooperation on the part of other government officials.

In January, Mr. Davis asked the Justice Department about a report in The New York Sun that at least three leak inquiries were shut down after officials at the “victim agency” ignored phone calls and canceled meetings with FBI agents assigned to the probes. The agents said some requests for information were rebuffed for more than a year.  Continue . . .
Gonzales Said to Stonewall Leak Probe

3-11-07
US to accept at least 7,000 Iraqi refugees: envoy
CAIRO (AFP) - The United States will accept at least 7,000 Iraqi refugees in the coming months through programmes with international organisations, a high ranking US official was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, is visiting Egypt as part of a regional tour to discuss the plight of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees.  Continue . . .
US to Accept 7000 Iraqi Refugees

3-10-07
U.S., Syria, Iran officials to meet in Baghdad
By Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. officials will sit down with their Iranian and Syrian counterparts on Saturday at a conference in Baghdad aimed at stopping sectarian fighting in Iraq before the conflict spreads throughout the oil-rich region.

Iraq called the meeting to enlist regional support to stop the violence that has racked Baghdad and other parts of the country since the U.S.-led invasion four years ago that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The one-day conference brings together mid-level officials from Iraq’s neighbors, the permanent U.N. Security Council members—the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France—and Arab countries. There will be 16 delegations in all.  Continue . . .
Meeting in Baghdad

3-9-07
House Dems Face Uphill Battle Over Iraq
By ANNE FLAHERTY
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her party deeply divided and holding only a narrow majority, faces long odds in passing legislation that would bring troops home from Iraq before the 2008 presidential election.

Pelosi, D-Calif., has pitched a plan that would fund the war in Iraq but demand that troops leave by Sept. 1, 2008.  Continue . . .
House Dems Face Uphill Battle Over Iraq

3-8-07
King presses U.S. on plight of Palestinians
Ignoring Iran and barely mentioning Iraq, Jordan’s King Abdullah II told a joint session of Congress yesterday that ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was critical to peace and stability in the Middle East.
In a 30-minute address, the king focused almost entirely on the plight of the Palestinians, saying it was imperative that the United States use its influence to help forge a lasting peace deal this year.  Continue . . .
Jordon King Presses Palestinian Plight

Oh, hush! W to keep veep
Never mind the Scooter flap, Bush
isn’t about to punt Cheney, say aides
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - The White House rallied around Vice President Cheney yesterday, dodging repeated questions about evidence implicating him in the leak of a CIA agent’s identity.

A day after Cheney’s former top aide Lewis (Scooter) Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing a federal probe into the leak, White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted the veep “remains a trusted aide.” Continue . . .
Bush will Keep Cheney

China overtakes US as biggest passenger car producer - report
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China overtook the US in passenger car output for the first time last year, the Financial Times reported, citing a report by Bank of America.

The surge in Chinese production ‘is likely to stoke more fear and angst in Washington about the rise of China’, Joseph Quinlan, Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people )’s chief market strategist, was reported as saying.  Continue . . .
China Produces More Passenger Cars than US

3-7-07
For Cheney, Political Toll May Follow Libby Verdict
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON, In legal terms, the jury has spoken in the Libby case. In political terms, Dick Cheney is still awaiting a judgment.

For weeks, Washington watched, mesmerized, as the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. cast Vice President Cheney, his former boss, in the role of puppeteer, pulling the strings in a covert public relations campaign to defend the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq and discredit a critic.

“There is a cloud over the vice president,” the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, told the jury in summing up the case last month.

Mr. Cheney was not charged in the case, cooperated with the investigation and expressed a willingness to testify if called, though he never was. Yet he was a central figure throughout, fighting back against suggestions that he and President Bush had taken the country to war on the basis of flawed intelligence, showing himself to be keenly sensitive to how he was portrayed in the news media and backing Mr. Libby to the end.  Continue . . .
Cheney Hopefully Will Suffer

Jurors convict Libby on four of five charges
Cheney’s ex-aide faces jail time in CIA leak case; sentencing set for June
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that reached into the highest levels of the Bush administration.

Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s. The case brought new attention to the Bush administration’s much-criticized handling of weapons of mass destruction intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.  Continue . . .
Libby Found Guilty

3-6-07
Karzai slams US for Afghan deaths
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned US troops for shooting dead 10 civilians at the weekend as officials said nine more - five women, four children and an old man - had been killed in an air strike.

The nine were killed on Sunday in Kapisa province, barely 90 minutes’ drive northeast of the capital Kabul, the deputy provincial governor, Sayed Dawood Hashimi, said on Monday. That strike followed a rocket attack on a US base.

Both NATO and the US-led coalition force which also operates in the area said they were investigating.

US marines shot dead 10 civilians in the east on Sunday, in what the US military said was a “complex” Taliban ambush involving a suicide bombing and gunfire in a populated area outside the city of Jalalabad, near Pakistan.  Continue . . .
Karzai Slams U.S. for Afghan Deaths

3-5-07
Clinton, Obama speak at civil rights anniversary
Opponents share similar ideas in their speeches
By Amanda Peterson
SELMA - As the congregation belted out a loud rendition of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., quickly made her way to her seat on the pulpit in front of the First Baptist Church. Alabamians and others from across the nation converged on Selma to commemorate the Bloody Sunday of 1965, when a march by civil rights protestors was violently dispersed.

A few blocks away at the Brown Chapel AME Church, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., another candidate running for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, gave a rousing speech after speaking at a Unity Breakfast at Wallace State Community College. Continue . . .
Clinton and Obama

Chavez Calls Envoy ‘Professional Killer’
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez Calls U.S. Diplomat John Negroponte ‘Professional Killer’
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)— President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he believes enemies including the CIA are out to kill him, and called U.S. diplomat John Negroponte a “professional killer.”

Chavez said Venezuelan officials have intelligence that associates of jailed Cuban anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles also are involved in plotting to assassinate him.  Continue . . .
Chavez Calls Negroponte a Killer

3-4-07
See Hillary Run
By Scott Ritter
“AlterNet”—- Senator Hillary Clinton wants to become President Hillary Clinton. “I’m in, and I’m in to win,” she said, announcing her plans to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 Presidential election.

Let there be no doubt that Hillary Clinton is about as slippery a species of politician that exists, one who has demonstrated an ability to morph facts into a nebulous blob which blurs the record and distorts the truth. While she has demonstrated this less than flattering ability on a number of issues, nowhere is it so blatant as when dealing with the issue of the ongoing war in Iraq and Hillary Clinton’s vote in favor of this war.

This issue won’t be resolved even if Hillary Clinton apologizes for her Iraq vote, as other politicians have done, blaming their decision on faulty intelligence on Iraq’s WMD capabilities. This is because, like many other Washington politicians at the time, including those now running for president, she had been witness to lies about Iraq’s weapons programs to justify attacks on that country by her husband President Bill Clinton and his administration.  Continue . . .
Remember Desert Fox When You Think About Hillary

Bush Offers Comfort to Devastated Towns
ENTERPRISE, Ala. (AP) - President Bush handed out hugs to residents who survived killer tornadoes that ripped through Alabama and Georgia and offered encouraging words Saturday at Enterprise High School where students grieved the loss of eight classmates. “Today I have walked through devastation that is hard to describe,” Bush said, standing with his arm around a student who had a tear running down her face. “Our thoughts, of course, go out to the students who perished. We thank God for the hundreds who lived.” Continue . . .
Bush Offers Comfort to Towns Hit by Tornadoes

3-3-07
Fool Me Thrice?
by Gordon Prather
Way back on 26 May 2003, more than a month before the Cheney Cabal outed Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative – running agents in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere, seeking information on weapons of mass destruction, under cover of Brewster-Jennings, a CIA-front “energy consulting” firm – the New York Times published an editorial, calling on the CIA, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Congressional Intelligence Committees to investigate how, inter alia, the Bush-Cheney administration came to rely on forged documents to make the case that Iraq was trying to import uranium from Africa.

“The failure so far to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the prime justification for an immediate invasion, or definitive links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda has raised serious questions about the quality of American intelligence and even dark hints that the data may have been manipulated to support a pre-emptive war.”

Within days, Slate’s Jack Shafer called on the New York Times to investigate the quality of its own reporting, and more than suggested that its reporters may have been manipulated to support a war of aggression.  Continue . . .
Fool Me Thrice

March on the Pentagon, March 17th
Get the word out!  Continue . . .
March on the Pentagon

3-2-07
Democrats Keep Troop Pullout Plan Ready
Democrats to Push Troop Withdrawl Plan if Iraq Security Benchmarks Are Not Met
WASHINGTON (AP)— House Democratic leaders have coalesced around legislation that would require troops to come home from Iraq within six months if that country’s leaders fail to meet promises to help reduce violence there, party officials said Thursday.

The plan would retain an earlier Democratic proposal prohibiting the deployment to Iraq of troops with insufficient rest or training or who have been there for more than a year. Under the plan, such troops could only be sent to Iraq if President Bush waives those standards and reports to Congress each time.  Continue . . .
Democrats Keep Pullout Plan Ready

Marijuana, the wonder drug
Lester Grinspoon The Boston Globe
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts: A new study in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine that we still need “proof” of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years.

The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, found that smoked marijuana was effective at relieving the extreme pain of a debilitating condition known as peripheral neuropathy.

It was a study of HIV patients, but a similar type of pain caused by damage to nerves afflicts people with many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis.  Continue . . .
Marijuana, the Wonder Drug

3-1-07
Judge Rules Padilla Competent for Trial
MIAMI (AP)— A federal judge ruled Wednesday that suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla is competent to stand trial on terrorism support charges, rejecting arguments that he was severely damaged by 3 1/2 years of interrogation and isolation in a military brig. Padilla was in court when U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke announced her decision, but he showed no reaction.

“This defendant clearly has the capacity to assist his attorneys,” Cooke said just hours after she finished four days of competency hearings.  Continue . . .
Judge Rules Padilla Competent

U.S. Won’t Send CIA Defendants To Italy
Abduction Probes Hurt Anti-Terrorism Efforts, State Dept. Official Says
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
BERLIN—The State Department’s top lawyer said Wednesday that the United States would refuse to extradite CIA officers who face kidnapping charges in Italy, warning that European criminal prosecutions of U.S. agents were harming transatlantic counterterrorism efforts.

An Italian court issued indictments against 25 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force officer Feb. 16, charging them with kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric in Milan four years ago. Although the Italian government has not made a final decision on whether to ask the United States to extradite the defendants, John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the request would be rejected regardless.  Continue . . .
U.S. Won’t Send CIA Defendants to Italy

Democrats to Load Iraq Bill With Add-Ons
By ANDREW TAYLOR
WASHINGTON—While Democrats try to restrict how President Bush can spend the $100 billion he wants for Iraq, they also hope to load his measure up with $10 billion in add-ons _ from aid for avocado growers to help for children lacking health insurance.

Lawmakers also hope to add money for drought relief in the Great Plains, better levees in New Orleans and development of military bases that are closing down.  Continue . . .
Democrats Load Iraq Bill

Weather Forecasts | Weather Maps | Weather Radar

• Japan

  Current news in Japan.

• U.S.

  A daily news highlight from the U.S.

• Other Locations

  Breaking news from around the world.

Play Recording:

More..