And to what extent will the result of manipulated releases of information from a corrupt Executive Branch be the reason to believe any impetus of act when it's war that is at stake?
Sunday, May 20, 2007
When the red cape is waved by the media which matador will you believe?
And to what extent will the result of manipulated releases of information from a corrupt Executive Branch be the reason to believe any impetus of act when it's war that is at stake?
Washington Memo; Bush Bucks Tradition on Investigation
Why didn't George Walker Bush want the 911 Commission? Why was the evidence by the 911 Commission blunted in holding anyone responsible? The first act by any President is to protect the people of this nation. It is in the job description. When that fails and political positioning has a higher priority any assault on the best interest of the people of the USA is possible. George Walker Bush failed to protect the people of the USA from the attacks of 911 and resisted the reasons why. He engaged openly in promoting a war into a sovereign country when other avenues were available and it possed no threat to the USA. Iraq was an annoyance. The sequelae of issues that has resulted since the illegal invasion into Iraq due to Bush political prioritizing has brought the USA into opposition of Russia. We need to stop this and now.
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
The political dispute over whether to have an independent commission investigate intelligence and law enforcement lapses before Sept. 11 represents a reversal of normal form.
Usually, after a calamitous event or a political embarrassment, it is the White House that seeks a commission to investigate. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed such a commission after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. President Bill Clinton named one after the explosion of T.W.A. Flight 800.
Hundreds of other commissions -- read on to learn why they are so often called ''blue ribbon'' -- were named in the years between, most on trivial topics like ''Americans outdoors,'' but some on matters as serious as terrorism, race riots and AIDS.
For presidents, ''it is a way to absorb political heat, to grind a subject into the ground'' before hostile members of Congress can weigh in, said James A. Thurber, director of the American University Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
But the Bush administration adamantly opposes an independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks last year. Democrats in the Senate, who might be expected to want to investigate the president without sharing the spotlight, are leading the charge for a bipartisan commission.
President Bush was asked at a news conference in Germany this week why he opposed a commission investigation. He replied: ''I, of course, want the Congress to take a look at what took place prior to Sept. 11. But since it deals with such sensitive information, in my judgment, it's best for the ongoing war against terror that the investigation be done in the intelligence committees.''
What the president was saying was that a Congressional investigation is inevitable -- the House and Senate intelligence committees have already begun one -- and that a separate commission investigation could only add to his troubles.
As for why the Democratic senators are willing to share the stage, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, said that Congress was hampered by ''what I call the stovepipe syndrome.''
''The intelligence committee gets part of the information,'' Mr. Daschle said. ''Another committee gets another part of the information. A third committee gets a third or fourth part. The problem is, that information isn't shared to the extent it needs to be to get the full picture.''
What Mr. Daschle was saying between the lines was that Democrats in the Senate must share any investigation with the Republicans, who control the House, and the Republicans would squelch any material that could be embarrassing to President Bush.
''The White House somehow feels it can control a Congressional committee better than it can an investigative commission, and the senators are afraid that may be the case,'' said former Senator Warren B. Rudman.
Over the years, Mr. Rudman, Republican of New Hampshire, has led independent commissions and Congressional inquiries. He favors the creation of a commission on the events leading to Sept. 11, he said, because it would be less partisan than a Congressional investigation. He is a close ally of Senator John McCain of Arizona, one of the few Republicans in Congress who support such a commission.
Sometimes commissions are created by presidential orders, sometimes by acts of Congress, but either way, they are generally composed of statesmen and experts as well as politicians, have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and are ostensibly bipartisan. Congressional committees, by contrast, are invariably dominated by the majority party and rarely conduct thorough investigations of the executive branch unless Congress and the White House are controlled by different parties.
Often, commissions are called ''blue ribbon'' to denote exclusivity, according to Safire's Political Dictionary. The entry continues, ''The term comes from the ribbons worn by members of the Order of the Garter in Great Britain, and the cordon bleu of the ancient order of St. Esprit in France, as well as from the ribbons awarded to prize-winners, animal and human alike.''
A review of these commissions over the years shows that the ones examining the most politically charged questions tend to produce whitewashes or to reach conclusions that fail to settle once and for all the questions they were asked to answer.
Roosevelt's commission on Pearl Harbor, for instance, was created on Dec. 18, 1941. It reported to the president on Jan. 23, 1942, that the entire blame for the disaster lay with senior military commanders in Hawaii. Studies since have found that the fault was much more widespread, that the United States suffered from a general lack of readiness and that officials in Washington never shared with the commanders at Pearl Harbor solid intelligence suggesting that a Japanese attack was imminent.
The Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. No evidence has refuted that conclusively, but conspiracy theories have never been laid to rest.
In 1986, after disclosures that the United States had secretly sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to finance anticommunist rebels in Nicaragua, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to investigate the situation under the chairmanship of a loyal former Republican senator, John Tower.
The commission essentially exonerated Mr. Reagan and blamed his chief of staff, Donald T. Regan, for not keeping the president informed. Months later, House and Senate committees, controlled by Democrats, reported after an extensive investigation that the president had failed to ''take care that the laws be faithfully executed'' and bore the ''ultimate responsibility.''
Richard K. Betts, director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, said that ideally a commission and the Congressional committees would investigate the Sept. 11 attacks.
''A little redundancy on something like this is a good thing,'' Mr. Betts said. ''A commission can act quickly and take a solid first cut, but it's not likely to get into as much detail as Congressional committees with big staffs.''
But as long as the president and the Republican leaders in the House are opposed to a commission, it is safe to bet that one will not be formed.
White House spells out case against Iraq
Iraq Survey Group Final Report (click here)
Iraq’s Chemical Warfare ProgramAnnex H
No WMD Munitions were found, (see Figures 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12).
Report is titled 'A Decade of Deception and Defiance'
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As the Bush administration makes its strongest bid yet for international and domestic support for action against Iraq this week, the White House released a report early Thursday, listing some of the principal accusations against Iraq and its leader.
Bush addressed the United Nations' General Assembly later in the morning on Thursday, saying, "The Security Council resolutions will be enforced. The just demands of peace and security will be met. Or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power." (Full story)
The report was intended to serve as a "background paper" for Bush's U.N. speech.
"This document provides specific examples of how Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has systematically and continually violated 16 United Nations Security Council resolutions over the past decade, " the report said in a preface.
U.N. inspector: No evidence found before Iraq war (click here)
Amid pressure on Blair, Aznar and Bush about WMDs
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- U.N. inspectors found no evidence before the U.S.-led invasion in March that Iraq had reconstituted its chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said Thursday.
The comments come as U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar face mounting criticism from lawmakers in their countries over the weapons issue. (Critics blast Blair, Spain's Aznar pressed on WMDs)
"The commission has not at any time during the inspections in Iraq found evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction or significant quantities of proscribed items, whether from pre-1991 or later," Blix told the U.N. Security Council in what is expected to be his final report.
Kay: No evidence Iraq stockpiled WMDs (click here)
Former chief U.S. inspector faults intelligence agencies
(CNN) -- Two days after resigning as the Bush administration's top weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay said Sunday that his group found no evidence Iraq had stockpiled unconventional weapons before the U.S.-led invasion in March.
He said U.S. intelligence services owe President Bush an explanation for having concluded that Iraq had.
"My summary view, based on what I've seen, is we're very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons," he said on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition." "I don't think they exist."
It was the consensus among the intelligence agencies that Iraq had such weapons that led Bush to conclude that it posed an imminent threat that justified the U.S.-led invasion, Kay said.
"I actually think the intelligence community owes the president rather than the president owing the American people," he said.
"We have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the Clinton administration and didn't change in the Bush administration," Kay said.
"It is not a political 'gotcha' issue. It is a serious issue of 'How you can come to a conclusion that is not matched in the future?'"
Other countries' intelligence agencies shared the U.S. conclusion that Iraq had stockpiled such weapons, though most disagreed with the United States about how best to respond.
Ex-Iraq expert: Britain saw no threat before war (click here)
POSTED: 2:24 p.m. EST, December 15, 2006
LONDON, England (AP) -- Britain's former top Iraq expert at the United Nations said in previously secret testimony that most government officials did not believe Iraq posed a threat in the months leading to the U.S.-led invasion, according to a new report.
Carne Ross, a former first secretary to the British mission at the U.N. responsible for Iraq policy, told a House of Commons committee that he and other analysts believed that Iraq had only a "very limited" ability to mount an attack of any kind, including one using weapons of mass destruction, or WMD.
Ross declined to comment on his testimony Friday, saying it spoke for itself.
The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday published the testimony, which Russ gave in 2004 to Lord Butler's official inquiry into intelligence on Iraq.
Butler did not fault the government but criticized intelligence officials for relying in part on "seriously flawed" or "unreliable" sources.
The committee published Ross' testimony after assuring him that parliamentary privilege would protect him from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.
Ross served in the British mission at the U.N. headquarters from 1998 until 2002. Later, he was posted to Kosovo and Afghanistan, but kept in contact with British Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry experts on Iraq and inquired about the shift toward war.
"It was the commonly held view among officials that the threat had been contained," Ross said in the written testimony.
"Iraq's ability to launch a WMD or any form of attack was very limited," he said. "There were (approximately) 12 or so unaccounted-for Scud missiles; Iraq's air force was depleted to the point of total ineffectiveness; its army was but a pale shadow of its earlier might; there was no evidence of any connection between Iraq and any terrorist organization that might have planned an attack," he wrote.
A NATION AT WAR: THE ADMINISTRATION; Even Critics of War Say the White House Spun It With Skill
Shock
and
Awe
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
The second Persian Gulf war was not only a runaway victory for the United States military, but for another aggressive force that fired off round-the-clock verbal cruise missiles: the White House communications operation.
That is the assessment of the Bush administration's wartime public relations campaign by both its supporters and critics, who say the spin operation was extraordinarily successful in shaping a positive battlefield narrative, at least for American audiences. They say the effort floundered in the Arab world.
Its success at home can be traced to three major factors.
First was the repeated use of phrases that critics branded propaganda, like ''coalition forces'' and ''death squads,'' that became part of the accepted language of war. Second was the powerful cinéma vérité journalism of reporters and photographers, whose words and pictures humanized the American soldiers they were with. Third, but not least, was the message discipline of a White House that plotted appearances by top officials on a daily ''communications grid,'' ensuring that in the first half of the day there was a news briefing by an administration official every two hours, and that everyone was saying more or less the same thing.
''As far as how you justify a war, they've pretty much done it by formula,'' said Robert L. Ivie, a professor of communication and culture at Indiana University who has spent his career studying the rhetoric of war. ''You construct the image of the enemy as savage and barbarian. Then there are all sorts of efforts to show that the good guys represent the forces of civilization freedom, democracy, human rights. And of course there's the implication that we fight on the side of God.''
Supporters of the administration say the narrative worked because it reflected the truth.
''Spin is useful in politics, but war is real,'' said William Kristol, the editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard who long advocated an invasion of Iraq. ''I think reality trumps spin and communications strategy. We won the war pretty quickly and impressively, and the Iraqi people are liberated, and those facts dominate everything.''
The first important element in the communications strategy, the repeated use of phrases that promoted administration policy, started before the war even began. As early as last summer, President Bush's principal advisers carefully planned a campaign to characterize the war as a blow for freedom.
''We would look at the question of how might you have regime change thought of as liberation rather than occupation?'' said a participant in one of the long meetings where officials polished their strategy over the months leading up to the war. ''That was a question put before the principals, and then there would be a paper done on it.''
The Clinton-era policy of ''regime change,'' or the euphemism for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, led to another important word. From the start of the conflict, administration officials consistently called Mr. Hussein's administration the ''regime,'' a pejorative version of the neutral ''government.'' Jesse Sheidlower, an editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, described the nuance: ''Government is the catch-all term, administration makes you sound more organized and regime makes you sound more despotic.''
Dan Bartlett (click here), the White House communications director, readily agreed. ''It better describes what they are,'' he said. ''It's a ruthless, self-appointed dictatorship.''
Similarly, he said using the term ''death squads'' to describe Iraq's paramilitary fedayeen, was no accident.
''Because fedayeen means something like 'dying for a noble cause,' it has a positive connotation in the Arab world,'' Mr. Bartlett said. ''It's not a positive thing they were doing.''
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were the first in the administration to use the phrase, on March 28 and 29, and by March 31 the president had employed it to describe Iraqis ''ordered to fight or die by Saddam's death squads.''
Mr. Bush also regularly referred to Mr. Hussein's troops and fighters as ''thugs,'' most notably at a meeting of Iraqi exiles in the Roosevelt Room on April 4, when the president said the United States was ''slowly peeling'' the hands of Mr. Hussein and his thugs off Iraqi throats.
Many critics say the most blatant use of loaded language was the term ''coalition forces,'' repeated on television and in the pages of newspapers, including this one, to describe what was principally a coalition of only two armies, from the United States and Britain, with help from small numbers of Scud-hunting Australian commandos in western Iraq and Polish troops assisting Navy Seals in the south. Though it was only Americans who advanced to Baghdad (the British had the task of securing the southern city of Basra), Mr. Bartlett said the term, in use since the first gulf war, was used because it was ''just obvious.''
The second major factor in the successful communications strategy, the Pentagon decision to ''embed'' more than 500 reporters and photographers with invading troops, produced first-hand accounts for Americans that generally pleased editors and television news directors. The bottom line for the White House was that it was helpful.
''It served the Bush administration by providing more sympathetic coverage, by being understanding of the soldiers and therefore of that slice of war that each reporter saw,'' said Marvin Kalb, the veteran CBS News correspondent who is now a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard. ''If a reporter were to take a critical tone toward the administration, there were all these other reporters balancing that negative thrust.''
The third factor in the communications strategy, the message discipline, began in December 2002, when the top communications officials from the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Britain instituted a daily 9:30 a.m. conference call about the theme of the day and who was delivering it. By the time the war started, the call was generally led by Tucker Eskew, the director of the White House office of global communications, which was created to spread the American message on the war in Iraq. Mr. Eskew made sure that the president, the defense secretary and the secretary of state or their press officers were briefing at regular intervals.
As a result, cable television viewers could watch a steady stream of the administration's message starting at 7 a.m. Eastern time in the United States, when Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks briefed at the $250,000 set created at the United States Central Command's forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
The briefing was deliberately timed, White House officials said, to run live on the morning news shows and to put the administration's stamp on overnight battlefield developments. General Brooks, a telegenic West Point graduate who never veered from the administration's message, was prepped beforehand by James Wilkinson, a former deputy in Mr. Bartlett's White House communications office who had been dispatched to oversee communications in Doha.
As each day progressed, Ari Fleischer (click here), the White House spokesman, would hold three sessions with reporters, who could also be briefed at the Pentagon, the State Department and from time to time at special sessions, such as those held for foreign reporters in Washington. British officials held their own briefings in London.
White House officials acknowledge that the communications effort in the Arab world largely failed, and that they have an onerous task ahead in promoting the reconstruction and relief efforts that are to begin in Baghdad. Margaret Tutwiler, the ambassador to Morocco, the State Department spokeswoman during the 1991 gulf war and a longtime Bush family loyalist, was dispatched last week to handle the task.
''It's going to be a challenge,'' Mr. Bartlett said.
The foretelling in an insightful Op-Ed. Was he believed? Could he have saved this nation from unnecessary war?
The day before the invasion.
March 18, 2003
Things to Come
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I'm not a military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion.
What frightens me is the aftermath -- and I'm not just talking about the problems of postwar occupation. I'm worried about what will happen beyond Iraq -- in the world at large, and here at home.
The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn't matter. They're wrong on all counts.
Victory in Iraq won't end the world's distrust of the United States because the Bush administration has made it clear, over and over again, that it doesn't play by the rules. Remember: this administration told Europe to take a hike on global warming, told Russia to take a hike on missile defense, told developing countries to take a hike on trade in lifesaving pharmaceuticals, told Mexico to take a hike on immigration, mortally insulted the Turks and pulled out of the International Criminal Court -- all in just two years.
Nor, as we've just seen, is military power a substitute for trust. Apparently the Bush administration thought it could bully the U.N. Security Council into going along with its plans; it learned otherwise. ''What can the Americans do to us?'' one African official asked. ''Are they going to bomb us? Invade us?''
Meanwhile, consider this: we need $400 billion a year of foreign investment to cover our trade deficit, or the dollar will plunge and our surging budget deficit will become much harder to finance -- and there are already signs that the flow of foreign investment is drying up, just when it seems that America may be about to fight a whole series of wars.
It's a matter of public record that this war with Iraq is largely the brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a pilot project. In August a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: ''Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.'' In February 2003, according to Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper, Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq the United States would ''deal with'' Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Will Iraq really be the first of many? It seems all too likely -- and not only because the ''Bush doctrine'' seems to call for a series of wars. Regimes that have been targeted, or think they may have been targeted, aren't likely to sit quietly and wait their turn: they're going to arm themselves to the teeth, and perhaps strike first. People who really know what they are talking about have the heebie-jeebies over North Korea's nuclear program, and view war on the Korean peninsula as something that could happen at any moment. And at the rate things are going, it seems we will fight that war, or the war with Iran, or both at once, all by ourselves.
What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war happened. There is a case for getting tough with Iraq; bear in mind that an exasperated Clinton administration considered a bombing campaign in 1998. But it's not a case that the Bush administration ever made. Instead we got assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial embarrassments went almost unreported by our domestic news media. So most Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening.
So now the administration knows that it can make unsubstantiated claims, without paying a price when those claims prove false, and that saber rattling gains it votes and silences opposition. Maybe it will honorably refuse to act on this dangerous knowledge. But I can't help worrying that in domestic politics, as in foreign policy, this war will turn out to have been the shape of things to come.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
March 18, 2003
Things to Come
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I'm not a military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion.
What frightens me is the aftermath -- and I'm not just talking about the problems of postwar occupation. I'm worried about what will happen beyond Iraq -- in the world at large, and here at home.
The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn't matter. They're wrong on all counts.
Victory in Iraq won't end the world's distrust of the United States because the Bush administration has made it clear, over and over again, that it doesn't play by the rules. Remember: this administration told Europe to take a hike on global warming, told Russia to take a hike on missile defense, told developing countries to take a hike on trade in lifesaving pharmaceuticals, told Mexico to take a hike on immigration, mortally insulted the Turks and pulled out of the International Criminal Court -- all in just two years.
Nor, as we've just seen, is military power a substitute for trust. Apparently the Bush administration thought it could bully the U.N. Security Council into going along with its plans; it learned otherwise. ''What can the Americans do to us?'' one African official asked. ''Are they going to bomb us? Invade us?''
Meanwhile, consider this: we need $400 billion a year of foreign investment to cover our trade deficit, or the dollar will plunge and our surging budget deficit will become much harder to finance -- and there are already signs that the flow of foreign investment is drying up, just when it seems that America may be about to fight a whole series of wars.
It's a matter of public record that this war with Iraq is largely the brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a pilot project. In August a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: ''Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.'' In February 2003, according to Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper, Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq the United States would ''deal with'' Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Will Iraq really be the first of many? It seems all too likely -- and not only because the ''Bush doctrine'' seems to call for a series of wars. Regimes that have been targeted, or think they may have been targeted, aren't likely to sit quietly and wait their turn: they're going to arm themselves to the teeth, and perhaps strike first. People who really know what they are talking about have the heebie-jeebies over North Korea's nuclear program, and view war on the Korean peninsula as something that could happen at any moment. And at the rate things are going, it seems we will fight that war, or the war with Iran, or both at once, all by ourselves.
What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war happened. There is a case for getting tough with Iraq; bear in mind that an exasperated Clinton administration considered a bombing campaign in 1998. But it's not a case that the Bush administration ever made. Instead we got assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial embarrassments went almost unreported by our domestic news media. So most Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening.
So now the administration knows that it can make unsubstantiated claims, without paying a price when those claims prove false, and that saber rattling gains it votes and silences opposition. Maybe it will honorably refuse to act on this dangerous knowledge. But I can't help worrying that in domestic politics, as in foreign policy, this war will turn out to have been the shape of things to come.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Report: U.S. eyes Iraq invasion in 2003
From the NY Times article in the beginning of February 2002 where there was no evidence for an Iraq invasion to late April of 2002 the ramping up of the rhetoric was extremely obvious. No evidence. Just fear.
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The Bush administration is plotting a potential major air campaign and ground invasion early next year to topple the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
The use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops is being considered, the Times said.
President Bush has not issued any order for the Pentagon to mobilize its forces, and there is no official plan for an invasion, the newspaper said.
For years, official U.S. policy has been to work for a "regime change" in Iraq. Since the September 11 strikes, which exposed America's vulnerability to attack, the Bush administration has repeatedly said it has to act to prevent the possibility of Baghdad using weapons of mass destruction. The statements have caused unease among many European and Arab nations.
The Times reported the use of American or combined allied forces became a possibility after two alternate scenarios were rejected. The White house concluded a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed and a proxy battle using local forces there would be insufficient to bring a change in power.
"There have been at least six coup attempts in the 1990s, and they consistently fail," an administration official told the Times.
Dissident Iraqi military officers "sent signals to us, 'We're ready for a coup,' and the next thing you know these guys are murdered or it fails or people have cold feet at the end and leave the country," he said. "It's a horrific police state. Nobody trusts anyone, so how can you pull off a coup?"
The Times reported the timing of early next year delay resulted from a need "to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions. These include avoiding summer combat in bulky chemical suits, preparing for a global oil price shock and waiting until there is progress toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Former President Bush, the current U.S. leader's father, launched an attack on Iraq in 1991 to drive its invading forces out of Kuwait but he concluded the war without toppling Saddam. One question to be answered in the current planning is the extent of expected cooperation from Saudi Arabia.
The Pentagon has been working on the assumption it might have to carry out any military action without the use of U.S. bases in the kingdom, the Times reported. The planning anticipates the possible use of bases in Turkey and Kuwait for U.S. forces while Qatar would be the replacement for the air operations center in Saudi Arabia.
According to the Times, there are conflicting views of the diplomatic impact, with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their senior aides feeling that "Arab leaders would publicly protest but secretly celebrate Mr. Hussein's downfall."
The other view, held at the State Department and among some at the White House, is that "efforts to topple Mr. Hussein would be viewed by Arabs as a confrontation with Islam, destabilizing the entire region and complicating the broader campaign against Osama bin Laden and his network, al Qaeda," which Washington blames for the September attacks, the newspaper reported.
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The Bush administration is plotting a potential major air campaign and ground invasion early next year to topple the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
The use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops is being considered, the Times said.
President Bush has not issued any order for the Pentagon to mobilize its forces, and there is no official plan for an invasion, the newspaper said.
For years, official U.S. policy has been to work for a "regime change" in Iraq. Since the September 11 strikes, which exposed America's vulnerability to attack, the Bush administration has repeatedly said it has to act to prevent the possibility of Baghdad using weapons of mass destruction. The statements have caused unease among many European and Arab nations.
The Times reported the use of American or combined allied forces became a possibility after two alternate scenarios were rejected. The White house concluded a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed and a proxy battle using local forces there would be insufficient to bring a change in power.
"There have been at least six coup attempts in the 1990s, and they consistently fail," an administration official told the Times.
Dissident Iraqi military officers "sent signals to us, 'We're ready for a coup,' and the next thing you know these guys are murdered or it fails or people have cold feet at the end and leave the country," he said. "It's a horrific police state. Nobody trusts anyone, so how can you pull off a coup?"
The Times reported the timing of early next year delay resulted from a need "to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions. These include avoiding summer combat in bulky chemical suits, preparing for a global oil price shock and waiting until there is progress toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Former President Bush, the current U.S. leader's father, launched an attack on Iraq in 1991 to drive its invading forces out of Kuwait but he concluded the war without toppling Saddam. One question to be answered in the current planning is the extent of expected cooperation from Saudi Arabia.
The Pentagon has been working on the assumption it might have to carry out any military action without the use of U.S. bases in the kingdom, the Times reported. The planning anticipates the possible use of bases in Turkey and Kuwait for U.S. forces while Qatar would be the replacement for the air operations center in Saudi Arabia.
According to the Times, there are conflicting views of the diplomatic impact, with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their senior aides feeling that "Arab leaders would publicly protest but secretly celebrate Mr. Hussein's downfall."
The other view, held at the State Department and among some at the White House, is that "efforts to topple Mr. Hussein would be viewed by Arabs as a confrontation with Islam, destabilizing the entire region and complicating the broader campaign against Osama bin Laden and his network, al Qaeda," which Washington blames for the September attacks, the newspaper reported.
The New York Times has the most extensive archives online. They are also the least offensive in it's promotion of war.
The ramping up to the Iraq invasion started long before anyone anticipated. It started with denial and eventually turned into fact. The facts would be promulgated as the administration 'dropped hints' of potential dangers within their 'culture of fear' against the populous of a country already attacked. There were never facts, but, only fears. Never leadership, but, only political pandering that served the purpose to invasion of an oil nation.
A NATION CHALLENGED: IRAQ; Terror Acts By Baghdad Have Waned, U.S. Aides Say
By JAMES RISEN
Published: February 6, 2002
The Central Intelligence Agency has no evidence that Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade, and the agency is also convinced that President Saddam Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups, according to several American intelligence officials.
The officials said they believe that the last terrorist operation tried by Iraq against the United States was the assassination attempt against the first President Bush during his visit to Kuwait in 1993. That plot was disrupted before it could be carried out. American intelligence officials believe that Mr. Hussein has been reluctant to use terrorism again for fear of being detected.
George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director, is to testify Wednesday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to review the global threat. During his appearance, his first before Congress since Sept. 11, Mr. Tenet is likely to be asked about a wide range of terrorism issues, including Iraq.
Since Sept. 11, there has been widespread speculation about possible Iraqi links to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, based largely on reports of a meeting in Prague between Mohamed Atta, a leader of the hijacking teams, and an Iraqi intelligence officer. The reports about that meeting have been the subject of intense analysis and debate within the American intelligence community, and some officials even questioned whether the meeting took place.
Now senior American intelligence officials have concluded that the meeting between Mr. Atta and the Iraqi officer, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, did take place. But they say they do not believe that the meeting provides enough evidence to tie Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks. United States intelligence officials say they do not know what was discussed at the meeting. But some experts on Iraq say that even if Iraq were somehow involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, President Hussein would never have entrusted such a sensitive matter to a mid-level officer like Mr. Ani.
American officials say Iraqi intelligence now focuses most of its resources on finding ways to evade trade and economic sanctions that were imposed on Iraq after President Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Instead, American intelligence officials say their greatest concern is Iraq's continuing development of chemical and biological weapons, covert programs that have resumed since United Nations weapons inspectors left in 1998.
Mr. Hussein apparently feels that such weapons will help his government deter any military attack by the United States and its allies.
A C.I.A. report released last week noted that Iraq is probably continuing low-level nuclear weapons research as well, and that its inability to obtain enough fissile material is the biggest obstacle to becoming a nuclear power.
The major threat to the United States from Iraqi efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction would come instead from Baghdad's parallel efforts to develop long-range missiles, which could be tipped with chemical or biological warheads, the C.I.A. believes.
In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush described Iraq as part of an ''axis of evil,'' which includes Iran and North Korea, that the United States must confront in order to maintain global stability.
Mr. Bush said Iraq ''continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror,'' but the section of his speech devoted to Iraq focused primarily on Baghdad's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. In fact, some American intelligence officials say, the Bush administration does not have enough evidence of Iraqi complicity in anti-American terrorism to justify making Iraq the next target in the war on terrorism.
Some signs have emerged in recent years that President Hussein might consider terrorism as a tool against the United States in the long-running duel over the inspection of suspected chemical and biological weapons sites. In 1998, American and Middle Eastern intelligence agencies discovered that Abu Nidal, the Palestinian who had been one of the most feared terrorists of the 1970's and early 80's, had moved to Baghdad.
Abu Nidal had been ousted from his previous haven in Libya, after Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi decided he wanted to end Libya's ties to terrorists in order to get out from under international sanctions. But Abu Nidal does not appear to have engaged in any anti-American operations since his arrival in Iraq, and he may have ended his terrorism activities, officials said.
A NATION CHALLENGED: IRAQ; Terror Acts By Baghdad Have Waned, U.S. Aides Say
By JAMES RISEN
Published: February 6, 2002
The Central Intelligence Agency has no evidence that Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade, and the agency is also convinced that President Saddam Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups, according to several American intelligence officials.
The officials said they believe that the last terrorist operation tried by Iraq against the United States was the assassination attempt against the first President Bush during his visit to Kuwait in 1993. That plot was disrupted before it could be carried out. American intelligence officials believe that Mr. Hussein has been reluctant to use terrorism again for fear of being detected.
George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director, is to testify Wednesday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to review the global threat. During his appearance, his first before Congress since Sept. 11, Mr. Tenet is likely to be asked about a wide range of terrorism issues, including Iraq.
Since Sept. 11, there has been widespread speculation about possible Iraqi links to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, based largely on reports of a meeting in Prague between Mohamed Atta, a leader of the hijacking teams, and an Iraqi intelligence officer. The reports about that meeting have been the subject of intense analysis and debate within the American intelligence community, and some officials even questioned whether the meeting took place.
Now senior American intelligence officials have concluded that the meeting between Mr. Atta and the Iraqi officer, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, did take place. But they say they do not believe that the meeting provides enough evidence to tie Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks. United States intelligence officials say they do not know what was discussed at the meeting. But some experts on Iraq say that even if Iraq were somehow involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, President Hussein would never have entrusted such a sensitive matter to a mid-level officer like Mr. Ani.
American officials say Iraqi intelligence now focuses most of its resources on finding ways to evade trade and economic sanctions that were imposed on Iraq after President Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Instead, American intelligence officials say their greatest concern is Iraq's continuing development of chemical and biological weapons, covert programs that have resumed since United Nations weapons inspectors left in 1998.
Mr. Hussein apparently feels that such weapons will help his government deter any military attack by the United States and its allies.
A C.I.A. report released last week noted that Iraq is probably continuing low-level nuclear weapons research as well, and that its inability to obtain enough fissile material is the biggest obstacle to becoming a nuclear power.
The major threat to the United States from Iraqi efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction would come instead from Baghdad's parallel efforts to develop long-range missiles, which could be tipped with chemical or biological warheads, the C.I.A. believes.
In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush described Iraq as part of an ''axis of evil,'' which includes Iran and North Korea, that the United States must confront in order to maintain global stability.
Mr. Bush said Iraq ''continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror,'' but the section of his speech devoted to Iraq focused primarily on Baghdad's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. In fact, some American intelligence officials say, the Bush administration does not have enough evidence of Iraqi complicity in anti-American terrorism to justify making Iraq the next target in the war on terrorism.
Some signs have emerged in recent years that President Hussein might consider terrorism as a tool against the United States in the long-running duel over the inspection of suspected chemical and biological weapons sites. In 1998, American and Middle Eastern intelligence agencies discovered that Abu Nidal, the Palestinian who had been one of the most feared terrorists of the 1970's and early 80's, had moved to Baghdad.
Abu Nidal had been ousted from his previous haven in Libya, after Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi decided he wanted to end Libya's ties to terrorists in order to get out from under international sanctions. But Abu Nidal does not appear to have engaged in any anti-American operations since his arrival in Iraq, and he may have ended his terrorism activities, officials said.
The PreWar Defense of the Nation for all the criticism by Bush of Clinton was never paramont to protecting the USA. Why?
And why the criticism at all? To 'distract' from the reality that Bush/Cheney didn't care what occurred that would prompt war? Bush did dearly little than Clinton when in fact he had more knowledge about the invasive nature of the enemy. Who is the master propagandist? Who is in control?
August Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S. (click here)
The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," (click here) and was primarily focused on recounting al Qaeda's past efforts to attack and infiltrate the United States, senior administration officials said.
The document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, underscored that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to "bring the fight to America," in part as retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998, according to knowledgeable sources.
Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas, sources said. But one source said the White House was disappointed because the analysis lacked focus and did not present fresh intelligence.
New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6 memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S. airliners.
In earlier comments this week, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials stressed that intelligence officials were focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests overseas. But sources made clear yesterday that the briefing presented to Bush focused on attacks within the United States, indicating that he and his aides were concerned about the risks.
The new reports came amid continued demands for an independent investigation on Capitol Hill, along with more revelations about possible intelligence missteps before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Intelligence sources said last night that at least two names listed in a July 2001 FBI memo about an Arizona flight school have been identified by the CIA as having links to al Qaeda. The FBI memo was never acted upon or distributed to outside agencies prior to Sept. 11 and was not provided to the CIA until last week, sources said.
The memo, sent to FBI headquarters by a Phoenix FBI agent, warned that bin Laden could have been using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists and suggested a nationwide canvass for Middle Eastern aviation students. The CIA's discovery of an al Qaeda link was first reported by ABC News.
Sources cautioned that CIA officials are not sure that they could have linked the two names to al Qaeda had they been given the memo last summer.
Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers received flight training in the United States, although all had ended their classes by the time the memo was written. The document was never shared in August with FBI investigators in Minnesota, who were scrambling to ascertain whether French national Zacarias Moussaoui was part of an al Qaeda plot. He since has been charged as a Sept. 11 conspirator.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said yesterday that criticism of the administration's intelligence actions before Sept. 11 is unfair.
Unfair. Judging the lack of protection of the USA was unfair. I see.
From the Houston Chronicle (click link on title of entry):
Review of Bush early record on terrorism revealing
...Bush's engagement with terrorism in the first eight months of his term, described in interviews with advisers and contemporary records, tells a story of burgeoning ambition without commitment of comparably ambitious means. In deliberations and successive drafts of a National Security Presidential Directive approved by Bush's second-ranking advisers on Aug. 13, the declared objective evolved from "rolling back" to "permanently eroding" and eventually to "eliminating" bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.
Cabinet-rank policy-makers, or principals, took up the new strategy for the first time on Sept. 4. It called for phased escalation of pressure against Taliban leaders to present them with an unavoidable choice -- disgorge al-Qaida or face removal from power....
In the face of the CIA and FBI reports in August of 6th, Bush did dearly little regarding that tracks with steps in protecting the citizens of the USA in regard to the airline industry. He focused on clandestine international operations. He, Cheney and Rumsfeld never protected the USA Pre-911 based on the intelligence presented to him.
August Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S. (click here)
The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," (click here) and was primarily focused on recounting al Qaeda's past efforts to attack and infiltrate the United States, senior administration officials said.
The document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, underscored that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to "bring the fight to America," in part as retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998, according to knowledgeable sources.
Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas, sources said. But one source said the White House was disappointed because the analysis lacked focus and did not present fresh intelligence.
New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6 memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S. airliners.
In earlier comments this week, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials stressed that intelligence officials were focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests overseas. But sources made clear yesterday that the briefing presented to Bush focused on attacks within the United States, indicating that he and his aides were concerned about the risks.
The new reports came amid continued demands for an independent investigation on Capitol Hill, along with more revelations about possible intelligence missteps before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Intelligence sources said last night that at least two names listed in a July 2001 FBI memo about an Arizona flight school have been identified by the CIA as having links to al Qaeda. The FBI memo was never acted upon or distributed to outside agencies prior to Sept. 11 and was not provided to the CIA until last week, sources said.
The memo, sent to FBI headquarters by a Phoenix FBI agent, warned that bin Laden could have been using U.S. flight schools to train terrorists and suggested a nationwide canvass for Middle Eastern aviation students. The CIA's discovery of an al Qaeda link was first reported by ABC News.
Sources cautioned that CIA officials are not sure that they could have linked the two names to al Qaeda had they been given the memo last summer.
Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers received flight training in the United States, although all had ended their classes by the time the memo was written. The document was never shared in August with FBI investigators in Minnesota, who were scrambling to ascertain whether French national Zacarias Moussaoui was part of an al Qaeda plot. He since has been charged as a Sept. 11 conspirator.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said yesterday that criticism of the administration's intelligence actions before Sept. 11 is unfair.
Unfair. Judging the lack of protection of the USA was unfair. I see.
From the Houston Chronicle (click link on title of entry):
Review of Bush early record on terrorism revealing
...Bush's engagement with terrorism in the first eight months of his term, described in interviews with advisers and contemporary records, tells a story of burgeoning ambition without commitment of comparably ambitious means. In deliberations and successive drafts of a National Security Presidential Directive approved by Bush's second-ranking advisers on Aug. 13, the declared objective evolved from "rolling back" to "permanently eroding" and eventually to "eliminating" bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.
Cabinet-rank policy-makers, or principals, took up the new strategy for the first time on Sept. 4. It called for phased escalation of pressure against Taliban leaders to present them with an unavoidable choice -- disgorge al-Qaida or face removal from power....
In the face of the CIA and FBI reports in August of 6th, Bush did dearly little regarding that tracks with steps in protecting the citizens of the USA in regard to the airline industry. He focused on clandestine international operations. He, Cheney and Rumsfeld never protected the USA Pre-911 based on the intelligence presented to him.
Friend or Foe ? I guess it depends on the administration and how much power it too much...
... when the media itself has no elected representatives or vote mechanism to the FCC and active grievance process. Perhaps that is too much of a democracy than 'special interest groups' can handle.
The 'filters' of Election Night 2000 - the plasticity of the USA media isn't resistant enough.
Final Election Results 2000 : Gore - 266 Bush - 271
We know now that the Election of 2000 that determined Bush as president was rigged. The Florida Secretary of State disenfranchised thousands of Democratic voters that would have elected Al Gore. But, what happened that night in 2000. All the news networks were calling Al Gore victor by their own polls. That was correct, yet, when FOX chimed in with John Ellis, Bush's cousin (click here) in charge that evening, Florida results across the board started to change.
Not once did any of the other major stations question the validity of the vote. Their own polls showed differently, but, yet there was never a doubt by any to question the validity in a majority of opinion otherwise. I find that odd and disheartening. They didn't believe in their ability to be correct and suspect corruption.
An odd fact. John Ellis is a cousin of the Bush's but how many know that there is another John Ellis but the last name is Bush. John Ellis Bush - JEB.
A Fox News consultant, John Ellis, who made judgments about presidential ‘calls’ on Election Night admits he was in touch with George W. Bush and FL Gov. Jeb Bush (click here) by telephone several times during the night, but denies breaking any rules.
A bit of a chronology to current circumstances.
In 1998, there was pressure by some for the UN Secretary General Annan to visit Iraq before there was an invasion of Iraq. This is 1998. Noted in the article is the fact Australia was already placing forces within striking distance of Iraq. In 1998. Also noted is a statement which clearly directs Mr. Annan to realize there is no WMD in Iraq or the capacity to build any. This is 1998.
This is a video that is at the CNN link clearly illustrating well nourished and well clothed Iraqi citizens, both men and women demonstrating against potential attacks into their country in 1998. How many of those people are now dead? How many were alive before March 19, 2003?
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/16/iraq.latest/protest.240.28.mov
How did this disarmed country become an enemy with a threat so huge the USA had to invade the country to protect the nation? How did that happen? The article is below.
Pressure mounts for U.N. chief to visit Iraq (click link above)
February 16, 1998
Web posted at: 9:08 a.m. EST (1408 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As the United States and its allies boosted their military presence in the Persian Gulf region, pressure was growing Monday for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to go to Baghdad in a last ditch effort to resolve the impasse over U.N. inspections before U.S.-led military strikes.
Monday's latest developments:
Annan was to meet at the United Nations with the ambassadors of the five permanent Security Council members in an effort to speed up a diplomatic solution. The secretary-general has said he doesn't want to go unless he sees hope for a solution
Members of the Iraqi parliament protested with their Arab colleagues outside a U.N. building in Baghdad Monday
In a letter to Annan, the Iraqi parliament said it was the secretary-general's duty to block an attack. "Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction. These allegations are nothing but a cover to justify an aggression against Iraq," the National Assembly said. Some parliament members demonstrated outside a U.N. office in Baghdad.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in an interview published in the Financial Times, said he saw any mission by Annan as the final chance for peace. Mubarak said public opinion in the Arab world had swung toward support for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Video of the protesters marching in the streets of Baghdad.
1.6MB / 28 sec. / 240x1801MB / 28 sec. / 160x120QuickTime movie
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf was in Lebanon, wrapping up a four-nation tour seeking the support of Iraq's Arab neighbors in the showdown. Al-Sahhaf said Baghdad hoped Annan would succeed in coming up with an "objective" formula that would allow the U.N. inspectors to survey disputed "presidential" sites, which include palaces of President Saddam Hussein.
French President Jacques Chirac will meet with Al-Sahhaf on Tuesday in Paris, Chirac's office said. Al-Sahhaf was expected to deliver a reply from Hussein to a message sent to him by Chirac.
CNN's Mike Hanna reports from Bahrain 1 min. 38 sec VXtreme streaming video
Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani became the first foreign minister from a Gulf country to visit Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, saying he sought a peaceful solution.
The United Arab Emirates defense minister, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum, also has offered to mediate.
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, far right, greets al-Thani Monday in Baghdad
In a sign that Iraq could be willing to offer concessions, government-run newspapers quoted Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan as saying Iraq "is serious and earnest" in its pursuit of a diplomatic solution. But Baghdad did not back down from its insistence that the palaces are symbols of its sovereignty and emphasized that Iraqis would fight to the death to defend them.
U.N. surveyors who arrived in Baghdad over the weekend resumed work mapping the eight sites that Hussein has declared off limits to U.N. inspectors who are trying to verify that all weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed.
Several Russian lawmakers visiting Iraq reportedly plan to stay there as a "human shield" against possible U.S.-led strikes. Ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is leading the delegation, plans to return to Moscow on Tuesday, but several other legislators will stay behind, a member of Zhirinovsky's parliament faction said in Moscow. During his trip, Zhirinovsky visited one of disputed presidential compounds.
The new three-man U.N. inspection team arrived in Baghdad on Sunday
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Australian forces including elite commandos of the Special Air Service unit will leave for the Gulf on Tuesday for possible combat action. They are the first Australian troops to be sent into an overseas conflict since the Vietnam War.
New Zealand announced it is offering its elite commando unit and two search and rescue planes.
This is a video that is at the CNN link clearly illustrating well nourished and well clothed Iraqi citizens, both men and women demonstrating against potential attacks into their country in 1998. How many of those people are now dead? How many were alive before March 19, 2003?
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/16/iraq.latest/protest.240.28.mov
How did this disarmed country become an enemy with a threat so huge the USA had to invade the country to protect the nation? How did that happen? The article is below.
Pressure mounts for U.N. chief to visit Iraq (click link above)
February 16, 1998
Web posted at: 9:08 a.m. EST (1408 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As the United States and its allies boosted their military presence in the Persian Gulf region, pressure was growing Monday for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to go to Baghdad in a last ditch effort to resolve the impasse over U.N. inspections before U.S.-led military strikes.
Monday's latest developments:
Annan was to meet at the United Nations with the ambassadors of the five permanent Security Council members in an effort to speed up a diplomatic solution. The secretary-general has said he doesn't want to go unless he sees hope for a solution
Members of the Iraqi parliament protested with their Arab colleagues outside a U.N. building in Baghdad Monday
In a letter to Annan, the Iraqi parliament said it was the secretary-general's duty to block an attack. "Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction. These allegations are nothing but a cover to justify an aggression against Iraq," the National Assembly said. Some parliament members demonstrated outside a U.N. office in Baghdad.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in an interview published in the Financial Times, said he saw any mission by Annan as the final chance for peace. Mubarak said public opinion in the Arab world had swung toward support for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Video of the protesters marching in the streets of Baghdad.
1.6MB / 28 sec. / 240x1801MB / 28 sec. / 160x120QuickTime movie
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf was in Lebanon, wrapping up a four-nation tour seeking the support of Iraq's Arab neighbors in the showdown. Al-Sahhaf said Baghdad hoped Annan would succeed in coming up with an "objective" formula that would allow the U.N. inspectors to survey disputed "presidential" sites, which include palaces of President Saddam Hussein.
French President Jacques Chirac will meet with Al-Sahhaf on Tuesday in Paris, Chirac's office said. Al-Sahhaf was expected to deliver a reply from Hussein to a message sent to him by Chirac.
CNN's Mike Hanna reports from Bahrain 1 min. 38 sec VXtreme streaming video
Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani became the first foreign minister from a Gulf country to visit Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, saying he sought a peaceful solution.
The United Arab Emirates defense minister, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum, also has offered to mediate.
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, far right, greets al-Thani Monday in Baghdad
In a sign that Iraq could be willing to offer concessions, government-run newspapers quoted Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan as saying Iraq "is serious and earnest" in its pursuit of a diplomatic solution. But Baghdad did not back down from its insistence that the palaces are symbols of its sovereignty and emphasized that Iraqis would fight to the death to defend them.
U.N. surveyors who arrived in Baghdad over the weekend resumed work mapping the eight sites that Hussein has declared off limits to U.N. inspectors who are trying to verify that all weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed.
Several Russian lawmakers visiting Iraq reportedly plan to stay there as a "human shield" against possible U.S.-led strikes. Ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is leading the delegation, plans to return to Moscow on Tuesday, but several other legislators will stay behind, a member of Zhirinovsky's parliament faction said in Moscow. During his trip, Zhirinovsky visited one of disputed presidential compounds.
The new three-man U.N. inspection team arrived in Baghdad on Sunday
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Australian forces including elite commandos of the Special Air Service unit will leave for the Gulf on Tuesday for possible combat action. They are the first Australian troops to be sent into an overseas conflict since the Vietnam War.
New Zealand announced it is offering its elite commando unit and two search and rescue planes.
This was used by the USA during WWII to promote the 'idea' of hard work wins the war. It's bigoted. Isn't it?
US Office for War Information, propaganda message: working less helps our enemies.
This image was justified in a multicultural nation due to the Japanese attacks. That image also allowed the detained encampment of innocent Japanese citizens in the USA. How does a citizen become the enemy?
Do you preceive this as dangerous Russian propaganda? Do you? It was used in WWII to recruit the very soldiers that defeated Hitler. Is it still bad.
The poster states :: "The Red Army fighter, save us!"
The Russian Victory in WWII. Russia was an ally. How now could they ever be an enemy?
Soviet soldiers Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria of the 756th Rifle Regiment raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag during the Battle of Berlin on April 30, 1945.
I am troubled that the USA media is ambivalent in reporting a protectionist view of our democracy; allowing a Neocon administration their own reality
"Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist." Source: Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda And Persuasion, 4th edition, 2006.
Is it correct to criticize the USA media when reporting turns into bolstering an American public for war through accurate reporting from a manipulative and corrupt White House? Where does it end? And does our Constitution protect itself from such an outrage without the guarantees of impeachment when a political party uses the USA for exploitation of power to achieve wealth while deliberately ignoring their Constitutional responsibilites?
A look at propaganda and how the USA has fallen under it's influence.
Is it correct to criticize the USA media when reporting turns into bolstering an American public for war through accurate reporting from a manipulative and corrupt White House? Where does it end? And does our Constitution protect itself from such an outrage without the guarantees of impeachment when a political party uses the USA for exploitation of power to achieve wealth while deliberately ignoring their Constitutional responsibilites?
A look at propaganda and how the USA has fallen under it's influence.
The Matador by Johnny Cash
The crowd is waiting for the bullfight
Matador
My final fight the place is packed once more
But Anita won’t throw me a rose this fight
The one she wears is not for me tonight
She’s watching now with her new love I know
Walk proud and slow
Be strong and sure give the crowd a show
They want blood you know!
You’re still their idol as you were before
Kill just one more!
Remind Anita, you’re the greatest Matador
Walk on out, forget Anita in the stands
Be a tall and strong and brave and noble man
Be better than you’ve never been before
Make this your greatest moment Matador
She’s watching now with her new love I know
Walk proud and slow
Be strong and sure give the crowd a show
They want blood you know!
You’re still their idol as you were before
Kill just one more!
Remind Anita, you’re the greatest Matador
Matador
My final fight the place is packed once more
But Anita won’t throw me a rose this fight
The one she wears is not for me tonight
She’s watching now with her new love I know
Walk proud and slow
Be strong and sure give the crowd a show
They want blood you know!
You’re still their idol as you were before
Kill just one more!
Remind Anita, you’re the greatest Matador
Walk on out, forget Anita in the stands
Be a tall and strong and brave and noble man
Be better than you’ve never been before
Make this your greatest moment Matador
She’s watching now with her new love I know
Walk proud and slow
Be strong and sure give the crowd a show
They want blood you know!
You’re still their idol as you were before
Kill just one more!
Remind Anita, you’re the greatest Matador
Nicolás Guillén Landrián
"But it is not the end"
The Experimental Ethnography of Nicolàs Guillèn Landriàn
This is an entry after his death noting that Mr. Landrian’s experience as an American was only better than as a Cuban that he was not imprisoned so much as left homeless and without any health care at all. Fred Thompson didn't bother to talk about that reality, did he? :
August 5, 2003
Nicolás Guillén Landrián
Nicolás Guillén Landrián, a painter and Cuban filmmaker who was once accused of trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, died on July 22 from pancreatic cancer. He was 65.
Although Guillén directed 18 documentaries and won several awards at film festivals in Europe, he was expelled from Cuba's Institute of Cinematography for making a movie that mocked the Cuban dictator. In the late 1960s, Guillén was accused of plotting to kill Castro. He was imprisoned for two years, then confined for nearly a decade to mental institutions where he was subjected to electroshock therapy.
Guillén left Cuba in 1989, moved to South Florida and became a painter. His artwork was exhibited at the former Cuban Museum of Art to sell-out crowds. But when he ran out of money, Guillén refused to take an ordinary job. Instead, he and his wife, Grettel Alfonso, ended up living on the streets. They bounced around the country, struggling to survive in dilapidated hotels.
Guillén eventually returned to Miami to produce the documentary, "Inside Downtown," a 30-minute look at homelessness. It was released last year.
Posted on August 5, 2003 11:22 AM
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
"So there I was in a group of sick people" -- Michael Moore
May 19th, 2007 9:04 am
'Sicko' stars thank Moore for Cuba trip
By Jocelyn Noveck / Associated Press
NEW YORK - It could have been a college reunion: hugs, tears, laughter, photos, and a big friendly guy in shorts and sneakers organizing it all. But the guy in shorts was Michael Moore, whose new documentary, "Sicko," takes aim at the U.S. health care industry with the same fury — laced with humor, of course, and plenty of statistics — that he directed at the Bush administration in his hit "Fahrenheit 9/11."
And the people who'd flown in for this intimate first screening, a day after the film had been shipped to the Cannes Film Festival, included grateful Sept. 11 "first responders," suffering lung problems or other ailments from their days at ground zero. In the film, Moore takes them to Cuba and tries to get them treated at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay — where, he contends, terror suspects were getting better medical care than the heroes of 9/11.
The Cuba trip actually accounts for just a small part of "Sicko," which aims its wrath at private insurance and pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, while praising socialized medicine in countries like France and Britain. Moore fills it with stories like that of a woman whose ambulance ride after a car crash wasn't covered — because it wasn't "pre-approved."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9817
May 20th, 2007 9:42 am
Michael Moore makes triumphant Cannes return with provocative documentary 'Sicko'
By Jill Lawless / Associated Press
CANNES, France --"Sicko," Michael Moore's attack on the U.S. health care system, got a warm welcome at Cannes Saturday that marked the director's triumphant return to the film festival and a respite from the controversy his work has started at home.
More than 2,000 people applauded loudly after the film's first Cannes screening at the packed Grand Theatre Lumiere, the main festival auditorium.
"I know the storm awaits me back in the United States," said Moore as he absorbed the enthusiastic response of critics and journalists.
The movie doesn't open until late June, but it has already been criticized by conservative politicians in the United States over scenes in which the filmmaker takes ailing 9/11 rescuers to Cuba for treatment.
By Jill Lawless / Associated Press
CANNES, France --"Sicko," Michael Moore's attack on the U.S. health care system, got a warm welcome at Cannes Saturday that marked the director's triumphant return to the film festival and a respite from the controversy his work has started at home.
More than 2,000 people applauded loudly after the film's first Cannes screening at the packed Grand Theatre Lumiere, the main festival auditorium.
"I know the storm awaits me back in the United States," said Moore as he absorbed the enthusiastic response of critics and journalists.
The movie doesn't open until late June, but it has already been criticized by conservative politicians in the United States over scenes in which the filmmaker takes ailing 9/11 rescuers to Cuba for treatment.
-- The Wall Street Journal
Michael Moore's 'SiCKO' Receives Healthy Response at Premiere
By Anthony Kaufman / The Wall Street Journal
CANNES, France -- Filmmaker Michael Moore received a warm reception at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday morning, where his latest movie "SiCKO," a critical look at the U.S. health-care system, premiered to the world's press. No stranger to the festival, Mr. Moore won the top prize, the Palme d'Or, for "Fahrenheit 9/11" three years ago here.
During the packed 8:30 a.m. morning press screening at the Grand Lumiere Theatre, several scenes in the documentary brought spontaneous applause, including a prologue segment that shows one man, without health care, stitching a large open wound on his leg with his own hand.
"SiCKO," however, does not focus on the uninsured, but the vast number of Americans who have health-care coverage, and their personal stories of frustration with the system. A teary-eyed mother recalls the story of her daughter's death when being transferred from one hospital to another owned by Kaiser Permanente. Another woman blames the U.S. system for the demise of her husband, who was denied a bone marrow transplant. After the screening, several hard-nosed U.S. critics and journalists admitted to crying during the film.
Review: Sicko
By Alissa Simon / Variety
Three years after winning Cannes' top prize for "Fahrenheit 9/11," docu helmer and agent provocateur Michael Moore returns to the Croisette with more polemics-as-performance-art in "Sicko," an affecting and entertaining dissection of the American health care industry, showing how it benefits the few at the expense of the many. Pic's tone alternates between comedy, poignancy and outrage as it compares the U.S system of care to other countries. Given Moore's celebrity and fan base, plus heightened awareness of pic resulting from the heated battle that's already begun between left and right, returns look to be extremely healthy.
Pic should also play well internationally, providing an eye-opening lesson for foreigners who may be inclined (like Moore's Canadian cousins) to take out insurance from their homeland before visiting the States.
Chief criticism of the pic is that it paints too rosy a picture of the national health care of the countries he compares America to, including Canada, England, France — and Cuba.
By Alissa Simon / Variety
Three years after winning Cannes' top prize for "Fahrenheit 9/11," docu helmer and agent provocateur Michael Moore returns to the Croisette with more polemics-as-performance-art in "Sicko," an affecting and entertaining dissection of the American health care industry, showing how it benefits the few at the expense of the many. Pic's tone alternates between comedy, poignancy and outrage as it compares the U.S system of care to other countries. Given Moore's celebrity and fan base, plus heightened awareness of pic resulting from the heated battle that's already begun between left and right, returns look to be extremely healthy.
Pic should also play well internationally, providing an eye-opening lesson for foreigners who may be inclined (like Moore's Canadian cousins) to take out insurance from their homeland before visiting the States.
Chief criticism of the pic is that it paints too rosy a picture of the national health care of the countries he compares America to, including Canada, England, France — and Cuba.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9821
-- Stephen Schaefer, Boston Globe
Michael Moore slices up US health system in new film
By Marc Burleigh / AFP
CANNES, France - Michael Moore unveiled his latest attack on America's shortcomings at Cannes on Saturday with "Sicko", a scathing documentary that exposes the dark side of the US health system and its powerful insurance lobby.
In the film, played to a packed-out crowd in the film festival's biggest, 2,000-seat theatre, Moore flays a health system that leaves 50 million Americans with no access to medical care -- and which even cruelly pulls the rug out from under many of those who mistakenly think they are properly covered.
The documentary fires off side shots at US President George W. Bush, the follow-up to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Iraq war, all subjects of predilection for Moore, who won Cannes's Palme d'Or in 2004 for "Fahrenheit 9/11".
This time, the filmmaker has landed in hot water for a stunt in "Sicko" in which he takes a group of ailing September 11 emergency workers to Cuba, where they receive medical treatment.
Rose Ann DeMoro: "Sicko" Diagnoses a Cure for the Nation
By Rose Ann DeMoro / HuffingtonPost.com
Perhaps the exponents of expediency just haven't met the rescue heroes of September 11 still plagued by debilitating respiratory illnesses, but unable to get the healthcare they need in the country they volunteered to help in our hour of despair.
Or the machinist and his newspaper editor wife who had to sell their home and move into a cramped room in their daughter's house when his heart attacks and her cancer caused their medical bills to soar. Or the woman whose husband died after their insurer refused to authorize a bone marrow transplant from his younger brother because it was "experimental." They are among the stars of Michael Moore's riveting new film "Sicko," that we were privileged to be among 50 people in an intimate private screening in New York a few days before the premiere in Cannes Saturday night where it was the hottest ticket in town and greeted with well-deserved rave reviews. Many of those in the New York audience, the real life stars of "Sicko," were brought to tears by a film and filmmaker who viewed their lives with a lot more humanity than the insurance companies who had treated them with such calculated disregard.
By Rose Ann DeMoro / HuffingtonPost.com
Perhaps the exponents of expediency just haven't met the rescue heroes of September 11 still plagued by debilitating respiratory illnesses, but unable to get the healthcare they need in the country they volunteered to help in our hour of despair.
Or the machinist and his newspaper editor wife who had to sell their home and move into a cramped room in their daughter's house when his heart attacks and her cancer caused their medical bills to soar. Or the woman whose husband died after their insurer refused to authorize a bone marrow transplant from his younger brother because it was "experimental." They are among the stars of Michael Moore's riveting new film "Sicko," that we were privileged to be among 50 people in an intimate private screening in New York a few days before the premiere in Cannes Saturday night where it was the hottest ticket in town and greeted with well-deserved rave reviews. Many of those in the New York audience, the real life stars of "Sicko," were brought to tears by a film and filmmaker who viewed their lives with a lot more humanity than the insurance companies who had treated them with such calculated disregard.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9818
Michael Moore's new film is Cannes's hottest ticket
By Marc Burleigh / AFP
CANNES, France - Three years after triumphing at Cannes, Michael Moore returns Saturday with his latest documentary, already regarded as the hottest ticket at the film festival.
The world premiere of "Sicko", a biting and polemical look at the US health system, is considered such a must-see by the thousands of critics and reporters here that it is being shown in the festival's biggest theatre -- even though it's not even in the official competition.
His last film, "Fahreinheit 9/11" walked off with Cannes's Palme d'Or trophy in 2004 for its scathing criticism of the White House and US President George W. Bush's reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the war on Iraq, and the festival premiered his "Bowling for Columbine" in 2002.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9816
Wolfowitz resigns; Bush to nominate successor soon
By Lesley Wroughton / Reuters
WASHINGTON - Paul Wolfowitz resigned as president of the World Bank on Thursday, ending a protracted battle over his stewardship prompted by his involvement in a high-paying promotion for his companion.
"The poorest people in the world ... deserve the very best we can deliver," Wolfowitz said in a statement. "Now it is necessary to find a way to move forward."
His resignation takes effect on June 30.
Wolfowitz, a former U.S. deputy defense secretary who was a controversial figure as a leading architect of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, came to the bank in 2005 despite misgivings by European countries, which are among the bank's biggest funders.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9813
Paulson Says Wolfowitz's Successor Should Still Be an American
By Matthew Benjamin / Bloomberg
May 17 -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he will consult with international colleagues about a successor to outgoing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, while stressing that the position should remain in U.S. hands.
``I intend to move quickly to help the president identify a nominee to lead the World Bank,'' Paulson said in a statement in Washington, referring to President George W. Bush. ``I will consult my colleagues around the world as we search for a leader.''
Wolfowitz's departure over a pay and promotion package awarded his companion, who worked at the bank, sparks a debate over the development agency's selection process. By tradition, the Washington-based bank's chief has been an American, with Europeans appointing the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9814
'Sicko' the Controversy
Michael Moore talks about attracting the ire of the Bush administration with his new health care documentary, and how he wishes Katie Couric would be more forthcoming with the public
By Daniel Fierman / Entertainment Weekly
It's 3:10 in the afternoon and Michael Moore has just finished making breakfast. Another episode in the lazy life of a wealthy documentary filmmaker? Hardly. Moore was up all night working on his new documentary, Sicko, a scathing look at the health care industry that's slated to debut at the Cannes film festival on May 19. Already under fire from the government for taking his crew to Cuba, Moore put aside his cereal to chat about HMOs, his treatment in the media, and (surprise!) the Bush administration.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So what makes you think there's a problem with our health care system?MICHAEL MOORE: [laughs hard] I said to the crew on the first day, ''Let's not insult the audience by telling them that the health care system is broken. Let's start with the assumption that people know it. What kind of film would we make then?''
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9811
Michael Moore hiding new film from US authorities: producer
CANNES, France (AFP) - Michael Moore, the controversial documentary maker critical of President George W. Bush's White House, is hiding his latest movie from US authorities ahead of its screening at Cannes, his producer said Wednesday.
"The film has been placed in a secret location outside the country," a spokeswoman for the Weinstein Company, Sarah Levanson-Rothman, told AFP.
Moore, who won the Cannes Palme d'Or in 2004 with "Fahrenheit 9/11", is due to present "Sicko", his new documentary which takes a scathing look at the US health industry and its powerful insurance lobby, at the film festival on Saturday.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9809
A Challenge from Michael Moore to Presidential Hopeful Fred Thompson
May 15, 2007
Senator Fred ThompsonAmerican Enterprise Institute1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W.Washington, DC 20036
Dear Senator Thompson, Given that it has been publicly reported in The Weekly Standard, a leading neo-conservative publication, that you support Fidel Castro and the Cuban regime by being a purveyor of fine Cuban exports despite the trade embargo, I was surprised to see your recent op ed in a more traditional conservative outlet, The National Review, regarding my trip to Cuba (I suspect you choose The National Review in an effort to pander to an outlet that had criticized you for your opposition to medical malpractice legislation). In your May 2, 2007 National Review article, “Paradise Island,” you specifically raised concerns about whether my trip to Cuba with 9/11 heroes, who have suffered serious health problems as a result of their exposure to toxic substances at Ground Zero that have gone untreated, was somehow going to support Castro and the Cuban government:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=208
“Paradise Island”The myth of Cuban health care.
By Fred Thompson
You might have read the stories about filmmaker Michael Moore taking ailing workers from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Cuba for free medical treatments. According to reports, he filmed the trip for a new movie that bashes America for not having government-provided health care.
You might have read the stories about filmmaker Michael Moore taking ailing workers from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Cuba for free medical treatments. According to reports, he filmed the trip for a new movie that bashes America for not having government-provided health care.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWNhNzA2YmY3NTNjZjZhNjE1NmZjMDFkOTdjN2Q4ZmE=
The next article is are not from Moore’s site, but, an entry after his death noting that Mr. Landrian’s experience as an American only better than as a Cuban that he was not imprisoned so much as left homeless and without any health care at all. If Mr. Landrian was an artist and in prison he would be given at least regular health care, even if substandard in must USA prisons. He'd still be able to paint.
August 5, 2003
Nicolás Guillén Landrián
Nicolás Guillén Landrián, a painter and Cuban filmmaker who was once accused of trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, died on July 22 from pancreatic cancer. He was 65.
Although Guillén directed 18 documentaries and won several awards at film festivals in Europe, he was expelled from Cuba's Institute of Cinematography for making a movie that mocked the Cuban dictator. In the late 1960s, Guillén was accused of plotting to kill Castro. He was imprisoned for two years, then confined for nearly a decade to mental institutions where he was subjected to electroshock therapy.
Guillén left Cuba in 1989, moved to South Florida and became a painter. His artwork was exhibited at the former Cuban Museum of Art to sell-out crowds. But when he ran out of money, Guillén refused to take an ordinary job. Instead, he and his wife, Grettel Alfonso, ended up living on the streets. They bounced around the country, struggling to survive in dilapidated hotels.
Guillén eventually returned to Miami to produce the documentary, "Inside Downtown," a 30-minute look at homelessness. It was released last year.
Posted on August 5, 2003 11:22 AM
http://www.blogofdeath.com/archives/000195.html
From the Courthouseto the White House Fred Thompson auditions for the leading role. by Stephen F. Hayes 04/23/2007, Volume 012, Issue 30
A strange thing happened a few weeks back when I went to the Café Promenade at the Mayflower Hotel for an off-the-record interview with an unpaid adviser to the non-campaign of unannounced presidential candidate Fred Thompson.
Fred Thompson showed up.
Thompson was there to have lunch with Ed Gillespie, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a powerhouse consultant with ties to the White House. The two men worked together in the fall of 2005 on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Thompson had invited Gillespie to lunch to discuss a potential presidential bid.
http://weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=13528&R=1136E33842
“Thompson's work space looks just like what the home office of a successful politician or CEO should look like--though a little messier: a large desk, dark wood, leather furniture, lots of books and magazines and newspapers, a flat-screen TV, and box upon box of cigars--Montecristos from Havana.”
Thompson's 1994 Issue Positions
Project Vote Smart, which compiles voting records and other background materials on politicians, has finally put up its page on Fred Thompson (OK, maybe "finally" isn't exactly the fairest word when Mr. Thompson hasn't even announced for president — but I've been eager to see it).
Anyway, it seems Mr. Thompson filled out a survey for Project Vote Smart back in 1994, when he was running for Senate. While it's mostly pretty predictable (boo foreign aid, yay low taxes), there are a few parts worth scrutinizing... (see: abortion, education, AIDS)
* Under health care: Mr. Thompson's already gotten in a scrape with National Review for not supporting federal medical malpractice reform while in Congress. In this survey, he notes his opposition to it — so, at least he was consistent. He also declined to check the box supporting deregulation of private health care.
http://www.nysunpolitics.com/blog/2007/05/thompsons-1994-issue-positions.html
Presidential Hopeful Fred Thompson Hides Behind His Desk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JRAlkwE3mM
Cuban missive crisis: Moore, ex-Sen. at war
By George Rush and Joanna Rush Molloy / New York Daily News
Filmmaker Michael Moore is calling out White House hopeful Fred Thompson for refusing to debate him.
The director and the former senator have been trading shots since May 2, when Thompson weighed in on the Treasury Department's investigation into whether Moore violated the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba by seeking free treatment on the Communist isle for sick 9/11 responders. Writing in the National Review, Thompson chided Moore for "gushing" over dictator Fidel Castro.
Moore, who filmed the trip for "Sicko," his forthcoming cinematic indictment of America's health care, yesterday returned fire in an open letter that pointed to Thompson's fondness for Cuban-made Montecristo cigars.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9810
One Man Revolution on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/One-Man-Revolution-Nightwatchman/dp/B000NVJRBO/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0385660-4148723?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1176416274&sr=8-1
Weinsteins set 'SiCKO' release date
Moore film to rollout June 29
By Ian Mohr / Variety
The Weinstein Co. has pegged a June 29 rollout for Michael Moore's Cannes-bound docu "SiCKO" and brought in Lionsgate to partner on releasing the documaker's first pic since "Fahrenheit 9/11."
Division of labor will see Lionsgate booking theaters on "SiCKO" in the U.S. while TWC handles all marketing and publicity duties and puts up all P&A costs.
TWC is also handling international rights and is offering the doc -- a critical look at the U.S. health care system -- in Cannes after its world preem.
U.S. Probe Could Boost Moore Movie
By Kathie Klarreich/Miami / TIME Magazine
Michael Moore will never get a standing ovation from the Bush Administration, but he certainly won't complain about the free publicity he's getting for his newest documentary, SiCKO. Free publicity for an adversary may not have been the government's intention, but that has certainly been the effect of the investigation Washington has launched against Moore just one week before the movie's slated premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Last March, six months after his initial request for travel documents, the award-winning documentary filmmaker visited Cuba. There, he filmed a segment of SiCKO, his movie focusing on the failing U.S. health-care industry. For the segment, Moore had taken along ten 9/11 first-responders who have been suffering respiratory problems ever since.
By Kathie Klarreich/Miami / TIME Magazine
Michael Moore will never get a standing ovation from the Bush Administration, but he certainly won't complain about the free publicity he's getting for his newest documentary, SiCKO. Free publicity for an adversary may not have been the government's intention, but that has certainly been the effect of the investigation Washington has launched against Moore just one week before the movie's slated premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Last March, six months after his initial request for travel documents, the award-winning documentary filmmaker visited Cuba. There, he filmed a segment of SiCKO, his movie focusing on the failing U.S. health-care industry. For the segment, Moore had taken along ten 9/11 first-responders who have been suffering respiratory problems ever since.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9790
Tenet hands Jeb Bush a big windfall
Jeb Bush will get over $450,000 in the next year from Tenet for being a board member -- about three times what the average director makes at major U.S. corporations.
By John Dorschner / Miami Herald
Shareholders officially elected former Gov. Jeb Bush to the board of Tenet Healthcare on Thursday -- a part-time job that will bring him over $450,000 in the next year.
At the hospital chain's annual shareholder meeting in Dallas, Bush received 96.56 percent of the shares voting, with 3.44 percent withheld, for a one-year post. Only one of the 10 directors elected had a higher vote.
For this, Bush has already received 34,667 shares worth $260,000, which he has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He will receive a $65,000 annual retainer fee, plus $1,500 per board meeting and $1,200 per committee meeting attended. And finally, he will get $130,000 annually in stock for each year he's on the board.
That doesn't make him a special case at Tenet, however, because SEC filings show the company's board members earned between $409,000 and $590,000 for 2006.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9797
President Bush Nominates Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary
President George W. Bush shakes the hand of Henry Paulson after nominating him Tuesday, May 30, 2006, as Treasury Secretary to replace Secretary John Snow, right, who announced his resignation. White House photo by Shealah Craighead
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/images/20060530_p053006sc-0222-515h.html
Moore: Bush 'coming after me' for political reasons
By Kim Profant / Chicago Tribune
LOS ANGELES -- Filmmaker Michael Moore has asked the Bush administration to call off an investigation of his trip to Cuba to get treatment for ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers for a segment in his upcoming health-care expose, "SiCKO."
Moore, who made the hit documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" assailing President Bush's handling of Sept. 11, said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday that the White House may have opened the investigation for political reasons.
"I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me -- I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide," Moore said in the letter, which he posted on the liberal Web site Daily Kos.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9789
Statement in Response to Bush Administration's Investigation of 'SiCKO'
'SiCKO,' Michael Moore's new movie, will rip the band-aid off America's health care industry. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in just one week and opening across the U.S. on June 29th, 'SiCKO' will expose the corporations that place profit before care and the politicians who care only about money. Our health care system is broken and, all too often, deadly. The efforts of the Bush Administration to conduct a politically motivated investigation of Michael Moore and 'SiCKO' will not stop us from making sure the American people see this film.
On September 11, 2001 this country was attacked. Thousands of Americans responded with heroism and courage, toiling for days, weeks and months in the ruins at Ground Zero. These 9/11 first responders risked their lives searching for survivors, recovering bodies, and clearing away toxic rubble. Now, many of these heroes face serious health issues -- and far too many of them are not receiving the care they need and deserve. President Bush and the Bush Administration should be spending their time trying to help these heroes get health care instead of abusing the legal process to advance a political agenda.
-- Meghan O'Hara, Producer, SiCKO
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9780
Public Punditry Contest!
Deadline June 1
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com/2007/03/public-punditry-contest.html
Army Recruiters Caught on Hidden Camera
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/category.asp?C=99556
Meet Blackwater USA, the powerful private army that the U.S. government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. With its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and twenty-thousand troops at the ready, Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the "global war on terror"--yet most people have never heard of it.
http://www.nationbooks.org/book.mhtml?t=scahill
Be It Resolved: You Can Impeach the President
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=622
Casualties of Iraq War
American soldiers dead, since war began (3/19/03) : 3422
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
October 11th, 2006 1:20 am
Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000
By David Brown / Washington Post
A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8080
Digital, newspaper of Sancti Spiritus province, Cuba.
Cuba Asks UN to Circulate Official Statement on Posada
United Nations, May 18 (Prensa Latina) Cuba asked the UN secretary general to circulate a protest against the release of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in the United States, as an official document of the General Assembly and the Security Council.
Cuban Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca said in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that a US court dropped all charges against the terrorist and released him on May 8.
Once again, Cuba holds the US government responsible for that decision, which is proof of Washington's double standard in its self-proclaimed "war against terrorism", the letter says.
Malmierca added that by not considering this individual a terrorist, the US government is violating international covenants and treaties, in addition to breaking its own laws.
The Cuban ambassador added that Posada Carriles's release also violates pertinent resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.
He repeated his country's strongest condemnation of this new move, which he described as an insult to the Cuban people and the victims and relatives of the hideous sabotage of a Cubana de Aviacion airplane off Barbados in 1976, killing all 73 people on board.
Malmierca asked the UN secretary general to circulate his letter and an annex containing the Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba, dated May 9, 2007, as official documents of the 61st Session of the General Assembly.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cstatement070518842.htm
Venez Urges US People to Denounce Terrorist Release
Caracas, May 18 (Prensa Latina) Failing a response from the US administration on the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro has urged the US Congress and people to denounce the release of this international terrorist.
Freeing this notorious criminal is a gigantic shame, and we know that initiatives have been put forward in the US Congress, with the issue included in the legislative agenda of the next few weeks, Maduro told Prensa Latina in Caracas on Friday.
Maduro called on US legislators and the public of that country to strongly make their feelings known about the Bush administration s allowing the terrorist to freely walk US streets.
He said this move puts the security of the entire hemisphere in danger, and recalled Posada Carriles has been convicted of numerous violent acts.
Venezuela's top diplomat explained that his government is taking several actions on the international scene, including a joint presentation with Cuba before the UN Anti-Terrorist Committee.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cmaduro070518451.htm
Cuban Press vs. Terrorist Impunity
Havana, May 18 (Prensa Latina) Cuban journalists called for their colleagues throughout the world to condemn the release in United States of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and end impunity.
Professionals and media workers met Thursday at the capital s Anti-Imperialist Tribune, under the nose of the US Interests Section, and criticized Washington s protection of Posada Carriles.
Barbara Betancourt, from Radio Habana Cuba station, Juvenal Balan and Daysi Francis, from "Granma" newspaper, Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, from "Juventud Rebelde" daily, Carlos Alberto Gonzalez, a TV journalist and Jean-Guy Allard, from Granma International paper, denounced the terrorist s crimes.
They also highlighted the international media silence over the release of the mastermind of a mid air explosion of a Cuban airplane in 1976 that cost the lives of 73 people and a series of bomb attacks in Havana hotels in 1997.
Jose Antonio Martin, vice president of the Union of Journalists of Cuba, said according to some declassified documents from the US Department of State, Posada s plans in 1976 included attacks against Prensa Latina press agencies in Panama and Colombia.
Among Posada´s new projects is to attack statesmen and leaders from social and left-wing organizations, but Cuban journalists will continue faighting with the truth the media campaign that tries to protect him, concluded Martin.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cpress070518158.htm
Bolivia Minister: Posada Release Insults Law
La Paz, May 18 (Prensa Latina) The liberation in United States of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is an insult to international law, Bolivian Interior Minister Alfredo Rada told Prensa Latina on Friday.
According to Rada's statements, the May 8 decision by a US court to reject all charges against the criminal is also a provocation.
"For all revolutionary and sensible people of the hemisphere", said the official, "to free the confessed mastermind of the midair bombing of a Cuban airplane in 1976 with 73 people on aboard questions the Bush government s commitment to fighting terrorism". That decision, stressed the Bolivian minister, will be rejected by most of US people who, as well as in other countries, condemn all kind of violent action.
Rada trusts that world repudiation for the release of Posada Carriles will revert the situation and the murderer will return to prison, after being tried for all his crimes.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Crelease070518155.htm
Luis Posada Carriles Tried in Cuba
Havana, May 14 (Prensa Latina) Cuban youth start on Monday a two-day political trial against terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, after the US government's denial to try him for crimes against humanity.
This is the first process of this kind in the island against Posada Carriles, who was freed from jail by the Bush government, despite a Venezuelan extradition request.
Over 3,000 people have lost their lives in Cuba and another 2,000 have been mutilated in violent actions organized from US territory since 1959.
According to Julio Martinez, leader of the Cuban Young Communist League, the aim of this political trial is to prove to the world that Posada Carriles is "one of the worst terrorists on the planet".
Posada Carriles is the confessed mastermind of the mid-air explosion of a Cuban airplane with 73 people on board in 1976 and a series of bomb attacks in Havana hotels in 1997, which killed an Italian tourist, among other actions against the country.
He is also fugitive from the Venezuelan justice, having escaped from a jail of that South American nation in 1985, and was denounced by Cuban President Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000 for preparing an assassination attempt against him at the Ibero-American Summit.
Cuba demands justice in this case, after he was acquitted by the Bush administration, which has ignored the Venezuelan extradition request to try him.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cposada070514252.htm
By David Brown / Washington Post
A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8080
Digital, newspaper of Sancti Spiritus province, Cuba.
Cuba Asks UN to Circulate Official Statement on Posada
United Nations, May 18 (Prensa Latina) Cuba asked the UN secretary general to circulate a protest against the release of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in the United States, as an official document of the General Assembly and the Security Council.
Cuban Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca said in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that a US court dropped all charges against the terrorist and released him on May 8.
Once again, Cuba holds the US government responsible for that decision, which is proof of Washington's double standard in its self-proclaimed "war against terrorism", the letter says.
Malmierca added that by not considering this individual a terrorist, the US government is violating international covenants and treaties, in addition to breaking its own laws.
The Cuban ambassador added that Posada Carriles's release also violates pertinent resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.
He repeated his country's strongest condemnation of this new move, which he described as an insult to the Cuban people and the victims and relatives of the hideous sabotage of a Cubana de Aviacion airplane off Barbados in 1976, killing all 73 people on board.
Malmierca asked the UN secretary general to circulate his letter and an annex containing the Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba, dated May 9, 2007, as official documents of the 61st Session of the General Assembly.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cstatement070518842.htm
Venez Urges US People to Denounce Terrorist Release
Caracas, May 18 (Prensa Latina) Failing a response from the US administration on the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro has urged the US Congress and people to denounce the release of this international terrorist.
Freeing this notorious criminal is a gigantic shame, and we know that initiatives have been put forward in the US Congress, with the issue included in the legislative agenda of the next few weeks, Maduro told Prensa Latina in Caracas on Friday.
Maduro called on US legislators and the public of that country to strongly make their feelings known about the Bush administration s allowing the terrorist to freely walk US streets.
He said this move puts the security of the entire hemisphere in danger, and recalled Posada Carriles has been convicted of numerous violent acts.
Venezuela's top diplomat explained that his government is taking several actions on the international scene, including a joint presentation with Cuba before the UN Anti-Terrorist Committee.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cmaduro070518451.htm
Cuban Press vs. Terrorist Impunity
Havana, May 18 (Prensa Latina) Cuban journalists called for their colleagues throughout the world to condemn the release in United States of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and end impunity.
Professionals and media workers met Thursday at the capital s Anti-Imperialist Tribune, under the nose of the US Interests Section, and criticized Washington s protection of Posada Carriles.
Barbara Betancourt, from Radio Habana Cuba station, Juvenal Balan and Daysi Francis, from "Granma" newspaper, Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, from "Juventud Rebelde" daily, Carlos Alberto Gonzalez, a TV journalist and Jean-Guy Allard, from Granma International paper, denounced the terrorist s crimes.
They also highlighted the international media silence over the release of the mastermind of a mid air explosion of a Cuban airplane in 1976 that cost the lives of 73 people and a series of bomb attacks in Havana hotels in 1997.
Jose Antonio Martin, vice president of the Union of Journalists of Cuba, said according to some declassified documents from the US Department of State, Posada s plans in 1976 included attacks against Prensa Latina press agencies in Panama and Colombia.
Among Posada´s new projects is to attack statesmen and leaders from social and left-wing organizations, but Cuban journalists will continue faighting with the truth the media campaign that tries to protect him, concluded Martin.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cpress070518158.htm
Bolivia Minister: Posada Release Insults Law
La Paz, May 18 (Prensa Latina) The liberation in United States of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is an insult to international law, Bolivian Interior Minister Alfredo Rada told Prensa Latina on Friday.
According to Rada's statements, the May 8 decision by a US court to reject all charges against the criminal is also a provocation.
"For all revolutionary and sensible people of the hemisphere", said the official, "to free the confessed mastermind of the midair bombing of a Cuban airplane in 1976 with 73 people on aboard questions the Bush government s commitment to fighting terrorism". That decision, stressed the Bolivian minister, will be rejected by most of US people who, as well as in other countries, condemn all kind of violent action.
Rada trusts that world repudiation for the release of Posada Carriles will revert the situation and the murderer will return to prison, after being tried for all his crimes.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Crelease070518155.htm
Luis Posada Carriles Tried in Cuba
Havana, May 14 (Prensa Latina) Cuban youth start on Monday a two-day political trial against terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, after the US government's denial to try him for crimes against humanity.
This is the first process of this kind in the island against Posada Carriles, who was freed from jail by the Bush government, despite a Venezuelan extradition request.
Over 3,000 people have lost their lives in Cuba and another 2,000 have been mutilated in violent actions organized from US territory since 1959.
According to Julio Martinez, leader of the Cuban Young Communist League, the aim of this political trial is to prove to the world that Posada Carriles is "one of the worst terrorists on the planet".
Posada Carriles is the confessed mastermind of the mid-air explosion of a Cuban airplane with 73 people on board in 1976 and a series of bomb attacks in Havana hotels in 1997, which killed an Italian tourist, among other actions against the country.
He is also fugitive from the Venezuelan justice, having escaped from a jail of that South American nation in 1985, and was denounced by Cuban President Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000 for preparing an assassination attempt against him at the Ibero-American Summit.
Cuba demands justice in this case, after he was acquitted by the Bush administration, which has ignored the Venezuelan extradition request to try him.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cposada070514252.htm
Cuban Doctors in Surinam Against Release of Posada Carriles
Havana, May 16 (ACN) Cuban doctors offering their services in Surinam held a scientific conference May 14 in which they condemned the release of notorious criminal Luis Posada Carriles and demanded freedom for the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held in US prisons.
During the scientific conference, held in the capital Paramaribo with the attendance of Cuban ambassador to Surinam Andres Gonzalez Garrido, and the members of the Operation Miracle free eye-surgery program, Urologist Juan Antonio Barral Garcia gave a presentation on kidney carcinoma and offered his vast experience as specialist and surgeon. Dr. Barral Garcia has offered his services at Paramaribo's Academic Hospital for more than a year now.
Doctor Eddy Millan called on all Cuban internationalist doctors in Surinam to keep combining their medical practice with professional and scientific studies.
Ambassador Gonzalez Garrido said the work of Cuban doctors in Surinam will ratify the high prestige of Cuban medical sciences. He underscored the political will of the Cuban people to keep condemning the release of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, as they demand freedom for the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters, who have been jailed in the United States for more than eight years now.
Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernandez, known as the Cuban Five, were given extremely long and unfair sentences by a biased Miami court for having collected information on Florida-based ultra-right groups that have carried out terrorist actions against the Cuban people with the complicity of several US administrations during the past 45 years.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Csuriname0705161015.htm
Posada Carriles: Chronology of a Murderer
February 15th, 1928: Luis Posada Carriles is born in the Cuban city of Cienfuegos.
1954: He moves to Havana and meets some politicians allied to dictator Fulgencio Batista.
1955: He becomes a secret collaborator of the Batista’s police.
1957: He contacts the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
1959: He gets involved with counterrevolutionary groups which carry out sabotages in the island.
1960: He asks for asylum in the Argentina embassy alleging to be politically chased.
February 25th, 1961: He gets a safe-conduct to travel to Miami, where the CIA orders him to contact the counterrevolutionary organizations which are being trained for Playa Giron invasion.
March-April, 1961: He goes to Guatemala to train the mercenaries for infiltration and sabotages in Cuba's Bay of Pigs territory. He doesn’t participate in the invasion because his ship doesn't land in due time.
1961-1962: In the United States, he contacts the terrorist organization Movimiento Nacionalista Cubano (MNC).
1964-1965: He gets involved in activities against the Cuban Revolution in the United States, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
May, 1965: The FBI informs that Posada Carriles was connected to a conspiracy to overthrow the Guatemalan government.
June, 1965: A CIA declassified memo connects Posada with Jorge Mas Canosa in Veracruz, Mexico, when trying to blow up a Soviet ship.
October, 1967: The CIA transfers Posada Carriles to Venezuela where he joins the Direction of the Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP) organization. Disguised under the pseudonym of “Comisario Basilio” (Commissar Basilio), he takes part in repressive activities against Venezuelan and Latin American progressive groups.
1967-1976: He simultaneously works for the CIA in the secret services of Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Argentina.
1971: He organizes an assassination attempt against Commander in Chief Fidel Castro during a tour of the Cuban leader to Chile, Peru and Ecuador.
January 21st, 1974: He is connected with explosive devices placed in the Cuban embassies in Argentina, Peru and Mexico.
July, 1974: He sends bombs in letters and books to several Cuban consulates in Latin America.
November 7th, 1974: He places bombs in the Institute of Brazilian Studies and in the Bolivia Embassy in Ecuador.
June, 1975: He opens in Caracas, Venezuela, the Enterprise for Commercial and Industrial Investigations CA (ICICA) in order to hide his terrorist activities in the region.
1976: He joins Orlando Bosch to found the Committee of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), an anti-Cuban terrorist organization.
April 22nd, 1976: He is connected with the detonation of a bomb in the Cuban embassy in Portugal, where two Cuban diplomats are killed.
July 1st, 1976: He places a bomb in the Costa Rica-Cuba Cultural Center in Costa Rica.
July 9th, 1976: He is responsible for a bomb found in the luggage of Cubana de Aviacion airline in Jamaica.
July 10th, 1976: He is connected to a bomb placed in the offices of Cubana de Aviacion airline in Barbados.
July 11th, 1976: He is linked to a bomb placed in the offices of Air Panama airline in Colombia.
October 4th, 1976: The CORU (Coordinator for Integrated Revolutionary Organizations) declares to have placed a bomb in a television channel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in which the Cuban film “The New School” was being shown.
October 6th, 1976: Posada Carriles is identified as the principal planner and mastermind, together with Orlando Bosch, of the sabotage to a Cuban airplane while flying off the coasts of Barbados in which 73 people were killed. Both criminals are arrested in Caracas and are prosecuted together with Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, who were the one who carried out the sabotage.
1976-1985: He is kept in prison in Venezuela waiting for the verdict of a too long judicial process.
August 18th, 1985: He escapes from prison and after a 15 day-stay in Caracas, he boards a shrimper that takes him to Aruba. Once in that country he takes a private flight to Costa Rica and then to El Salvador. All the operations are financed by the National Cuban-American Foundation (FNCA) and indirectly by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In Ilopango’s air base, he joins the group responsible for the supplies to the counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua. He gets involved with the arms traffic controlled from Washington by Oliver North, advisor for internal security of the then US President Ronald Reagan.
October, 1986: When the burst of the Iran-Contras scandal, he contacts a group of Venezuelan instructors engaged in training the Salvadorian police on counter-guerrilla and interrogatory techniques.
1988: He travels to Guatemala to work as security advisor for the Guatemalan Telephone Enterprise (GUATEL)
1992: The National Cuban-American Foundation (FNCA) organizes a “military section” in charge of preparing and executing terrorist activities against Cuba and its main leaders in which Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll have an active participation.
1993: The FNCA terrorist group adopts another name: Cuban National Front.
1994: Posada Carriles organizes an unsuccessful attempt against Cuban President Fidel Castro in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, when the leader was touring the historic center of the city with the Literature Nobel Prizewinner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
1994-1997: He recruits mercenaries from Central American countries to carry out terrorist attacks in Cuba, specially in the tourism sector.
July 12th-13th, 1998: In an interview with the New York Times daily, he declares to have been backed by FNCA for the bomb attacks in Cuban resorts.
November 5th, 2000: Posada Carriles arrives in Panama with a Salvadorian passport issued to Franco Rodriguez Mena (one of his alias) to organize a bomb sabotage in the meeting hall of the Panamanian University where Fidel Castro was supposed to deliver a speech.
November 17th, 2000: Fidel Castro denounces an assassination plan against himself in an Ibero-American summit in Panama. Panamanian officials discover explosive material and arrest Posada together with Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Pedro Remon and Guillermo Novo Sampoll.
April 20th, 2004: The saboteurs are punished with 4 to 8 year imprisonment.
August 26th, 2004: The then Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso exempts the four terrorists from imprisonment. They secretly leave “El Renacer” prison and are taken to Albrook airport from where they fly to Tocumen airport. Once there, a private jet takes them to Honduras. Posada stays in that country while the other three terrorists go to Miami.
March, 2005: Posada goes to the United States and lawyers say he is looking for asylum.
April 11th, 2005: In the first of a series of special TV presentations, Cuban President Fidel Castro denounces the complicity of the US government with terrorism when saying that Posada Carriles would possibly be admitted in that country. News received more than ten days ago informed that the terrorist is in Miami where arrangements are made to grant him asylum.
April 17th, 2005: Fidel warns about the possibility of Posada being disappeared in the United States. He asks them not to kill him now, not to poison him, he asks them not to say that he died due to a heart attack or a brain damage, he says we are ready to send doctors to care for his health, so he can tells all he knows and can be prosecuted.
May 1st, 2005: Fidel addresses over one million Cubans at the Revolution Square in Havana during the 1st of May celebrations and gives more evidences on Posada Carriles presence in Miami and the evident refusal of the White House to do something despite so many evidences on the case.
May 4th, 2005: Venezuelan Chancellor Ali Rodriguez asks the United States to obey the already signed agreements and extradite Luis Posada Carriles for trial in Caracas.
May 10th: The New York Times publishes an editorial in which it is affirmed that on behalf of credibility, consistency and justice, the US government must arrest and extradite terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.
May 11th: The Cuban president refers to a report by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in which it is said that terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch are involved in the assassination of the Chilean ex-Chancellor Orlando Letelier and his North American secretary in 1976.
May 12th: During his special TV presentation, Fidel accuses the US government for hiding information taking into consideration that one day after the blowing up of a Cuban airliner off the Barbados coasts, the FBI and the CIA knew about the material and intellectual authors of the criminal sabotage, according to a document red by the mandatary.
May 13th: Venezuela officially asks the United States to extradite Posada Carriles. In a press conference held in Washington, relatives of victims of terrorism, academics, lawyers and leaders of social and religious organizations in the United States demand the government to arrest Posada Carriles and extradite him to Venezuela.
May 15th, 2005: The New Herald publishes the article “The war that Posada Carriles could not win to Fidel Castro” in which it is affirmed that the terrorist has been defeated.
May 17th, 2005: Over a million residents from Havana participate in a Combatant March in front of the US Section of Interests to demand justice and to end terrorism. It is a march in favor of life and peace, in favor of our people and the brother people of the United States, says Fidel before the beginning of the historic protest. Posada Carriles is arrested by federal agents and taken to South Florida where he is kept in a detention center for people with migratory problems. The Internal Security Department says the prisoner’s situation would be analyzed and the next step to follow would be informed within 48 hours. The criminal had already offered a press conference in which he confirmed his request for political asylum to the Bush administration. But later on, his lawyer Eduardo Soto informed that Posada Carriles had decided to withdraw the petition and leave the North American territory.
May 18th: Fidel calls on the progressive forces of the world to demand the US to send Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela so he can be prosecuted there.
Sources: Juventud Rebelde newspaper, PL and AP news agencies, Cubadebate.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Posada%20Carriles-Bush/Cchronology070425111.htm
Announcement from the President to the Cuban people
DUE to the enormous effort made to visit the Argentine city of Córdoba, participate in the MERCOSUR meeting, in the closing session of the Summit of the Peoples in the historical University of Córdoba and the visit to Altagracia, the city where Che lived as a child, and in addition to that immediately attending the commemoration of the 53rd anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes garrisons on July 26, 1953 in the provinces of Granma and Holguín, compounded by days and nights of continuous work with barely any sleep have all resulted in my health, which has stood up to every test, being subjected to extreme stress and breaking down. This provoked an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding which obliged me to undergo a complicated surgical operation. All the details of this health accident are confirmed by X-rays, endoscopies and filmed material. The operation has obliged me to take various weeks of rest, at a remove from my responsibilities and duties.
Given that our country is threatened in circumstances like this by the government of the United States, I have taken the following decision:
I provisionally delegate my functions as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba to the second secretary, comrade Raúl Castro Ruz.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Fidel/Cannounce060908950.htm
January 11th: International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo
Havana (RHC) - Thursday, January 11th, marks the fifth anniversary of the opening of a prison for so-called "enemy combatants" at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo -located in southeastern Cuba and illegally occupied by the United States. January 11th has been declared "International Day to Shut Down Guantánamo".
As part of protest activities and calls for the immediate closing of the prison at Guantanamo, Thursday will be a Congressional call-in day to focus on the repeal of the Military Commissions Act and the shutting down of Guantanamo. Organizers say that those interested should visit http://www.witnesstorture.org/ for details on how to contact members of Congress on January 11th to demand an end to torture and indefinite detention.
Organizers have also announced that there will be a march to Congress on Thursday in Washington, DC - and a news conference led by lawyers representing the men at Guantanamo and family members of those detained. Marchers plan to continue from the Supreme Court to the U.S. Federal Court, theatrically taking the prisoners' case from the court that upheld their rights to the Federal Court where their cases need to be heard.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Guantanamo/Gjanuary0701101257.htm
Announcement from the President to the Cuban people
DUE to the enormous effort made to visit the Argentine city of Córdoba, participate in the MERCOSUR meeting, in the closing session of the Summit of the Peoples in the historical University of Córdoba and the visit to Altagracia, the city where Che lived as a child, and in addition to that immediately attending the commemoration of the 53rd anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes garrisons on July 26, 1953 in the provinces of Granma and Holguín, compounded by days and nights of continuous work with barely any sleep have all resulted in my health, which has stood up to every test, being subjected to extreme stress and breaking down. This provoked an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding which obliged me to undergo a complicated surgical operation. All the details of this health accident are confirmed by X-rays, endoscopies and filmed material. The operation has obliged me to take various weeks of rest, at a remove from my responsibilities and duties.
Given that our country is threatened in circumstances like this by the government of the United States, I have taken the following decision:
I provisionally delegate my functions as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba to the second secretary, comrade Raúl Castro Ruz.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Fidel/Cannounce060908950.htm
January 11th: International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo
Havana (RHC) - Thursday, January 11th, marks the fifth anniversary of the opening of a prison for so-called "enemy combatants" at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo -located in southeastern Cuba and illegally occupied by the United States. January 11th has been declared "International Day to Shut Down Guantánamo".
As part of protest activities and calls for the immediate closing of the prison at Guantanamo, Thursday will be a Congressional call-in day to focus on the repeal of the Military Commissions Act and the shutting down of Guantanamo. Organizers say that those interested should visit http://www.witnesstorture.org/ for details on how to contact members of Congress on January 11th to demand an end to torture and indefinite detention.
Organizers have also announced that there will be a march to Congress on Thursday in Washington, DC - and a news conference led by lawyers representing the men at Guantanamo and family members of those detained. Marchers plan to continue from the Supreme Court to the U.S. Federal Court, theatrically taking the prisoners' case from the court that upheld their rights to the Federal Court where their cases need to be heard.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Guantanamo/Gjanuary0701101257.htm
New Report of Torture at US Guantanamo Base
WASHINGTON, May 15.— A Pakistani prisoner at the US Guantanamo Naval Base, an offshore prison located on illegally occupied Cuban territory, said he was subjected to torture by the CIA and Pentagon.
Majid Khan, 27, said he is still subjected to "physiological torture" at the detention camp where hundreds of prisoners from dozens of nations have been held for years without proper legal rights.
As the basis for accusations against Khan, the US uses a transcription of a closed door hearing to establish the prisoner status as an "enemy combatant".
The 39-page document, which in some parts was censored, contains a summary of the torture allegedly suffered by the prisoner, reported ANSA news agency.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Guantanamo/Gagency070516413.htm
Ecuador: Cuba Talks on US-Guantanamo Naval Base
Chone, Ecuador, Mar 9 (Prensa Latina) Cuban activists in Ecuador will be presenting experiences on rejection of the US military presence in the illegally occupied territory of Guantanamo, during the closing of the International Conference for the Elimination of Foreign Military Bases.
Lourdes Cervantes, member of the Women for Peace Caravan and leader of the organization for solidarity with the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, will reiterate Cuba´s position of action against militarization and wars worldwide, during the closing of the meeting at Eloy Alfaro University, in Manta, Manabi province.
Delegates at the conference, Manta´s residents, and members of popular and social movements will march in front of the Manta military base to rebuff the US military presence there.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Guantanamo/Gecuador0703091140.htm
Pentagon Official Attacks Law Firms Representing Prisoners
Washington (RHC) - A senior Pentagon official says he is upset that lawyers at many top legal firms are representing prisoners at Guantanamo and is calling on corporate clients to consider ending their business ties.
The comments by Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, produced an instant torrent of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists and bar association officials, who said that his comments displayed an ignorance of the duties of lawyers to represent people in legal trouble.
An article in The New York Times quotes Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University and an expert on legal ethics. Gillers said: "This is prejudicial to the administration of justice" -and that it was possible that attorneys "willing to undertake what has been long viewed as an admirable chore will decline to do so for fear of antagonizing important clients.
Other lawyers and legal experts were critical of a senior government official suggesting that representing prisoners at Guantanamo compromises U.S. interests -noting that Stimson even names the firms, giving a target to corporate America.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Guantanamo/Gpentagon0701161039.htm
British Ex-Prisoner: No Fair Legal Process in Guantanamo
London, April 5 (RHC) - A British resident released from the US prison in Guantanamo after being held for more than four years has said that the US failed to observe fair legal processes at the detention camp.
Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi national and British resident, had been held at the US military base in Cuba since 2002, but was reunited with his family last weekend in England.
"Allegations are made against you that are laughably untrue, but you have no chance to prove them wrong. There is no trial, no fair legal process", al-Rawi said in a statement.
Al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, another British resident, were alleged to have been associated with al-Qaeda through their connection with Abu Qatada, a London-based cleric.
http://www.escambray.islagrande.cu/Eng/Special/Guantanamo/Gbritish070405416.htm
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