The Seattle Times: Ex-CIA officer alleges agency retaliated after he didn't falsify report: "A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.

The operative, who remains under cover, claims in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 'that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma.'"

washingtonpost.com: Army Spun Tale Around Ill-Fated Mission

washingtonpost.com: Barrage of Bullets Drowned Out Cries of Comrades

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam
"But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. "

Transcript of Osama bin Laden video-taped "Message to Americans"
As aired by Aljazeera TV, October 29, 2004

Aljazeera.Net - Uncle Sam's 'gift' to al-Qaida:
"These abuses, analysts say, will be seized on by the leader of al-Qaida as triumphant confirmation that America has launched a 'crusade' in Iraq to destroy Muslim dignity and identity.

'This is the best recruiting campaign for bin Ladin and al-Qaida,' Atwan said. 'Honestly, this by itself could instigate a holy war against the Americans.'"

Aljazeera.Net - Bin Ladin offers Europeans truce:
"'President (George) Bush and leaders in his sphere, big media institutions, and the United Nations.. all of them are a fatal danger to the world, and the Zionist lobby is their most dangerous and difficult member, and we insist, God willing, on continuing to fight them,' the message said. "

Aljazeera.Net - Bush 'told' of planned strike before 9/11:
"President George Bush was told more than a month before the September 11 attacks that supporters of Usama bin Ladin planned a strike within the United States, The New York Times has reported.

Citing an unnamed government official, the newspaper on Saturday said the warning came in a secret briefing that Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Texas on 6 August 2001."

Aljazeera.Net - Bin Ladin: Reasons to attack US remain:
"'Despite the fact that we are into the fourth year after September 11, President Bush is still misleading you and hiding the real reason from you, which means that the reasons to repeat what happened remain,' bin Ladin said.

In his address just four days ahead of the US presidential election, bin Ladin also said the US administration resembled 'corrupt' Arab governments."

Yahoo! News - Expert: Bush Hides Global Warming Evidence:
"The Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA (news - web sites) scientist said Tuesday night."

October Surprise
Alan Abel son, the distinguished writer for Barron’s, a weekly publication of Dow Jones, noted in his column of Sept. 27, 2004, that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld let slip some classified information in a briefing at the National Press Club “that the man we are holding captive is not Saddam Hussein, who, indeed, was deep-sixed beneath the desolate sands, but none other than Osama bin Laden. (In case you’re wondering, it wasn’t Saddam, but one of his many doubles, who appeared before an Iraqi judge following his purported capture.)”

Los Angeles Times: The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket:
"It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The making of the terror myth:
"Since September 11 Britain has been warned of the 'inevitability' of catastrophic terrorist attack. But has the danger been exaggerated? A major new TV documentary claims that the perceived threat is a politically driven fantasy - and al-Qaida a dark illusion. "

O'Reilly Hit With Sex Harass Suit - October 13, 2004
OCTOBER 13--Hours after Bill O'Reilly accused her of a multimillion dollar shakedown attempt, a female Fox News producer fired back at the TV star today, filing a lawsuit claiming that he subjected her to repeated instances of sexual harassment and spoke often, and explicitly, to her about phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation, the loss of his virginity, and sexual fantasies. Below you'll find a copy of Andrea Mackris's complaint, an incredible page-turner that quotes O'Reilly, 55, on all sorts of lewd matters. Based on the extensive quotations cited in the complaint, it appears a safe bet that Mackris, 33, recorded some of O'Reilly's more steamy soliloquies. For example, we direct you to his Caribbean shower fantasies. While we suggest reading the entire document, TSG will point you to interesting sections on a Thailand sex show, Al Franken, and the climax of one August 2004 phone conversation.

Scott Ritter: If you had seen what I have seen:
"Scott Ritter: If you had seen what I have seen: The inspection process was rigged to create uncertainty over WMD to bolster the US and UK's case for war"

An Ominous Drone in the Gaza Sky (washingtonpost.com):
"Ninety-four Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed, according to statistics provided by each side in the conflict, since Israeli forces entered the northern Gaza Strip in an operation aimed at preventing Palestinian guerrillas from firing rockets and mortars at Jewish settlements and Israeli towns over the border. The fighting has pitted a sophisticated, high-tech military force against guerrillas using assault rifles, grenade launchers and weapons crafted from common explosives, construction site scraps and party balloons. "

The Observer | International | Milosevic: 'no link to genocide found':
"Fresh controversy has hit the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic with a claim from a senior intelligence analyst that the Yugoslav leader is innocent of genocide.

Dr Cees Wiebes, a professor at Amsterdam University, now says there is no evidence linking Milosevic to the worst atrocity of the Bosnian war, the massacre of 7,000 Muslims at the town of Srebrenica.

Srebrenica, which was overrun by Serb forces in July 1995, forms the basis of the genocide charge against Milosevic, but Wiebes, a member of a Dutch government inquiry into the atrocity, said there is nothing to link Milosevic to the crime."

Telegraph | News | The CIA 'old guard' goes to war with Bush:
"A powerful 'old guard' faction in the Central Intelligence Agency has launched an unprecedented campaign to undermine the Bush administration with a battery of damaging leaks and briefings about Iraq."

George W. Bush Is Shameless - Bush Index Page

The Government knew Iraq data flawed, report says:
"But before Rice made those remarks, she was aware that the government's foremost nuclear experts had concluded that the tubes were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all, an examination by The New York Times has found. As early as 2001, her staff had been told that these experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and a senior administration official, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information."

MSNBC - Goss pick quit CIA in 1982 under fire:
"While Kostiw, a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, longtime lobbyist for ChevronTexaco Corp. and more recently staff director of the terrorism subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has been through the CIA security vetting procedure, final clearance to take the job has not been completed pending review of the allegations. The job is the third-ranking post at the CIA.

In late 1981, after he had been a case officer for 10 years, Kostiw was caught shoplifting in Langley, sources said. During a subsequent CIA polygraph test, Kostiw's responses to questions about the incident led agency officials to place him on administrative leave for several weeks, according to four sources who were familiar with the past events but who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information."

USATODAY.com - Fox News pulls reporter's item with fake Kerry quotes:
"Carl Cameron, a Fox reporter who covers the Kerry campaign, wrote an item that looked like a news story with made-up Kerry quotes, said Paul Schur, a Fox spokesman. The item was not intended to be posted on the site."

CNN.com - Former Air Force buyer jailed over Boeing deal - Oct 2, 2004:
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) -- The U.S. Air Force's former No. 2 weapons buyer was sentenced to nine months in prison on Friday after telling the court she had given Boeing Co. a rival's secret data and inflated weapons deals to ingratiate herself with the company, her future employer."

IraqWar: All about IraqWar. News from Iraq: IraqWar and politics, economy.:
"The resistance also managed to destroy 4 Abram tanks, 7 Humer's, two transports and kill over 82 Iraqi occupation soldiers and 65 US soldiers. "

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 30.09.04 Interactive. Iraq - attacks in September 2004

ALL THE 9-11 AIRPORTS SERVICED BY ONE ISRAELI OWNED COMPANY

The 9/11 WTC Collapses - An Audio-Video Analysis

The New York Times > Skewed Intelligence on Iraq Colored the March to War
"Before Ms. Rice made those remarks, though, she was aware that the government's foremost nuclear experts had concluded that the tubes were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all, an examination by The New York Times has found. Months before, her staff had been told that these experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets."

Israeli army opens fire on stone-throwing schoolchildren: "An incursion by the Israeli army into the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday has ended in disaster for a group of mainly schoolchildren.
Haaretz newspaper is reporting Israeli troops opened fire on the group near Jabalya after they threw stones at the army's jeeps and armoured vehicles.
A 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and killed while at least 15 other Palestinians aged 12 to 21, many of them students in school uniforms, were wounded."

Yahoo! News - Judge Rules Against Patriot Act Provision
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Surveillance powers granted to the FBI (news - web sites) under the Patriot Act, a cornerstone of the Bush Administration's war on terror, were ruled unconstitutional by a judge on Wednesday in a new blow to U.S. security policies.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, in the first decision against a surveillance portion of the act, ruled for the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) in its challenge against what it called "unchecked power" by the FBI to demand confidential customer records from communication companies, such as Internet service providers or telephone companies.
Marrero, stating that "democracy abhors undue secrecy," found that the law violates constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches. He said it also violated free speech rights by barring those who received FBI demands from disclosing they had to turn over records.

Scoop Archive: UQ Wire: Gore Vidal's The Enemy Within:
"One year after 9/11, we still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil-libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney/Bush junta."

Zogby Poll: Should AIPAC be asked to register as an agent of a foreign government and lose its tax-exempt status?:
Narrative Summary
14. A tax-exempt organization that lobbies Congress on behalf of Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (also known as AIPAC), has been under investigation by the FBI for allegedly receiving classified information from a Pentagon official and using this information on behalf of the government of Israel. In view of this investigation, do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that AIPAC should be asked to register as an agent of a foreign government and lose its tax-exempt status?

BBC NEWS | Israeli army destroys Gaza homes
"Israeli army bulldozers have torn down the homes of more than 200 Palestinians in the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Yunis, United Nations aid officials say."

The Memory Hole > Two Secretaries of Defense Admit POWs in Laos Were Left Behind When Vietnam War Ended
"Among the most stunning evidence is the testimony of two men who served as President Nixon's Defense Secretaries (one of whom had also been the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency). In sworn testimony before Congress in 1992, they said that POWs held in Laos had been abandoned. This bombshell was a two-day wonder. On the first day, the press reported it. On the second day, Henry Kissinger denied it. On the third day and every following day, the public forgot it."

MSNBC - Troop documents conflict with Bush claims
"WASHINGTON - Fewer Iraqi security forces will be fully trained by the end of this year than cited by President George W. Bush and it will take until July 2006 to fully train the police force, according to Pentagon documents."

Electoral overhaul taking a big lead: "A proposal to change how Colorado allocates its presidential electoral votes is winning by double digits, according to a Rocky Mountain News/News4 poll - but a majority of voters don't feel strongly either way.
Amendment 36 would scrap the traditional 'winner take all' system and award Colorado's electoral votes proportionally, based on popular vote. It would be the first such system in the nation, and it would apply immediately to the November presidential vote."

"Doctors Without Borders" Why you can't trust medical journals anymore. by Shannon Brownlee:
"With financial ties to nearly two dozen drug and biotech companies, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff may hold some sort of record among academic clinicians for the most conflicts of interest. A psychiatrist, a prominent researcher, and chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at Emory University in Atlanta, Nemeroff receives funding for his academic research from Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Wyeth-Ayerst--indeed from virtually every pharmaceutical house that manufactures a drug to treat mental illness. He also serves as a consultant to drug and biotech companies, owns their stocks, and is a member of several speakers' bureaus, delivering talks--for a fee--to other physicians on behalf of the companies' products."

Saddam to Declare Candidacy for Iraqi Elections
Stefano remarked that a recent Gallup poll indicates that 42 percent of the Iraqi people want their former leader back.

If Americans Knew - what every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s major sources of instability.
Americans are directly connected to this conflict, and increasingly imperiled by its devastation.
It is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and accurate information on this critical issue, and on our power – and duty – to bring a resolution.

Guardian Unlimited | Far graver than Vietnam
"But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: 'Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost.' He adds: 'Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends.'"

AIPAC/Franklin Spy Scandal Spreads to The Whitehouse

Guardian Unlimited: Far graver than Vietnam:
"Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: 'The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong.'"

UC Regents lose control of nuclear weapons program: Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over
In a stealth takeover by the Carlyle Group, facilitated by five admirals, the management contract will be transferred next year to the University of Texas, where the military and the Carlyle Group will have control. A new “ramping up” of the nuclear weapons program is underway, with program funding at the highest level ever - even higher than during the Cold War – extending nuclear weapons into outer space, into the very atmosphere that makes life on earth possible, and with no “real” enemy in sight.

UK archives reveal Palestine plan
A top-secret Colonial Office file from 1943 shows that Mr Churchill favoured a plan to try to bribe King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, with £20m and the leadership of a new Arab confederation, in exchange for the Saudi monarch's help in handing over Palestine to the Jews.

US 'sabotaged' hostage deal
The brother of British hostage Kenneth Bigley today launched a bitter attack on the US government for "sabotaging" moves to free him.

CNN.com - Fired FBI translator sues over records - Sep 22, 2004
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An FBI contract linguist who alleged that there were security lapses in the bureau's translator program sued the Justice Department on Wednesday to compel its inspector general to disclose results of an investigation into her firing.

MSNBC - Mini WiFi locator locks in on networks

Yahoo! News - Bush Again Confuses IDs of Two Terrorists
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) might have been able to say it was simply a slip of the tongue when he confused two terrorists in a campaign speech Monday in New Hampshire. Trouble is, he's made the same misstatement at least 10 times before.
During remarks in Derry, N.H., Bush said the late terrorist Abu Nidal killed Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish American who died after being tossed — along with his wheelchair — off a hijacked cruise liner named Achille Lauro in 1985.
"Do you remember Abu Nidal?" Bush asked the crowd. "He's the guy that killed Leon Klinghoffer. Leon Klinghoffer was murdered because of his religion. Abu Nidal was in Baghdad, as was his organization."
He repeated the mistake Monday evening at a campaign event in New York City: "Abu Nidal was a cold-blooded terrorist killer who killed Leon Klinghoffer."
Actually, it was Abul Abbas, the leader of a violent Palestinian group, who killed Klinghoffer.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Drops Charge Against Accused Spy:
SAN FRANCISCO - The military on Wednesday dropped an espionage charge against a Muslim interpreter accused of spying at the camp for terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The development marks the third Guantanamo spy case to fall apart this year, despite vows by Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) and military officials to prosecute the alleged threats to the nation's security.

Guardian Unlimited | House May Revive Parts of Patriot Act II
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans plan to revive portions of the Justice Department's ``Patriot Act II'' draft in legislation to address the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations to strengthen America intelligence capabilities, The Associated Press has learned.

Hidden Agenda: A National Draft in the Future?
A key issue for young Americans and their families to consider as they prepare to cast their votes in the upcoming presidential election is the real likelihood of a military draft being reinstated if President Bush is re-elected. President Bush should tell us now whether he supports a military draft.
Here is the evidence that makes a draft likely

<"http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/2004_09_19_americablog_archive.html#109569255095400842"> Bush threatened to VETO legislation providing body armor to our troops
The legislation (Biden amendment #1796 to S. 1689) had everything President Bush and the military wanted for Iraq, but on October 2, 2003 the Senate Republicans opposed it and President Bush threatened to veto it because it gave new federal employees union rights, something that has NOTHING to do with the body armor our troops dearly needed.

Rumsfeld Sold Stakes in Pentagon Contractors
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sold stakes this summer in at least five companies after they were identified as doing business with the Pentagon, according to his latest financial disclosure form, made available on Wednesday.
Sold were all his shares in Millennium Chemicals Inc., St Paul Companies Inc., Sonoco Products Co., VF Corp. and Zebra Technologies Corp., according to an aide's handwritten note on the disclosure report.

Whistleblowers Call For Disclosure Of Govt's Iraq Deceit
TWELVE EXAMPLES OF EXISTING DOCUMENTS THAT DESERVE UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE

Each of these -- wrongly withheld up till now -- could and should be released almost in their entirety, perhaps with minor deletions for genuine security reasons. (In many cases, official promises to release declassified versions have not been honored.)

1. Reports by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Guantanamo, Abu Ghrab and other prisons (ships, prisons in other countries) that hold prisoners from the "war on terrorism." (These reports have been provided to the US government but have not been made public.)

2. 28 pages redacted from the report of the Joint House-Senate Inquiry on Intelligence Activities before and after 9/11, concerning the ties between the 9/11 terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia.

3. 800 pages of the United Nations Report on Weapons of Mass Destruction that were taken by the United States during unauthorized Xeroxing and never given to the Security Council members. (The original report was 1200 pages in length but has never been published in its entirety)

4. Membership, advisors, consultants to Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, and any minutes from meetings (January - December, 2001).

5. Documents and photographs concerning/produced by military doctors or medical personnel that document abuses toward prisoners condoned by medical personnel.

6. Documents produced by military lawyers and legal staff that challenge the political policy makers decision to undercut the Geneva Conventions and any other extra-legal procedures.

7. The missing sections of the U.S. Army General Taguba report on prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

8. Department of Justice-Inspector General (DOJ-IG) Report: RE: Sibel Edmonds vs. FBI, completed, classified

9. DOJ-IG Report: RE: FBI Translation Department (security breaches, intentional mistranslations, espionage charges), completed, classified

10. DOJ-IG Report: RE:FBI & Foreknowledge of 9/11, completed, classified

11. Full staff backup to General Shinseki's 2002 estimate that "several hundred thousand troops" would be required for effective occupation of Iraq.

12. The full 2002 State Department studies on requirements for the postwar occupation and restoration of civil government in Iraq.

Kerry is Doing Much Better than the Polls State - Independent Media TV
What should be taken under consideration is the level of motivation that the Democrats and Republicans have. While it is true that the left is not overly thrilled about Kerry, there is great motivation not seen in a very long time, on the democratic side of the voter spectrum to remove Bush from power. This is evident from the largest protests since Vietnam both in February 2003, and the record breaking protest during the Republican Convention. It's obvious that the left is very motivated to remove Bush.

Web Site: American Hostage Killed in Iraq
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - A Web site posting Monday claimed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group has beheaded one of the American hostages in Iraq and that others would soon be killed. The claim could not be verified.

Militants Behead 3 Kurd Hostages in Iraq:
"BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Militants sawed off the heads of three hostages believed to be Iraqi Kurds in a grisly videotape that surfaced Sunday, hours after Iraq's prime minister said January elections would be held on schedule and asserted that American and Iraqi troops were winning the fight against an increasingly bold insurgency."

Boston Globe / Ugly truths about Iraq
IT SHOULD not be surprising that a classified National Intelligence Estimate completed late last month projects three scenarios for Iraq over the next year and a half that range from dicey to disastrous -- from fragile stability to civil war among Sunni Arabs, Shi'ites, and Kurds.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Britain to cut troop levels in Iraq:
"The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt.
The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units."

Leave Your Children Behind, You Are Both Going to Iraq
So it is that our American youth, and even grandfathers are being called up, not to defend our country as it says in their contracts, but to fight a colonial war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Alas, this is a war that America will lose, not only in terms of its goals of occupying Iraq, but in terms of its children who will lose parents, security, and the health of those who go to Iraq. Scientists have estimated that there is 10 times the amount of radioactivity in Iraq as there was in Hiroshima because of the “depleted uranium” we are using on a daily basis. It will be Agent Orange all over again. Many of us have lost friends to cancer from Agent Orange—and just remember how many years it took for the federal government and the military to admit that Agent Orange had been a factor in the birth deformations of babies born to Agent Orange exposed parents, the number of cancer deaths which is inordinately high compared to the average population. None of this would have come out if it had not been for Admiral Zumwalt, who lost a son to Agent Orange. Until he came out publicly about it, none of our media wanted to cover it. It will take the same type of thing to get the story out about the depleted uranium as well.
And remember this,depleted uranium has a half-life of a thousand years.

No Competition
Former Bechtel consultant portrays Halliburton bidding process as a “sham”
A former Bechtel consultant who wrote a competing proposal against Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, in 2003 for a sweeping oil reconstruction contract in Iraq calls the government’s competition a “sham” that was “rigged” from the start in Halliburton’s favor.

US 'loses' war games
Washington - US spy agencies have played out "war games" to consider possible pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and concluded that strikes would not resolve Washington's standoff with Tehran, Newsweek magazine reported on Sunday.

Whispered in Russia: Democracy Is Finished
Chess champion Garry Kasparov, now heading Committee 2008, told Echo of
Moscow radio that the public has become disillusioned with the idea that a strong state can cure all the nation's ills. "It's power that has dragged us into this horror, and power that dragged us into this war, and all along this power had nothing but promises, preening with its own force….
"But this power is bankrupted now. And it's not just bankruptcy — we can say that this power has become a threat to everyone in this country…. And in order to move forward, we must at least begin to diagnose our own illness."

MSNBC - Suicide bomber kills at least 19 in Kirkuk Two U.S. soldiers killed
Hours later, a car bomb exploded Saturday as U.S. soldiers traveled to the scene of a an earlier attack on a passing convoy, killing two Americans and wounding eight, the U.S. military said.

Racketeering Charges Filed Against NutraSweet Co., American Diabetes Association, Monsanto & Dr Robert H. Moser for Manufacturing and Marketing Toxic Aspartame
For 16 years, the FDA denied approval of aspartame because of compelling evidence of its contributing to brain tumors and other serious disabilities. Donald Rumsfeld, present Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration, left President Ford's administration as Chief of Staff to become the CEO of aspartame producer G D Searle Co. in 1981. Shortly after, Rumsfeld became the CEO, and the day after President Reagan took office, aspartame was quickly approved by FDA Commissioner Arthur Hayes over the objections of the FDA's Public Board of Inquiry. Hayes had been recently appointed by the Reagan Administration. Shortly after aspartame's approval by the FDA, Hayes joined NutraSweet's public relations firm under a ten year contract at $1,000 a day.

US News Article | Reuters.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has dropped all charges against a colonel who served as an intelligence officer at the Guantanamo prison and had been accused of trying to take classified material from the base, officials said on Thursday.
Army Reserve Col. Jackie Duane Farr was the highest ranking of three U.S. service members charged in 2003 in connection with suspected security breaches at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding about 585 foreign terrorism suspects.
All charges have now been dropped against Farr as well as Army Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain who ministered to prisoners, while the prosecution case against Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi, an Arabic language translator, has run into numerous troubles.

Poll: 50% of NYC Says U.S. Govt Knew
Half of New Yorkers Believe U.S. Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9/11 Attacks and "Consciously Failed" To Act;
66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York's Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals

Government Insider Says Bush Authorized 911 Attacks:
"'This (9/11) was all planned. This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder.' --Stanley Hilton"

S.Korea Says There Was No Big Blast in N.Korea
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's latest assessment of a widely reported explosion in North Korea last week is that there was no blast at all at the suspected site, a vice minister said on Friday.

De-Classified Document Admits Oswald Was CIA

U.S. Vetoes of UN Resolutions Critical of Israel
"U.S. Vetoes of UN Resolutions Critical of Israel (1972-2002)"

Scotsman.com News - Beslan school siege - Siege weapons 'stolen from police'
SEVEN Kalashnikov rifles and three pistols used by the hostage-takers in the Beslan school siege had been stolen almost three months earlier from police posts in armed raids allegedly led by Shamil Basayev, one of Chechnya’s most notorious warlords, Russia’s chief prosecutor said yesterday.

Yahoo! News - Bush May See Cabinet Exodus if Re-Elected
WASHINGTON - Nearly all the senior officials who came to office with President Bush still are on the job. But a big exodus and a Cabinet reshuffling seem likely if he wins a second term.

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - 'Devastating' Secret Papers Reveal Pre-War Iraq Warnings
The Government came under renewed fire tonight after claims that Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned before the war in Iraq of the scale of the task that would face British and other coalition troops after Saddam Hussein was toppled.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said: “If these documents are accurate they provide a devastating insight into the political run up to war in Iraq.
“They demonstrate that the Government agreed with the Bush administration on regime change in Iraq more than a year before military action was taken.

Bush's Baseball Ambassadors
DOLING OUT diplomatic posts is a time-honored way for presidents to repay political patrons. But by awarding ambassadorships to 19 Pioneers—supporters who raised at least $100,000 for his 2000 campaign—George W. Bush, a former co-owner of the Texas Rangers, has been in a league of his own. His choices include five big-league execs. Here, the baseball bunch

GIs claim threat by Army: Soldiers say they were told to re-enlist or face deployment to Iraq
COLORADO SPRINGS - Soldiers from a Fort Carson combat unit say they have been issued an ultimatum - re-enlist for three more years or be transferred to other units expected to deploy to Iraq.

Bush’s commander, dad wrote each other
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon Friday released more documents on President Bush’s Vietnam-era Air National Guard Service, including a letter from his then-congressman father George Bush thanking a general for “taking interest in a brand new Air Force trainee.”

U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMD
The report is expected to be similar to findings reported by Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, who presented an interim report to Congress in October. Kay left the post in January, saying, "We were almost all wrong" about Saddam's weapons programs.
Duelfer's report, however, is expected to fall between the position of the Bush administration before the war - portraying Saddam as a grave threat - and the declarative statements Kay made after he resigned.
It will also add more evidence and flesh out Kay's October findings. Then, Kay said the Iraq Survey Group had only uncovered limited evidence of secret chemical and biological weapons programs, but he found substantial evidence of an Iraqi push to boost the range of its ballistic missiles beyond prohibited ranges.
He also said there was almost no sign that a significant nuclear weapons project was under way.

US debates military strikes on 'nuclear Iran'
The Bush administration's warnings that it will not "tolerate" a nuclear-armed Iran have opened up a lively policy debate in Washington over the merits of military strikes against the Islamic republic's nuclear programme.
Analysts close to the administration say military options are under consideration, but have not reached a level of seriousness that indicate the US is preparing actual action.

Israel Wants $350 Million From US For New Bases For Troops Withdrawing From West Bank
"WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon notified the US Congress Monday of an Israeli request for the construction of two infantry training bases and a storage and logistics base for a reserve armored division for Israeli troops withdrawing from the West Bank.
The project was valued at an estimated 350 million dollars.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said the bases would be built with US assistance promised to Israel as part of the October 23, 1998 Wye River Accords.
The implementation of the accords, under which Israel promised to withdraw its troops in stages from 13 percent of the occupied west Bank in return for Palestinian pledges on security, stalled in 1999 and the withdrawal was never fully implemented.
Pentagon and State Department officials were unable to explain why the Wye River Accords were now being cited as the basis for a program to build military bases in Israel."

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Contractor's Bag Full of Explosives at JFK
A government contractor brought highly explosive Soviet munitions on his trip home from Afghanistan that were not detected until he arrived at John F. Kennedy airport, federal officials said.
Shaun Marshall, a medic for defense contractor DynCorp, arrived at Kennedy Aug. 19 from the United Arab Emirates. He was trying to board a United Airlines flight home to California when he was pulled aside for a routine security check.
A search of his bags by federal screeners found what police bomb technicians described in an FBI complaint as a Soviet ``projectile point detonating fuse'' and a ``surface-to-air and air-to-air cartridge.''
Federal officials said they could not comment Tuesday on the risk that the munitions posed to the flight. But the city police bomb squad determined the munitions were ``highly explosive,'' according to the FBI complaint.

MSNBC - Missile test delayed until after election
The Pentagon's last hope of flight-testing critical new elements of an antimissile system, before activating the system this autumn, appeared to vanish yesterday with the disclosure that the next flight test has been postponed until late this year, well past the November election.
The Air Force general in charge of the program said the setback will not affect plans to begin operating the system in the next month or two.

ARRLWeb: "Intruder Signal" on 40 Meters Remains a Mystery for Now
NEWINGTON, CT, Sep 9, 2004--An unidentified signal that's been showing up on the 40-meter phone band on or about 7238 kHz has mystified amateurs in the western US and Canada, where it's been heard frequently for the past few weeks. Although it resembles a steady carrier, a closer inspection suggests that the intruding signal actually is a series of closely space signals.

Putin Moves to Strengthen Kremlin's Power
President Vladimir Putin on Monday demanded an overhaul of Russia's political system, including an end to the direct popular election of governors, saying the changes were needed to combat terrorism.
Critics charged the Russian leader was using the bloody outcome of the Beslan school siege to grab more power.
The former KGB spy, saying the future of the country was at stake, called for creation of a powerful anti-terror agency "capable of not only dealing with terror attacks but also working to avert them, destroy criminals in their hideouts and, if necessary, abroad."

Mail and Guardian Online: Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con crazies row
A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that United States Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq.

Russia Attacks Prompt New Policy Fears
"For the outside world, Putin's address carried an ominous undertone. Signalling growing Kremlin irritation with what it sees as Western 'double standards' in dealing with the Chechen rebels, he said terror attacks on Russia are encouraged by those who fear its nuclear might. Most analysts interpreted that as a veiled attack on the West, including the United States, and a warning that it may lose Russia as an ally."

The Bush Betrayal
In a recent article, former Georgia Republican Congressman, Bob Barr, wrote, "Has America been betrayed by President George W. Bush? In his most recent book, The Bush Betrayal, James Bovard poses and then answers this question with a resounding 'yes.'"

The MoJo Wire--Action Atlas, U.S. Arms Sales in Israel
It's quite a deal, considering that the U.S. has indirectly contributed to Israel's 1993-1995 ranking as the world's seventh-largest arms supplier. But this has not gone unnoticed or uncriticized in the U.S.; Israel is notorious for selling weapons to countries such as China and apartheid-era South Africa while the U.S. and much of the world imposed sanctions against them for human-rights abuses or strategic threats.

New Zealand News - World - US cable reveals 1998 contact with Mullah Omar
Reclusive Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar told an American diplomat in a rare conversation that the August 1998 US strikes against Afghanistan would lead to increased terrorism, according to a recently declassified document released on Friday.

Fortune.com - Intro - Rummy's North Korea Connection
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors

Russia Ready to Vaporize the Jewish State And then kick America out of the Eastern Hemisphere

Brauchli: Halliburton's good fortune never ends

Iraq team 'draws blank on WMD'
The Iraq Survey Group is to confirm during the next fortnight that Saddam Hussein's regime had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction when it was invaded last year, the Guardian newspaper said yesterday.
The newspaper said it had learned that the team - charged with finding proof of Saddam's quest for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons - would deliver its report "in two weeks' time".

Was Bush complicit with the 9/11 attacks?

Sick From Aspartame? Meet Donald Rumsfeld.
Aspartame was passed despite FDA scientists' disapproval by a significant force in politics: Donald Rumsfeld.
When we started the documentary, "Sweet Misery", we did not know that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO of Searle at the time aspartame was approved. Not until our first interview with Dr. Jim Bowen.
According to a G.D. Searle's salesperson, Patty WoodAllott, Donald Rumsfeld stated "he would call in all his markers and that no matter what, he would see to it that aspartame be approved this year."
This interview with consumer atttorney Jim Turner reveals how Donald Rumsfeld "called in his markers" as part of Reagan's transition team in 1981. Here is why G.D. Searle felt compelled to reapply for aspartame's approval one day after Reagan's inauguration.
This is despite rejection of aspartame over brain tumors.

911 Reading Room: Bibliography
topic: hijackers: still alive?

FBI Chief Raises New Doubts Over Hijackers' Identities
FLASHBACK: FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged Thursday that investigators may not know the true identities of some of the 19 suspected airplane hijackers from last week's suicide attacks.

Tracking the 19 Hijackers - web of lies


Things are not always as they seem:

"The investigation into the recent spate of terrorist attacks took a confusing twist Thursday when the Interior Ministry in Chechnya announced that the suspected suicide bomber of a Tu-134 airplane was alive and well and that her passport found at the crash site was forged.

A Chechen Interior Ministry spokesman told Rossiiskaya Gazeta that Amanat Nagayeva, the main suspect in the Aug. 24 bombing of the Moscow-Volgograd flight, was alive and selling toys in the Rostov region.

The revelation casts a strange and ominous light on the investigations into recent terrorist attacks, which include a Tu-154 that exploded almost simultaneously with the bombing of the Tu-134 and a suicide attack near the Rizhskaya metro station a week later.

The passport found at the Tu-134 crash site was a well-made forgery, but its serial number had not yet been issued, the paper reported the spokesman as saying."
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/09/10/011.html

How does this relate. The FBI freely admits that they are not certain who hijacked the 911 planes, "We have several hijackers whose identities were those of the names on the manifests," Mueller said. "We have several others that are still in question. The investigation is ongoing, and I am not certain as to several of the others." - Robert Mueller FBI Director
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092101probe.story

and the names that were named, were most likely from stolen passports. At least 9 of the 19 are still alive.
http://www.welfarestate.com/911/

What Does Bin Laden Really Want?

MSNBC - Text of memos on Bush's suspension
18 August 1973

Memo to File

SUBJECT: CYA

1. Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I’m having trouble running interference and doing my job. Harris gave me a message today from Grp regarding Bush’s OETR and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it. Bush wasn’t here during rating period and I don’t have any feedback from 187th in Alabama. I will not rate. Austin is not happy today either.

MSNBC - U.S. troops' death rate rising in Iraq
With the latest spike in violence in Baghdad, more U.S. troops have died since the turnover of power to an interim Iraqi government at the end of June than were killed during the U.S.-led invasion of the country in the spring of 2003.
A total of 148 U.S. military personnel have been killed since the partial transfer of sovereignty on June 28, compared with 138 who died in March and April of 2003, Pentagon figures show.

Democrats Say Bush Lied on Guard Service
Democrats said that meant Bush passed on a chance to defend his country. Bush flew the F-102A jets his unit kept on alert but was grounded in August 1972 because of the missed medical check.
"When his unit was placed on a 24-hour alert mission to protect our country from surprise attack, why did George Bush not report for duty?" Democratic National Committee head Terry McAuliffe said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday.
McAuliffe also suggested Bush lied when he said he had released all available records and had fulfilled his Guard obligations.

CBS News | Bush's Guard Duty Under Microscope | September 8, 2004?22:19:12
A year after Lt. Bush's suspension from flying, Killian was asked to write another assessment.
Killian's memo, titled 'CYA' reads he is being pressured by higher-ups to give the young pilot a favorable yearly evaluation; to, in effect, sugarcoat his review. He refuses, saying, "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job."

Salon.com News | Sen. Graham: Bush covered up Saudi involvement in 9/11
As the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman during the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and the run-up to the Iraq war, Sen. Bob Graham tried to expose what he came to believe were national security coverups and manipulations by the Bush administration. But he discovered that it was hard to reveal a coverup playing by the rules. Much of the evidence the Florida Democrat needed to buttress his arguments was being locked away under the veil of politically motivated classification.
Now, as he prepares to retire after 18 years in the Senate, the normally cautious former governor of Florida is unleashing himself in a new book, "Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America's War on Terror."

Creative Accounting Only Goes So Far
Even with discounting, however, the figures are massive. The CBO estimates the unfunded liability for Social Security at $7.2 trillion. But this is virtually nothing next to the $37.6 trillion cost of Medicare. In short, we would need to have about $45 trillion in the bank today earning interest in order to pay all the promises that have been made for future Social Security and Medicare benefits — over and above the future taxes and premiums that will be collected to fund these programs.

United States Senate Fax Number List

Impeachment by the People

SACRAMENTO / Voting machine maker accused / State suit to allege Diebold made fraudulent claims
Sacramento -- Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Tuesday he would sue electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold Elections Systems for allegedly making fraudulent claims to Alameda County and the state about the security and reliability of voting machines the company sold the county.
Lockyer plans to join a lawsuit originally filed by electronic-voting watchdogs who claimed that Diebold provided Alameda County with software that was not federally certified and could be tampered with. The lawsuit, now pending in Alameda County Superior Court, seeks restitution of the nearly $12 million in taxpayer money used to purchase the touch-screen voting machines, many of which did not work properly in the March primary election.

Don't Look At The Flash - Greg Palast
On September 11, 2001, we Americans were the victims of a terrible attack.
By September 12, we became the suspects.
Not one single U.S. citizen hijacked a plane, yet President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft, through powers seized and codified in the USA PATRIOT Act, fingered 270 million of us for surveillance, for searches, for tracking, for watching.

FBI investigates suspected Pentagon security breaches
An FBI investigation into suspected security breaches involving Pentagon officials and Israel is unlikely to result in prosecution of senior figures following pressure from the White House, according to people familiar with the case.
The investigation has highlighted concerns that a small group of neo-conservatives in the Pentagon not only may have divulged classified information to Israel, but also tried to mount intelligence and foreign policy operations without informing the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency.

AIPAC Spy Case Involves Intelligence on Iranian WMD
James Gordon Meek reports that both FBI investigations of leaks from the Pentagon concern in part secret US intelligence on Iranian weapons of mass destruction programs. The FBI suspects that this intelligence was leaked to AIPAC and the Israelis on the one hand, and to Ahmad Chalabi on the other. Chalabi in turn is suspected of passing the information on to Tehran, playing the role of double agent. Although the FBI seems to be keeping the two inquiries separate, there is strong circumstantial evidence that there was a behind-the-scenes connection between Chalabi and the Israelis. That is, the information circuit may have been ingrown among the Neoconservatives, the Israelis and Chalabi's people.

CNN.com - Genesis crash lands in desert - Sep 8, 2004
The Genesis return capsule crashed into the desert on Wednesday missing a mid-air retrieval that was meant to protect the spacecraft from a potentially damaging impact with the Earth.

ABCNEWS.com : Lawsuit Uncovers New Bush Guard Records
The records show his last flight was in April 1972, which is consistent with pay records indicating Bush had a lapse of duty between April and October of that year. Bush has said he had permission to go to Alabama in 1972 to work on an unsuccessful Republican Senate campaign. Bush skipped a required medical exam that cost him his pilot's status in August of that year.