ReBelle Daily Dispatch
WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. officials in postwar Iraq paid a contractor...
By Larry Margasak, Associated Press, 2/13/2005 13:55
WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. officials in postwar Iraq paid a contractor by stuffing $2 million worth of crisp bills into his gunnysack and routinely made cash payments around Baghdad from a pickup truck, a former official with the U.S. occupation government says.
Because the country lacked a functioning banking system, contractors and Iraqi ministry officials were paid with bills taken from a basement vault in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces that served as headquarters for the Coalition Provisional Authority, former CPA official Frank Willis said.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/044/wash/WASHINGTON_AP_U_S_officials_in:.shtml
--Is the theft of TRILLIONS possible?...9 BILLION of this money alone is missing...NINE BILLION that we KNOW of...---
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CNN News Chief Quits Following Controversial Remarks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK (AP) -- CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place where a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/11WIRE-CNN.html?ei=5094&en=aadf7b2b9d19b393&hp=&ex=1108184400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position
-hhhmm-
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Reps. Waxman and Maloney Call for Hearings
WASHINGTON -- February 10 -- Today Rep. Waxman and Rep. Maloney ask for hearings on whether political considerations caused the Administration to delay release of findings by the 9/11 Commission about pre-attack warnings. The text of the letter follows:
The Honorable Tom Davis ChairmanCommittee on Government ReformU.S. House of RepresentativesWashington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
We are writing to request that our Committee hold hearings to investigate two extremely serious questions raised by an article that appeared in this morning's New York Times. The first question is whether the Administration misused the classification process to withhold, for political reasons, official 9/11 Commission staff findings detailing how federal aviation officials received multiple intelligence reports warning of airline hijackings and suicide attacks before September 11. The second question relates to the veracity of statements, briefings, and testimony by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice regarding this issue.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0210-12.htm
--- Liar Liar Pants on Fire---
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Reservist with 11 children headed to Iraq
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Johnnie Chennault has no regrets about joining the Navy Reserve, even though it means he's going to Iraq later this month.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/12/navy.father.11.ap/index.html
---God be with you, sir.---
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G.W. Bush poll numbers
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050211/capt.nyet27902111504.bush_ap_poll_nyet279.jpg
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Civilians working for U.S. in Iraq making a bundle
Army Corps is paying Charlotte contractor millions to dispose of munitions
Soldiers, diplomats and private contractors in Iraq are all putting their lives on the line.
But should anyone be paid $350,000 a year to work in Iraq?
That's the basic labor rate for a liaison officer under the contract that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Charlotte's Zapata Engineering to help dispose of captured munitions. It's 10 times what the average soldier or member of the National Guard earns, even for full combat duty.
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031780795370&path=&s=&tacodalogin=no
---This is TOTAL BULLSHIT...Our troops are being used as HUMAN SHIELDS for HALLIBURTON!!!---
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Pentagon covers up failure to train and recruit local security forces
Police and army numbers falling far short of projections as post-election violence surges and wait for results drags on
13 February 2005
Training of Iraq's security forces, crucial to any exit strategy for Britain and the US, is going so badly that the Pentagon has stopped giving figures for the number of combat-ready indigenous troops, The Independent on Sunday has learned.
Instead, only figures for troops "on hand" are issued. The small number of soldiers, national guardsmen and police capable of operating against the country's bloody insurgency is concealed in an overall total of Iraqis in uniform, which includes raw recruits and police who have gone on duty after as little as three weeks' training. In some cases they have no weapons, body armour or even documents to show they are in the police.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=610574
---Can I get a Vietnam with that?---
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Iraqi Insurgents Step Up Attacks After Elections
By JAMES GLANZ Published: February 13, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 12 - A suicide car bomber killed at least 17 Iraqis at the entrance of a hospital south of Baghdad, and a judge who had investigated crimes in Saddam Hussein's government was gunned down outside his home in Basra by masked men riding a motorcycle, as Iraq's insurgency continued to intensify since elections two weeks ago.
From Monday to Saturday, bombers and gunmen have left at least 108 people dead. The attacks have been at or near a Shiite mosque, a hospital, police facilities, a bakery in a Shiite neighborhood and in front of Iraqis' houses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/international/middleeast/13iraq.html?hp&ex=1108270800&en=12db0cbb1231403d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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Worry Spreads Over GI Drug Side Effects
Sat Feb 12, 5:12 PM ET
By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer
SAN DIEGO - Some current or former troops sent to Iraq claim that Lariam, the commercial name for the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, has provoked disturbing and dangerous behavior. The families of some troops blame the drug for the suicides of their loved ones.
Though the evidence is largely anecdotal, their stories have raised alarm in Congress, and the Pentagon has stopped giving out a pill it probably never needed to give to tens of thousands of troops in Iraq in the first place.
As a volunteer firefighter, Georg-Andreas Pogany had seen disfigured bodies pulled from wrecked cars. But something very different happened when the Army interrogator saw the mangled remains of an Iraqi soldier.
He became panicked, disoriented and that night reached for both his loaded pistol and rifle as he thought he saw the enemy bursting into his room. Pogany asked his superiors for help; the Army packed him home to face charges of cowardice — the first such case since Vietnam.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&u=/ap/20050212/ap_on_he_me/military_s_malaria_drug_2&printer=1
---Damn if the Iraqis don't kill them the politicians will.---
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No Mullah Left Behind
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: February 13, 2005
The Wall Street Journal ran a very, very alarming article from Iran on its front page last Tuesday. The article explained how the mullahs in Tehran - who are now swimming in cash thanks to soaring oil prices - rather than begging foreign investors to come into Iran, are now shunning some of them. The article related how a Turkish mobile-phone operator, which had signed a deal with the Iranian government to launch Iran's first privately owned cellphone network, had the contract frozen by the mullahs in the Iranian Parliament because they were worried it might help the Turks and their foreign partners spy on Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13friedman.html?ex=1266037200&en=4befe43f2bb5a945&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
---Who's better off without Saddam?...Answer= Iran and thier NEW DADDY RUSSIA....Just GREAT Georgie!---
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Rumsfeld Revokes `Old Europe' Remark to Bolster European Ties
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who once described Europe's opponents to the war in Iraq as problems, sought to revoke the remark at a conference in Germany in an effort to improve trans-Atlantic ties.
Two months before U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, Rumsfeld had branded Germany and France as ``old Europe,'' citing persistent criticism of U.S. preparations for conflict by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Jacques Chirac.
``When I first mentioned that I might be traveling this week to France and Germany, it raised some eyebrows,'' Rumsfeld, 72, told a conference on security policy in Munich, Germany. ``One wag said that ought to be an interesting trip after all that has been said. I paused, thought for a moment, replied: `Oh, that was old Rumsfeld.'''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aSJVPbHAIKCc&refer=top_world_news
---What an ignorant PRICK...YOUR LUCKY RUMMY they ain't ARRESTING YOU for WAR CRIMES.....Yet---
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Patrick Buchanan blames policy for 9/11 on MTP
BUCHANAN: In my judgment, what happened on 9/11 was a result of interventionism. Interventionism is the cause of terror. It is not a cure for terror. The idea that the president of the United States, as he said in his inaugural, is going to help democratic institutions in every region in every nation on earth is a formula for permanent war, Tim. And look, the president of the United States has no constitutional authority to do this. Where in the Constitution do we get the right to intervene in the internal affairs of countries that do not threaten us and do not attack us?
BUCHANAN: The president of the United States was profoundly mistaken. He has misdiagnosed the malady. He has misdiagnosed the reason for the attack, Tim. The United States was not attacked because we are free. Bin Laden was not attacking the Bill of Rights. We were attacked because the United--over here because the United States' military and political presence is massive over there. Bin Laden in his fatwah, his statement of declaration of war on the United States, said the infidels were standing on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia. They want us out of the Middle East. They don't care whether we have a separation of church and state.
MR. SHARANSKY: America was attacked because it is the leader of the free world and the world of terror where the values are very different. So it is a danger.....
BUCHANAN: We brought down the shah and we got the ayatollah. You bring down that Saudi monarchy, you destabilize that regime and Howard Dean, an Arab Howard Dean, is not going to rise out of the wreckage.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/02/13.html#a1580
--Hello Pat.... Welcome to the freaking party... I won't complain too much though as I am just grateful SOMEONE ANYONE finaly is awake up there---
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Controllers' 9/11 tapes destroyed
By Leslie MillerThe Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Air traffic controllers who handled two of the hijacked flights on Sept. 11, 2001, recorded their experiences shortly after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center but a supervisor destroyed the tape, government investigators said Thursday.
A report by Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead said the manager for the New York-area air traffic control center asked the controllers to make the recordings a few hours after the crashes in belief they would be important for law enforcement.
Investigators never heard it.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/07/a8.nat.sept11tapes2.0507.html
---Since they were running WAR GAMES in NEW YORK CITY on the morning of SEPTEMBER 11th...It would be VERY interesting to know WHY THOSE IN CONTROL OF OUR SKIES...DID NOT protect them..?...Our military was STOOD DOWN...I wonder HOW that happened?---
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The Return of the Draft
"The Army's maxed out here," says retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, who served as Air Force chief of staff under the first President Bush. "The Defense Department and the president seem to be still operating off the rosy scenario that this will be over soon, that this pain is temporary and therefore we'll just grit our teeth, hunker down and get out on the other side of this. That's a bad assumption." The Bush administration has sworn up and down that it will never reinstate a draft. During the campaign last year, the president dismissed the idea as nothing more than "rumors on the Internets" and declared, "We're not going to have a draft -- period." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in an Op-Ed blaming "conspiracy mongers" for "attempting to scare and mislead young Americans," insisted that "the idea of reinstating the draft has never been debated, endorsed, discussed, theorized, pondered or even whispered by anyone in the Bush administration."
That assertion is demonstrably false. According to an internal Selective Service memo made public under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency's acting director met with two of Rumsfeld's undersecretaries in February 2003 precisely to debate, discuss and ponder a return to the draft. The memo duly notes the administration's aversion to a draft but adds, "Defense manpower officials concede there are critical shortages of military personnel with certain special skills, such as medical personnel, linguists, computer network engineers, etc." The potentially prohibitive cost of "attracting and retaining such personnel for military service," the memo adds, has led "some officials to conclude that, while a conventional draft may never be needed, a draft of men and women possessing these critical skills may be warranted in a future crisis." This new draft, it suggests, could be invoked to meet the needs of both the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6862691?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1106949643712&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872
---As a mother of 5...This is gonna be a problem Houston----
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U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds.
More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation
---Senator Vitter must not understand that we KNOW YOUR LYING ABOUT ANWR---
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Budget Programs Facing Cuts, Elimination
Here are the 154 programs that President Bush wants to eliminate or cut in his 2006 budget proposal. Bush would terminate 99 programs and make major spending reductions in 55. Separately, the administration listed eight major reforms Bush proposed that also would produce spending cuts.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/02/11/national/w163008S18.DTL
--Bush is a punk with no morals whatsoever. THIS IS open warfare on the poor.--
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World's largest oil companies gushing profits
Investors, not new ventures, are benefiting
By JAD MOUAWAD New York Times
Posted: Feb. 11, 2005
Born from the mega-mergers of the 1990s, the world's giant oil companies have delivered on their promise. They have cut costs, boosted returns and increased profits to new records. Now, flush with cash, they find themselves in a paradoxical position - they are making more money than they can comfortably spend.
Thanks to crude prices that averaged $41 a barrel in New York last year, the world's 10 biggest oil companies have earned more than $100 billion in profit for 2004, a windfall greater than the economic output of Malaysia. Together, their sales are expected to exceed $1 trillion for 2004, which is more than Canada's gross domestic product.
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/feb05/301141.asp
---What has Bush done for YOU lately?---
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TEXAS POLITICS UPDATE....As you may recall, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle — whose jurisdiction includes the entire state of Texas — has been investigating Tom DeLay for possible campaign fundraising violations for a couple of years now. Republicans are unhappy over this state of affairs, and this week a Republican legislator introduced a bill that would give the Texas Ethics Commission the authority to halt prosecutions of politicians whenever it felt like it. Here's my favorite quote from the LA Times account:
State Rep. Mary Denny, who filed the bill, said in an interview Thursday that she was attempting to add oversight, not remove it. She said it never occurred to her that the legislation could be used to protect Republican leaders who might become targets of the fundraising investigation.
God love 'em. The DeLay investigation is just about the biggest political circus in the entire state of Texas, but this 14-year Republican legislator is just dumbfounded at the idea that people think her bill might have anything to do with it. Folks sure do get the wildest ideas, don't they?
The story continues:
But the bill doesn't stop there.
It also says that a district attorney, including the one in Austin who is overseeing the fundraising investigation [i.e., Ronnie Earle], would be prohibited from continuing such an inquiry if the Ethics Commission did not agree that charges were warranted. Denny said she believed district attorneys would welcome input from people who specialized in election law.
"Why would they want to pursue something when there is no wrongdoing?" she asked.
Aw, isn't she sweet? Wouldn't any district attorney welcome an outside commission setting them straight about the merits of their own case while an investigation is still ongoing? Sure they would!
Damn. They sure do grow them brazen down in Texas, don't they?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_02/005643.php
---This is just bloody outta control and disgraceful---
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By Larry Margasak, Associated Press, 2/13/2005 13:55
WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. officials in postwar Iraq paid a contractor by stuffing $2 million worth of crisp bills into his gunnysack and routinely made cash payments around Baghdad from a pickup truck, a former official with the U.S. occupation government says.
Because the country lacked a functioning banking system, contractors and Iraqi ministry officials were paid with bills taken from a basement vault in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces that served as headquarters for the Coalition Provisional Authority, former CPA official Frank Willis said.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/044/wash/WASHINGTON_AP_U_S_officials_in:.shtml
--Is the theft of TRILLIONS possible?...9 BILLION of this money alone is missing...NINE BILLION that we KNOW of...---
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CNN News Chief Quits Following Controversial Remarks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK (AP) -- CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place where a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/11WIRE-CNN.html?ei=5094&en=aadf7b2b9d19b393&hp=&ex=1108184400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position
-hhhmm-
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Reps. Waxman and Maloney Call for Hearings
WASHINGTON -- February 10 -- Today Rep. Waxman and Rep. Maloney ask for hearings on whether political considerations caused the Administration to delay release of findings by the 9/11 Commission about pre-attack warnings. The text of the letter follows:
The Honorable Tom Davis ChairmanCommittee on Government ReformU.S. House of RepresentativesWashington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
We are writing to request that our Committee hold hearings to investigate two extremely serious questions raised by an article that appeared in this morning's New York Times. The first question is whether the Administration misused the classification process to withhold, for political reasons, official 9/11 Commission staff findings detailing how federal aviation officials received multiple intelligence reports warning of airline hijackings and suicide attacks before September 11. The second question relates to the veracity of statements, briefings, and testimony by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice regarding this issue.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0210-12.htm
--- Liar Liar Pants on Fire---
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Reservist with 11 children headed to Iraq
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Johnnie Chennault has no regrets about joining the Navy Reserve, even though it means he's going to Iraq later this month.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/12/navy.father.11.ap/index.html
---God be with you, sir.---
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G.W. Bush poll numbers
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050211/capt.nyet27902111504.bush_ap_poll_nyet279.jpg
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Civilians working for U.S. in Iraq making a bundle
Army Corps is paying Charlotte contractor millions to dispose of munitions
Soldiers, diplomats and private contractors in Iraq are all putting their lives on the line.
But should anyone be paid $350,000 a year to work in Iraq?
That's the basic labor rate for a liaison officer under the contract that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Charlotte's Zapata Engineering to help dispose of captured munitions. It's 10 times what the average soldier or member of the National Guard earns, even for full combat duty.
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031780795370&path=&s=&tacodalogin=no
---This is TOTAL BULLSHIT...Our troops are being used as HUMAN SHIELDS for HALLIBURTON!!!---
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Pentagon covers up failure to train and recruit local security forces
Police and army numbers falling far short of projections as post-election violence surges and wait for results drags on
13 February 2005
Training of Iraq's security forces, crucial to any exit strategy for Britain and the US, is going so badly that the Pentagon has stopped giving figures for the number of combat-ready indigenous troops, The Independent on Sunday has learned.
Instead, only figures for troops "on hand" are issued. The small number of soldiers, national guardsmen and police capable of operating against the country's bloody insurgency is concealed in an overall total of Iraqis in uniform, which includes raw recruits and police who have gone on duty after as little as three weeks' training. In some cases they have no weapons, body armour or even documents to show they are in the police.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=610574
---Can I get a Vietnam with that?---
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Iraqi Insurgents Step Up Attacks After Elections
By JAMES GLANZ Published: February 13, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 12 - A suicide car bomber killed at least 17 Iraqis at the entrance of a hospital south of Baghdad, and a judge who had investigated crimes in Saddam Hussein's government was gunned down outside his home in Basra by masked men riding a motorcycle, as Iraq's insurgency continued to intensify since elections two weeks ago.
From Monday to Saturday, bombers and gunmen have left at least 108 people dead. The attacks have been at or near a Shiite mosque, a hospital, police facilities, a bakery in a Shiite neighborhood and in front of Iraqis' houses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/international/middleeast/13iraq.html?hp&ex=1108270800&en=12db0cbb1231403d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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Worry Spreads Over GI Drug Side Effects
Sat Feb 12, 5:12 PM ET
By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer
SAN DIEGO - Some current or former troops sent to Iraq claim that Lariam, the commercial name for the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, has provoked disturbing and dangerous behavior. The families of some troops blame the drug for the suicides of their loved ones.
Though the evidence is largely anecdotal, their stories have raised alarm in Congress, and the Pentagon has stopped giving out a pill it probably never needed to give to tens of thousands of troops in Iraq in the first place.
As a volunteer firefighter, Georg-Andreas Pogany had seen disfigured bodies pulled from wrecked cars. But something very different happened when the Army interrogator saw the mangled remains of an Iraqi soldier.
He became panicked, disoriented and that night reached for both his loaded pistol and rifle as he thought he saw the enemy bursting into his room. Pogany asked his superiors for help; the Army packed him home to face charges of cowardice — the first such case since Vietnam.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&u=/ap/20050212/ap_on_he_me/military_s_malaria_drug_2&printer=1
---Damn if the Iraqis don't kill them the politicians will.---
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No Mullah Left Behind
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: February 13, 2005
The Wall Street Journal ran a very, very alarming article from Iran on its front page last Tuesday. The article explained how the mullahs in Tehran - who are now swimming in cash thanks to soaring oil prices - rather than begging foreign investors to come into Iran, are now shunning some of them. The article related how a Turkish mobile-phone operator, which had signed a deal with the Iranian government to launch Iran's first privately owned cellphone network, had the contract frozen by the mullahs in the Iranian Parliament because they were worried it might help the Turks and their foreign partners spy on Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13friedman.html?ex=1266037200&en=4befe43f2bb5a945&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
---Who's better off without Saddam?...Answer= Iran and thier NEW DADDY RUSSIA....Just GREAT Georgie!---
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Rumsfeld Revokes `Old Europe' Remark to Bolster European Ties
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who once described Europe's opponents to the war in Iraq as problems, sought to revoke the remark at a conference in Germany in an effort to improve trans-Atlantic ties.
Two months before U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, Rumsfeld had branded Germany and France as ``old Europe,'' citing persistent criticism of U.S. preparations for conflict by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Jacques Chirac.
``When I first mentioned that I might be traveling this week to France and Germany, it raised some eyebrows,'' Rumsfeld, 72, told a conference on security policy in Munich, Germany. ``One wag said that ought to be an interesting trip after all that has been said. I paused, thought for a moment, replied: `Oh, that was old Rumsfeld.'''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aSJVPbHAIKCc&refer=top_world_news
---What an ignorant PRICK...YOUR LUCKY RUMMY they ain't ARRESTING YOU for WAR CRIMES.....Yet---
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Patrick Buchanan blames policy for 9/11 on MTP
BUCHANAN: In my judgment, what happened on 9/11 was a result of interventionism. Interventionism is the cause of terror. It is not a cure for terror. The idea that the president of the United States, as he said in his inaugural, is going to help democratic institutions in every region in every nation on earth is a formula for permanent war, Tim. And look, the president of the United States has no constitutional authority to do this. Where in the Constitution do we get the right to intervene in the internal affairs of countries that do not threaten us and do not attack us?
BUCHANAN: The president of the United States was profoundly mistaken. He has misdiagnosed the malady. He has misdiagnosed the reason for the attack, Tim. The United States was not attacked because we are free. Bin Laden was not attacking the Bill of Rights. We were attacked because the United--over here because the United States' military and political presence is massive over there. Bin Laden in his fatwah, his statement of declaration of war on the United States, said the infidels were standing on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia. They want us out of the Middle East. They don't care whether we have a separation of church and state.
MR. SHARANSKY: America was attacked because it is the leader of the free world and the world of terror where the values are very different. So it is a danger.....
BUCHANAN: We brought down the shah and we got the ayatollah. You bring down that Saudi monarchy, you destabilize that regime and Howard Dean, an Arab Howard Dean, is not going to rise out of the wreckage.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/02/13.html#a1580
--Hello Pat.... Welcome to the freaking party... I won't complain too much though as I am just grateful SOMEONE ANYONE finaly is awake up there---
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Controllers' 9/11 tapes destroyed
By Leslie MillerThe Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Air traffic controllers who handled two of the hijacked flights on Sept. 11, 2001, recorded their experiences shortly after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center but a supervisor destroyed the tape, government investigators said Thursday.
A report by Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead said the manager for the New York-area air traffic control center asked the controllers to make the recordings a few hours after the crashes in belief they would be important for law enforcement.
Investigators never heard it.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/07/a8.nat.sept11tapes2.0507.html
---Since they were running WAR GAMES in NEW YORK CITY on the morning of SEPTEMBER 11th...It would be VERY interesting to know WHY THOSE IN CONTROL OF OUR SKIES...DID NOT protect them..?...Our military was STOOD DOWN...I wonder HOW that happened?---
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The Return of the Draft
"The Army's maxed out here," says retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, who served as Air Force chief of staff under the first President Bush. "The Defense Department and the president seem to be still operating off the rosy scenario that this will be over soon, that this pain is temporary and therefore we'll just grit our teeth, hunker down and get out on the other side of this. That's a bad assumption." The Bush administration has sworn up and down that it will never reinstate a draft. During the campaign last year, the president dismissed the idea as nothing more than "rumors on the Internets" and declared, "We're not going to have a draft -- period." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in an Op-Ed blaming "conspiracy mongers" for "attempting to scare and mislead young Americans," insisted that "the idea of reinstating the draft has never been debated, endorsed, discussed, theorized, pondered or even whispered by anyone in the Bush administration."
That assertion is demonstrably false. According to an internal Selective Service memo made public under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency's acting director met with two of Rumsfeld's undersecretaries in February 2003 precisely to debate, discuss and ponder a return to the draft. The memo duly notes the administration's aversion to a draft but adds, "Defense manpower officials concede there are critical shortages of military personnel with certain special skills, such as medical personnel, linguists, computer network engineers, etc." The potentially prohibitive cost of "attracting and retaining such personnel for military service," the memo adds, has led "some officials to conclude that, while a conventional draft may never be needed, a draft of men and women possessing these critical skills may be warranted in a future crisis." This new draft, it suggests, could be invoked to meet the needs of both the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6862691?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1106949643712&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872
---As a mother of 5...This is gonna be a problem Houston----
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U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds.
More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation
---Senator Vitter must not understand that we KNOW YOUR LYING ABOUT ANWR---
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Budget Programs Facing Cuts, Elimination
Here are the 154 programs that President Bush wants to eliminate or cut in his 2006 budget proposal. Bush would terminate 99 programs and make major spending reductions in 55. Separately, the administration listed eight major reforms Bush proposed that also would produce spending cuts.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/02/11/national/w163008S18.DTL
--Bush is a punk with no morals whatsoever. THIS IS open warfare on the poor.--
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World's largest oil companies gushing profits
Investors, not new ventures, are benefiting
By JAD MOUAWAD New York Times
Posted: Feb. 11, 2005
Born from the mega-mergers of the 1990s, the world's giant oil companies have delivered on their promise. They have cut costs, boosted returns and increased profits to new records. Now, flush with cash, they find themselves in a paradoxical position - they are making more money than they can comfortably spend.
Thanks to crude prices that averaged $41 a barrel in New York last year, the world's 10 biggest oil companies have earned more than $100 billion in profit for 2004, a windfall greater than the economic output of Malaysia. Together, their sales are expected to exceed $1 trillion for 2004, which is more than Canada's gross domestic product.
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/feb05/301141.asp
---What has Bush done for YOU lately?---
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TEXAS POLITICS UPDATE....As you may recall, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle — whose jurisdiction includes the entire state of Texas — has been investigating Tom DeLay for possible campaign fundraising violations for a couple of years now. Republicans are unhappy over this state of affairs, and this week a Republican legislator introduced a bill that would give the Texas Ethics Commission the authority to halt prosecutions of politicians whenever it felt like it. Here's my favorite quote from the LA Times account:
State Rep. Mary Denny, who filed the bill, said in an interview Thursday that she was attempting to add oversight, not remove it. She said it never occurred to her that the legislation could be used to protect Republican leaders who might become targets of the fundraising investigation.
God love 'em. The DeLay investigation is just about the biggest political circus in the entire state of Texas, but this 14-year Republican legislator is just dumbfounded at the idea that people think her bill might have anything to do with it. Folks sure do get the wildest ideas, don't they?
The story continues:
But the bill doesn't stop there.
It also says that a district attorney, including the one in Austin who is overseeing the fundraising investigation [i.e., Ronnie Earle], would be prohibited from continuing such an inquiry if the Ethics Commission did not agree that charges were warranted. Denny said she believed district attorneys would welcome input from people who specialized in election law.
"Why would they want to pursue something when there is no wrongdoing?" she asked.
Aw, isn't she sweet? Wouldn't any district attorney welcome an outside commission setting them straight about the merits of their own case while an investigation is still ongoing? Sure they would!
Damn. They sure do grow them brazen down in Texas, don't they?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_02/005643.php
---This is just bloody outta control and disgraceful---
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posted by Christy at 9:18 PM
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