Radicals recruiting outside Sydney's mosques

By Eamonn Duff
July 24, 2005

A radical Islamic group linked to the London bombings, and outlawed in British universities and across the Middle East, has launched an underground recruitment campaign aimed at Muslim youth in Sydney.
The group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which describes suicide bombers as martyrs and openly advocates the destruction of Western ideals, held its second meeting behind closed doors in western Sydney on Friday night.
The British Home Office and Pakistan's intelligence agencies are investigating the group's links to Shehzad Tanweer, 22, one of the four suicide bombers who killed 56 people in London two weeks ago.
Sydney's mainstream Islamic community is believed to have warned the group, whose name means the Party of (Islamic) Liberation, to stop distributing material near local mosques in an effort to recruit young Muslims to its cause.
One leaflet declares "the war on Islam is reignited" and claims the London bombings are being used to "pressure the Muslims into blinding submission in the West".
Wassim Doureihi, a Hizb ut-Tahrir leader in Sydney, confirmed that a meeting of up to 30 new members had taken place on Friday night

He said there was no hard evidence linking either Tanweer or any other Hizb ut-Tahrir members to the London bombings. But he refused to denounce the attacks.
"It's unconstructive to expect the Muslim world to mobilise a response to these events when there is no solid information to act upon. We have snippets and circumstances but no hard evidence.
"But at the same time, what we know for sure, and what is obvious to the rest of the world, is the reality of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan … and for that reason, we can squarely point the blame at Western governments, whether it's America, the UK or Australia … in terms of what they have perpetrated."
The Federal Government will investigate ways of identifying, blocking and possibly deporting radical ideologues who promote terrorism in Australia.
Clerics and others who promoted training in terrorism could be charged with a new offence of "indirect incitement" to violence being considered by the Government.
Despite a blanket ban among college campuses across Britain, Hizb ut-Tahrir has resurfaced using different names, and continues to draw a strong following among Muslim students.
The group, however, has been under the terrorism microscope for several years. September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta made contact with Hizb ut-Tahrir members in Germany before the attack.
The party also boasts a large following in Central Asia and has been blamed for a spate of suicide bombing attacks and recent riots in Uzbekistan. It remains outlawed across the Middle East.
Sydney Muslim leaders yesterday expressed concerns about Hizb ut-Tahrir, which they described as a provocative fringe group not aligned to any of the larger Islamic organisations. One, who did not wish to be named, said: "They are opposed to integration, even with other Muslim groups. For these reasons, they're treated with disdain and have been asked to stop what they are doing."
Australian National University's director of terrorism studies, Clive Williams, said: "Hizb ut-Tahrir is an organisation promoting the desirability of a return to a fundamental period of Islam. There's no hard evidence of it advocating violence but there has been considerable cause for concern in the UK and other countries following reports of threats, links to bombings and the peddling of racism. To find out that a local chapter existed would not be desirable."
- With Kerry-Anne Walsh
The leaflet being distributed outside Sydney mosques.
Clerics and others who promoted training in terrorism could be charged with a new offence of "indirect incitement" to violence being considered by the Government.
Despite a blanket ban among college campuses across Britain, Hizb ut-Tahrir has resurfaced using different names, and continues to draw a strong following among Muslim students.
The group, however, has been under the terrorism microscope for several years. September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta made contact with Hizb ut-Tahrir members in Germany before the attack.
The party also boasts a large following in Central Asia and has been blamed for a spate of suicide bombing attacks and recent riots in Uzbekistan. It remains outlawed across the Middle East.
Sydney Muslim leaders yesterday expressed concerns about Hizb ut-Tahrir, which they described as a provocative fringe group not aligned to any of the larger Islamic organisations. One, who did not wish to be named, said: "They are opposed to integration, even with other Muslim groups. For these reasons, they're treated with disdain and have been asked to stop what they are doing."
Australian National University's director of terrorism studies, Clive Williams, said: "Hizb ut-Tahrir is an organisation promoting the desirability of a return to a fundamental period of Islam. There's no hard evidence of it advocating violence but there has been considerable cause for concern in the UK and other countries following reports of threats, links to bombings and the peddling of racism. To find out that a local chapter existed would not be desirable."
- With Kerry-Anne Walsh

He said there was no hard evidence linking either Tanweer or any other Hizb ut-Tahrir members to the London bombings. But he refused to denounce the attacks.
"It's unconstructive to expect the Muslim world to mobilise a response to these events when there is no solid information to act upon. We have snippets and circumstances but no hard evidence.
"But at the same time, what we know for sure, and what is obvious to the rest of the world, is the reality of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan … and for that reason, we can squarely point the blame at Western governments, whether it's America, the UK or Australia … in terms of what they have perpetrated."
The Federal Government will investigate ways of identifying, blocking and possibly deporting radical ideologues who promote terrorism in Australia.
Clerics and others who promoted training in terrorism could be charged with a new offence of "indirect incitement" to violence being considered by the Government.
Despite a blanket ban among college campuses across Britain, Hizb ut-Tahrir has resurfaced using different names, and continues to draw a strong following among Muslim students.
The group, however, has been under the terrorism microscope for several years. September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta made contact with Hizb ut-Tahrir members in Germany before the attack.
The party also boasts a large following in Central Asia and has been blamed for a spate of suicide bombing attacks and recent riots in Uzbekistan. It remains outlawed across the Middle East.
Sydney Muslim leaders yesterday expressed concerns about Hizb ut-Tahrir, which they described as a provocative fringe group not aligned to any of the larger Islamic organisations. One, who did not wish to be named, said: "They are opposed to integration, even with other Muslim groups. For these reasons, they're treated with disdain and have been asked to stop what they are doing."
Australian National University's director of terrorism studies, Clive Williams, said: "Hizb ut-Tahrir is an organisation promoting the desirability of a return to a fundamental period of Islam. There's no hard evidence of it advocating violence but there has been considerable cause for concern in the UK and other countries following reports of threats, links to bombings and the peddling of racism. To find out that a local chapter existed would not be desirable."
- With Kerry-Anne Walsh

http://www.theage.com.au/news/war-on-terror/radicals-recruiting-outside-sydneys-mosques/2005/07/23/1121539189118.html

Stressed US troops in Iraq 'turning to drugs'

By Thomas Harding in Baghdad(Filed: 23/07/2005)

Two years into the occupation of Iraq the menace of drug abuse appears to be afflicting American troops.

Aware of the debilitating effect drugs had on the morale and effectiveness of GIs in the Vietnam War, the authorities are attempting to stifle a repeat in Iraq.

Aside from random urine tests and barrack room searches, commanders have asked their troops to inform on colleagues.

In the past month a soldier has been arrested for selling cocaine and two per cent of the troops from one brigade have been charged with drug and alcohol abuse.

According to US army figures, out of the 4,000 men of the 256th Brigade Combat Team, 53 faced alcohol-related charges and 48 were charged with drug offences.

Since the overthrow of Saddam's regime the borders that have been so porous for insurgents have been equally open for heroin and hash smugglers from Afghanistan and Iran providing a cheap market for troops. With colleagues being killed or wounded on a daily basis, some US soldiers have turned to drugs to escape the horrors of fighting insurgents.

In one case, according to Stars and Stripes, the in-house US forces newspaper, Sgt Michael Boudreaux was found with drugs, four bottles of whiskey and 22 videos of Iraqi pornography. He received a seven month confinement, was demoted to private and given a bad conduct discharge.

In another case, Pte Emily Hamilton told a court martial that she used a hashish pipe belonging to a colleague because "it helped me go right to sleep". She was given a year's confinement and a bad conduct discharge.

"Some of these young soldiers just can't handle the stress," said Capt Christopher Krafchek, a military defence lawyer.

The majority of drug-users are in their teens or early 20s, and sometimes get their drugs from local Iraqis while on patrol in Baghdad.

Troops caught in possession of illegal substances are either jailed, demoted or discharged from the forces.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/23/wirq23.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/07/23/ixportal.html

Shoot to kill error echoes Irish dirty war

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED, IT IS NOW SHOOT TO KILL AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER, WELCOME TO THE NEW RULE OF LAW IF YOU ARE TRAVELLING TO ANOTHER COUNTRY.
WELCOME TO THE AFTER EFFECTS OF BUSHES BLAIRS, AND HOWARDS ILLEGAL WAR AND OCCUPATION OF IRAQ


July 24, 2005


When the stakes are high, police have no choice but to use controversial tactics, say Liam Clarke and Tony Geraghty

The five shots with which a policeman killed a terrorist suspect in London last week echoed round the world. From America to Australia and Asia, the killing made headlines and marked the crossing of a boundary.

Though the days when all British bobbies were thought to be unarmed have long passed, the clinical and close-quarter nature of the shooting was unprecedented in Britain. Police have previously shot men believed to be dangerous, but they have not stood over a prostrate figure and unloaded five rounds into him from point-blank range. To compound matters the police admitted yesterday he had nothing to do with the terror attacks.

However, London has never before faced suicide bombers. The stakes have become much higher, forcing new rules of engagement.

Friday’s killing was a direct result of aggressive new guidelines from Scotland Yard based on the experience of Israel and Sri Lanka in dealing with suicide bombers. British officers are now under instructions to shoot suspects in the head if they are believed to be suicide bombers posing an imminent danger.

A policy of “shoot-to-kill” echoes the darkest days of the Northern Irish troubles. And it raises worrying questions when applied in the much larger and more mixed communities of mainland Britain, and when the suspected terrorists are much more elusive and shadowy.

Today’s Muslim leaders, although supportive of law and order, are worried and demanding explanations. “There may well be reasons why the police felt it necessary to unload five shots into the man and shoot him dead, but they need to make those reasons clear,” said Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain.

Prophetically, a former senior Special Branch officer from Northern Ireland said: “I suspect that the authorities in England will make all the same mistakes as we did.”

Those errors include an operation in Gibraltar in 1988 when the SAS killed three IRA members in the belief that they were about to detonate a radio-controlled bomb. In reality the explosives were miles away and the three suspects were carrying no radio equipment.

Although the Gibraltar coroner’s court ruled that the killings had been lawful, the European Court of Human Rights later criticised the “lack of degree of caution in the use of firearms” by the SAS.
Specialist security forces, such as the recently formed Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), which has been drafted in to combat the present terror threat, are generally protected by law if they shoot first and ask questions later, provided they believe the suspect was a threat to the lives of others.

This proved to be the case when Diarmuid O’Neill, an unarmed IRA man, was shot dead in his Hammersmith flat in 1996. The officer who pulled the trigger told a coroner’s court: “His body language was aggressive, he leaned towards me.” The jury returned a verdict of lawful killing.
But the new policy to cope with suicide attacks is a step further. With suicide bombers there is no question of trying to stop suspects by wounding them: only immediate execution will do.

The threat and risks run far wider than London. Specialist firearms officers are being deployed on secondment to MI5, which is opening eight offices in cities including Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham. The aim is to increase the surveillance of terrorist suspects and to penetrate radical networks with informants.

The highly secretive SRR draws on members of the 14th Intelligence Company, and the Force Research Unit (FRU), which handled all military intelligence informers in Northern Ireland.
If the pattern of Northern Ireland is repeated, Asian servicemen will be encouraged to volunteer for covert duties. Some may “resign” from the army to return to their communities as undercover agents.

The past two weeks have given Britons a test of what is potentially in store in the weeks, months, even years ahead. It is a dangerous balance for everyone.

“You can’t be afraid to act if life is at stake,” said a former Northern Ireland Special Branch officer. “But if you alienate people you can hand the terrorists a long-term support base from which to operate.
”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1706149,00.html

Wonder Do The Bush Twins Also Sleep On Fine French Linens..?

Soldiers seek more

sacrifice on home front

RAW STORY

The Bush administration's rallying call that America is a nation at war is increasingly ringing hollow to men and women in uniform, who argue in frustration that America is not a nation at war, but a nation with only its military at war, Thom Shank reports in Sunday's New York Times. Excerpts follow.

#
From bases in Iraq and across the United States to the Pentagon and the military's war colleges, officers and enlisted personnel quietly raise a question for political leaders: if America is truly on a war footing, why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?

There is no serious talk of a draft to share the burden of fighting across the broad citizenry, and neither Republicans nor Democrats are pressing for a tax increase to force Americans to cover the $5 billion a month in costs from Iraq, Afghanistan and new counterterrorism missions.

There are not even concerted efforts like the savings-bond drives or gasoline rationing that helped to unite the country behind its fighting forces in wars past.

"Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," said one officer just back from a yearlong tour in Iraq, voicing a frustration now drawing the attention of academic specialists in military sociology.

Members of the military who discussed their sense of frustration did so only when promised anonymity, as comments viewed as critical of the civilian leadership could end their careers. The sentiments were expressed in more than two dozen interviews and casual conversations with enlisted personnel, noncommissioned officers, midlevel officers, and general or flag officers in Iraq and in the United States.

Charles Moskos, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University specializing in military sociology, said: "My terminology for it is 'patriotism lite,' and that's what we're experiencing now in both political parties. The political leaders are afraid to ask the public for any real sacrifice, which doesn't speak too highly of the citizenry."

Senior administration officials say they

are aware of the tension and have

opened discussions on whether to

mobilize brigades of Americans beyond

those already signed up for active duty or

in the Reserves and National Guard. At the Pentagon and the State Department, officials have held preliminary talks on creating a Civilian Reserve, a sort of Peace Corps for professionals.

---Is it just me..or didn't the ANONYMOUS stuff get us into an ILLEGAL WAR recently; AND is there a window open? I feel a draft.---

"You do your job in your country. I do my job in my country."

Pakistani Leader Takes on Blair

Highlights From Cynthia McFadden's Interview With Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, right, insists Pakistan is working hard to crack down on extremism. (ABC News)

July 21, 2005 — Prior to the second London subway incident in two weeks, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf spoke with ABC News' Cynthia McFadden: and answered questions about extremists in his own country, the search for Osama bin Laden and accusations that the mastermind of the first London terror bombing is in Pakistan. Here is a selection of highlights from their discussion and sit-down interview.

Musharraf Takes on Blair

There are religious leaders who indulge in extremism and hate campaigns within London. Have they arrested any of them? Please set your house in order first. Because this indoctrination of youngsters is happening in England. These three came from there. They've been born there, they've been educated there. How is Pakistan to blame? So please stop casting aspersion"

"You do your job in your country. I do my job in my country."

"What have you done? There hasn't been anybody here passing an edict against Mr. Prime Minister Tony Blair. But here sitting in London they passed an edict against me. Nothing has been done."



Fatwahs in London Against Musharraf

"I'd like to ask — there are two extremist organizations in … London …. Do you know that they passed an edict, a fatwah against me? That killing me is, should be — they passed an edict to kill me … What did England do about this? Have they banned these organizations? Have they arrested the person who has done that? No, nothing. Nothing. In the name of human rights, in the name of liberty, human liberty, freedom of speech, this is going on. So why blame us? Please set your own house in order. Everyone has to do something. The world is in turmoil."


Interview Highlights: On Bin Laden

McFadden: If you found him, would you turn him over to the Americans?

Musharraf: Now this — we'll see — we'll see what happens.

McFadden: Hard issue.

Musharraf: We hope he's found in Afghanistan by the Americans.

McFadden: I bet. [both chuckle a bit]. It would raise enormous problems for you at home … Many have suggested that it is easier for Pakistan to have Osama bin Laden not captured than to have to deal with the reality of Osama bin Laden in captivity.

Musharraf: These are sensitive issues. He has a clout in certain brand of people. So … therefore I would much prefer that somebody else handled him.

McFadden: Which makes me think you are not looking quite as hard as you might.

Musharraf: [laughing] No, not at all. We are. Our intelligence is very well coordinated, by the way. If we are not looking very intensively for him, then the United States is also not looking for him. Our intelligence is extremely well coordinated. By the way, let me also tell you — as I said there are three: human intelligence is all Pakistan; technological, you must understand, is more United States. Aerial surveillance is United States, OK? So if there's an intelligence failure, 2/3 is United States failure, 1/3 Pakistan. You must understand that.

Continues... Here

'I saw it all. He was dead, five shots'

'I looked at his face ... He was absolutely petrified'

James Burleigh and Ben Fenton
The Daily Telegraph
Saturday, July 23, 2005

LONDON - The events that led to the shooting of a man on a Northern Line Tube train yesterday began around 10 a.m.

The man, who several witnesses said was wearing an unseasonably warm overcoat or jacket, was walking toward Stockwell Tube station.

It is thought police had been following him for some time, perhaps from an address where he had been staying overnight. Sources said the man was not the one who fled from Oval station, a few hundred metres up the road, after his backpack bomb failed to detonate on Thursday.

One witness suggested that as the man neared Stockwell station, he realized he was being followed, but it is equally likely police decided they could not take the risk of allowing a suspected suicide bomber back on to the underground network.

In any case, the pace of events accelerated from this point. Chris Wells, a 28-year-old company manager, said he saw about 20 police, some of them armed, rushing into the station.

"They were carrying big black guns. The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting 'get out, get out.' "

The fugitive ran down the escalator to the Northern Line, the deeper of two lines that run through Stockwell. There he tried to get on a train that was waiting at the platform.

One of the passengers, Mark Whitby, 47, said, "I heard people shouting, 'Get down, get down.' An Asian guy ran on to the train and I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit -- he was absolutely petrified."

He added: "The man half tripped and was then pushed to the floor by three plain-clothes police officers who were pursuing him.

"One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. He held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him.

"I saw it all. He was dead, five shots. I was literally less than five yards away."

After the shooting, Mr. Whitby threw himself to the ground.

"I was crouched down and worried about bullets flying around. The other passengers were distraught. It was just mayhem.

"People were desperate to get off the Tube. There were people running in all directions, looks of horror on their faces, a lot of screaming from women. There was also a noticeable smell of cordite, that acrid sort of gunpowder smell.' "

Another passenger, Jason Dines, was on a train stopped at a platform opposite the shooting when he saw "all hell break loose."

"I saw from the window there was suddenly a contagious wave of panic sweeping across the platform. It was not constructive.

"People were trying to get out. We hadn't heard anything and didn't know what was happening. Suddenly everyone on my train started banging on the windows trying to get out of the carriages and get out of the station.

"People were screaming for them to open the doors but they wouldn't. Then suddenly they did and all hell broke loose and people were running everywhere."

Outside, Duarte Osty, the 26-year-old driver of the P5 bus, was just approaching the station when he suddenly saw hundreds of people running out of the building.

"I must have arrived just seconds after the shooting," Mr. Osty said. "I saw police rushing straight into the station and I was asked to stop my bus. Within two minutes at least 20 police cars had arrived at the scene and a helicopter was circling overhead.

"It seemed as though they were expecting something to happen the way they came so fast."

Terror in London

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=af75b20e-7118-4e05-b105-2d65bfa5251c

Police: Brazilian shot not tied to bombs

NO QUESTIONS ASKED,

SHOOT TO KILL, THEN ASK

THE QUESTIONS.



Saturday, July 23, 2005 Posted: 2107 GMT (0507 HKT)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Police say the man they shot dead at a London Underground station was a Brazilian national "not connected" with this week's attempted bombings on the city's transit system.

London police identified the man as 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes.

"For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets," the police statement said Saturday.

During a news conference following Friday's shooting, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said "this shooting is directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation."
Despite the apparent setback, Blair said Saturday he was pleased with the probe and the work that investigators are doing.

"I think the Metropolitan Police [are] performing absolutely outstandingly, and I'm very proud of them," he said.

De Menezes on Friday left a south London apartment building that had been under surveillance as part of the investigation into the attempted bombings Thursday.

Officers followed him to the Stockwell Underground station. The man's "clothing and suspicious behavior at the station added to their suspicions," a police statement said.

He challenged police and refused to obey orders before he was shot and killed Friday morning, Blair said Friday.

A witness to the shooting, Mark Whitby, said he was sitting on the train when "I heard a lot of shouting."

"I saw a chap run on to the train," Whitby said. "He was running so fast he half sort of tripped. He was being pursued by three guys. One had a black handgun in his hand."
"As he sort of went down, two of them sort of dropped on to him to hold him down, and the other one fired. I heard five shots."

I WONDER IS HE UNDERSTOOD THEM, OR WAS JUST PLAIN SCARED.

THEY HAD HIM DOWN ON THE GROUND, THEY HAD HIM, AND THEN SHOT HIM, NO QUESTIONS ASK.

WE HAVE BUSHES LAW AROUND THE WORLD NOW

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/23/london.tube/index.html

'Shoot-to-kill' demand by US

Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday November 16, 2003The Observer

Home Secretary David Blunkett has refused to grant diplomatic immunity to armed American special agents and snipers travelling to Britain as part of President Bush's entourage this week.

In the case of the accidental shooting of a protester, the Americans in Bush's protection squad will face justice in a British court as would any other visitor, the Home Office has confirmed.

The issue of immunity is one of a series of extraordinary US demands turned down by Ministers and Downing Street during preparations for the Bush visit.

These included the closure of the Tube network, the use of US air force planes and helicopters and the shipping in of battlefield weaponry to use against rioters.

In return, the British authorities agreed numerous concessions, including the creation of a 'sterile zone' around the President with a series of road closures in central London and a security cordon keeping the public away from his cavalcade.

The White House initially demanded the closure of all Tube lines under parts of London to be visited during the trip. But British officials dismissed the idea that a suicide bomber could kill the President by blowing up a Tube train. Ministers are also believed to have dismissed suggestions that a 'sterile zone' around the President should be policed entirely by American special agents and military.

Demands for the US air force to patrol above London with fighter aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters have also been turned down.

The President's protection force will be armed - as Tony Blair's is when he travels abroad - and around 250 secret service agents will fly in with Bush, but operational control will remain with the Metropolitan Police.

The Americans had also wanted to travel with a piece of military hardware called a 'mini-gun', which usually forms part of the mobile armoury in the presidential cavalcade. It is fired from a tank and can kill dozens of people. One manufacturer's description reads: 'Due to the small calibre of the round, the mini-gun can be used practically anywhere. This is especially helpful during peacekeeping deployments.'

Ministers have made clear to Washington that the firepower of the mini-gun will not be available during the state visit to Britain. In return, the Government has agreed to close off much of Whitehall during the visit - the usual practice in Britain is to use police outriders to close roads as the cavalcade passes to cause minimal disruption to traffic.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'Negotiations between here and the US have been perfectly amicable. If there have been requests, they have not posed any problems.'

An internal memo sent to Cabinet Office staff and leaked to the press this weekend urged staff to work from home if at possible during the presidential visit. Serious disruption would be caused by 'the President Bush vehicle entourage requesting cleared secured vehicle routes around London and the security cordons creating a sterile zone around him'.

Meanwhile, negotiations are continuing between police and demonstrators about the route of the march. Representatives of the Stop the War Coalition will meet police at Scotland Yard tomorrow to discuss whether protesters will be able to march through Parliament Square and Whitehall. Spokesman Andrew Burgin said he hoped for 'a good old-fashioned British compromise'.

BUSHES LAW WE WILL GET YOU INNOCENT OR GUILY OF ANY CRIME
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1086397,00.html

Art For Everyone

***

UK Police: Man Killed Unrelated to Probe

By Jill Lawless / Associated Press

LONDON - The man shot and killed on a subway car by London police in front of horrified commuters had

nothing to do with this month's

bombings on the city's transit system, police said Saturday in expressing their regrets.

A day earlier, the police commissioner said the man was "directly linked" to Thursday's attacks, in which bombs on three subway trains and a bus failed to detonate properly. No one was injured.

"For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets," a police spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.

The man, whose identity has not been released, was shot Friday at a subway station in the south London neighborhood of Stockwell. Witnesses said the man appeared to be South Asian and was wearing a heavy padded coat when police chased him into a subway car, pinned him to the ground and shot him in the head and torso.

A police spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity that the man was unconnected to Thursday's incidents, in which bombs placed on three subway cars and a double-decker bus failed to detonate properly.

Later, a Metropolitan Police official said on condition of anonymity that the man was "not believed to be connected in any way to any of the London bombings." The official requested anonymity because no official announcement had been made concerning a link to the July 7 attacks that killed 56 people, including four attackers.

Hours after the man was killed, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said the shooting was "directly linked" to the investigations.

"The man who was shot was under police observation because he had emerged from a house that was itself under observation because it was linked to the investigation of yesterday's incidents," police said Friday.

"He was then followed by surveillance officers to the station. His clothing and his behavior at the station added to their suspicions."

Police investigating Thursday's attacks also said Saturday they had arrested a second man in the same south London neighborhood where the shooting occurred and another person was detained.Contines if you can stomache it.

---WHAT A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT!!!---

OHHH NOW it the Geneva Convention Geneva Conventions

THE DUMBEST THING I'VE

HEARD TODAY IS....

Lane has argued that releasing pictures, even in redacted form, would violate Geneva Convention rules on prisoner treatment by subjecting detainees to additional humiliation or embarrassment.

---Insert rabid screaming here.---

From The British Publication New Nation, 2003

Click to enlarge for detail

WHY DOES MY 14 YEAR OLD KNOW MORE ABOUT BUSHS BACKGROUND THAN MOST OF HIS SUPPORTERS...?

Bush and busheviks = Torturers and Those That Excuse It.

White House Aims to Block

Legislation on Detainees

By Josh White and R. Jeffrey Smith
The Washington Post Go to Original
Saturday 23 July 2005

The Bush administration in recent days has been lobbying to block legislation supported by Republican senators that would bar the US military from engaging in "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees, from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not authorized by a new Army field manual.

Vice President Cheney met Thursday evening with three senior Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to press the administration's case that legislation on these matters would usurp the president's authority and - in the words of a White House official - interfere with his ability "to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack."

It was the second time that Cheney has met with Senate members to tamp down what the White House views as an incipient Republican rebellion. The lawmakers have publicly expressed frustration about what they consider to be the administration's failure to hold any senior military officials responsible for notorious detainee abuse in Iraq and the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

This week's session was attended by Armed Services Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and committee members John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). Warner and Graham last week chaired hearings that explored detainee abuse and interrogation tactics at Guantánamo Bay and the concerns of senior military lawyers that vague administration policies have left the door open to abuse.

Neither Cheney's office nor the lawmakers would say exactly what was discussed at the meeting, citing a routine pledge of confidentiality. But Cheney has long been the administration's chief defender of presidential prerogatives, and at the meeting he reiterated opposition to congressional intervention on the topic of detainee interrogations, according to a source privy to what happened.

The White House, in a further indication of its strong feelings, bluntly warned in a statement sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday that President Bush's advisers would urge him to veto the $442 billion defense bill "if legislation is presented that would restrict the President's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice."
The threat was a veiled reference to legislation drafted by McCain and being circulated among at least 10 Republican senators, Senate aides said. No effort has been made by McCain to cultivate Democratic support, although his aides predict he could get it easily. John Ullyot, a Warner spokesman, said that the senator has been working with McCain and Graham on detainee legislation and that "the matter continues to be studied." --YEAH ASSHOLE AND PEOPLE CONTINUE TO BE TORTURED!--

A spokeswoman for McCain, Andrea Jones, said yesterday that McCain plans to introduce the legislation next week. McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, has criticized the way detainees have been treated by US forces and is said by aides to want to cut off further abuse by requiring

that the military adhere to its own

Interrogation rules in all cases.

One McCain amendment would set uniform standards for interrogating anyone detained by the Defense Department and would limit interrogation techniques to those listed in the Army field manual on interrogation, now being revised. Any changes to procedures would require the defense secretary to appear before Congress.

It would further require that all foreign nationals in the custody or effective control of the US military must be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross - a provision specifically meant to block the holding of "ghost detainees" in Iraq, in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The provision would not apply to detainees in CIA custody at nonmilitary facilities.

Military investigations into the abuse in 2003 of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad disclosed that dozens were held without being registered at numerous prisons; the administration has said it needed to do so to conduct interrogations in isolation and to hide the identity of prisoners from other terrorists.

Another McCain amendment prohibits the "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in the custody of the US government. This provision, modeled after wording in the UN Convention Against Torture - which the United States has already ratified - is meant to overturn an administration position that the convention does not apply to foreigners outside the United States.

Graham, who has been outspoken on the need for Congress to get involved in the issue of detainee treatment, said in an interview that he intends to pursue additional amendments that would define the term "enemy combatant" for purposes of detention and regulate the military trials of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay.

Graham said he believes that his amendment would strengthen the president's ability to pursue the war on terror because it would give congressional support to the process of prosecuting detainees after they are transferred to Cuba, an issue that has been hotly contested in federal courts. "Every administration is reluctant to not have as much authority as possible," Graham said, adding that he has gotten mixed signals from the White House. "But we need congressional buy-in to Guantánamo."

The Republican effort is intended partly to cut off an effort by Senate Democrats to attach more stringent demands to the defense bill regarding detainees. One group, led by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), has proposed an amendment calling for an independent commission - similar to the Sept. 11 commission - to look into administration policies on interrogation and detainee abuse.

---Sick bastards...Here is my theory...Since bush himself is an accused rapist...(Just because she ate a bullet DOES NOT CLEAR UP the accusations against him)....I think BUSH himself GETS OFF on the pictures. And He KNOWS that his supporters WON'T like it at all if they knew he was BEATING OFF to the video tapes from Abu Ghraib of children being RAPED by SOLDIERS. I think thats WHY they VIDEO TAPED and PHOTOGRAPHED IT to begin with...

SO BUSH COULD GET OFF ON IT.

And don't even get me started on the OPEN RUMORS of SHARON being a pedophile, who likes dark LITTLE boys who CAN NOT speak a word of ENGLISH. Or Arabic.

WHY WOULD YOU VIDEO TAPE YOURSELF AND YOUR MEN RAPING CHILDREN.....??????? I bet bush knows....

SEE STORY THAT FOLLOWS ----

I Suppose Bush Supporters will say "We Tortured CHILDREN at Abu Ghraib...Because it was the RIGHT thing to do!!"...No?

By ~A!, Section News Link
Posted on Sat Jul 23,
2005 at 12:13:27 PM EST

Data is emerging, no matter how the administration attempts to hide it, that the new photos and video of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison include the torture of children.

Norway's Prime Minister's office says it plans to address the situation with the U.S. "in a very severe and direct way."

Could this mean losing yet another ally in the Iraq occupation? Amnesty International in Norway has said that Norway can no longer continue their occupation of Iraq, or their support of US policy in this matter.

And some countries, as Tom Tomorrow notes, actually listen to their activists.

While there isn't even an inkling of this in the US Mainstream media, all over the world people are beginning to read about the US abusing children at Abu Ghraib.

Der Spiegel

The Sunday Herald in Scotland has a piece on the abuse of children at the notorious prison:

From Iraq's Child Prisoners, written one year ago:

It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. “The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets,” he said in a statement given to investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. “Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door … and I saw [the soldier’s name is deleted] who was wearing a military uniform.” Hilas, who was himself threatened with being sexually assaulted in Abu Graib, then describes in horrific detail how the soldier raped “the little kid”.

Reports put a rough estimate of children in Abu Ghraib at 107. Remember that 70-90% of the people at Abu Ghraib were found to be innocent, and it translates into many innocent children being held to suffer for nothing.

The world is reading this, Norway is thinking of pulling out over it, and no one here knows anything about it. The media will ignore this story as long as they can, and it explains why President Bush does not want the new photos released.

Could it be that child abuse would turn even his staunchest supporters against him? Nevermind the abhorrence of such a thing on its very face.

I will close here with a quote from the man that Bush claims to live his life in homage to, Jesus of Nazareth:

'And whosoever shall offend one of [these] little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea'

~A!


--- OHHH let me guess busheviks...You were NEVER TOLD about the US allowing the RAPE of their children in OUR prisons... eh?....?... They video taped themselves doing it. And that is just what bush WANTED to happen to their kids...Imagine the pictures they took of their WOMEN.!!!

OHHHHH You were not TOLD of that EITHER?????

Wait Wait...Let me guess your defense of daddy bush and his merry bin laden money.....

Whhaaa Whhaaa Maybe Clinton Raped Your Baby!!----

Suspected Bomber, Not a Bomber, Shot in Back

Suspect shot dead 'had no bomb'
By Adam Fresco, Rajeev Syal and Steve Bird

ARMED undercover police chased and shot dead a man directly linked to the London bombers’ terror cell after he ran into a South London Underground station and tried to board a train.

It is understood that he was found not to have been carrying a bomb.

Three officers had followed him to Stockwell station after he emerged from a nearby house that police believed to be connected with Thursday’s attempted bombings.

The suspect, described as being of Asian appearance and wearing a thick, bulky jacket, vaulted over a ticket barrier when challenged by police and ran down the escalator and along the platform of the Northern Line.

When the armed officers reached the platform with their guns drawn, they shouted at everyone to get down. As waiting passengers and those already on a train that had pulled into the station dived to the floor, the suspect jumped on the train. Two witnesses said that as he entered the train he tripped, ending up half in and half out of the carriage, on all fours. Within seconds, as the clock tower outside the station chimed 10am, the officers caught up with the man and pushed him hard to the floor. Witnesses said that they then fired up to five bullets into him at close range, killing him instantly.

Anthony Larkin, 30, was waiting on the platform when he saw a man in a black bomber jacket and jeans running towards him being chased by the officers. Mr Larkin, a care assistant, from Hartlepool, Teesside, said: “The officers were shouting, ‘Get down, get down’. I immediately hit the ground. I saw the man fall over and then I heard two shots that I believe went into his back.

“There was lots of panicking, people ran screaming out of the station and they were keeping their heads down. I just got up and joined them, running as fast as I could.”

Continues...

Robbing the Cradle of Civilization

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson on Robbing the Cradle of Civilization

Another successful landmark has been reached in our occupation of Iraq: The World Monuments Fund has just placed the country on its list of the Earth's 100 most endangered sites. ("Widespread looting, military occupation, artillery fire, vandalism, and other acts of violence are devastating Iraq, long considered the cradle of human civilization.") This is the first time that the Fund has ever put a whole nation on its list and so represents a singular accomplishment for the Bush administration, which knew not -- and cared less -- what it wrought.

The destruction began as Baghdad fell. Words disappeared instantly. They simply blinked off the screen of Iraqi history, many of them forever. First, there was the looting of the National Museum. That took care of some of the earliest words on clay, including, possibly, cuneiform tablets with missing parts of the epic of Gilgamesh. Soon after, the great libraries and archives of the capital went up in flames and books, letters, government documents, ancient Korans, religious manuscripts, stretching back centuries -- all those things not pressed into clay, or etched on stone, or engraved on metal, just words on that most precious and perishable of all commonplaces, paper -- vanished forever. What we're talking about, of course, is the flesh of history. And it was no less a victim of the American invasion -- of the Bush administration's lack of attention to, its lack of any sense of the value of what Iraq held (other than oil) -- than the Iraqi people. All of this has been, in that grim phrase created by the Pentagon, "collateral damage."

Worse yet, the looting of antiquity, words and objects, not only never ended but seems to have accelerated. From well organized gangs of grave robbers to American engineers building bases to American soldiers taking souvenirs, the ancient inheritance not just of Iraqis but of all of us has simply headed south. According to Reuters, more than 1,000 Iraqi objects of antiquity have been confiscated at American airports; priceless cylinder seals are evidently selling on-line at eBay for a few hundred dollars apiece; and this represents just the tiniest fraction of what's gone. The process is not only unending, but in the chaos that is America's Iraq beyond counting or assessing accurately.

Though less attended to than the human costs of the war (which, in turn, have been poorly attended to), such crimes against history are no small matter, as Chalmers Johnson indicates below. Johnson, who produced Blowback, a now classic account of how we got to September 11, 2001 (though published well before those attacks occurred), and a singular study of American militarism, The Sorrows of Empire, is now working on the third volume of his Blowback Trilogy, Nemesis: The Crisis of the American Republic. The piece that follows offers an early glimpse into that book (not due to be published until late 2006). Tom

Continues...Link Here

Advance: Colleague of outed agent seeks to 'set the record straight'

Copy of my testimony to be presented on Friday, 22 July 2005 before a joint session of Congressional Democrats.

CORRECTING THE RECORD ON VALERIE PLAME / Larry C. Johnson

I submit this statement to the Congress in an effort to correct a malicious and disingenuous smear campaign that has been executed against a friend and former colleague, Valerie (Plame) Wilson. Neither Valerie, nor her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson has asked me to do anything on their behalf. I am speaking up because I was raised to stop bullies. In the case of Valerie Plame she is facing a gang of bullies that is being directed by the Republican National Committee

I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985 as a member of the Career Trainee Program. Senator Orin Hatch had written a letter of recommendation on my behalf and I believe that helped open the doors to me at the CIA. From the first day all members of my training class were undercover. In other words, we had to lie to our family and friends about where we worked. We could only tell those who had an absolute need to know where we worked. In my case, I told my wife. Most of us were given official cover, which means that on paper we worked for some other U.S. Government Agency. People with official cover enjoy the benefits of an official passport, usually a black passport--i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card. It accords the bearer the protections of the Geneva Convention.

Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. At the time I only knew her as Valerie P. Even though all of us in the training class held Top Secret Clearances, we were asked to limit our knowledge of our other classmates to the first initial of their last name. So, Larry J. knew Val P. rather than Valerie Plame. Her name did not become a part of my consciousness until her cover was betrayed by the Government officials who gave columnist Robert Novak her true name.

Although Val started off with official cover, she later joined a select group of intelligence officers a few years later when she became a NOC, i.e. a Non-Official Cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. She was using cover, which we now know because of the leak to Robert Novak, of the consulting firm Brewster-Jennings. When she traveled overseas she did not use or have an official passport. If she had been caught engaged in espionage activities while traveling overseas without the black passport she could have been executed.

We must put to bed the lie that she was not undercover. For starters, if she had not been undercover then the CIA would not have referred the matter to the Justice Department. Some reports, such as one in the Washington Times that Valerie Plame’s supervisor at the CIA, Fred Rustman, said she told friends and family she worked at the CIA and that her cover was light. These claims are not true. Rustman, who supervised Val in one of her earliest assignments, left the CIA in 1990 and did not stay in social contact with Valerie. His knowledge of Val’s cover is dated. He does not know what she has done during the past 15 years.

Val only told those with a need to know about her status in order to safeguard her cover, not compromise it. Val has never been a flamboyant, insecure person who felt the need to tell people what her “real” job was. She was content with being known as an energy consultant married to Joe Wilson and the mother of twins. Despite the repeated claims of representatives for the Republican National Committee, the Wilson’s neighbors did not know where Valerie really worked until Novak’s op-ed appeared.

I would note that not a single member of our training class has come forward to denounce Valerie or question her bona fides. To the contrary, those we have talked to have endorsed what those of us who have left the CIA are doing to defend her reputation and honor.

As noted in the joint letter submitted to Congressional leaders earlier this week, the RNC is repeating the lie that Valerie was nothing more than a glorified desk jockey and could not possibly have any cover worth protecting. To those such as Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, P. J. O'Rourke, and Representative Roy Blunt I can only say one thing—you are wrong. I am stunned that some political leaders have such ignorance about a matter so basic to the national security structure of this nation.

Robert Novak’s compromise of Valerie caused even more damage. It subsequently led to scrutiny of her cover company. This not only compromised her “cover” company but potentially every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company or with her.
Another false claim is that Valerie sent her husband on the mission to Niger. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee Report issued in July 2004, it is clear that the Vice President himself requested that the CIA provide its views on a Defense Intelligence Agency report that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. The Vice President’s request was relayed through the CIA bureaucracy to the Director of the Counter Proliferation Division at the CIA. Valerie worked for a branch in that Division.

The Senate Intelligence Report is frequently cited by Republican partisans as “proof” that Valerie sent her husband to Niger because she sent a memo describing her husband’s qualifications to the Deputy Division Chief. Several news personalities, such as Chris Matthews and Bill O’Reilly continue to repeat this nonsense as proof. What the Senate Intelligence Committee does not include in the report is the fact that Valerie’s boss had asked her to write a memo outlining her husband’s qualifications for the job. She did what any good employee does; she gave her boss what he asked for.

The decision to send Joe Wilson on the mission to Niger was made by Valerie’s bosses. She did not have the authority to sign travel vouchers, issue travel orders, or expend one dime of U.S. taxpayer dollars on her own. Yet, she has been singled out by the Republican National Committee and its partisans as a legitimate target of attack. It was Karl Rove who told Chris Matthews, “Wilson’s wife is fair game”.

What makes the unjustified and inappropriate attacks on Valerie Plame and her reputation so unfair is that there was no Administration policy position stipulating that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium in February 2002. That issue was still up in the air and, as noted by SSCI, Vice President Cheney himself asked for more information.

At the end of the day we are left with these facts. We went to war in Iraq on the premise that Saddam was reacquiring weapons of mass destruction. Joe Wilson was sent on a mission to Niger in response to a request initiated by the Vice President. Joe Wilson supplied information to the CIA that supported other reports debunking the claim that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger. When Joe went public with his information, which had been corroborated by the CIA in April 2003, the response from the White House was to call him a liar and spread the name of his wife around.

We sit here more than two years later and the storm of invective and smear against Ambassador Wilson and his wife, Valerie, continues. I voted for George Bush in November of 2000 because I wanted a President who knew what the meaning of “is” was. I was tired of political operatives who spent endless hours on cable news channels parsing words. I was promised a President who would bring a new tone and new ethical standards to Washington.

So where are we? The President has flip flopped and backed away from his promise to fire anyone at the White House implicated in a leak. We now know from press reports that at least Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are implicated in these leaks. Instead of a President concerned first and foremost with protecting this country and the intelligence officers who serve it, we are confronted with a President who is willing to sit by while political operatives savage the reputations of good Americans like Valerie and Joe Wilson. This is wrong.

Without firm action by President Bush to return to those principles he promised to follow when he came to Washington, I fear our political debate in this country will degenerate into an argument about what the meaning of “leak” is. We deserve people who work in the White House who are committed to protecting classified information, telling the truth to the American people, and living by example the idea that a country at war with Islamic extremists cannot expend its efforts attacking other American citizens who simply tried to tell the truth.

83 Die in Car Bombs at Egyptian Resort

By SARAH EL DEEB,
Associated Press Writer
link

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - A rapid series of car bombs and another blast ripped through a luxury hotel and a coffeeshop in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik early Saturday, killing at least 83, a hospital official said. Terrified European and Arab tourists fled into the night, and rescue workers said the death toll could still rise.

The attack, Egypt's deadliest terror hit ever, appeared well coordinated. Two car bombs, possibly by suicide attackers, went off simultaneously at 1:15 a.m. just more than 2 miles apart. A third bomb, believed hidden in a sack, detonated around the same time near a beachside walkway where tourists often stroll at night.

A total of 83 people had been confirmed dead, said Dr. Saeed Abdel Fattah, manager of the Sharm el-Sheik International Hospital where the victims were taken. Among the dead were two Britons, two Germans and an Italian, he added, and Czech officials said one Czech tourist was also killed. Rescue workers were still searching for victims at some attack scenes. Continues

Bush Administration Files 11th Hour Papers Blocking the Release of Darby CD Photos and Video Of Abu Ghraib Torture

.
Synopsis

On July 22, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) denounced the latest efforts of the Bush Administration to block the release of the Darby photos and videos depicting torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison facility. On June 2, 2004, CCR, along with the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace filed papers with the U.S. District Court, charging the Department of Defense and other government agencies with illegally withholding records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody. Since then, the organizations have been repeatedly rebuffed in their efforts to investigate what happened at the prison.


DISCRIPTION AND STATUS

In June, the government requested and received an extension from the judge stating that they needed time in order to redact the faces of the men, women and children believed to be shown in the photographs and videos. They were given until today to produce the images, but at the eleventh hour filed a motion to oppose the release of the photos and videos, based on an entirely new argument: they are now requesting a 7(F) exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold law enforcement-related information in order to protect the physical safety of individuals. Today’s move is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world.

Joseph Darby was the U.S reservist who turned over the photos and videos to U.S. Army officials and touched off the Abu Ghraib scandal in April 2004.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” stated Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We can not move forward from this scandal until we have a full public accounting and independent investigation into what happened at Abu Ghraib. The government cannot continue to hide evidence of torture. The time to release these photos and videos was a long time ago.”

Expectations are that the FOIA request will release more than 100 photos and 4 videos, all believed to document deplorable human rights violations by U.S. military personnel against Iraqi civilians.

Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, stated, “The public must be informed of what is being done in our name. It is this Administration that has put our troops at risk and caused world-wide anger by fostering policies that promote torture and refusing to hold those responsible publicly accountable.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights once more calls for a complete, transparent independent investigation into the torture and abuse of detainees that goes all the way up the chain of command and demands that the Administration apply the Geneva Conventions to every detainee being held in U.S. custody around the world.

This is part of the request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C.

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=imOUU2rj8m&Content=608

Waxman: 11 Security Breaches in Plame Case

By: Rep. Henry Waxman
Published: July 22, 2005 at 14:25

The disclosure of the covert identity of Valerie Plame Wilson in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert Novak has triggered a criminal investigation and led to calls for congressional investigations. The Novak column, however, appears to be only one of multiple leaks of Ms. Wilson's identity. A new fact sheet released today by Rep. Waxman documents that there appear to be at least 11 separate instances in which Administration officials disclosed information about Ms. Wilson's identity and association with the CIA.

New Fact Sheet Details Multiple Administration Security Breaches Involving Valerie Plame Wilson

On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak revealed that the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a covert CIA agent. This disclosure of classified information has triggered a criminal investigation by a Special Counsel and led to calls for congressional investigations.

The Novak column, however, appears to be only one of multiple leaks of Ms. Wilson's identity. As this fact sheet documents, there appear to be at least 11 separate instances in which Administration officials disclosed information about Ms. Wilson's identity and association with the CIA

.Under Executive Order 12958, the White House is required to investigate any reports of security breaches and take "prompt corrective action," such as suspending the security clearances of those involved. Unlike prosecutions for criminal violations, which require "knowing" and "intentional" disclosures, the executive order covers a wider range of unauthorized breaches, including the "negligent" release of classified information. There is no evidence that the White House has complied with its obligation to investigate any of the 11 reported instances of security breaches relating to Ms. Wilson or to apply administrative sanctions to those involved.

The Disclosures of Valerie Wilson's Identity

1. The Disclosure by Karl Rove to Columnist Robert Novak In a column dated July 14, 2003, Robert Novak first reported that Valerie Plame Wilson was "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."1 Mr. Novak cited "two senior administration officials" as his sources.2 According to multiple news reports, one of these two sources was Karl Rove, the Deputy White House Chief of Staff and the President's top political advisor.3 During a phone call on July 8, 2003, Mr. Rove confirmed for Mr. Novak that Ms. Wilson worked at the CIA. During this conversation, Mr. Novak referred to Ms. Wilson "by her maiden name, Valerie Plame," and said he had heard she was involved in "the circumstances in which her husband … traveled to Africa."4 Mr. Rove responded, "I heard that, too."5 Mr. Novak's name also appeared "on a White House call log as having telephoned Mr. Rove in the week before the publication of the July 2003 column."6

2. The Disclosure by a "Senior Administration Official" to Columnist Robert Novak In addition to his communications with Mr. Rove, Mr. Novak learned about Ms. Wilson's identity through communications with a second "senior administration official."7 Mr. Novak's second source has not yet been publicly identified. Mr. Novak has stated, however, that the source provided him with Ms. Wilson's identity. As he stated: "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me."8 He added: "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."9

3. The Disclosure by Karl Rove to TIME Reporter Matt Cooper During a phone call on July 11, 2003, Mr. Rove revealed to TIME reporter Matt Cooper that Ms. Wilson worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction.10 Mr. Cooper reported that this "was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife."11 Mr. Rove provided this information on "deep background," said that "things would be declassified soon," and stated, "I've already said too much."12

4. The Disclosure by Scooter Libby to TIME Reporter Matt Cooper During a phone call on July 12, 2003, TIME reporter Matt Cooper asked the Vice President's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby "if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger." 13 Mr. Libby replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or words to that effect.14 Mr. Libby provided this information "on background."15

5. The Disclosure by an "Administration Official" to Washington Post Reporter Walter Pincus On July 12, 2003, an "administration official" told Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus that "Wilson's trip to Niger was set up as a boondoggle by his CIA-employed wife."16 Mr. Pincus has not publicly identified his source, but has stated that it "was not Libby."17

6. The Disclosure by a "Top White House Official" to an Unidentified Reporter In addition making disclosures to Mr. Novak, Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Pincus, White House officials may have had conversations about Ms. Wilson with three other reporters about Ms. Wilson's identity. According to the Washington Post, a "senior administration official" confirmed that "before Novak's column ran on July 14, 2003, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."18 According to this official, "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge."19 Press reports suggest that one of these unidentified reporters may be NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.20

7. The Disclosure by a "Top White House Official" to an Unidentified Reporter In addition making disclosures to Mr. Novak, Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Pincus, White House officials may have had conversations about Ms. Wilson with three other reporters about Ms. Wilson's identity. According to the Washington Post, a "senior administration official" confirmed that "before Novak's column ran on July 14, 2003, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."21 According to this official, "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge."22 Press reports suggest that one of these unidentified reporters may be NBC Meet the Press host Tim Russert.23

8. The Disclosure by a "Top White House Official" to an Unidentified Reporter In addition making disclosures to Mr. Novak, Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Pincus, White House officials may have had conversations about Ms. Wilson with three other reporters about Ms. Wilson's identity. According to the Washington Post, a "senior administration official" confirmed that "before Novak's column ran on July 14, 2003, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."24 According to this official, "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge."25 Press reports suggest that one of these unidentified reporters may be MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews.26

9. The Disclosure by an Unidentified Source to Wall Street Journal Reporter David Cloud On October 17, 2003, Wall Street Journal reporter David Cloud reported that an internal State Department memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel "details a meeting in early 2002 where CIA officer Valerie Plame and other intelligence officials gathered to brainstorm about how to verify reports that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger."27 This "classified" document had "limited circulation," according to "two people familiar with the memo."28

10. The Disclosure by an Unidentified Source to James Guckert of Talon News On October 28, 2003, Talon News posted on its website an interview with Ambassador Joseph Wilson in which the questioner asked: "An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency or clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"29 Talon News is tied to a group called GOP USA30 and is operated by Texas Republican Robert Eberle.31 Its only reporter, James Guckert (also known as Jeff Gannon), resigned when it was revealed that he gained access to the White House using a false name after his press credentials were rejected by House and Senate press galleries.32 In a March 2004 interview with his own news service, Mr. Guckert stated that the classified document was "easily accessible."33 In a February 11, 2005, interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN, Mr. Guckert said the FBI interviewed him about "how I knew or received a copy of a confidential CIA memo," but he refused to answer FBI questions because of his status as a "journalist."34 A week later, Mr. Guckert changed his account, claiming he "was given no special information by the White House or by anybody else."35

11. The Disclosure by a "Senior Administration Official" to Washington Post Reporters Mike Allen and Dana Milbank On December 26, 2003, Washington Post reporters Mike Allen and Dana Milbank reported on details about the classified State Department memo, writing that it was authored by "a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research."36 The Post story was attributed to "a senior administration official who has seen" the memo.37 The Post also reported that the CIA was "angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets" and that the CIA "believes that people in the administration continue to release classified information to damage the figures at the center of the controversy, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, Valerie Plame."38

NOTES >>>continued

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_23080.shtml

The Iraq war is over, and the winner is... Iran

Hamstrung by the Iraq debacle, all Bush can do is gnash his teeth as the hated mullahs in Iran cozy up to their co-religionists in Iraq.
By Juan Cole
07/21/05 "Salon.com"

- - Iraq's new government has been trumpeted by the Bush administration as a close friend and a model for democracy in the region. In contrast, Bush calls Iran part of an axis of evil and dismisses its elections and government as illegitimate. So the Bush administration cannot have been filled with joy when Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and eight high-powered cabinet ministers paid an extremely friendly visit to Tehran this week.

The two governments went into a tizzy of wheeling and dealing of a sort not seen since Texas oil millionaires found out about Saudi Arabia. Oil pipelines, port access, pilgrimage, trade, security, military assistance, were all on the table in Tehran. All the sorts of contracts and deals that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had imagined for Halliburton, and that the Pentagon neoconservatives had hoped for Israel, were heading instead due east.

Jaafari's visit was a blow to the Bush administration's strategic vision, but a sweet triumph for political Shiism. In the dark days of 1982, Tehran was swarming with Iraqi Shiite expatriates who had been forced to flee Saddam Hussein's death decree against them. They had been forced abroad, to a country with which Iraq was then at war. Ayatollah Khomeini, the newly installed theocrat of Iran, pressured the expatriates to form an umbrella organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which he hoped would eventually take over Iraq.

Among its members were Jaafari and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. On Jan. 30, 2005, Khomeini's dream finally came true, courtesy of the Bush administration, when the Supreme Council and the Dawa Party won the Iraqi elections.

Jaafari, a Dawa Party activist working for an Islamic republic, had been in exile in Tehran from 1980 to 1989. A physician trained at Mosul, the reserved and somewhat inarticulate Jaafari studied Shiite law and theology as an auditor at the seminaries of Qom. His party, Dawa, was briefly part of SCIRI but in 1984 split with it to maintain its autonomy.>>>continued

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article9540.htm

CHINA FLOATS, AMERICA SINKS

Friday Jul 22, 2005
by Greg Palast

In case you haven't the least idea what the heck it means for China to "float" its currency, let me put it in the language we economists use: China's float don't mean squat.

Yet our President, a guy whose marks in Economics 101 are too embarrassing to publish here, ran out to hail the fact that buying Chinese money will now cost more dollars.

The White House line to the media, swallowed whole, is that by making Chinese money (yuan) more expensive to buy with dollars, Americans will buy fewer computers and toys from China -- and US employment will rise.

This will happen when we find Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Economics Lesson #1: You can't change the value of goods by changing the value of the currency on the price tag. As my comrade Art Laffer wrote me, "If cheap currency makes your products more competitive, all automobiles would be made in Russia." Driven a Lada lately?

Economics Lesson #2: Don't take economics lessons from George Bush. Or Milton Friedman. Or Thomas Friedman. What that means, class, is don't believe the big, hot pile of hype that China's zooming economy is the result of that Red nation's adopting free market economic policies.

If China is now a capitalist free-market state, then I'm Mariah Carey. China's economy has soared because it stubbornly refused the Free – and Friedman-Market mumbo-jumbo that government should stop controlling, owning and regulating the industry.

China's announcement that it would raise the cost of the yuan covered over a more important notice: China would bar foreign control of its steel sector. China's leaders have built a powerhouse steel industry larger than ours by directing the funding, output, location and ownership of all factories. And rather than "freeing" the industry through opening their borders to foreign competition, the Chinese, for steel and every other product, have shut their borders tight to foreigners except as it suits China’s own industries.

China won't join NAFTA or CAFTA or any of those free-trade clubs. In China, Chinese industry comes first. And it's still, Mssrs. Friedman, the Peoples’ republic. Those Wal-Mart fashion designs called, chillingly, "New Order," are made in factories owned by the PLA, the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army.

In an interview just before he won the Nobel Prize in economics, Joe Stiglitz explained to me that China's huge financial surge -- a stunning 9.5% jump in GDP this year -- began with the government's funding and nurturing rural cooperatives, fledgling agricultural and industry protected behind high, high trade barriers.

It is true that China's growth got a boost from ending the bloodsoaked self-flagellating madness of Mao's Cultural Revolution. And China, when it chooses, makes use of markets and market pricing to distribute resources. The truth is, Chinese markets are as free as my kids: they can do whatever they want unless I say they can't.

Yes, China is adopting elements of "capitalism." And that's the ugly part: real estate speculation in Shanghai making millionaires of Communist party boss relatives and bank shenanigans worthy of a Neil Bush.

It is not the Guangdong skyscrapers and speculative bubble which allows China to sell us $162 billion more goods a year than we sell them. It is that China's government, by rejecting free-market fundamentalism, can easily conquer American markets where protection is now deemed passé.

And that is why the yuan has kicked the dollar's butt.

America’s only response is to have Alan Greenspan push up real interest rates so we can buy back our own dollars the Chinese won in the export game. The domestic result: US wages drifting down to Mexican maquiladora levels.

Am I praising China? Forget about it. This is one evil dictatorship which jails union organizers and beats, shackles and tortures those who don't kowtow to the wishes of Chairman Rob -- Wal-Mart chief Robson Walton. (Funny how Mr. Bush never mentions the D-word, Democracy, to our Chinese suppliers.)

Class dismissed.

www.GregPalast.com.

Egyptian resort town blasts kill dozens

More than 100 injured as investigation intensifies

Saturday, July 23, 2005 Posted: 0729 GMT (1529 HKT)

(CNN) -- Deadly explosions that rocked the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday may be linked to a series of bomb blasts last October in the Red Sea resort of Taba, Egypt's interior minister said.
"We are trying to find out who committed these crimes," Habib al-Adli told reporters while viewing the extensive damage at the Ghazala Garden Hotel in Naama Bay, a popular tourism area of the city on the Sinai Peninsula. "It is likely that they have some relationship to the Taba operation."

At least 59 people were killed and 111 wounded when at least three explosions early Saturday rocked Sharm el-Sheikh.

In Egypt's northeastern Sinai in October, attackers struck the Taba Hilton and nearby camping areas around Ras al Sultan and Tarabeen in a series of bomb blasts, killing 34 people. It was Egypt's last major bombing. (Full story)

Al-Adli said it was not yet known who was behind the Saturday attacks, "but whoever it is, or whatever groups they belong to, this is ugly terrorism, and there's no humanity or values or feel of belonging in these acts."

Asked whether he thought the blasts might be related to Islam, he replied, "What Islam? This terrorism has nothing to do with any religion, because all religions do not allow aggression and do not allow killing civilians in innocence. Those don't belong to Muslims. They are a gang of criminals."

At least one of Saturday's explosions, at the city's Old Market, was caused by a car bomb, the ministry said. Al-Adli said a second explosion, in a Naama Bay parking lot and shuttle stop, resulted from an explosive device that had been left there.>>>>continued

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/07/22/egypt.explosions/index.html

A Sidebar Note

I have added several new links to the sidebar, I hope you will use them as liberally as we do.

I would like to draw your attention to the Live Chat at the top of that list. All you need is your name and your chatting. All politics, no ads or booters. Enjoy it!!!!

Thanks Yall, Have a Great Night!!!

Art For Everyone

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Iraqi Civilians Are Victims of an Endless War

Iraqi Civilians Are Victims

of an Endless War
By Delphine Minoui
Le Figaro
Go to Original

Friday 22 July 2005

Baghdad: Twenty-five thousand people killed in Iraq since March 2003.

(Funny The Lancet of Britian said 100,000 a year ago.)

Akil Hakim's grocery store, in the heart of the Qadesiya neighborhood, was the circle of buddies' meeting place, one of the rare spots where Amir Ta'ei and his friends could continue to get together after nightfall, to drink sodas and play video games, in spite of the risks of staying out late in Baghdad. Last week, Akil Hakim was killed, and his store has never reopened. Thirty years old, the father of three children, he had no particular enemies. "All that we know is that armed men at the wheel of a Korean car stopped in front of his store around 10 p.m. and shot him," confides 27-year-old Amir Ta'ei, one of his best friends. Overwhelmed by more serious cases, the police didn't even deign to open an investigation. "We don't dare get together in the same neighborhood any more. The next time, it could be our turn," Amir Ta'ei worries.

Akil Hakim was young, discreet, and of modest origins. His story is the story of thousands of Iraqis, victims of a war with no front, and no visible combatants, that is getting worse every day in post-Saddam Iraq.

According to an alarming report made public by the Iraq Body Count organization, close to 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the invasion of their country by American and British troops in March 2003, with an average of 34 deaths a day. These numbers, which remain approximate, are based on an analysis of more than 10,000 media reports between March 2003 and March 2005.

For its part, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior advances the number of 8,175 Iraqis killed in ten months from July 2004 to May 2005. Again, according to the Iraq Body Count report, close to half these deaths have taken place in Baghdad. Thirty-seven percent of civilian losses have been caused by occupation forces under American command, versus 9% by the insurgency. Criminal activity is the source of 36% of the deaths counted. "We cannot remain silent in the face of these victims. Our country is at war. We thought that, with the installation of a new government, the situation would stabilize. But the opposite is happening. The situation gets worse from day to day," worries Raja Habib al-Khuzai, a deputy of the new Iraqi Parliament. After a period of relative calm, recent days have been particularly deadly, with more than 24 children killed last week right in the center of Baghdad and the death of a hundred people after the explosion of a tanker-truck in the market of Mousayeb.

More than two years after the fall of Baghdad, Iraq has never trembled so much. Every day brings its batch of kidnappings, murders, and terrorist acts. The violence, which originally targeted occupation troops, no longer spares anyone: politicians, women, children, whatever their ethnicity or religion. In two years, the insurgents, whether Islamists or former Baathists, have professionalized their attacks. They now have recourse to a multitude of subterfuges like that of the man who pretended to faint on the university campus and waited until a large crowd gathered around him to detonate his explosives belt. In Tikrit, the resistance also practices the technique of booby-trapping dead dogs' bodies.

According to Iraq Body Count's report, occupation forces remain at the top of the list of those responsible for civilian deaths. The recent hardening of the rules of engagement has provoked an increase in "blunders," like the death of the young Heither Mohammad Moussa, from Sadr City. Two months ago, this economics student had just left the University of Mustansiriya grounds when he was shot dead by an American soldier from the side of a Humvee. Had he been taken for a potential "enemy" or was he caught in the middle of an exchange of fire between occupation troops and insurgents? In the absence of a witness, the question remains unresolved.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has just had discussions with representatives of occupation troops to assure that victims' families are compensated. The Iraqi Parliament is considering a proposed law designed for "victims of terrorists' acts," that would allocate a pension to the families of persons killed in an attack. In the meantime, Heydar has just signed a petition launched by the radical young imam Moqtada Sadr, which calls for the immediate departure of foreign

Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.