Pummeled MP sues Pentagon Soldier was impersonating unruly Guantanamo detainee in training
David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times
Saturday, June 18, 2005 now part of stylesheet -->

A U.S. military policeman who was beaten by fellow MPs during a botched training drill at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for detainees has sued the Pentagon for $15 million, alleging that the incident violated his constitutional rights.

Spec. Sean Baker, 38, was assaulted in January 2003 after he volunteered to wear an orange jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative detainee. Baker said the MPs, who were told that he was an unruly detainee who had assaulted an American sergeant, inflicted a beating that resulted in a traumatic brain injury.

Baker, a Persian Gulf War veteran who re-enlisted after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was medically retired in April 2004. He said the assault had left him with seizures, blackouts, headaches, insomnia and psychological problems.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Lexington, Ky., Baker demanded reinstatement in the Army in a position that would accommodate his medical disability. He said the Army put him on medical retirement against his wishes. >>>continued

UN BLOODY BELIEVABLE

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/18/MNG18DAM6S1.DTL

British bombing raids were illegal,
says Foreign OfficeMichael Smith

A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war “to put pressure on the regime” was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.

The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began “spikes of activity” designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.

The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was “not consistent with” UN law, despite American claims that it was.

The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers — the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.

Democratic congressmen claimed last week the evidence it contains is grounds for impeaching President George Bush. >>>continued

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1660300-523,00.html

Art for Everyone 

WHATS IN ROSSIS MAIL BOX

We are all complicit in these vile acts of torture

But what can we do about it?

by Robert Fisk

What can we do? What can we do when an American president dispatches "suspects" to third countries where they will be stripped, wired up, electrocuted, ripped open and tortured until they wish they had never been born?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9194.htm

http://snipurl.com/fob3

===

New Secret British Government Memos Show Blair Hand Wringing Over Bush's Iraq war plans

By THOMAS WAGNER Associated Press Writer

``U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing,'' Ricketts says in the memo. ``For Iraq, `regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam.''
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9192.htm

http://snipurl.com/fo9s

------

Nine coalition troops killed in Iraq:

Nine troops from the U.S.-led multinational forces were killed Saturday in a mortar attack in the troubled city of Fallujah west of the capital.
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=89637&cat=World

http://snipurl.com/fo9y

------

Nine coalition troops killed in Iraq:

Nine troops from the U.S.-led multinational forces were killed Saturday in a mortar attack in the troubled city of Fallujah west of the capital.
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=89637&cat=World

http://snipurl.com/fo9y

-----

Democracy Hypocrisy

Iraq In The Name Of Freedom

Warning

Video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war and should be viewed by a mature audience.

Real Video - Click Here To View
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9174.htm

http://snipurl.com/fnni

----

In Case You Missed It

Interview with Gen. Hussein Kamel, head of Iraq's weapons programme:

"I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed" (22 August 1995)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9188.htm

http://snipurl.com/fo9v

------

Suicide car bomb kills 14 Iraqi soldiers:

Quoting witnesses, the agency said the attack had been apparently targeted at an Iraqi army patrol near the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1403520,001300180001.htm

http://snipurl.com/fo9w

-----

An Insider's Troubling Account of the U.S. Role in Iraq:

Mr. Diamond contends that the postwar troubles in Iraq - a bloody and unrelenting insurgency, the creation of a new breeding ground for terrorists and metastasizing ethnic and religious tensions - are the result of "gross negligence" on the part of a Bush administration that rushed to war.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9182.htm

http://snipurl.com/foa6

------

US Trained and Aided Uzbek Forces
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061805A.shtml

------

Groups Unite Against Military Recruiters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061805F.shtml

-----

Downing Street Memo a Growing Problem for Bush
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061805G.shtml

-----

Media Matters for America,

Dean fund-raising lie persists among conservatives

The conservative media continues to falsely assert that Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean is an ineffective fund-raiser. In the past week, Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes, New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, and Washington Times chief political correspondent Donald Lambro all cast Dean as a fund-raising failure. In fact, when compared with fund-raising in the most recent non-election year, Dean has raised more money in raw dollars, and more in comparison to the Republican National Committee (RNC), than did his predecessor.

Read more...

----

British sources confirm that meaning of "fixed" -- as in "manipulated" or "cooked" -- is the same in Britain and America

Conservatives have attempted to dismiss the Downing Street memo, a secret British intelligence document indicating that intelligence officials there believed that the Bush administration was manipulating intelligence to support its case for war in Iraq by insisting that the term "fixed" has a different meaning in British English than in the United States. The memo describes Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the British foreign intelligence agency MI6, stating that in Washington, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." In fact, British reports -- including one that quoted the memo itself six weeks before the British Sunday Times published its full text on May 1 -- refute the notion that "fixed" means anything different in British parlance.

Read more...

----

Fox's Angle distorted Durbin's Guantánamo comments

Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle cited an unnamed "knowledgeable official" to wrongly dispute Sen. Richard J. Durbin's (D-IL) statement that FBI emails concerning apparent detainee abuse at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, describe the treatment as "torture." In fact, though Angle insisted that his source was "familiar" with the emails Durbin cited, the emails themselves are publicly available, and one such email does use the term "torture techniques" to describe interrogation techniques used at Guantánamo.

Read more...

Ugliest.Baby.Ever.

DepartmentsElection 2004

Introduction:
Did George W. Bush steal America's 2004 election?
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
June 16, 2005

The following text is the Introduction to the 767 page:

Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? Essential Documents. You can buy the book here.

This volume of documents is meant to provide you, the reader, with evidence necessary to make up your own mind.

Few debates have aroused more polarized ire. But too often the argument has proceeded without documentation. This volume of crucial source materials, from Ohio and elsewhere, is meant to correct that problem.

Amidst a bitterly contested vote count that resulted in unprecedented action by the Congress of the United States, here are some news accounts that followed this election, which was among the most bitterly contested in all US history:

• Despite repeated pre-election calls from officials across the nation and the world, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, who also served as Ohio's co-chair for the Bush-Cheney campaign, refused to allow non-partisan international and United Nations observers the access they requested to monitor the Ohio vote. While such access is routinely demanded by the U.S. government in third world nations, it was banned in the American heartland. >>>continued

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1318

Art For Boys.(Re-Posted by request.) 

Is worst yet to come in Iraq?

Senior Bush official says insurgents likely to step up attacks as terrorists try to derail constitution, elections

BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS AND KATIE THOMAS
STAFF WRITERS; Phelps is Washington bureau chief. The story was supplemen- ted with wire service reports.

June 17, 2005

WASHINGTON -- During a terrible week for violence in Iraq, a senior administration official yesterday warned that the worst is yet to come.

Five Marines and a sailor were killed Wednesday in attacks west of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced yesterday, a day that also brought news of a suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed at least eight police officers and wounded 25 others.

"I think you'll see it continuing up, because the terrorists know what's coming," said the official, speaking as peace demonstrators chanted outside the White House.

He said that militants are "once again trying to derail" progress in Iraq, in this case the writing of a constitution and holding of elections tentatively scheduled for later this year.

"We have a rough road ahead of us," the official said in an unusual moment of openness by the Bush administration on the war. His comments appeared aimed at preparing a public - that polls show is increasingly disillusioned by the war - for even more bad news.

The official spoke after one of the bloodiest weeks in the war, in which at least 17 U.S. servicemen and 155 Iraqis have been reported killed.

The violence comes just four months after U.S. generals had begun to predict the beginning of a U.S. pullout from Iraq early next year. Such predictions have completely stopped.

Now, in addition to Gallup and Washington Post/ABC News polls showing a decrease in public support for the war, there are signs of restlessness on Capitol Hill as well. Yesterday, four U.S. lawmakers, including two Republicans from the South, announced they would introduce legislation requiring President George W. Bush to submit a timetable for a U.S. pullout.

The senior official yesterday rejected any deadlines, saying they would either increase attacks or give the insurgents reason to wait for the pullout.

He said the administration remains convinced that its strategy is working, with progress on the political front as well as in training and equipping Iraqi soldiers to take over the fight themselves.

"There is a timeline, and we're still on it," he said.

But he came back to the new, realistic tone about Iraq.

"Nobody denies the loss of life and the carnage that is being wreaked on the Iraqi people and on us by the terrorists," he said.

Amid the violence, Iraqi lawmakers yesterday celebrated a political breakthrough: After weeks of back-and-forth, Shia politicians reached a compromise that will include Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted January's elections, in drafting Iraq's new constitution. The stalemate over who should be allowed to draft it had threatened Iraq's political process as it was entering its final stretch, with two key nationwide votes planned for later this year: a referendum on the constitution in October and, if it passes, a general election in December.

Under the compromise announced yesterday, the new panel will include the existing members, 15 additional Sunni Arabs with full voting rights and 10 more Sunnis in an advisory, nonvoting role.

Adnan Janabi, head of a subcommittee that has been negotiating for weeks to involve more Sunnis in the process, called the compromise "the best we could reach. It was unanimously agreed upon by both sides."

But Salih Mutlak, who leads a Sunni coalition known as the National Dialogue Council, said: "We bitterly agreed on the decision. The country is in a critical situation, and if we don't agree, the political process will be delayed."

Nearly 1,100 people have died in violence since the Shia-led government took office seven weeks ago. The American deaths announced yesterday occurred in volatile Anbar province, a longtime hotspot. The Marines died after their vehicle was attacked near Ramadi, the military said. A sailor attached to the Marines' unit, the 2nd Marine Division's II Marine Expeditionary Force, was killed in Ramadi by gunfire, the military said.

In Baghdad yesterday, the suicide bomber plowed his black sedan into a truck carrying police officers on the road connecting Baghdad with its airport.

In other developments:

A judge and his bodyguard were killed by gunmen in eastern Mosul.

A roadside bomb in Mosul killed an Iraqi police officer, officials said.

Police found the bodies of 11 people in two towns in the so-called Triangle of Death area south of Baghdad, an official said.

Phelps is Washington bureau chief. The story was supplemen- ted with wire service reports.

THE TOLL

U.S. casualties in Iraq

March 20, 2003

War begins

Jan. 17, 2004

500 killed

Sept. 7, 2004

1,000 killed

March 3, 2005

1,500 killed

To date

1,714 killed

This month

47 killed

New NBC Poll, Click Here To Vote.

Do you believe President Bush misled the nation in order to go to war with Iraq?
* 39158 responses

Yes 94%

No 6%

Bring Them Home. End This Now. 

E-Mails Showing White House Manipulating Public Broadcasting

Live link above.

Bush hand seen in public broadcasting

RAW STORY


E-mail messages obtained by investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting show that its chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, extensively consulted a White House official shortly before she joined the corporation about creating an ombudsman's office to monitor the balance and objectivity of public television and radio program, the New York Times reports Saturday. Excerpts follow.

#
Mr. Tomlinson said in an interview three months ago that he did not think he had instructed a subordinate to send material on the ombudsman project to Mary C. Andrews at her White House office in her final days as director of global communications, a political appointment.

But the e-mail messages show that a month before the interview, he directed Kathleen Cox, then president of the corporation, to send material to Ms. Andrews at her White House e-mail address. They show that Ms. Andrews worked on a variety of ombudsman issues before joining the corporation, while still on the White House payroll. And they show that the White House instructed the corporation on Ms. Andrews's job title in her new post.


A senior corporation executive who is concerned about its direction under Mr. Tomlinson provided copies of the e-mail messages to The New York Times. Fearing retribution, the executive insisted on anonymity as a condition for providing the copies.

The e-mail messages are part of the evidence being collected in a broad inquiry by the inspector general of the corporation into whether Mr. Tomlinson violated any rules that require that the corporation act as a buffer between politics and programming.

Under investigation are $14,170 in contracts signed by Mr. Tomlinson with an Indiana man who monitored the political leanings of the guests on "Now" when Bill Moyers was its host. And the investigators are looking at $15,000 in payments to two Republican lobbyists last year at the direction of Mr. Tomlinson and his Republican predecessor, who remains a board member.

Mr. Tomlinson declined to respond to questions about the investigation or anything else.

Art For Girls. 

Are the British Documents Proof of Treason?

Behind the Downing Street Memos
Lurks the specter of treason
by Justin Raimondo
Everyone is talking about the Downing Street memos, and they are important – although not for the reasons generally assumed.

Naturally, we covered these on Antiwar.com when they were first published, but now that the "mainstream" media is finally paying attention it behooves us to go over them with a fine-tooth comb, in an attempt to tease some meaning out of the daily slaughter on the evening news. The key paragraph in the first memo, and the one most cited, is this:

"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The mysterious "C" is none other than Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, Britain's intelligence service, no doubt conferring with his American equivalent, then-CIA director George Tenet. The date – July 23, 2002 – is significant: if you'll remember, at that time our lying president was telling us that war with Iraq would be a "last resort." Yeah, sure. Not that anybody really believed him, but it's significant that he still felt it necessary to make the effort to deceive. Meanwhile, the War Party was plotting to pull a fast one, using every trick in the book to gin up a war with Iraq – a constant stream of wild stories presented in the guise of "intelligence" and planted in a compliant media, all positing "weapons of mass destruction" poised to hit American cities.

Bob Woodward revealed that the decision to go to war had already been made in his book, Plan of Attack, but the media doesn't cover books. Leaked memos, however, are another matter: especially ones with "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL – UK EYES ONLY" emblazoned at the top, along with a further notation:

"This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents."

Well, yes, we genuinely do need to know why our young people are dying by the dozens every week, until now it's over 1,700 and rising. And it isn't sensitive anymore, now that the horse is out of the barn, so it's OK for the public to see these previously secret documents: that's why we're reading them today and why they're being covered in the "mainstream" media.

The "smoking gun," so to speak, is the admission that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." We knew that, too, but this raises an important question: who was fixing the intelligence? It's time to start taking names.

Continues...
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6343


---YES, IT IS TREASON....---

Art for Everyone 

Waking the Dead: Jeb Seeks Revenge in Schiavo Case
Jeb Bush Seeks New Inquiry Into Schiavo Case (NYT)

Yes, of course this is vile: a blatant, brutal misuse of state power to wage culture war on behalf of a ruthless extremist ideology -- and a petulant, petty attempt to smear a man who, by standing on the law, has embarrassed the little tinpot despot who rules Florida.

But get used to it, folks. Jeb is being readied for the dynastic succession -- he'll be on the ticket somewhere in 2008, either at the top or VP. And believe it or not, Jeb is even worse than George W. He's sharper, he's dirtier, he's meaner, he's greedier and far more energetic. When he gets in, things are going to get even worse.

It's part of the terrible devolution of GOP politics. Everytime you think it can't get any worse -- it does. Nixon once seemed the abyss of political crime and corruption; but my God, his administration seems like a golden age of enlightened government compared to what has come after it. Then we thought it couldn't get worse than Reagan; then it couldn't possibly get any worse than Bush/Quayle; and yet we keep descending deeper and deeper into the pit.

But we've not hit bottom yet, not by a long shot. Keep your eye on Florida. There's a rough beast slouching out of those swamps, raising a tsunami of slime that will sweep away the last few bastions of genuine democracy and human decency left in our gutted, battered, betrayed and broken Republic.

See also: Code Red: Jeb Bush Strikes Back and Miami Vice: The Mobbed-Up, Money-Grubbing Moralist From Florida

http://www.empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Neck-Deep in the Big Muddy

Harsh truth-telling from Andrew Greeley

:Expect Terrorists to Bring the War to Us.

http://www.empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/

Oh God here we go again how do they stop these Bastards:
He got Prosecutors checking into time line because Michael Schiavo, is sueing him,
what is your bet, trying to scare him off you reckon. and how about a diversion from the Downing Street Memos.

Gov. Bush Says Prosecutor Will Investigate Accusation Of Delayed 911 Call For Schaivo
June 18, 2005, 04:55 AM

(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) -- Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that a prosecutor has agreed to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, citing an alleged time gap between when her husband found her and when he called 911.

Bush said his request for the probe was not meant to suggest wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo.
"It's a significant question that during this ordeal was never brought up," Bush told reporters.
Michael Schiavo's attorney has said his client called for help right away.

In a letter faxed to Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney Bernie McCabe, the governor said Michael Schiavo testified in a 1992 medical malpractice trial that he found his wife collapsed at 5 a.m. on Feb. 25, 1990, and he said in a 2003 television interview that he found her about 4:30 a.m. He called 911 at 5:40 a.m.

"Between 40 and 70 minutes elapsed before the call was made, and I am aware of no explanation for the delay," Bush wrote. "In light of this new information, I urge you to take a fresh look at this case without any preconceptions as to the outcome." >>>continued

How Evil are these Bastards:
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=3488326

Art for Everyone 

Gunmen take over Ramadi as bomb kills five marines :

A huge bomb killed five American marines yesterday and showered body parts on to rooftops, fuelling suspicion that armour-piercing technology is being developed and tested in Ramadi.


http://snipurl.com/fnnq

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Blair and Howard could face charges over Iraq - lawyer:

Video and transcript.

Philippe Sands, QC, director of the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, said Mr Howard, along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair could face charges amid claims the Iraq war was illegal.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9171.htm

http://snipurl.com/fnnl

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Democratic Members of House Judiciary Committee.

Meeting on Downing St. Memo and Iraq War

Video - In Full

Rep. John Conyers, House Judiciary Cmte. Ranking Member, chairs a meeting on the Downing Street Memo and pre-Iraq War intelligence. Witnesses include former ambassador Joe Wilson, CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, mother of a fallen American soldier, and constitu-tional lawyer John Bonifaz. Click here to view. Real Video
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9160.htm

http://snipurl.com/fnnm

ANOTHER BUSH MORON;
AMERICA REALLY HAS PROBLEMS, WHEN THEY SEND
THESE KIND OF IDIOT MORONS, TO FIGHT A WAR
THIS IS THE REAL PROBLEM FOR THE AMERICAN ARMY
CHRISTY, HE IS YOUR PROBLEM

Recruit's website: Make a papier-mache pig with the Quran
RAW STORY
Quran contest destroys U.S.'s reputation, imam says: The following excerpts come from an article by Pam Greene, writing in the (information-restricted) Syracuse Post-Standard. ( Full story here.)
#
Jon Alvarez is two months away from reporting to military boot camp training, but he has already been flagged by his superiors as a potential troublemaker.

Alvarez, a staunch Republican from Baldwinsville who enlisted in the Army Reserve in April, has gained notoriety for political antics that include hanging a statue depicting the likeness of filmmaker Michael Moore from a noose and accusing those who speak against the military of treason.

Maj. Jeff Wildeboer, operating officer with the Army Reserve 403rd Civil Affairs Battalion in Mattydale, said Thursday he plans to alert commanding officers to Alvarez's latest campaign: a contest called "Create A Pig With The Koran."
On his Web site, http://www.pabaah.com/, Alvarez invites people to create a papier-mache pig using pages of the Quran. Links show how to get a free copy of the Quran and how to make papier-mache.
Alvarez said the contest will illustrate the hypocrisy of Muslim extremists who burn the American flag, "because of the supposed desecration of the Quran," Alvarez said.
"They haven't apologized for burning our flag, yet they expect people to apologize for supposedly desecrating the Quran," he said.
Wildeboer said the contest only serves to be hurtful and stereotype Muslims. The purpose of the battalion is to go overseas and build bridges with Muslims through an understanding of the religion, culture and language, he said. Alvarez's antic is "180 degrees" from the mission of the battalion, he said.
#
On the recruit's website, RAW STORY has found a picture suggesting that conditions of Gitmo are so favorable that terrorists read the New York Times. Only, neither of those in the photograph ('shoe-bomber' Richard Reid and alleged senior Qaeda official Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) are being held at Guantanamo Bay.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005
/Recuits_website_Make_a_papermache
_pig_with__0617.html

Not in my name

Peace be with you little one

The real war in Iraq

Schiavo autopsy rattles politicians
By Anne KornblutWashingtonJune 17, 2005

The autopsy on Terri Schiavo
- particularly the findings that she had irreversible brain damage and was blind - has left Republicans who had pushed for federal intervention struggling to defend their argument that she should have been kept alive.

Although the autopsy could not determine the mental state of the Florida woman, who died on March 31 after a judicial and legislative battle over her "right to die", it established the permanence of her physical condition.

Mrs Schiavo's brain damage "was irreversible . . . no amount of treatment or rehabilitation would have reversed it", said the pathologist who performed the autopsy.

Republican senator Mel Martinez, who pressed the case to extend Mrs Schiavo's life, said he had had second thoughts about Congress' involvement.

Senator Martinez said the case "seems like the kind of issue the state courts deal with".

Mike Pence, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, said that in his five years in office, he saw Congress do its "worst job communicating" during the Schiavo episode.

The case has reverberated politically for months, contributing to a sharp drop in approval ratings for the Republican-controlled Congress, whose leaders convened an extraordinary emergency session in March to pass legislation protecting Mrs Schiavo.

The case has also given Democrats ammunition against Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a transplant surgeon who voiced his opinion about Mrs Schiavo's condition based on videotapes in which she seemed to react to some stimuli.

- New York Times, Washington Post
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Schiavo-autopsy-rattles-politicians/2005/06/16/1118869040714.html

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Charged With Murder
Thursday June 16, 2005 11:46 PM
By PATRICK QUINN
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A U.S. Army staff sergeant was charged with murder in connection with last week's deaths of two Army officers at a base outside Baghdad, the military said Thursday.

Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez, 37, a supply specialist with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 42nd Infantry Division, New York Army National Guard, was charged Wednesday in connection with the June 7 deaths of the two officers at Forward Operating Base Danger, near Tikrit - Saddam Hussein's hometown 80 miles north of Baghdad.

The officers killed were Capt. Phillip T. Esposito, 30, of Suffern, N.Y., and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa. Esposito was company commander and Allen served as a company operations officer. >>continued

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5079747,00.html

Do you believe it they just keep getting more and more when does it end

Halliburton to build another Gitmo camp

U.S. awards $30 million contract to add new prison facility; 'Air conditioning.'

http://www.rawstory.com/

Like Mother Like Son

US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war

US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war

By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
17 June 2005
American officials lied to British ministers over the use of "internationally reviled" napalm-type firebombs in Iraq.

Yesterday's disclosure led to calls by MPs for a full statement to the Commons and opened ministers to allegations that they held back the facts until after the general election.

Despite persistent rumours of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm, Adam Ingram, the Defence minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.

But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. "The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you," he told Mr Cohen. "I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position."

Mr Ingram said 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003. They were used against military targets "away from civilian targets", he said. This avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets.

Britain, which has no stockpiles of the weapons, ratified the convention, but the US did not.

The confirmation that US officials misled British ministers led to new questions last night about the value of the latest assurances by the US. Mr Cohen said there were rumours that the firebombs were used in the US assault on the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah last year, claims denied by the US. He is tabling more questions seeking assurances that the weapons were not used against civilians.

Mr Ingram did not explain why the US officials had misled him, but the US and British governments were accused of a cover-up. The Iraq Analysis Group, which campaigned against the war, said the US authorities only admitted the use of the weapons after the evidence from reporters had become irrefutable.

Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the group, said: "The US has used internationally reviled weapons that the UK refuses to use, and has then apparently lied to UK officials, showing how little weight the UK carries in influencing American policy."

He added: "Evidence that Mr Ingram had given false information to Parliament was publicly available months ago. He has waited until after the election to admit to it - a clear sign of the Government's embarrassment that they are doing nothing to restrain their own coalition partner in Iraq."

The US State Department website admitted in the run-up to the election that US forces had used MK77s in Iraq. Protests were made by MPs, but it was only this week that Mr Ingram confirmed the reports were true.

Mike Moore, the Liberal Democrat defence spokes-man, said: "It is very serious that this type of weapon was used in Iraq, but this shows the US has not been completely open with the UK. We are supposed to have a special relationship.

"It has also taken two months for the minister to clear this up. This is welcome candour, but it will raise fresh questions about how open the Government wished to be... before the election."
The MK77 bombs, an evolution of the napalm used in Vietnam and Korea, carry kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene so that, like napalm, the gel sticks to structures and to its victims. The bombs lack stabilising fins, making them far from precise

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=647397

The real Bush War that the Cable and Media do not show you

http://www.missouri.edu/~quinnl/news/fallujaposts.html

http://www.brandonblog.com/photos-iraq-war.html

http://www.brandonblog.com/photos-iraq-war.html

Image: Salon.com)
What more are they hiding, who is responsible

Deadly immunity

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data -- and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic.

- - - - - - - - - - - -By Robert F. Kennedy Jr

June 16, 2005 In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines - thimerosal - appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants - in one case, within hours of birth - the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening. "You can play with this all you want," Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group. The results "are statistically significant." Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting's first day, was even more alarmed. "My gut feeling?" he said. "Forgive this personal comment - I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on."

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line. ...Continued

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/061605HA.shtml

Treasures From Iraqs Past 

In case you missed it:

Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil :

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed. Windows Media.

BBC Newsnight Video Report

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US. Windows Media
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8307.htm

http://snipurl.com/fmpm

===

On Loyalty

An Open Letter to US Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq

By STAN GOFF

You do not have to follow illegal orders EVER, under any circumstances, and you ARE bound by International Law. You should also be bound by what you know is right, by your sense of plain common decency.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9158.htm

http://snipurl.com/fmpn

===

Camilo Mejia: An American We Can All Be Proud Of

The Objector

It's a really scary thing to stand up to a captain or a colonel and say, "No, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to humiliate this man." And out of fear you do things like that.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9154.htm

http://snipurl.com/fmpo

===

In case you missed it:

Seymour Hersh : The US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison:

"The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

Real video and transcript.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article6492.htm

http://snipurl.com/fmpp

WHATS THIS? THEY STARTING TO RUN SCARED, FOR ALL THEIR LIES,
SHAME ON YOU WESLEY CLARK, JOINING RANKS WITH A BUNCH OF LYING BUSH LAP DOGS.

Fox News signs Wesley Clark
RAW STORY
From a snippet in the Baltimore Sun.:

Fox News Channel has signed Gen. Wesley Clark as a military and foreign affairs analyst, Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming, said yesterday.
Clark, briefly a candidate in the 2004 Democratic primary before throwing his support behind Sen. John Kerry, said, "I am excited by this opportunity to ... offer my perspective to the important issues facing the United States and the global community."

Clark spent more than 30 years in the U.S. Army where he rose to the rank of four-star general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander from 1997 to 2000. Clark holds a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes scholar.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Fox_News_signs_Wesley_Cl_0616.html

Scientists make blood from stem cells

Using human stem cells, Australian scientists have made human blood.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=8809066&src=rss/scienceNews

Act of Now for Impeachment 

Is this verified?

Press release from the office of Congressman Steny H. Hoyer, House
Democratic Whip:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 17, 2005
CONTACT:
Stacey Farnen Bernards
(202) 225 - 3130

Hoyer Introduces Bipartisan Bill to Repeal 22nd Amendment
Resolution Would Repeal Two-Term Limit for President, Restore Power to the
People

WASHINGTON, DC – House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) introduced
bipartisan legislation today to repeal the 22nd amendment, which states that
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Representatives Berman (D-CA), Pallone (D-NJ), Sabo (D-MN) and Sensenbrenner
(R-WI) joined Hoyer in sponsoring the resolution.

Representative Hoyer released the following statement regarding the
resolution:

“I introduced today a joint resolution to repeal outright the 22nd Amendment
to the Constitution. The 22nd Amendment requires that no person who has
served two terms, or who has served more than two years of another
President’s term and their own elected term, be permitted to serve another
term of office.

“The time has come to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, and not
because of partisan politics. While I am not a supporter of the current
President, I feel there are good public policy reasons for a repeal of this
amendment. Under the Constitution as altered by the 22nd Amendment, this
must be President George W. Bush’s last term even if the American people
should want him to continue in office. This is an undemocratic result.

Last week we launched our effort to draft Judge Ed Prado for the next Supreme Court vacancy. This week we describe some of the issues that are at stake in the coming debate about Supreme Court vacancies and why we are promoting Judge Ed Prado.

The separation of church and state and the preservation of religious liberty. The Supreme Court will be charged with maintaining both the guarantees of free exercise of religion and the boundaries between religious practice and government policy.

The promise of civil rights. In the coming decades, the Supreme Court will have the power to build on its legacy as a guarantor of all our civil rights or it could become an instrument that slowly erodes those fundamental liberties.

The right to privacy. The Supreme Court will be the forum that can guarantee the basic freedoms of Americans to live their lives as they themselves see fit. On these issues, and others, Judge Edward Prado has demonstrated a balanced, independent approach in his 21 years on the federal bench (read about his record here). We need to send a message to President Bush that we want a mainstream, thoughtful jurist on the Court, like Judge Prado. We need your help make sure that message is heard. Here is what you can do right now:

Send a message to President Bush. We want an experienced moderate on the Supreme Court.
Tell your friends about DraftPrado. We need your help to spread the word.
Check out the coverage of DraftPrado. Click here to see a story about DraftPrado on CNN. Thank you, Arkadi, Marc, Tim, and the entire StartChange team

This morning, I appeared as a guest on Talk Radio WMET, a FOX radio affiliate, in Washington, D.C. Steve Eldridge, who has covered this story extensively from the start, was today's host.

The interview is now available on HonestChief.com. When you have a free moment, visit HonestChief.com, and click on the link to the audio library to hear the interview.

Please keep the story alive and help spread the word by forwarding this email to one or more persons who might not have received this message.
Thanks for all you do and for continuing to support me and my family. We'll keep you posted!

Teresa Chamberstcchambers@honestchief.comwww.honestchief.com

House Votes To Curb Patriot Act

Conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, join with liberal Democrats in handing President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the legislation.


Bush Is Expected to Address Specifics on Iraq

The downturn in public opinion about the Iraq war is forcing President Bush to take a more public role in reassuring Americans about the plan for victory.


Exit Strategy on Social Security Is Sought

With the Senate Finance Committee at an impasse on Social Security and House leaders anxious about moving forward, Republican congressional leaders have told the White House in recent days that it is time to look for an escape route.

Live Links

Bring Them Home.  

Art for Girls. 

Greg Palast Submits Testimony

Palast for Conyers: The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and
Pennsylvania Avenue

Greg Palast, unable to attend hearings in Washington Thursday, has
submitted the following testimony:

Chairman Conyers,

It's official: The Downing Street memos, a snooty New York Times "News Analysis" informs us, "are not the Dead Sea Scrolls." You are warned,
Congressman, to ignore the clear evidence of official mendacity and
bald-faced fibbing by our two nations' leaders because the cry for
investigation came from the dark and dangerous world of "blogs" and
"opponents" of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush.

On May 5, "blog" site Buzzflash.com carried my story, IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED," bringing the London Times report of the Downing Street memo to US media which seemed to be suffering at the time from an attack of NADD -- "news attention deficit disorder."

The memo, which contains the ill-making admission that "the
intelligence and facts were being fixed" to match the Iraq-crazed fantasies of our President, is sufficient basis for a hearing toward impeachment of the Chief Executive. But to that we must add the other evidence and secret memos and documents still hidden from the American public.

Other foreign-based journalists could doubtless add more, including the
disclosure that the key inspector of Iraq's biological weapons, the
late Dr. David Kelly, found the Bush-Blair analysis of his intelligence
was indeed "fixed," as the Downing Street memo puts it, around the
war-hawk policy.

Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and
broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil.

February 2001 - Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney
inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator.

On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained,

"It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was
to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime."

March 2001 - Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company
executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq. Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose. Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose -- see below.

October/November 2001 - An easy military victory in Afghanistan
emboldens then-Dep. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to convince the
Administration to junk the State Department "coup" plan in favor of an invasion and occupation that could remake the economy of Iraq. And elaborate plan, ultimately summarized in a 101-page document, scopes out the "sale of all state enterprises" -- that is, most of the nation's assets, "… especially in the oil and supporting industries."

2002 - Grover Norquist and other corporate lobbyists meet secretly with
Defense, State and Treasury officials to ensure the invasion plans for
Iraq include plans for protecting "property rights." The result was a
pre-invasion scheme to sell off Iraq's oil fields, banks, electric
systems, and even change the country's copyright laws to the benefit of the lobbyists' clients. Occupation chief Paul Bremer would later order
these giveaways into Iraq law.

Fall 2002 - Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil USA, is brought in
by the Pentagon to plan the management of Iraq's oil fields. He works
directly with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. "There were plans,"
says Carroll, "maybe even too many plans" -- but none disclosed to the
public nor even the US Congress.

January 2003 - Robert Ebel, former CIA oil analyst, is sent, BBC
learns, to London to meet with Fadhil Chalabi to plan terms for taking over Iraq's oil.

March 2003 - What White House spokesman Ari Fleisher calls "Operations Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) begins. (Invasion is re-christened "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

March 2003 - Defense Department is told in confidence by US Energy
Information Administrator Guy Caruso that Iraq's fields are incapable of a massive increase in output. Despite this intelligence, Dep. Secretary
Wolfowitz testifies to Congress that invasion will be a free ride. He
swears, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be
U.S. taxpayer money. …We're dealing with a country that can really
finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon," a deliberate
fabrication promoted by the Administration, an insider told BBC, as "part of the sales pitch" for war.

May 2003 - General Jay Garner, appointed by Bush as viceroy over Iraq,
is fired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The general revealed in
an interview for BBC that he resisted White House plans to sell off
Iraq's oil and national assets.

"That's just one fight you don't want to take on," Garner told me. But
apparently, the White House wanted that fight.

The general also disclosed that these invade-and-grab plans were
developed long before the US asserted that Saddam still held WDM:

"All I can tell you is the plans were pretty elaborate; they didn't
start them in 2002, they were started in 2001."

November/December 2003 - Secrecy and misinformation continues even ter the invasion. The oil industry objects to the State Department plans for Iraq's oil fields and drafts for the Administration a 323-page
plan, "Options for [the] Iraqi Oil Industry." Per the industry plan, the
US forces Iraq to create an OPEC-friendly state oil company that
supports the OPEC cartel's extortionate price for petroleum.


The Stone Wall

Harper's and BBC obtained the plans despite official denial of their
existence, then footdragging when confronted with the evidence of the
reports' existence.

Still today, the State and Defense Departments and White House continue to stonewall our demands for the notes of the meetings between
lobbyists, oil industry consultants and key Administration officials that would reveal the hidden economic motives for the war.

What are the secret interests behind this occupation? Who benefits?
Who met with whom? Why won't this Administration release these
documents of the economic blueprint for the war?

To date, the State and Defense Department responses to our reports are
risible, and their answers to our requests for documents run from
evasive to downright misleading. Maybe Congress, with it's power of
subpoena, can do better.


Blogs, the Media and Democracy

Let me conclude with a comment about those pesky "blogs" that so bother the New York Times. We should stand and offer a moment of quiet gratitude to the electronic swarm of gadfly commentators who make it so much harder for the US media to ignore news not officially blessed. Yes, Judith Miller's breathless reports for The Times that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction may have maintained "access" for the mainstream press to its diet of White House propaganda, but the blogs insure that, whatever nonsense the US press is biting on, the public need not swallow.



********
This week Greg Palast's investigative team was named winner of a 2004-5 Project Censored award from the California State University at Sonoma Journalism School for their exposé of the secret US plans to seize
Iraq's oil assets. Special thanks to the chief investigator on Iraq, Leni
von Eckardt, as well as additional support from Matt Pascarella. The
investigation was conducted for Harper's Magazine, BBC Television
Newsnight and "blog" outlet TomPaine.com.

View the BBC television reports and the Harper's and related reports at
www.GregPalast.com

Arlington... Let us NEVER forget the price they have paid for us. 

Arlington

Arlington

I never thought that this is where I’d settle down

I thought I’d die an old man back in my hometown

They gave me this plot of land

Me and some other men

For a job well done

There’s a big white house, sits on a hill, just up the road

The man inside, he cried the day they brought me home

They folded up a flag

And told my mom and dad

‘We’re proud of your son’

And I’m proud to be on this peaceful piece of property

I’m on sacred ground, and I’m in the best of company

I’m thankful for those thankful for the things I’ve done

I can rest in peace, I’m one of the chosen ones

I made it to Arlington

I remember Daddy brought me here when I was eight

We searched all day to find out where my granddad lay

When we finally found that cross

He said ‘Son, this is what it costs

To keep us free’

Now here I am, a thousand stones away from him

He recognized me on the first day I came in

And it gave me a chill

When he clicked his heels

And saluted me

And I’m proud to be on this peaceful piece of property

I’m on sacred ground, and I’m in the best of company

I’m thankful for those thankful for the things

I’ve done I can rest in peace, I’m one of the chosen ones

I made it to Arlington

And every time I hear twenty-one guns

I know they brought another hero home to us

We’re thankful for those thankful for the things we’ve done

We can rest in peace, ‘cause we are the chosen ones

We made it to Arlington

Yeah, dust to dust

Don’t cry for us

We made it to Arlington

by Trace Adkins

Kangaroo Australia
From Down Under

Shame on you Mr Powell,
oh what lies you did tell to the World Community

The rush to invade Iraq - the inside story Pt. I

At one point, according to several witnesses, Powell tossed several documents in the air and snapped, "This is b*******!"

Says it All

How badly does the U.S. need Abu Ghraib and Gitmo?

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prison have come to symbolise all that is wrong with the "war on terror", but at what cost will the U.S. keep them?

Activists gather on Capitol Hill to protest the Bolton's nomination
as U.S. ambassador to the UN

Partisan politics delay John Boltons confirmation

The confirmation of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN remains deadlocked as the situation turns into partisan politics.

Bomb kills five U.S. marines W. Iraq
6/16/2005 10:00:00 AM
Five U.S. marines were killed in Iraq
when their vehicle struck a bomb near Ramadi,
the U.S. military said Thursday.

Memo: Pentagon Concerned About Legality of Interrogation Techniques
Document Shows Top Pentagon Officials Warned About Guantanamo Bay Interrogation Tactics
//
June 15, 2005 — The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws, ABC News has learned.

Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 — obtained by ABC News — show that Alberto Mora, General Counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law.

During a January 2003 meeting involving top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes and other officials, the memo shows that Mora warned that "use of coercive techniques … has military, legal, and political implication … has international implication … and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution."

Mora's deep concerns about interrogations at Guantanamo have been known, but not his warning that top officials could go to prison.

In another meeting held March 8, 2003, the group of top Pentagon lawyers concluded — according to the memo — "we need a presidential letter approving the use of the controversial interrogation to cover those who may be called upon to use them."

No such letter was issued.

White House: Tactics Are Legal

Today, the White House insisted that tactics used at Guantanamo Bay are now — and have been — legal.

"All interrogation techniques that have been approved are lawful and consistent with our obligations," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

In another internal memo obtained by ABC News, a Navy psychologist observing the interrogation warned that the tactics used against Mohammed al Qahtani — dubbed "the 20th hijacker" — revealed "a tendency to become increasingly more aggressive without having a definite boundary."

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said on Tuesday that interrogating al Qahtani had produced results.

Continued1. 2. NEXT»

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=852458&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Art for Everyone 

Palast for Conyers: The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue

Greg Palast, unable to attend hearings in Washington Thursday, has submitted the following testimony:

Chairman Conyers,

It's official: The Downing Street memos, a snooty New York Times "News Analysis" informs us, "are not the Dead Sea Scrolls." You are warned, Congressman, to ignore the clear evidence of official mendacity and bald-faced fibbing by our two nations' leaders because the cry for investigation came from the dark and dangerous world of "blogs" and "opponents" of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush.

On May 5, "blog" site Buzzflash.com carried my story, IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED," bringing the London Times report of the Downing Street memo to US media which seemed to be suffering at the time from an attack of NADD -- "news attention deficit disorder."

The memo, which contains the ill-making admission that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" to match the Iraq-crazed fantasies of our President, is sufficient basis for a hearing toward impeachment of the Chief Executive. But to that we must add the other evidence and secret memos and documents still hidden from the American public.

Other foreign-based journalists could doubtless add more, including the disclosure that the key inspector of Iraq's biological weapons, the late Dr. David Kelly, found the Bush-Blair analysis of his intelligence was indeed "fixed," as the Downing Street memo puts it, around the war-hawk policy.

Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil.

February 2001 - Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator.

On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained,

"It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime."

March 2001 - Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq. Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose. Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose -- see below.

October/November 2001 - An easy military victory in Afghanistan emboldens then-Dep. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to convince the Administration to junk the State Department "coup" plan in favor of an invasion and occupation that could remake the economy of Iraq. And elaborate plan, ultimately summarized in a 101-page document, scopes out the "sale of all state enterprises" -- that is, most of the nation's assets, "… especially in the oil and supporting industries."

2002 - Grover Norquist and other corporate lobbyists meet secretly with Defense, State and Treasury officials to ensure the invasion plans for Iraq include plans for protecting "property rights." The result was a pre-invasion scheme to sell off Iraq's oil fields, banks, electric systems, and even change the country's copyright laws to the benefit of the lobbyists' clients. Occupation chief Paul Bremer would later order these giveaways into Iraq law.

Fall 2002 - Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil USA, is brought in by the Pentagon to plan the management of Iraq's oil fields. He works directly with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. "There were plans," says Carroll, "maybe even too many plans" -- but none disclosed to the public nor even the US Congress.

January 2003 - Robert Ebel, former CIA oil analyst, is sent, BBC learns, to London to meet with Fadhil Chalabi to plan terms for taking over Iraq's oil.

March 2003 - What White House spokesman Ari Fleisher calls "Operations Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) begins. (Invasion is re-christened "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

March 2003 - Defense Department is told in confidence by US Energy Information Administrator Guy Caruso that Iraq's fields are incapable of a massive increase in output. Despite this intelligence, Dep. Secretary Wolfowitz testifies to Congress that invasion will be a free ride. He swears, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. …We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon," a deliberate fabrication promoted by the Administration, an insider told BBC, as "part of the sales pitch" for war.

May 2003 - General Jay Garner, appointed by Bush as viceroy over Iraq, is fired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The general revealed in an interview for BBC that he resisted White House plans to sell off Iraq's oil and national assets.

"That's just one fight you don't want to take on," Garner told me. But apparently, the White House wanted that fight.

The general also disclosed that these invade-and-grab plans were developed long before the US asserted that Saddam still held WDM:

"All I can tell you is the plans were pretty elaborate; they didn't start them in 2002, they were started in 2001."

November/December 2003 - Secrecy and misinformation continues even after the invasion. The oil industry objects to the State Department plans for Iraq's oil fields and drafts for the Administration a 323-page plan, "Options for [the] Iraqi Oil Industry." Per the industry plan, the US forces Iraq to create an OPEC-friendly state oil company that supports the OPEC cartel's extortionate price for petroleum.

The Stone Wall

Harper's and BBC obtained the plans despite official denial of their existence, then footdragging when confronted with the evidence of the reports' existence.

Still today, the State and Defense Departments and White House continue to stonewall our demands for the notes of the meetings between lobbyists, oil industry consultants and key Administration officials that would reveal the hidden economic motives for the war.

What are the secret interests behind this occupation? Who benefits? Who met with whom? Why won't this Administration release these documents of the economic blueprint for the war?

To date, the State and Defense Department responses to our reports are risible, and their answers to our requests for documents run from evasive to downright misleading. Maybe Congress, with it's power of subpoena, can do better.

Blogs, the Media and Democracy

Let me conclude with a comment about those pesky "blogs" that so bother the New York Times. We should stand and offer a moment of quiet gratitude to the electronic swarm of gadfly commentators who make it so much harder for the US media to ignore news not officially blessed. Yes, Judith Miller's breathless reports for The Times that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction may have maintained "access" for the mainstream press to its diet of White House propaganda, but the blogs insure that, whatever nonsense the US press is biting on, the public need not swallow.

********
This week Greg Palast's investigative team was named winner of a 2004-5 Project Censored award from the California State University at Sonoma Journalism School for their exposé of the secret US plans to seize Iraq's oil assets. Special thanks to the chief investigator on Iraq, Leni von Eckardt, as well as additional support from Matt Pascarella. The investigation was conducted for Harper's Magazine, BBC Television Newsnight and "blog" outlet TomPaine.com.

View the BBC television reports and the Harper's and related reports at www.GregPalast.com