President Head-in-the-Sand

KR Washington: Intelligence agencies warned about growing local insurgency in late 2003

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and others continued to describe the insurgency as a containable threat, posed mainly by former supporters of Saddam Hussein, criminals and non-Iraqi terrorists - even as the U.S. intelligence community was warning otherwise.

Robert Hutchings, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2005, said the October 2003 study was part of a "steady stream" of dozens of intelligence reports warning Bush and his top lieutenants that the insurgency was intensifying and expanding.

"Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenarios," Hutchings said in a telephone interview.

~

Maples said that while Iraqi terrorists and foreign fighters conduct some of the most spectacular attacks, disaffected Iraqi Sunnis make up the insurgency's core. "So long as Sunni Arabs are denied access to resources and lack a meaningful presence in government, they will continue to resort to violence," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

That view contrasts with what the administration said as the insurgency began in the months following the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and gained traction in the fall. Bush and his aides portrayed it as the work primarily of foreign terrorists crossing Iraq's borders, disenfranchised former officials of Saddam's deposed regime and criminals.

~

Hutchings, now diplomat in residence at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, said intelligence specialists repeatedly ran up against policymakers' rosy predictions.

"The mindset downtown was that people were willing to accept that things were pretty bad, but not that they were going to get worse, so our analyses tended to get dismissed as `nay-saying and hand-wringing,' to quote the president's press spokesman," he said.

The result, he said, was that top political and military officials focused on ways of dealing with foreign jihadists and disaffected Saddam loyalists, rather than with other pressing problems, such as growing Iraqi anger at the U.S.-led occupation and the deteriorating economic and security situation.

~

"This was stuff the White House and the Pentagon did not want to hear," the former official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They were constantly grumbling that the people who were writing these kind of downbeat assessments `needed to get on the team,' `were not team players' and were `sitting up there (at CIA headquarters) in Langley sucking their thumbs.'"

The October 2003 report on "violence and instability in Iraq" was requested not by the White House but by the U.S. military's Central Command, whose area of responsibility includes Iraq, current and former officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

~

If the original, more optimistic draft had survived, White said, it would have been as embarrassing as the now-discredited October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

~

Hutchings said that one theme that ran through intelligence analyses as early as 2003 was that there were "signs of incipient civil war."

"The invasion and occupation opened issues for which the Iraqi people had no answer," he said, including the role of religion and relations among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

it was our job to provide them with those answers.

not good enough

Today the Senate Judiciary committee reviewed chairman Specter's proposal to re-establish Congressional control over FISA and Bush's illegal domestic eavesdropping program. The Boston Globe reports, with a nice quote of support from (former Reagan administration lawyer) Douglas Kmiec that this is a 'good faith effort', designed to 'save face on both sides'. Wrong. The President has the ultimate responsibility to follow all existing Federal laws. Changing the rules in the middle of the game isn't good enough. It avoids the fact that the Bush administration plainly broke the law.

GOP arrogance is astounding sometimes

This is absolutely unacceptable.

of course it did

Bush: Media had more details on Katrina than gov't "There was no situational awareness, and that means that we weren't getting good, solid information from people who were on the ground, and we need to do a better job," Bush told ABC News in excerpts of an interview to be aired on Tuesday evening. "In many cases we were relying upon the media," he said. "And when you have the media have better situational awareness than the government, the American people are saying, 'Wait a minute. What is happening?'

"The media always does and always will. That's, umm, kinda like.... their job. All this does is highlight Bush's ignorance of the 'real world'. Local and State first responders and emergency managers even rely upon the media for information and situational awareness. Add this to the long list of reasons why the Bush administration might want (and need) to develop a healthy relationship with the people whose job it is to actually inform, rather than drive artificial wedges and spread unfounded rhetoric about "media bias" whenever the news turns bad. I thought this administration put a premium on personal responsibility. Seriously, the longer Bush continues to live in the sheltered protection of his bubble of propaganda and rhetoric, the further out of touch he will fall... and America will continue to suffer because of it. Oh yeah, and 1 more thing:

"The chaotic scenes were very troubling. It just -- it was very unsettling for me to realize our fellow citizens were in near-panic, wondering where the help was," Bush said.

Then why did it take you until Wednesday to abandon your Crawford vacation? And why, if this was so troublesome, did you decide to put Air Force 1 within eye-shot of victims who were still stranded on rooftops and make the decision to continue flying all the way back to Washington? Shorter version: Why didn't you stop? [update:] Looks like I'm not the only one who finds the extent to which President Bush is out-of-touch disturbing... almost dangerous. Garrison Keillor's latest at Salon.com, titled simply Impeach Bush, is a must read from top to bottom:

You hear young people talk about America as if it's all over, and you trust that this is only them talking tough. And then you read the paper and realize the country is led by a man who isn't paying attention, and you hope that somebody will poke him. Or put a sign on his desk that says, "Try Much Harder."

Do we need to impeach him to bring some focus to this man's life? The man was lost and then he was found and now he's more lost than ever, plus being blind.

~

The U.S. Constitution provides a simple ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence.

bad news for Jeb Bush

Crazy Henry wrote him a letter today:

I am writing to request information about your role in the award of a $236 million federal contract to Carnival Cruise Lines in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This boondoggle contract, which comes to an end this week, has cost federal taxpayers an enormous amount to provide temporary six-month housing aboard Carnival's ships. ~ Based on the occupancy of the ships at that time, I estimated that it would cost more than $214,000 to house a family of five for the full six months. Although occupancy levels rose slightly after I wrote to Secretary Chertoff, they fell again at the end of 2005. It now appears that the contracts will cost federal taxpayers almost $240,000 to provide temporary shelter for a family of five.[1] At this price, the federal government could have built permanent homes for the families. Emails recently provided to Congress by Michael Brown, the former FEMA Director, indicate that you intervened at a key moment to support the efforts of Carnival to win this lucrative federal contract. These emails reveal that you forwarded to Mr. Brown on August 31 an email from Ric Cooper about the Carnival proposal. Mr. Cooper is an advertising executive who represents Carnival. He is also a major political donor to the Florida and national Republican parties. According to the Florida Division of Elections, Mr. Cooper donated $65,000 to the Republican Party of Florida in advance of the 2002 gubernatorial election in which you were running for reelection.[2] In addition, Mr. Cooper contributed $50,000 to the Republican National Committee in advance of the 2004 presidential elections in which your brother was running for reelection.[3]

Bush: If not for Bin Laden, I probably wouldn't have been elected

WASHINGTON (Feb. 28) -President Bush said his 2004 re-election victory over Sen. John Kerry was inadvertently aided by Osama bin Laden, who issued a taped diatribe against him the Friday before Americans went to the polls, The Examiner newspaper reported on Tuesday.

We know George. The terrorist you can't catch taunted you, so America decided it was time to give you another chance to not catch the terrorist that you can't catch. He came from somewhere back in her long ago The sentimental fool don’t see Tryin’ hard to recreate What had yet to be created

U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006

Zogby's latest

Michael Ledeen sells out fellow neocons

Raw Story has the interview

HBO to make documentary about murder of Daniel Pearl

Philadelphia Inquirer: "HBO will produce a feature-length documentary on the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, the network announced yesterday. The Journalist and the Jihadi: The Murder of Daniel Pearl will track the parallel lives of Pearl and London-born jihadi Omar Sheikh, sentenced to death in July '02 for abducting and murdering the American journalist. Both men were highly educated and came from privileged backgrounds. CNN's Christiane Amanpour will narrate the film, to be directed and produced by Ahmed A. Jamal and Ramesh Sharma. Anant Singh (Yesterday) is a coproducer. Journalist's debut on HBO will coincide with Pearl's 43d birthday, on Oct. 10."

the pentagon's new map

is starting to gain some focus:

"I think it's a very increasing possibility that this is going to end in war."

He said he believes military strikes against Iran would not only be related to its nuclear ambitions but also to its links with terrorism.

"I think Iran will get caught red-handed again sponsoring terrorism and at that point there is a strong possibility the US will respond militarily, including on the nuclear program,"

I think he's right. And I also think that the general American public is not prepared to deal with the reality of another war... its certainly not ready to deal with the eventual blowback from radical jihadists. But if yesterday's reports that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is sponsoring and hosting terrorist training camps are true, then put your money on military action.

Christian Science Monitor article tells Bush administration: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Following the spirit of the law isn't enough There is too much 'let's move on' coming from the Bush administration.

how to avoid being executed

(Aside from NOT killing 13 people)... be totally fucking crazy and mumble incessantly about God, witches and conspiracies and throw in something about the Islamic government of the United States like this guy.

winners never quit

Bummer. Echo-chamber member Insightmag.com has Cheney quitting after the mid-term elections.

not a quagmire

US News & World Report: Report finds Iraq teetering toward civil war

Media Bias!!!!

...of the center

"if you fail to plan...

you plan to fail" The latest report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction wins the "clearly-obvious report conclusion of the day"® with this:

"Pre-war reconstruction planning assumed that Iraq's bureaucracy would go back to work when the fighting stopped," "When it became clear that the Iraqi bureaucracy was in widespread disarray," [occupation authorities] "had to find coalition personnel to perform these tasks."

"sending a message"

this might be the 4th or 5th time I've heard this in the past week or so. In his latest column, Larry Johnson discusses what we're dealing with in Iraq... and references the mass/execution-style killings which have almost become commonplace....

What is now painfully clear is that the Shia are making great strides in consolidating their power in Iraq. The violence in most of Iraq will probably abate over the next year but at a cost of ethnic cleansing in which Shia and Sunni will cluster in areas that they each control. The Sunni have few viable options and will continue to hit Shia neighbors and "Iraqi Government" targets with terrorist attacks. The Shia, with expert guidance from Iran, will embark on a campaign of strategic assassinations. We are not likely to see the equivalent of a Gettysburg or Antietam. But, make no mistake, there will be significant bloodletting. Most of it will not be carried out in a spectacular fashion that television can easily broadcast. The murders, as we have seen in the last year, will be carried out in groups of 10 or 20 people at a time. People will disappear in the night and turn up in mass graves or stacked at a street corner in order to send a message to the rest of the community.

but make sure not to say the words "Civil War", even if it's an appropriate description. That particular phrase is as off-limits as "quagmire" or any analogy involving the words "Viet Nam".

how was this money spent?

UAE Donated $100 Million To Katrina Relief Effort:

"Washington, D.C. (AHN) - According to the White House, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) gave the Bush administration $100 million to help with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Deputy State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli, says that 'there was no connection between the two events,' despite the gift coming only weeks before a major deal involving six major U.S. ports. The White House describes the donation as an electronic transfer, sent September 21, to an account at the U.S. State Department. Two thirds of the money was given to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), while the rest was went to the Education Department to repair New Orleans schools."

UAE gov't asks CNN to censor Lou Dobbs

C&L has Dobb's latest here.

Forbes: "Carvinal Doesn't Doubt Dubai"

video here.

why the Iraq War was a resounding mistake

summed up perfectly in 1 headline

CSM's Jill Carroll news feed

is here.

all time record

34% nice job George.

no explainable upsides

seriously... I just haven't heard enough good reasons to do this deal.

ABC News: Paper: Coast Guard Has Port Co. Intel Gaps: "Citing broad gaps in U.S. intelligence, the Coast Guard cautioned the Bush administration that it was unable to determine whether a United Arab Emirates-owned company might support terrorist operations, a Senate panel said Monday."

bad idea of the day

ABC News: Marines to Deploy Troubled Osprey Aircraft

teddy kennedy... you're the winner!

of the National Journal's 'most liberal' rating. Good luck with that.

is Jill Carrol OK?

Preliminary reports say 'yes'. I hope (for everyone's sake) that these reports are accurate.

sleep tight

an Iran Focus - exclusive:

"London, Feb. 27 – Iran Focus has obtained a list of 20 terrorist camps and centres run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The names and details of the training centres were provided by a defector from the IRGC, who has recently left Iran and now lives in hiding in a neighbouring country. Iran Focus agreed to keep his identity secret for obvious security reasons. The former IRGC officer said the camps and the training centres were under the control of the IRGC’s elite Qods Force, the extra-territorial arm of the Revolutionary Guards. “The Qods Force has an extensive network that uses the facilities of Iranian embassies or cultural and economic missions or a number of religious institutions such as the Islamic Communications and Culture Organisation to recruit radical Islamists in Muslim countries or among the Muslims living in the West. After going through preliminary training and security checks in those countries, the recruits are then sent to Iran via third countries and end up in one of the Qods Force training camps”, the officer said."

ho hum: 12) IRAN Counterrevolution has already begun: This time the students want to throw the mullahs out. Iran wants to be friends with U.S., but resurgence of fundamentalists may be the price we pay to invade Iraq. The mullahs support terror, and their push for WMD is real: Does this make them inevitable target once Iraq and North Korea are settled? Reuters: Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia vows more attacks

homeland security starts with the locals

Sure is a shame that the Bush administration doesn't get it.

even a blind squirrel...

man oh man, William F. Buckley, champion of all-things-conservative and shill for all-things- Republican says: "One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." [full column here: It Didn't Work]

that was predictable

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "US should give up its nuclear weapons"

clearly obvious report conclusion of the day

"The Bush administration's hurricane-relief funding proposals are not adequate to meet the needs of lower-income households." [so says a new report issued by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]

that didn't go over well

Try again fellas.

CT Blog: Al Qaeda Claimed Infiltration of Key UAE Agencies in 2002

just know... there's an honest and defineable risk with the Port deal. Walid Phares basically covers it here.

.... a communication in May or June of 2002 from Al Qaeda to "Officials in the United Arab Emirates and especially the two emirates of Abu-Dhabi and Dubai," warning them to cease the detainment of "Mujahideen" for handing over to "suppressive organizations in their country." Al Qaeda warns the officials, "You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship, and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned." [more here]

DHS: Bumbling idiots

"Although MGEN Miller acknowledged positive aspects of this approach, it was apparent that he favored DHS's interrogation methods, despite FBI assertions that such methods could easily result in the elicitation of unreliable and legally inadmissible information," [FBI Interrogators in Cuba Opposed Aggressive Tactics]

"6,012 unread items"

and dozens of emails... That's what I get for taking 3 days off. Ugh. Sorry, but I'm gonna check my top 5-10 sites, and then I'm refreshing my aggregators and marking all emails as 'read'... time for a fresh start.

Iranian advisor: We'll strike Dimona in response to U.S. attack

Blah blah blah... Haaretz reports

FBI non-disclosure cripples UK terror investigation

and a British arms dealer who allegedly conspired to provide missiles to FARC goes free. Bang up job guys.

21 Ports in question

not 6

Libby sinks to desperate measures

First he tries the greymail routine, now he claims that Fitzgerald was improperly appointed. Pathetic.

he said it, not me

Dubya today... c/o TPM

This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America.

bingo!

AP:

"Any time a foreign-government controlled company comes in," Kimmitt said, "the intelligence assessment is of both the country and the company."

Kimmitt (Dep. Secretary of the Treasury) hit the talking point hard, but undermined the Dubai port deal by validating the most contentious point. Regardless, this deal has a 99% chance of being approved, a slight chance of being Congressionally opposed, if that happens I guess it's possible that King George exercises his 1st veto, and (despite some GOP lawmaker's claims) absolutely no chance whatsoever that the veto would be overridden.

how deep are the Bush family ties to UAE?

Lou Dobbs covered this (briefly) today on CNN. C&L has the video here

the dubai port deal

Much ado about nothing... or intrinsically bothersome? Guess it depends on who you're talking to. Balance for yourself the importance of promoting economic freedom and equality for Middle Eastern companies with the now-paramount factors involving American port security and the potential for the wrong people to receive the wrong information at the wrong time. Are politicos at every level of government enveloping criticism of this deal with rhetoric and racist innuendo? Yep. Are people overstating this deal's direct connection to matters of port security? Yep. Is UAE a hot spot for radical Islamic fundamentalists and jihadists? Yep. Is Dubai Ports World state-owned and operated? Yep. Are there valid concerns about spillover and infiltration? Yes, there are. UAE is also a safe-haven for folks like Victor Bout. James Ridgeway gives us another reason to consider this deal very carefully in today's Village Voice: A Russian arms merchant funnels money, guns, and dope through the United Arab Emirates [update: Douglas Farah, who always keeps 1 eye fixed on Bout, has this today at CTblog.]

Askariya shrine: before/after

c/o Today in Iraq

"not a civil war"

a rose by any other name... So, we'll just parse the definition of 'civil war' and find new ways to rationalize and minimize the signficance of the bloody reality that has plagued Iraq over the past 2 days:

AP: Gunmen shot dead 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad Thursday as militia battles and sectarian reprisals followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine. Sunni Arabs suspended their participation in talks on a new government. At least 111 people were believed killed in two days of rage unleashed by Wednesday's attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, a mostly Sunni Arab city 60 miles north of Baghdad. The hardline Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked around the country, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted since the shrine attack.

immediate review of Dubai World Ports deal req'd

Think Progress explains why

Amen brother

Minnesota Congressman Martin Sabo has this piece in yesterday's Twin Cities Pioneer Press: Free FEMA from flawed Homeland Security That's the plan.

getting on with the business of right-wing governing

first priority, abortion Important.

dangerous rhetoric

shit like this is intolerable.

breaking news on Sago mine disaster

WBAL: "A former Sago Mine foreman was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on charges that he falsified inspection reports at the mine in 2004 and was never certified as an underground miner or a mine foreman."

The Insurgency: Tonight on FRONTLINE

PBS, 9pm, check it out

Bush dead-set on handing over our Ports

To these folks?!?!

Bin Laden's operatives still using freewheeling Dubai

(thx to Americablog for dredging this up)

damaging... even when they're trying not to be

For some reason Fred Kaplan's latest at Slate reminds me of that oversized cartoon baby who, despite being a well-intentioned brutish doofball, always managed to cause bodily harm to his playmates.

Condi's Baffling New Iran Strategy - It's guaranteed to hurt the people we want most to help The bigger problem is that U.S. funding will discredit the very people we seek to encourage. Many Iranians, perhaps even a majority, despise their rulers. They yearn for democracy. To a degree unmatched in any other Middle Eastern nation besides Israel, they even like the United States. However, as anyone who knows anything about Iran's history would emphasize, these same Iranians deeply distrust outsiders—including American ones—who try to interfere in their domestic affairs.

Dozens of Iraq War vets running for Congress

all but 1 are Democrats, from CSM:

WASHINGTON – They call themselves the Band of Brothers, about 50 men - and a few women - all Democrats, all opposed to the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, and all military veterans. ~ Not since 1946 have so many vets from one party come together in a political campaign, they claim. Their wildest dream is to give the Democratic Party the extra edge it needs - by boosting its weak image on defense and patriotism - to end Republican control of the House.

diplomacy

ho hum. Reuters:

Iraq's Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari angrily dismissed on Tuesday U.S. warnings to shun sectarianism in the country's new government, saying Iraqis would not accept interference in their affairs.

Speaking after talks with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who echoed the U.S. call for a government of national unity in Iraq, the normally calm and diplomatic Jaafari said Iraq knew its own best interests.

"When someone asks us whether we want a sectarian government the answer is 'no we do not want a sectarian government' -- not because the U.S. ambassador says so or issues a warning," he told a news conference.

"...We do not need anybody to remind us, thank you."

Israeli gov't probing sale of property to Daniel Abrams

Haaretz: State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss is looking into the 2004 sale of Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's house in Jerusalem to American tycoon Daniel Abrams. The State Comptroller launched the probe following questions submitted by Haaretz. [note: this is billionaire-mogul Daniel Abrams, not journalist Dan Abrams]

the end of the World is near

With this Dubai port deal... we finally discovered an issue upon which both Martin O'Malley, maverick mayor of Baltimore, and Robert Ehrlich, impotent Governor of Maryland, can agree.

you know the Port deal is bad...

when Kinderpundit has this to say:

SO NOW BUSH IS THREATENING TO VETO any legislation that would block the Dubai ports deal? Either this deal is somehow a lot more important than it seems (a quid pro quo for, well, something . . . ) or Bush is an idiot. Your call.

I choose 'both'.

no wonder Bush is threatening to veto legislation that blocks the Dubai deal

some of his cronies stand to benefit from it

WASHINGTON - The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose agency heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.

Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

The ties raised more concerns about the decision to give port control to a company owned by a nation linked to the 9/11 hijackers.

"The more you look at this deal, the more the deal is called into question," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said the deal was rubber-stamped in advance - even before DP World formally agreed to buy London's P&O port company.

Besides operations in New York and Jersey, Dubai would also run port facilities in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and Miami.

The political fallout over the deal only grows.

"It's particularly troubling that the United States would turn over its port security not only to a foreign company, but a state-owned one," said western New York's Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee. Reynolds is responsible for helping Republicans keep their majority in the House.

Snow's Treasury Department runs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which includes 11 other agencies.

"It always raises flags" when administration officials have ties to a firm, Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) said, but insisted that stopping the deal was more important.

The Daily News has learned that lawmakers also want to know if a detailed 45-day probe should have been conducted instead of one that lasted no more than 25 days.

According to a 1993 congressional measure, the longer review is mandated when the company is owned by a foreign government and the purchase "could result in control of a person engaged in interstate commerce in the U.S. that could affect the national security of the U.S."

Congressional sources said the President has until March 2 to trigger that harder look.

"The most important thing is for someone to explain how this is consistent with our national security," Fossella said.

America's bad-idea President

Reuters [on the Dubai port deal]:

"'After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward,' Bush said. He added that if the U.S. Congress passed a law to stop the deal, 'I'll deal with it with a veto.' "

Bush has yet to veto anything, and we're supposed to believe he'll veto this?

lying republicans

Orrin Hatch... come on down! "Nobody denies that [Saddam} was supporting al-Qaida."... "Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Nobody with brains."

memo to Jean Schmidt

nobody likes you very much, enjoy your 1 term.

wow: freak alert

Check out this guy, who makes Albert Belle seem more like Ward Cleaver.

DHS's Brewster's Millions

G.W. Schultz has this today at San Francisco Bay Guardian

Al Qaeda continues recruiting from w/i Western countries

from UPI:

"Western intelligence services are increasingly nervous about al-Qaida attempts to recruit white men and women, as they can more easily pass in Western society. Australia's Herald Sun reported that an ongoing court case in Melbourne uncovered an al-Qaida attempt to recruit Caucasian 'sleeper agents.' Australian defendant Joseph Thomas told his police interrogators that Khalid bin Attash, an associate of Osama bin Laden, said that bin Laden was interested in having 'an Aussie ... a white boy,' according to testimony in Melbourne's Supreme Court. Prosecutor Nick Robinson alleged that Thomas's conversations with bin Attash occurred in Pakistan, where Thomas was staying at an al-Qaida safe house after training at the group's al-Farooq camp in Afghanistan during 2001. Thomas also told his interrogators that bin Attash had given him $3,500 in cash and an air ticket back to Australia. According to Thomas, he was told to work for bin Laden and conduct surveillance on Australian military installations. Thomas testified that bin Attash indicated that an attack in Australia like those in 1998 on U.S. embassies in East Africa could bring down the government of Prime Minister John Howard, adding that Thomas should resume contact six to 12 months after returning to Australia. Thomas was taken into custody in January 2003 in Pakistan. Thomas told his interrogators that the suggestion of a bomb attack in Australia angered him, adding that he never formally became a member of al-Qaida or pledged allegiance to bin Laden, despite having 'plenty of opportunities' when he was at al-Farooq. He said that never intended to work for al-Qaida in his homeland. Thomas's lawyer Lex Lasry maintains that his client may have been naive or stupid, but that Thomas was never a terrorist.

how much is 1 Trillion?

davidswanson at AfterDowningStreet.org offers some perspective:

"There are 86,400 seconds in. . . . . one day. 1 million seconds in. . . . . . . . . 11.5 days. 1 billion seconds in. . . . . . . . . 31.5 years. 1 trillion seconds in. . . . . . . . .31,500 years. The next time you read in the papers something about a trillion dollars, consider that that number represents a-dollar-a-second for 31,500 years, from the age of mastodons and woolley mammoths all the way down to the present!"

unintended consequences

of DHS's war on FEMA

understatement of the day

Nigeria is a Mess and Getting Worse

ok

Great-Grandmother Gives Birth at 62

cheney's secret Bizarro-World

c/o Politics: The Shot Heard Round the World He peppered a man in the face, but didn't tell his boss. Inside Dick Cheney's dark, secretive mind-set—and the forces that made it that way.

WH has "penchant for secrecy"

so says Bill Clinton

not a bad idea

Jewish group: Try Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide

someone is a quarter of a billionaire

I wonder if they know it yet... At least 1 winning ticket sold for record Powerball

deer in headlights

New Katrina E-Mails Show White House Chaos "it could take months to dewater"...New Orleans

"Why I Published These Cartoons"

Flemming Rose, culture editor of Jyllands-Postenthe, the Danish newspaper whose publication of the Mohammed cartoons sparked an irrational worldwide reaction, has this in today's Washington Post. (excerpt)

One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name.

~

... the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.

Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.

This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant.

~

In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.

~

You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries about every possible insult.

'Hard to get a good case'

DOD staffers notes from 9/11 obtained under FOIA more here.

ugh

Seminar on Suicide Bombings Held in Iran

resisting a ridiculously bad idea

pt II:

U.S. company files lawsuit trying to block Arab control over 6 key ports "The Miami subsidiary, Continental Stevedoring & Terminals Inc., said the sale to Dubai is prohibited under its partnership agreement with the British firm and 'may endanger the national security of the United States.' It asked a judge to block the takeover and said it does not believe the company, Florida or the U.S. government can ensure Dubai Ports World's compliance with security rules."

Iranian ayatollah: Use of nuclear arms sometimes permissible

A religious leader in Iran has said that in certain situations it is permissible by Muslim law to use nuclear weapons. Ayatollah Muhassan Jarbian was quoted by the Iran News as saying that according to Muslim Shariya, "When the world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to make use of these weapons in order to stand up against this threat." This is the fist time the Iranian government has not censored such statements from a religious leader, according to Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli of Iranian descent and Middle East analyst at the Middle East Economic and Political Analysis Company. Until now, said Javedanfar, the Iranianian government had given clear instructions against saying anything that could be interpreted to mean that Iran is planning to use its nuclear technology for military purposes. [full story at Haaretz]

go switzerland!

"What's that? You can't hear me? That's because 4,000 zany Swiss fans, who somehow managed to smuggle giant cow bells into the Torino Esposizioni, are jumping up and down and singing and jingling in celebration of their national team's biggest hockey win, a 2-0 tilt over defending gold-medal winner Canada."[read the full article at ESPN.com]

funny funny funny

Hey weirdo, I see that you've posted a 2nd baby rant... and in this one you linked 15 times to Editoriale. Would you like to know how many referrals this one generated? 1 LOL! Nice job. Keep up the good work.

this is elementary school stuff

few things frustrate me more than this: The first line of this article from THV2 in Little Rock... "It's a disgrace and should not of happened." (referring to comments made by ex-FEMA Director James Lee Witt at a conference earlier this week). I'm sure it sounded like he said "of" rather than "have", but I'm pretty certain Mr. Witt understands the English language well enough to know the difference between "should of" and "should have". Seriously, for a reporter to submit copy with this mistake and for editors not to have corrected it, is a disgrace of its own that should not "have" happened. That's pathetic. [update: thankfully, they fixed it]

missing the point

Lisbeth Gronlund, Co-Director of the Global Security Program, recently sent this letter to the editors of the Washington Post:

`In their Jan. 30 op-ed, "A Plan for Nuclear Waste," [link] John Deutch and Ernest J. Moniz made a strong case against a U.S. reprocessing program to extract plutonium from spent nuclear reactor fuel, noting that it would undercut efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons to more nations.

It did not mention that reprocessing also would entail a risk of terrorists acquiring the material needed to make a nuclear weapon.

Because U.S. nuclear power plants now pose no such risk, reprocessing would be a big step in the wrong direction -- especially for an administration that claims that preventing nuclear terrorism is a priority.

The point that Ms. Gronlund, Mr. Deutch and Mr. Moniz all failed to realize, or at a minumum failed to explain, is that a US policy towards reprocessing spent nuclear fuels from across the world is being considered because of the threat of acquisition of spent nuclear fuels by rogue nations, terrorists, terrorist sympathizers and/or supporters. In late 2001, against a backdrop worldwide protest, Russia approved measures allowing the import and export of spent nuclear fuels. They have indicated their intent to provide Iran with the fuel needed to operate its facilities, and to import and reprocess its spent nuclear fuels. Further, Russia has been a supporter of North Korea's aims to build 2 additional light-water reactors. By involving itself in this market, the United States will gain a greater understanding of the nature and intentions of those already trafficking these dangerous materials. The current spent nuclear fuels market is not fully transparent to the American intelligence community, and while the public may perceive our involvement in this process as dangerous, they will certainly understand that on a global scale this market already exists. I'm sure the American public would agree; It is a far more attractive proposition for the US to purchase and reprocess these materials than it is for us to allow nations who lack the integrity, security and technology to prevent terrorists from acquiring them. Ms. Gronlund is concerned about terrorists acquiring these materials. So are we, and that's (in no small part) why this controversial idea has been proposed.

resisting a ridiculously bad idea

US Backlash to UAE Owned Domestic Ports

killing and cannibalizing

what DHS is doing to FEMA

"... never heard of him"

The Washington Post: Jack Who?

IT'S NOT, as photos for a superlobbyist's power wall go, a terribly impressive shot: President Bush, his back to the camera, shaking the hand of Raul Garza, chief of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas. In the foreground, Karl Rove, smiling at a 2001 White House meeting to promote the president's tax cuts. And there at the back of the room, only his slightly blurry head visible, the chief's lobbyist: Jack Abramoff. Which, of course -- along with the refusal of the Bush administration to release information about what Mr. Abramoff was doing at the White House, how often he was there and with whom -- is what makes the picture a big deal.

Kim Eisler of Washingtonian magazine has reported that the disgraced lobbyist met with Mr. Bush almost a dozen times over the past five years and was invited to the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex., in 2003. According to Mr. Abramoff, who raised at least $100,000 for Mr. Bush's reelection, the president was once well acquainted enough with the lobbyist (or at least well briefed enough) to inquire about his twins. But now, as in the photo, Mr. Abramoff somehow has gone blurry in Mr. Bush's memory. The president doesn't recall meeting or posing for pictures with him.

Mr. Rove's memory is fuzzy, too, as luck would have it. His name, according to the Associated Press, was rather routinely dropped by Mr. Abramoff as his big White House contact. Mr. Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, went to the White House to work for Mr. Rove, and, the Associated Press reported yesterday, Mr. Rove's office helped set up a 2002 meeting between Mr. Bush and the prime minister of Malaysia, another Abramoff client. One Abramoff business associate reported being in the lobbyist's office when Mr. Rove's office called to confirm the meeting.

All of this recalls the question we've been asking for a few weeks now: Why doesn't the White House just release information about Mr. Abramoff's meetings and other visits there? This is a man who has pleaded guilty to trying to bribe public officials. The White House says he turned up for a "few staff level meetings" and two Hanukkah parties. Whom did he meet? About what?

Sensible members of Mr. Bush's own party agree. "I'm one who believes that more is better, in terms of disclosure and transparency," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said on "Fox News Sunday." "And so I'd be a big advocate for making records that are out there available." Mr. Bush, said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), "is a man of unimpeachable integrity. The American people have profound confidence in him. And as Abraham Lincoln said, 'Give the people the facts and republican governance perhaps will be saved.' " Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), speaking on ABC's "This Week," was even blunter. "Get it out. Get it out," Mr. Hagel said. "I mean, disclosure is the real issue. Whether it's campaign finance issues, whether it's ethics issues, whether it's lobbying issues, disclosure is the best and most effective way to deal with all of these things."

Elementary, you would think. But not for this White House.

Confronting the White House's 'Monarchical Doctrine'

the latest from FAS' Secrecy News

"The administration's stance that warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency targeting American citizens on American soil is a legal exercise of the president's inherent powers as commander in chief, even though it violates the clear language of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" is a "monarchical doctrine," wrote columnist George Will today.

"Monarchical" is a curse word in conservative thought, and for an American conservative monarchy is a provocation to revolutionary opposition.

must-have additions for your wardrobe

New t-shirts everyone should have, only $12.

Bin Laden Could Be Dead or Very Ill

Dr Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, says documents provided by an Indian colleague suggest bin Laden died of massive organ failure in April last year. [full story at Seoul Times]

unintended consequences of a politically-driven war of choice

NYT: Radical Cleric Rising as a Kingmaker in Iraqi Politics FT: Four groups 'dominate Iraq insurgency' AP: Group: Mideast Reporters Face More Attacks

...Iraq had emerged as "one of the deadliest conflicts for media in modern history."

Bush administration: Release warrantless surveillance documents

says U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy "No member of the Senate can cast an informed vote on legislation authorizing or conversely restricting the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, when they fundamentally do not know what they are authorizing or restricting," - Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D) "You cannot have domestic search and seizure without a warrant." - Sen. Arlen Specter (R)

At Lincoln Group, the Propaganda Never Ends

from the Center for Media and Democracy:

The Lincoln Group, which planted Pentagon-written stories in Iraqi newspapers, won U.S. military contracts "after claiming to have partnerships with major media and advertising companies, former government officials with extensive Middle East experience, and ex-military officers with background in intelligence and psychological warfare," reports the New York Times. "But some of those companies and individuals say their associations were fleeting. ... 'They appear very professional on the surface, then you dig a little deeper and you find that they are pretty amateurish,'" said former Marine officer and former Lincoln "strategic adviser" Jason Santamaria. Lincoln had short-lived partnerships with The Rendon Group and the New York ad firm Della Femina Rothschild Jeary and Partners. Lincoln also told U.S. Special Operations Command that it worked with the ad conglomerate Omnicom Group, but an Omnicom spokesperson said, "We're not aware of any relationship with Lincoln Group." Lincoln continues to bid for U.S. government contracts.

ok, enough on trigger happy dick

it's run its course... and it was what it was, a hunting accident. Period. A bizarre one at that, and certainly not something you see everyday... but the most important piece to this story is still what it is... a man is currently hospitalized in Texas after recieving an accidental gun shot to the face. He's the victim here, not Cheney. That said, so long as Cheney remains hunkered down and for absolutely no apparent reason continues to refuse making his own personal public statement about what happened and his feelings knowing that he shot his own friend in the face, he continues to deserve and hopefully continues to receive tremendous criticism for his unprofessional handling of the matter.

Scott Ritter nails it

Get over very quickly what you will perceive as apologism for Saddam Hussein and understand the bigger picture. What he is trying to say is pretty clear.

We, the people of the United States, despite our status as one of the most technologically advanced nations on the face of the earth, remain among the most ignorant about the world we live in. And yet we continue to hold forth that we have some sort of divine right of intervention, where a nation of some 300 million is self-empowered to dictate to billions of others the terms in which we all coexist on the planet. We seem shocked when things don't go as we envisioned (take Iraq, for example, where song and flowers were rapidly replaced by bombs and bullets), but in the end we have only ourselves to blame. Our ignorance of the world we live in seems to be only exceeded by our near total abrogation of our duties and responsibilities as citizens of the world's foremost representative democracy. ~ This is a trend that goes far beyond the environs of Santa Fe, reflecting instead a nationwide tendency to stick our collective heads in the sand, wallowing in fear and ignorance, while those we elect to higher office pursue policies that benefit a distinct minority to the detriment of the masses. Some day in the near future those who turned their back on citizenship in the name of consumerism will find that the latest Super Bowl commercial has been replaced by a TV screen screaming out the breaking news that America is once again at war. Unlike the current debacle in Iraq, where the pain and suffering is only felt by those who have lost a loved one, the Iran war will resonate across the country, wracking up a devastating tally both in terms of human and economic cost.

The American people will act with shock and horror, but by then it will be too late: Once again our fighting men and women who serve us in the armed forces will have been dispatched to a conflict not worthy of the loss of a single American life. Once again the American people will cover their shame concerning their collective failure of citizenship by proudly proclaiming their undying support for the troops, waving the American flag on the street corner and putting colorful magnetic "support the troops" stickers on their cars, all the while those who wear the uniform fight and die in another faraway country.

Americans deserve and should require more than what we are receiving from our leaders. Only we have the power to change our course of direction... expect better, and we'll get better.

becoming played out to the point of losing its meaning

"Sept. 11th forever changed the... " <--- honestly, do these 5 words (or some variation thereof) belong at the beginning of every single terrorism speech. Have we not progressed to the next level of dialogue yet?

grrrrrr

does the guy in the office across the hall really have to listen to Rush Limbaugh's streaming audio feed at 110dB?!?! This is torture. Turn your speakers down you deaf $#^@()&^.

begala weighs in on Cheney's trigger finger

at TPMCafe, and make some very good points: As a guy whose been hunting in South Texas for 30 years, and who's been hunting three times in the past six weeks, I cringe at the Washington Post's use of the benign verb "sprayed" in the lede of the Cheney hunting accident story. When you hit a man with a 28 gauge (likely 7 and a half shot) and land him in intensive care, you have not "sprayed" him. You've shot him. ~ In sum, even from Ms. Armstrong's whitewashed account, it sounds to me like Cheney was not being safe.

To quote Mary Matalin to vouch for Cheney's safety, as the Post does, is absurd. I love Mary - she's married to my best friend. But she was 1500 miles away, drinking a fine Rhone, no doubt. And I daresay she's never been hunting in her life. And yet the Post quotes her reassuring us that Cheney "was not careless or incautious.". Baloney. That's like quoting me on Mrs. Bush's inaugural ball gown.

cool runnings, all doped up

If you compete in professional bobsledding and you live in Brazil, there really isn't much of a chance you'll be successful in the Winter Olympics... unless you're on steroids.

Cheney's bad week

wanna get away? When the Veep Shoots Someone

Tuesday, February 14, 2006; A14

HOW IS IT THAT the vice president of the United States can shoot and wound someone and the American public doesn't learn of it until 18 hours later -- and then only because the owner of the location where the event occurred decided the next day to tell a local reporter? The White House has no satisfactory answer; neither does the vice president's office. But this much is known, following press inquiries: While quail hunting on a privately owned Texas ranch Saturday, Vice President Cheney accidentally sprayed a hunting companion, Harry Whittington, with birdshot from a shotgun about 5:30 p.m. The shooting wasn't disclosed until Sunday morning, when Katharine Armstrong, a member of the family that owns the ranch, called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the paper posted the story on its Web site in the afternoon after confirming the account with Mr. Cheney's office. Until then, the White House and the vice president's office were mum. By every standard and by all accounts, the failure to promptly disclose the accident was wrong.

Of course, the first priority when a person is shot and wounded is to make sure the victim receives the necessary medical care. That apparently was done at the scene by medical attendants accompanying Mr. Cheney. And the Secret Service reportedly notified the local sheriff's office of the incident on Saturday, according to the New York Times. The vice president's staff also regarded the matter as serious enough to alert President Bush on Saturday and to give the White House updates on the condition of Mr. Whittington, who was released from intensive care yesterday afternoon but remains at a Corpus Christi hospital with wounds to his upper body.

What makes little sense, however, was the White House's decision, according to press secretary Scott McClellan, to defer disclosure of the shooting incident to the vice president's office, and that office's decision to further defer to the owners of the ranch. Mr. Cheney did not check his official title at the Armstrongs' front gate. That was no private citizen who pulled the trigger, sending someone to the hospital. That act, though accidental -- and doubtless both agonizing and embarrassing -- was committed by the country's second-highest public official. Neither Mr. Cheney nor the White House gets to pick and choose when to disclose a shooting. Saturday's incident required immediate public disclosure -- a fact so elementary that the failure to act properly is truly disturbing in its implications.

too funny

from tonight's Daily Show with John Stewart (video at C&L)

"Jon, tonight the Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time-there-were-quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be the 78 year old man. Even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists-he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face."

approval drops to 39%, 56% completely disapprove

bad news for Bush

2006 Economic Report of the President

now available online at GPO's website.

brutal, just brutal

That sound you hear... the rails squealing, horns blowing, and metal crashing isn't actually a train wreck... its the sound of Scott McClellan's dreadful performance during today's WH press briefing. I've never seen someone struggle so mightily to answer simple, straight-forward questions. C&L has the video here. He's no Ari Fleischer.

no more extensions for Katrina evacuees

Judge: FEMA Can Halt Direct Hotel Payments

A Brief History of Leaks in Washington, D.C.

from NPR

don't miss Froomkin's post on Cheney

here. And why the hell has he still not made a personal public statement? There really isn't a rational explanation for the way Cheney has handled this. On second thought, actually this is a completely appropriate and familar Dick Cheney response. He handled shooting Whittington just fine... that part was easy. Mission accomplished. It's everything that's happened since the shooting ended that seems to mystify Dick.

Attn: Michael Chertoff

You have quite a lot of work ahead of you. Unfortunately though, if you want that work to be meaningful then you basically have to eliminate your silly position and re-evaluate the mission of your own Agency. It isn't FEMA's fault that DHS is merely a political tool. And that makes you... Head Tool. Good luck.

i'm a Poker Room Centurion Cup champion

Yeah, I play poker... a lot. And I guess I'll dedicate this post to patting myself on the back. May as well, since there's really no glory in winning online poker tournaments except for the bankroll. Each Thursday and Sunday I play the Hollywood Poker Celebrity Classic and the Michael Woods Celebrity Invitational (Michael is James Woods' little brother). These are both multi-table poker tournaments with a few hundred entrants. In the past 2 months I've been lucky enough to win the Celebrity Classic twice and the M.W. Invitational once. They also give a cash bounty to any players who knock out a celebrity... and I've had the priviledge of knocking out super big named stars like Yancey Arias, Misty Woods (no relation), Kane Hodder (he's Jason from Friday the 13th), Tom McGowan, Eric Palladino and a few others. I also play a lot at PokerRoom, and just last week completed a grueling week-long promotion called the Centurion Cup (scroll down to 'Centurion results for last week', that's me in 9th)... where the top 10 finalists play the following week in a 10 person winner-take-all tournament for $1,500. So, wish me luck! I'm no professional player (yet), but it's a lot of fun, and who knows what will happen in the future? I've gotten to the point where I win far more than I lose so maybe I'll get the balls to drop the $10k for a seat in the World Series of Poker. First I'm off to Atlantic City to hone my skills. If you're interested in playing at either Hollywood Poker or PokerRoom zip me an email and I'll send you a special invitation code which'll land you an extra sign up bonus.