Iraq Inquiry asks to question George Bush's senior officials

TELEGRAPH

Sources in Washington said the inquiry sent out emails "about three weeks ago" to senior officials in Mr Bush's government including, it is believed, the former president himself.

Other requests are understood to have been made to Dick Cheney, Mr Bush's vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, and Stephen Hadley, an ex-national security adviser – as well as to their deputies and senior assistants.

Members of Sir John Chilcot's panel are believed to be willing to travel to the US to take evidence – almost certainly in private – on the administration's policies between the 2003 invasion of Iraq and 2009.

While the most senior figures are reluctant to give evidence, Washington sources claim about 10 former officials, most involved in the post-invasion period, have agreed to do so.

The surprise development adds to the chances of Sir John's inquiry producing a "smoking gun" on the key questions of whether Britain and the US adequately prepared for the conflict and whether it was justified under international law.

Interviews with US officials – even held in secret – could play a major part in Sir John's final report, expected by the end of this year.

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Good News: Obamacare to Create 16,500 New Jobs!

The bad news?

A new analysis by Republican staffers on the Joint Economic and the House Ways & Means Committees estimates the IRS will have to hire an additional 16,500 workers to "collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the (health care) 'reconciliation' bill."

Mark Steyn writes:

This will be the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II - and that's change you can believe in. This is what "health" "care" "reform" boils down to: Fewer doctors, longer wait times but more bureaucrats.

Steyn paints a bleak picture of a future under Obamacare.

From now on, it gets worse. If you have children, they'll live in smaller homes, drive smaller cars, live smaller lives. If you don't have children, you had better hope your neighbors do, because someone needs to spawn a working population large enough to pay for the unsustainable entitlements the Obama party has suckered you into thinking you're entitled to.

Actually, even if Obamacare never becomes law, we’d better hope for a larger working age population. But Obamacare is certainly likely to make the deficits explode sooner.

We need less government, with smaller budgets, fewer agencies and vastly reduced numbers of public-sector union employees on less lavish remuneration.

Read more: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/03/21/good-news-obamacare-to-create-16500-new-jobs/#ixzz0isQxchMP

British military intelligence 'ran renegade torture unit in Iraq'

Fresh evidence has emerged that British military intelligence ran a secret operation in Iraq which authorised degrading and unlawful treatment of prisoners. Documents reveal that prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by defence intelligence officers. They also reveal that officers running the operation claimed to be answerable only "directly to London". 

The revelations will further embarrass the British government, which last month was forced to release documents showing it knew that UK resident and terror suspect Binyam Mohamed had been tortured in Pakistan.

The latest documents emerged during the inquiry into Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel worker beaten to death while in the custody of British troops in September 2003. The inquiry is looking into how interrogation techniques banned by the Government in 1972 and considered torture and degrading treatment were used again in Iraq.

Lawyers believe the new evidence supports suspicions that an intelligence unit – the Joint Forward Interrogation Team (JFIT) which operated in Iraq – used illegal "coercive techniques" and was not answerable to military commanders in Iraq, despite official denials it operated independently.

In a statement to the inquiry, Colonel Christopher Vernon said he raised concerns after seeing 30 to 40 prisoners in a kneeling position with sacks over their heads. He said those in charge said they were from the Defence and Intelligence Security Centre, based at Chicksands, Bedfordshire, the British Army's intelligence HQ.

He was informed that "they were an independent unit and reported directly to their chain of command in London". Hooding was "accepted practice" and would continue, he was told.

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The Pentagon Loses a Skirmish with WikiLeaks

HARPERS.ORG

What does the Pentagon have in common with North Korea, China, Zimbabwe, and a number of private Swiss banks? They all feel threatened by WikiLeaks, the Internet service that offers whistleblowers an opportunity to publish documents that expose corruption and wrongdoing by state and private actors. This week, WikiLeaks published a 32-page secret Defense Department counterintelligence study of WikiLeaks, which suggests that the American military was preparing to (or perhaps even did) attempt to hack into and shut down the site:

(S//NF) The obscurification technology[9] used by Wikileaks.org has exploitable vulnerabilities. Organizations with properly trained cyber technicians, the proper equipment, and the proper technical software could most likely conduct computer network exploitation (CNE) operations or use cyber tradecraft to obtain access to Wikileaks.org’s Web site, information systems, or networks that may assist in identifying those persons supplying the data and the means by which they transmitted the data to Wikileaks.org.

The report expressly cites China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe as nations that have taken steps against WikiLeaks, and it suggests other actions that could be taken by the United States. Noting that WikiLeaks relies upon “trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whisteblowers,” it proposes that

The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site.

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Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill

The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year. The health care bill will come up for a vote in the House on Sunday, and as Nancy Pelosi works to wrangle votes, we've been running a detailed whip count on where every member of Congress stands, updated throughout the day.

We've also taken a detailed look at the bill, and have come up with 18 often stated myths about this health care reform bill.

Real health care reform is the thing we've fought for from the start. It is desperately needed. But this bill falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps them.

While details are limited, there is apparently a "Plan B" alternative that the White House was considering as recently as two weeks ago, which would evidently expand existing programs -- Medicaid and SCHIP. It would cover half the people at a quarter of the price, but it would not force an unbearable financial burden to those who are already struggling to get by.

Congress may be too far down the road with this bill to change course. But before Democrats cast this vote which could turn "ban the mandate" into "gay marriage" for the GOP in 2010, they should consider the first rule of patient safety: first, do no harm.

Myth 1: This is a universal health care bill.

Fact: The bill is neither universal health care nor universal health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office:

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Synagogue Bomb Suspects: The Feds Put Us Up to It!

Defense attorneys say an alleged plot to bomb New York synagogues was hatched and directed by a federal informant.

Lawyers for four men from Newburgh have filed a motion to dismiss the terror indictment against them.

They said the informant badgered the defendants until they got involved in the plot.

They said the informant chose the targets, supplied fake bombs for the synagogues and a fake missile to shoot down planes. The motion said he also offered to pay the defendants, who attorneys alleged weren't inclined toward any crime until the informant began recruiting them.

"The government well knew that their case had been a government-inspired creation from day one and that the defendants had not been independently seeking weapons or targets," the motion said.

Federal court spokesman Herb Hadad said the government would file its response next month.

The four men, who were arrested last May, face up to life in prison if convicted. They have been previously identified as James Cromitie, 55, David Williams, 28, Onta Williams, 32, and Laguerre Payen, 27, all of Newburgh in upstate New York, where authorities were conducting raids at their homes, sources said.

Authorities have said they had the plotters under surveillance since June of 2008 and there was "no chance" the alleged scheme could succeed.

The FBI has said the Muslim suspects were angry and full of hate for America.  

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Thousands Rally on Anniversary of Invasion of Iraq

WJLA

WASHINGTON - Thousands of protesters carried signs reading "Indict Bush Now" and flag-draped cardboard coffins on Saturday, urging President Barack Obama (web | news | bio) to withdraw troops from Iraq (web | news) on the seventh anniversary of the U.S. invasion.

Protesters gathered for a rally at Lafayette Park across from the White House and planned to march through downtown. Stops on the route include military contractor Halliburton, the Mortgage Bankers Association and The Washington Post offices.

The protest, organized by military veterans and activists Ralph Nader (web | news | bio) and Cindy Sheehan, was expected to draw smaller crowds than the tens of thousands who marched in 2006 and 2007. But organizers say momentum is building because people are disenchanted with Obama's decision to send more troops into Afghanistan.

At the rally, Sheehan asked whether "the honeymoon was over with that war criminal in the White House" - an apparent reference to Obama - prompting moderate applause. Sheehan also encouraged protesters to join a tent camp near the Washington Monument, saying they need to do more than shake their fists at empty buildings.She pledged to erect the tents again after the National Park Service forced protesters to take down the tents Monday.

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Federal Reserve Must Disclose Bank Bailout Records

The Federal Reserve Board must disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest U.S. government bailout ever, a federal appeals court said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled today that the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched primarily after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The ruling upholds a decision of a lower-court judge, who in August ordered that the information be released.

The Fed had argued that disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury,” discouraging banks in distress from seeking help. A three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected that argument in a unanimous decision.

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, “sets forth no basis for the exemption the Board asks us to read into it,” U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote in the opinion. “If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute.”

The opinion may not be the final word in the bid for the documents, which was launched by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, with a November 2008 lawsuit. The Fed may seek a rehearing or appeal to the full appeals court and eventually petition the U.S. Supreme Court.

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FBI Documents Support Explosive Claims by Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds

Recently released FBI documents prove the existence of highly sensitive National Security and criminal investigations of “Turkish Activities” in Chicago prior to September 11, 2001. These documents add further support to many of the allegations that former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has claimed, in public and in Congress, since 2002. The documents were released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request into an organization called the Turkish American Cultural Alliance (TACA), an organization repeatedly named by Ms. Edmonds as being complicit in the crimes that she became aware of when she was a translator at the FBI.

The documents released under FOIA are almost completely redacted, but they do support many of Edmonds’ claims, including:
 

There were a number of very serious FBI investigations into “Turkish activity in Chicago” involving a number of targets, including TACA

These investigations were related to “National Security” among other things.

These investigations were regarded as so sensitive that no files were to be uploaded to FBI’s computer system.

Congressional corruption was involved.

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FLASHBACK : William Cooper Predicts UBL False Flag Event Before 9/11

This is part four of the late Milton William "Bill" Cooper's radio broadcast The Hour of Our Time on June 28, 2001.

Bill covers several topics in this show including Usama Bin Laden, false flag attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing.

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The American military now KNOWS Mossad carried out 9/11 Attacks

Dr. Alan Sabrosky, former director of studies at the US Army War College says that the military brass now know that Israel "and those traitors within our nation" committed the 911 attack.

This is very heartening.

This here is a very serious man. Look at his credentials.

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Virginia Will Sue The Feds Over ObamaCare

WASHINGTON POST

A spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) said this afternoon that Virginia will file suit against the federal government if the Democratic health care reform bill is approved by the U.S. Congress.

Cuccinelli has long said he was examining the legal issues and suggested he would likely file suit. Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for the office, said this afternoon that a lawsuit is now a definite. Gottstein would provide no details of the legal rationale for such a suit, indicating the process is "still being worked out."

Virginia last week became the first state in the country to pass a state bill declaring it illegal for the government to require individuals to purchase health insurance, a key part of bills under consideration on Capitol Hill.

We are also expecting to receive a letter shortly that Cuccinelli is sending to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning her that using the so-called "deem and pass" procedure to pass the Senate health reform bill in the House would open the measure to additional constitutional challenges from the states.

UPDATE: We've received a copy of Cuccinelli's letter to Pelosi. In it, he writes: "Should you employ the deem and pass tactic, you expose any act which may pass to yet another constitutional challenge."

The full letter is included after the jump.

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Government Secrecy Increases Under Obama

Government agencies keep finding excuses to keep an alarming number of public records secret as President Obama sits idly watching his promise of unprecedented transparency repeatedly mocked. 

The commander-in-chief’s open-government guarantee has turned out to be a big joke that has actually led to more secrecy than under the Bush Administration. Federal agencies have increasingly used “legal exemptions” to withhold information that should probably be made public, according to an analysis conducted by a national news organization. 

The probe examined public records requests from more than a dozen federal agencies—including the Federal Reserve Board, Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, Transportation and Treasury—during a two-year period to compare statistics from the Bush and Obama administrations. 

In Obama’s first year in office, major government agencies abused legitimate exemptions to withhold information tens of thousands of times more often than during George W. Bush’s final year, according to the findings. The federal agencies rejected public records requests 312,683 times in 2008—Bush’s last year—compared to 466,872 in 2009, Obama’s first in the White House.  

The most common exemption cited is one that lets the government hide records that detail “internal decision-making.” Because this particular excuse can be vague, broad and downright bogus, Obama specifically ordered agencies to cease using it so frequently and the Justice Department followed up by reminding agencies that disclosing such records is “fully consistent with the purpose” of a federal law intended to keep government accountable to the public.

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Did Addington Oppose 9/11 Commission Questions to Avoid Independent Evaluation of Torture Program?

Shortly after news broke that CIA destroyed the torture tapes, the 9/11 Commission issued a letter complaining that they had not been told of–much less been allowed to review–the torture tapes.

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

They released a memo from Philip Zelikow describing how the Administration refused to allow the 9/11 Commission direct access to detainees in early 2004.

The full Commission considered this issue in a meeting on January 5, 2004 and decided the CIA responses were insufficient. It directed the staff to prepare a letter to administration officials that would make the dispute public. There were then discussions between Hamilton and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and several meetings of CIA lawyers with Commission staff. The Commission offered various compromises to avoid disrupting the interrogation process, including direction or observation of questioning in real-time using one-way glass, adjoining rooms, or similar techniques. In a January 15, 2004 memo to Gonzales, Muller, and Undersecretary of Defense Steve Cambone, Zelikow wrote, “We remain ready to work creatively with you on any option that can allow us to aid the intelligence community in cross-examining the conspriators on many critical details, clarify for us what the conspirators are actually saying, and allow us to evaluate the credibility of these replies.”

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CIA Has No Idea What It Briefed Congress on Torture

The CIA documents released in the latest FOIA batch prove that all the claims that CIA (and Crazy Pete Hoekstra) have made about briefings Congress received on torture are, at best, reconstructions based on years old memories, if not outright fabrications.

The documents appear to have been a summary of torture briefings CIA Office of Congressional Affairs put together on July 11, 2004 in anticipation of CIA’s Congressional briefing in July 2004.

The summary shows that:

CIA OCA had not written up the briefings it gave Porter Goss and Jane Harman in February 2003 or the Gang of Four in September 2003 before July 2004. At that time, Moskowitz explained that the “[Memoranda for the Record] for the remainder of the sessions are being finalized.” In fact, the MFR for the February 2003 Goss-Harman briefing was ultimately closed in 2007, after Moskowitz had passed away. Thus, any claims they make about the content of those briefings cannot be said to be accurate.

Also, when putting together a list of briefings, OCA head Stan Moskowitz didn’t even seem to consider the September 2002 briefings (at which Bob Graham said he was not told about torture at all and Nancy Pelosi was told it might be used in the future) to be relevant as a Gang of Four briefing regarding interrogation/detainee issues.

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Final destination Iran?

Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.

The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs.

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Bank of England warns families to expect fall in living standards

In a blunt warning issued in a key report, the Bank also said that it is too early to conclude that unemployment has peaked. 

It said that although thus far many workers had been willing to accept pay reductions, or reluctantly to work part-time, employees may have failed to realise that the costs of goods and services are likely to rise faster than their wages in coming months. 

The Bank report said that one risk was that employees would be “unwilling to accept a further squeeze in real wage growth”, adding: “That could lead them to push for higher pay settlements this year. But if companies cannot afford the increase, then they may shed labour in order to contain labour costs.” 

It said: “There remains a risk of further falls in employment if, for example, the recovery in demand proves more sluggish than businesses have expected. Businesses may respond to any future squeeze in profits by shedding staff.” 

The warning comes amid worries that Britain could fall victim to a double-dip recession, slumping backwards no sooner than the economy had escaped it. 

Such worries were reinforced further on Monday as a Bank policymaker and Monetary Policy Committee member Kate Barker conceded that the economy could shrink for a period this year.

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A message from Ron Paul

Dear Friend,

My son Rand is running a great campaign in Kentucky. Through hard work and your support, he is winning! We have a real chance to send the most principled, limited government leader to the United States Senate in a generation.

But now, he needs you more than ever.

The big government establishment has turned on their fundraising machine to try and defeat Rand. According to media reports, Rand's challenger has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past several weeks. The sources? Disgusting! PAC's, special interests and the banking industry - all of whom are opening up their wallets for Rand's opponent.

Remember when AIG took billions of taxpayer bailout dollars not once, but twice? Well, I have it on good information that AIG's chief lobbyist just held a high dollar, big money fundraiser for Rand's rival. I am sure you can figure out why.

Rand has shrewdly purchased all the television airtime he needs from mid-April through his May 18th Primary. The commercials are produced, the voter data is being assembled and a tremendous turnout machine is being put in place.

Rand's career politician opponent is lashing out - he has turned on an attack machine of vicious distortions and outright lies. Rand is working hard to knock them back and fight for our principles.

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US Military Created Private Spy and Murder Squad in Afghanistan

A long-time US military official used Pentagon funding to establish a private intelligence and assassination network in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a report Monday in the New York Times. The network was shut down after the CIA station chief in Kabul objected to a competing military-backed intelligence operation, the newspaper said.

The article identified the official as Michael D. Furlong, a 25-year veteran of the Air Force who is now a senior Pentagon civilian employee, working at the US Strategic Command at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He reportedly diverted money from a $22 million contract to gather cultural and political information about Afghanistan and funneled it to at least two private firms which employed former intelligence and military Special Operations personnel.

The Times report, written by Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti, has the character of a controlled release of information for the purpose of containing the damage to US covert operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater. It is not only the US military and intelligence agencies that are being protected, but the Times itself. According to the article, the newspaper hired two of the covert operatives who had worked for Furlong in its efforts to release Times reporter David Rohde, who was captured by the Taliban in December 2008 and escaped seven months later.

Despite its prominent placement and sensational language, very few actual facts are presented in the Times account, and the article begs the obvious question: Did the private, off-the-books operation funded and directed by Furlong contain an operational component? In other words, did Furlong contract for the creation of a private American death squad?

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Six Iraqis died in our custody, British officer tells Baha Musa inquiry

At least six Iraqis died while being held in British military custody during the first two months of the war in Iraq, a public inquiry has been told.

Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Mercer, the former head of the Army’s legal team in the country, also disclosed that there was a shortage of troops dedicated to looking after detainees and said that Britain treated the issue as a low priority, regarding it as an “inconvenience” rather than an obligation under international law.

Lieutenant-Colonel Mercer said the appointment of a British judge and an independent review body to oversee the treatment of captives would have prevented any abuse. Such a move, he claimed, was seemingly blocked by Lord Goldsmith, then Attorney-General.

Lord Goldsmith denied through a spokesman standing in the way of any measure that would have prevented abuses.

Lieutenant-Colonel Mercer, the chief legal adviser to 1st (UK) Armoured Division in the March 2003 invasion, was speaking at the inquiry into the death of Baha Musa, a hotel receptionist, in September 2003. The father-of-two died after 36 hours in custody.

“If the issue of prisoners had been properly resourced and we had been allowed to implement a proper reviewing and oversight mechanism . . . then the tragedy which unfolded might never have happened,” he said in a witness statement.

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