Articles and URLs for more articles -- you need to scroll down and
see what these.
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Ashcroft let the real hands-on 9-11 perpetrator team members go
home!!!!!! The 97 foreign agents who had illegal top security passes
at Dulles and Reagan Airports on Sept 11 -- were quietly sent home by
Ashcroft a few months later!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/9-11-demonstrative-evidence-of-frameup/message/28
William Rivers Pitt | Mr. Bush, You Are A Liar
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103A.shtml
NY Post editorial blames victims' families for for the problems the
9/11 commission is having. The editorial can be viewed here:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/269.htm
GLOBAL WAR LOOMS? -- Two weeks ago, a prince of the Kuwaiti Royal
family received a phone call from an aide to Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld asking if the complex was available. The prince
already suspected it was needed for one of those secret meetings,
which Washington has taken to holding in the Gulf.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/06_29_03/Thomas/thomas.html.
Halliburton unit expands war-repair role
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/191/nation/Halliburton_unit_expands_war_repair_role+.shtml
U.S. Report On 9/11 To Be 'Explosive'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103B.shtml
Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said yesterday he did not
mention the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal in his now famous
presentation to the UN Security Council because he "did not think it
was strong enough" even though President George Bush included it in
his State of the Union address just a week before.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=423531
Two More US Soldiers Killed, US Wounded Tally at 1,044
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103C.shtml
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat yesterday accused Prime
Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) of "betraying the interests of the
Palestinian people."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=316897&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
U.S. Army Baits Ambushers With Own Troops
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103D.shtml
Bush Skirts Queries on Iraq Nuclear Allegation-- Aides Have Backed Off
State of Union Assertion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35606-2003Jul9?language=printer
Among Democrats, The Energy Seems To Be on the Left
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103E.shtml
For the first time since the start of the war in Iraq, Pentagon
officials have released the number of U.S. troops wounded from the
beginning of the war through Wednesday.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/09/sprj.irq.main/index.html
'One Must Follow One's Principles to the End'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103F.shtml
A US panel investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks yesterday
accused the Pentagon and the justice department of obstructing the
inquiry and said witnesses were being intimidated.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,994933,00.html
Robert Byrd | A Call for International Assistance, Not Isolation
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103G.shtml
No justice for anyone when criminals rule the courts
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=35981491&pid=r&mode=ALL&n=0&query=John+Kaminski
General Franks: 'US Troops May Be In Iraq Four Years'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103H.shtml
Statistical comparison: Palestinians killed by Israelis; Israelis
killed by palestinians
Persons killed within the green line
http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Total_Casualties.asp
Iraq Weapons 'Unlikely To Be Found'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103I.shtml
Fw: Citizen declares Bush Administration engaged in treason -- call
Marine Gets 7 Months In Jail For Refusing Anthrax Vaccine -- Yet, "In
a random survey of 1,253 guard and reserve pilots and aircrew, the GAO
found 84 percent suffered minor reactions [to the anthrax vaccine] and
at least 24 percent major multiple "systemic" reactions, the latter
more than 100 times higher than the estimate by the manufacturer."
http://www.rense.com/general38/enat.htm
NOW Hosts Presidential Candidate Forum on Women's Rights
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071103J.shtml
ISRAEL TO PURCHASE MORE APACHE LONGBOWS
Apache Longbows to for better faster killing of Moslems -- Israel's
air force plans to upgrade the first of its Apache attack helicopter
fleet.
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/july/07_11_3.html
Photo taken from Annex roof shows impossibility of Boeing, which flew
over the Annex or the Pike being the killer jet.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/9-11-demonstrative-evidence-of-frameup/message/26
Re: Photo taken from Annex roof shows impossibility of Boeing, which
flew over the Annex or the Pike being the killer jet.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/9-11-demonstrative-evidence-of-frameup/message/27
`You'll see a shift in U.S. policy in a month'
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=316875&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Sept. 11 Panel Rips Lack of Cooperation
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003B.shtml
A former head of Downing Street's in-house intelligence panel last
night accused ministers of "overselling" the threat of global
terrorism before the Iraq war by bombarding voters with repeated
warnings of "imminent terrorist attacks on London" and Heathrow
airport.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,995928,00.html
White House 'Warned Over Iraq Claim'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003C.shtml
TONY BLAIR caved in last night to mounting pressure over the two
British terrorist suspects facing a secret US military trial at
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and appealed for their repatriation.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-741934,00.html
Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, was under mounting pressure last
night to state whether the war in Iraq was illegal because no weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) have been found.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=423532
UK pressed for uranium evidence
http://tinyurl.com/gmhj
White House on Defensive Over Intelligence
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003D.shtml
Iraq's other looting
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EG11Ak01.html
Local Elite In Iraq Losing Faith In U.S.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003E.shtml
How to Rig an American Election
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/voting.shtml
The Lost Decade
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003G.shtml
James Depreist: A Nation That Closes Its Eyes Is Sure To Stumble
Sometime
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003H.shtml
The Pentagon's Plan for Tracking Everything That Moves
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003I.shtml
Republican Is Sentenced for Eavesdropping
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003J.shtml
Capitol Hill Blue Retracts Story
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003K.shtml
Aarticles:
COVER UP: 911 COMMISSION *PIC*
Posted By: ChristopherBollyn <Send E-Mail>
Date: Thursday, 10 July 2003, 9:43 p.m.
COVER-UP: THE REAL MISSION OF THE 911 COMMISSION
By Christopher Bollyn
The controlled media and the seriously compromised 9-11 commission are
seemingly complicit in concealing the truth - while writing the
history - for the worst terrorist attack in American history.
The truth about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 is
unlikely to emerge from the politically appointed National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The integrity of the
so-called "independent" 9-11 commission is compromised by, among other
things, the connections of its staff and key members to the globalist
Council on Foreign Relations, the White House, and domestic and
foreign intelligence agencies.
The mainstream media has reported that the commission's investigation
has been hampered by the failure of the executive branch agencies,
especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to provide
requested documents and testimony. The heads of the commission
recently reported that federal agencies under the president's control
were not cooperating quickly or fully.
The commission also complained about the fact that, like Iraq, the
U.S. government requires an agency "minder" to be present during
interviews with officials. The commission's chairman Thomas H. Kean,
the former Republican governor of New Jersey, said the presence of an
agency "minder" amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.
The fact that key members and staff of the commission belong to
globalist groups and secret societies that have un-American agendas
has not been reported in the controlled press.
Kean and vice-chairman Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic
congressman from Indiana, are both long-standing members of the CFR,
as is commission member Jamie Gorelick and Philip Zelikow, its
executive director. Zelikow is also a member of the London-based
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), an appendage of
British intelligence. Members of the CFR, IISS, and the Yale secret
society Skull and Bones are found like threads running through the
cloth of 9-11.
For example, Peter G. Peterson, chairman of the CFR and the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York announced that his Blackstone Group had
purchased, in October 2000, the mortgage on 7 World Trade Center, the
47-story building built by Larry Silverstein in 1987. Silverstein is
the person who obtained 99-year leases on the twin towers shortly
before 9-11 and who insured the property and its future income against
terrorism. He is seeking some $7.2 billion claiming the attacks were
two separate events.
WTC 7 mysteriously collapsed at 5:25 p.m. on 9-11, in what appears to
have been a controlled demolition. John Wholihan, a firefighter with
Rescue 5 from Staten Island was near WTC 7 when it collapsed. Wholihan
told American Free Press that he heard "many explosions" just before
the building collapsed neatly within the perimeter of its foundation.
Silverstein received some $441 million in insurance money for WTC 7
although the cause of the collapse remains officially unexplained.
Peterson co-founded the Blackstone Group with Stephen A. Schwarzman, a
member of the CFR and Skull and Bones. Both George W. Bush and his
father are also Skull and Bones, as is John F. Kerry, the Democrat
presidential candidate.
Commission spokesman Alvin Felzenberg and commission member Fred
Fielding served on the Bush transition team in 2001. Felzenberg was
executive director of the President's Commission on the Federal
Appointments Process.
Most of the commission's work is done behind closed doors; it has only
held three open sessions. The third session, "Terrorism, Al Qaeda, and
the Muslim World," on July 9 concluded with Steven Emerson, the
self-styled terrorism "expert" whose anti-Muslim rants appear often in
the controlled press, particularly on Fox News and NBC News, where he
is a consultant.
The controlled media generally accepts the government's version of
9-11 events as doctrine ignoring the numerous contradictions and
unanswered questions.
Intriguing testimony was heard during the commission's second open
session on May 23 when officials from the Department of Transportation
and the Air Force appeared.
CHENEY IN CHARGE
While two planes had already smashed into the World Trade Center and
with two other rogue aircraft - one headed for Washington - being
tracked by civil and military aviation authorities, President George
W. Bush continued to calmly read and discuss a story of a goat with
school children in Florida.
Rather than leaving to take charge of the national emergency, Bush
continued to read for another thirty minutes. The only explanation for
this bizarre behavior is that Bush had anticipated the event and knew
it was being controlled by Vice President Dick Cheney.
The testimony of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta on May 23
about Cheney's actions is revealing. Mineta said he arrived at the
Presidential Emergency Operating Center (PEOC) at 9:20 a.m. where he
observed the Vice President taking charge:
Mineta: There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice
president, "The plane is 50 miles out
The plane is 30 miles out." And
when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also
said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?"
And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said,
"Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the
contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And
Hamilton: The flight you're referring to is the
Mineta: The flight that came into the Pentagon.
After some discussion of whether Cheney's orders meant to shoot down
the hijacked aircraft, it was clearly stated on the record that there
were no such orders to do so, which raises the obvious question of
what "the orders" were:
Hamilton: And so there was no specific order there to shoot that plane
down.
Mineta: No, sir.
Hamilton: But there were military planes in the air in position to
shoot down commercial aircraft.
Mineta: That's right. The planes had been scrambled, I believe, from
Otis at that point.
Mineta is referring to two F-15 fighter jets from the 102 Fighter Wing
at Otis Air National Guard Base, near Cape Cod, Mass. As the North
American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) responded to the
hijackings, these planes reportedly flew to New York City in order to
intercept the two planes that had been hijacked after leaving Boston's
Logan Airport. There are numerous unanswered questions about the
actions taken by NORAD aircraft and why they were unable to intercept
any of the hijacked passenger planes.
HOW FAST IS FAST?
The two F-15s were scrambled at Otis ANGB at 8:46 a.m. as the first
tower at the World Trade Center was struck. By 8:52 they were airborne
and according to one of the pilots flying at full speed to New York
City.
Told "This looks like the real thing," Lt. Col. Timothy Duffy jammed
the F-15's throttles into afterburner and the two planes flew the 153
miles to New York City at "supersonic speeds," according to an
Aviation Week & Space Technology (AW) article of June 3, 2002. "It
just seemed wrong. I just wanted to get there. I was in full-blower
all the way," Duffy said.
The F-15 Eagle is capable of flying 1,875 mph (Mach 2.5+) and has a
range of 3,000 nautical miles. At full speed the Otis F-15s should
have reached New York City in about 5 minutes, by 8:58 a.m. The armed
fighter jets would then have been in position to intercept the second
hijacked plane, which struck the south tower at about 9:02 a.m.
The F-15s from Otis were "cocked and loaded, and even had extra gas on
board," according to Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) commander
Col. Robert K. Marr. Air Force Capt. Wes Ticer, spokesman for Air
Combat Command told American Free Press that an F-15 at "full power"
reaches 1,875 mph, although its velocity varies depending on the
plane's weight and altitude.
Col. Alan Scott (Ret.) presented NORAD's timeline to the commission on
May 23. In this timeline the F-15 fighter jets are said to be 71
miles, "about eight minutes out," from the World Trade Center at 9:02
a.m. when the second tower was struck. This indicates the fighters had
traveled only 83 miles in some nine minutes, flying about 550 mph
(Mach 0.9). Scott told the commission that the interceptors jets,
which would have been flying at less than 30 percent of their full
speed, were "going very fast" - and nobody questioned it.
VIGILANT GUARDIAN
Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, commander of the Continental U.S. NORAD Region
(CONAR) at Tyndall AFB, Fla., was informed by Marr about the suspected
hijacked aircraft shortly after 8:40 a.m. Arnold, who then headed the
1st Air Force for Air Combat Command, was in Air Operations Center
preparing for another day of a major NORAD counter-terrorism exercise
that morning called "Vigilant Guardian."
The National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Va., a branch of the
military intelligence community that operates the nation's spy
satellites was engaged in a similar exercise in which a passenger jet
leaving the nearby Dulles Airport would crash into the NRO building.
"I told him to scramble; we'll get clearances later," Arnold said. On
Sept. 11, a time consuming bureaucratic procedure was required before
scrambling defensive interceptor jets. FAA officials had to contact
the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and request Pentagon air
support. The NMCC then had to call NORAD's command center and ask
about availability of aircraft and finally approval had to come from
the Defense Secretary - Donald H. Rumsfeld before launching
fighters. This time consuming procedure was the result of a Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction dated June 1, 2001.
CANADIAN COMMANDERS?
However, rather than getting approval from Rumsfeld, two Canadian
officers, serving as NORAD directors on the morning of 9-11, approved
the fighters' launch according to the Aviation Week article. Capt.
Michael H. Jellinek, a British-born Canadian officer was serving as
NORAD command director and another Canadian, Maj. Gen. Eric A. Findley
was NORAD's director of operations. Findley, positioned at NORAD
headquarters in Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station for the
Vigilant Guardian exercise "quickly approved the fighters' launch,"
according to AW. While NORAD has been faulted for its failures on
9-11, it should be noted that it was the Canadian officer Jellinek who
was NORAD's "director of plans, requirements and readiness" on Sept.
11, 2001.
American Free Press has filed a written request with NORAD asking for
clarification of who was in the chain-of-command and who actually
approved the launching of the fighter jets on 9-11 and why foreign
officers were making decisions during a national crisis in the United
States. A NORAD spokesman said that an answer would not be readily
available.
A year after 9-11, Arnold told ABC News that when he heard of the
hijacking, "The first thing that went through my mind was, Is this
part of the exercise? Is this some kind of screw-up?'"
In a September 23, 2001 interview with Mike Taibbi of Dateline NBC,
Arnold said the F-15s from Otis were travelling about 1,200 mph:
ARNOLD: In the meantime, our pilots were coming at about 1.5 Mach,
which is, you know, somewhere -11 or 12 hundred miles an hour.
TAIBBI: And they know where they're going at that point? The first...
ARNOLD: They're coming to New York. They're coming to New York. That's
exactly right.
Because of the different reports concerning the speed of the Otis
F-15s bound for New York City, American Free Press sent a written
inquiry to NORAD requesting clarification of their velocity. Sgt. Gary
Carpenter told AFP that "based on the nature of the questions" NORAD's
responses would take considerable time.
The Secretary of Defense was supposed to approve the launching of
interceptor jets. However, while the vice president was in the PEOC
monitoring the approach of the aircraft that struck the Pentagon,
Rumsfeld told ABC News' Sam Donaldson shortly after 9-11 that he had
been completely unaware of the approaching plane:
Donaldson: On Tuesday I am told the FAA notified someone in the
Pentagon that there was a rogue plane apparently headed toward
Washington. But you didn't know it, am I correct? -- until it hit?
Rumsfeld: I was in the Pentagon and felt the shock of the attack, and
Donaldson: What did you think it was?
Rumsfeld: A bomb? I had no idea. I looked out the window and raced
down the corridors till the smoke was too bad and then went outside,
and saw the devastation and talked to an eyewitness who told me that
he had seen an aircraft plow into the Pentagon between the first and
second floor.
Donaldson: Could you believe it?
Rumsfeld: No. It's just -- it was a sight -- just amazing.
Richard Ben Veniste of the commission asked NORAD's Major General
Craig McKinley if the "concept of terrorists using airplanes as
weapons was not something which was unknown to the U.S. intelligence
community on September 10, 2001?"
McKinley did not answer the question directly saying, "I'd like the
intelligence community to address that." When Ben Veniste read a list
of attempts to crash planes into buildings, including the White House,
McKinley said NORAD was "not postured" for what occurred on 9-11.
"Threats of killing hostages or crashing [planes] were left to the
script writers," McKinley said.
Indeed, in early 2000 a writer working for Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV
wrote a screenplay that was an uncanny premonition of what occurred on
Sept. 11, 2001. In the Murdoch film, a passenger airliner was hijacked
remotely by a computer hacker and flown into the World Trade Center.
The pilot episode of The Lone Gunman, a spin off of the X-Files, was
broadcast on March 4, 2001 on Fox TV.
In the Murdoch-financed film, the ground-based staff of a small
Washington-based independent newspaper called The Lone Gunman, is able
to prevent the plane from hitting the tower at the last second by
restoring manual control to the pilots who are able to avoid hitting
the building by mere feet. The "hijackers" in the film were corrupt
elements in the U.S. Air Force and Defense Department who "hacked"
into the plane's navigation system in order to commit a horrible
"terrorist" act in order to promote weapons sales and wars against
"crack-pot dictators around the world begging to be smart bombed."
Andrew Butcher, a spokesman for Fox TV, told American Free Press that
The Lone Gunman was produced and financed by Rupert Murdoch's News
Corp.
The commission's spokesman Felzenberg has also written articles for
Rupert Murdoch's magazine, The Weekly Standard. Murdoch, the media
magnate, openly used his 175 newspapers and Fox television network to
promote the war policy of President George W. Bush and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair. The left-leaning Guardian (UK) wrote in February:
"You have got to admit that Rupert Murdoch is one canny press tycoon
because he has an unerring ability to choose editors across the world
who think just like him. How else can we explain the extraordinary
unity of thought in his newspaper empire about the need to make war on
Iraq?"
The UK businessmen trapped in Guantanamo: Arrested in Gambia,
interrogated in Afghanistan, abandoned in Cuba
Vikram Dodd
Friday July 11, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,995989,00.html
The British government is facing claims that it has abandoned two
London businessmen jailed without charge by the US at Guantanamo Bay.
The men's ordeal began last November, when Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil
al-Banna were arrested by British police at Gatwick airport. Although
freed without charge and allowed to travel to Gambia they were
rearrested on arrival and detained for a month by local secret police.
They were then handed over to US agents who flew them to a CIA
interrogation centre at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, before being
transferred to Camp Delta in Cuba where they have been held since
March.
The men have been jailed for alleged links to al-Qaida after being
branded "enemy combatants". Yet neither they nor their families have
been given any information about the substance of the claims against
them.
Their supporters, who maintain that the men have no involvement in
terrorism, say it was the British authorities who passed information
to the US which led to their detention. The Foreign Office has denied
asking Gambia to arrest them.
Two British nationals who were arrested with them in Gambia, where the
businessmen had set up a peanut oil processing plant, were eventually
freed after the intervention of the British high commissioner.
But the government, already under fire for failing to do enough to
help nine Britons held at Camp Delta, maintains that it will not press
the US authorities over the men's fate because they are not British
citizens.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, supports such a stance, but Amnesty
International has branded it as "scandalous".
Mr Rawi, an Iraqi national, lives in the leafy south-west London
suburb of Kingston-upon-Thames. He has been a British resident for 19
years and was granted indefinite leave to remain. His brother and
sister are both British citizens.
Mr Banna, a Jordanian national, was granted refugee status in Britain
in 2000 after seeking sanctuary from persecution.
Britain says both men's countries of birth are the only states who can
provide help. But in Mr Rawi's case, the Iraqi government no longer
exists. In fact, the country is run jointly by Britain and the US.
The bizarre chain of events began as the duo prepared to travel to
Gambia. Special branch officers visited Mr Banna saying they already
knew about his trip. When asked whether they objected, the officers
replied that they did not.
The pair were due to travel on November 2, accompanied by Abdullah
Eljanoudi, a British national. But as they tried to board the plane at
Gatwick all three were ar rested under anti-terrorist legislation and
taken to a police station in Sussex before being transferred to the
high-security Paddington Green station in west London.
Anti-terrorist officers told them the reason for their detention was a
suspect device in their luggage - a battery charger. According to
their lawyer, Gareth Peirce, they had been freed after an Argos
catalogue was produced to prove to the officers that the charger was
widely available.
Six days later the three men flew to Gambia and were met by Mr Rawi's
brother Wahab, a British passport holder who had flown out several
days before.
But on arrival in the capital Banjul, all four were arrested by
Gambia's national intelligence agency (NIA).
According to the Rawi family, Gambian agents told one of the brothers
that their arrest followed a request from Britain: "Upon asking they
were told there were irregularities with their papers. At first, Wahab
refused to cooperate with them and asked either for a lawyer or a
representative from the British high commission.
"At his request [the Gambian agents] laughed and told him it was the
British who have told us to arrest you."
They were held at several locations in Banjul, and interrogated first
by NIA agents and then American agents, thought to be from the CIA.
Livio Zilli of Amnesty said: "One of them was reportedly threatened by
a US investigator who told him unless he cooperated he would be handed
over to the Gambian police who would beat and rape him."
It is also alleged that US interrogators threatened: "We can always
let the Gambians at you."
After a month of being held incommunicado, the two British nationals
were freed. But Mr Banna and Bisher al-Rawi were transferred to Bagram
airbase in January 2003, to a section commonly associated with
accusations of torture by US agents. One of the torture techniques is
known as "torture light".
Steven Watt of the Washington-based Centre for Constitutional Rights
said: "It's curious they were taken to Bagram and not straight to
Guantanamo Bay. At Bagram there are two facilities, one run by the CIA
where no one, not even the International Committee for the Red Cross,
has access.
"Nobody knows what techniques are used there, but reports of the use
of 'torture light' have concentrated on the CIA facility at Bagram."
It is thought that they were transferred in March to Guantanamo. Under
Camp Delta's draconian regime, they will have been kept in a small
cell for twenty-three-and-a-half hours each day and allowed out for
just 30 minutes, with both hands and feet shackled.
Their British-based families are now battling to find out any
information they can.
The families only discovered where their relatives were being held
through letters received via the Red Cross. Neither the British nor US
governments had told them anything.
In correspondence to the foreign secretary about British complicity in
the arrest, Mr Rawi's MP, Edward Davey, wrote: "This is not a
conspiracy theory ... In Gambia the group were interviewed by
American officials. They had a file on Bisher, which must have come
from the UK authorities.
"It had information on Bisher's hobbies that he pursued in the UK ...
flying planes and parachuting. Perhaps such hobbies post-September 11
aroused suspicion, but is it illegal to be an Iraqi with a pilot's
licence."
Mr Davey, Liberal Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton, said: "My
constituent has been in the UK for nearly 20 years, paying taxes and
has permanent residency rights and has close British relatives.
"The British government is washing their hands of him. For the UK to
say he should get help from a non-existent Iraqi government, when we
are jointly governing the country, is beyond Kafkaesque."
The Rawis' father came to Britain to escape the regime of Saddam
Hussein, which jailed him for two years.
Mr Zilli of Amnesty said the British decision not to help Mr Banna was
"questionable morally and legally". He added: "We have serious
questions about the role the UK may have had in the unlawful rendering
to US custody of these people."
In a letter to Mr Davey, the Foreign Office minister Lady Amos denied
Britain had asked Gambia to arrest the men. In another letter, Mr
Straw denied any government responsibility to help Mr Rawi.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The men detained in Gambia are not
British nationals so we're not able to provide any consular or
diplomatic protection
or them.
"The other two who are British nationals, when we learned of their
detention and sought consular access, were released shortly after the
British high commissioner in Gambia intervened."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
---
Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False CBS NEWS
=======
US, UK Giants Get Bulk Of Iraqi Crude
7-11-3
LONDON (Reuters) -- BP, PLC, and Royal Dutch/Shell Group
said yesterday they have each won the right to purchase 2 million
barrels of Iraqi crude in what industry sources said was the first
sale of crude pumped in Iraq since war ended. BP and Shell plan to
load the oil later this month at Mina Al Bakr. BP said it planned to
ship its oil to the U.S. while Shell refused to say where it expected
to sell its crude. Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO)
confirmed that U.S energy group ChevronTexaco and Swiss trading firm
Taurus also won bids for similar lots of Basra light crude. "We look
forward to developing a long-term relationship with SOMO," a Shell
spokesman said.
In Pretoria, U.S. President George W. Bush ducked queries over a White
House admission that he used flawed intelligence on Iraq's nuclear
programme, while insisting he was right to oust Saddam Hussain.
Facing reporters for the first time since the admission early
Tuesday that he had overstated Iraq's alleged efforts to procure
uranium, Bush said: "There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam was a
threat to the world peace and there is no doubt in my mind the U.S.
with our allies and friends did the right thing in removing him from
power."
"I am absolutely confident in the decision I made," he said at a
press appearance with South Africa President Thabo Mbeki.
In Chicago, a 60-year-old Iraqi-born publisher was arrested at his
home yesterday and charged with providing information to Saddam's
intelligence agency about the deposed leader's foes. Khaled Abdul
Latif Dumeisi, who has been in the U.S. for about 10 years, was
described in an affidavit as an "unregistered agent" for the former
Iraqi government who reported on Iraqi exile leaders and provided
press identification cards for Iraqi intelligence officers.
In one case, it was alleged Dumeisi was trained by Iraqi intelligence
to use a pen with a hidden camera and microphone, which he later used
to record an interview with an unnamed member of the Iraqi
opposition.
Dumeisi was charged with acting as a foreign agent, which carries a
maximum 10-year prison term, and conspiracy, which carries a
potential five-year term.
In Iraq, the Central Command also announced the seizure of between
400 and 500 rocket-propelled grenades in a vehicle travelling west of
Baghdad, whose four Iraqi passengers were arrested.
Despite the big name catches, there was no pause in the attacks on
U.S. soldiers which seem to have picked up despite a barrage of U.S.
military offensives this past month in central Iraq, the hub of
support for Saddam. Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades overnight
at U.S. positions in the hotspot town of Fallujah, west of the
capital. U.S. forces also announced the arrest of two top Baathists.
Mizban Khadr Al Hadi, former Baath leader, turned himself in on
Tuesday. Ex-interior minister Mahmud Dhiyab Al Ahmad was also
captured. Also yesterday, U.S. officials said recruiting for a new
army force (the term is "Quisling") will begin July 19 in Baghdad,
Mosul and Basra.
===========
Mr. Bush, You Are A Liar
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 11 July 2003
There was a picture on the front page of the New York Times on
Tuesday, July 8. It showed several American soldiers in Iraq sitting
in utter dejection as they were informed by their battalion commander
that none of them were going home anytime soon, and no one knew
exactly when they were going home at all. PFC Harrison Grimes sat in
the center of this photo with his chin in his hand, staring at ground
that was thousands of miles from his family and friends. A soldier
caught in the picture just over PFC Grimes' shoulder had a look on his
face that could break rocks.
212 of PFC Grimes' fellow soldiers have died in Iraq, and 1,044 more
have been wounded. The war created chaos in the cities, and it seems
clear now that very little in the way of preparation was made to
address the fact that invasion leads to social bedlam, not to mention
a lot of shooting. Last Sunday, CNN's Judy Woodruff showed a clip of a
Sergeant Charles Pollard, who said, "All we are here is potential
people to be killed and sitting ducks."
According to the numbers, almost two thirds of the soldiers killed in
Iraq since May 1 died in "non-combat related" mishaps like accidental
weapons discharges, accidental detonations of unexploded ordnance, and
questionable car crashes. There are some in the world who might take
comfort from the fact that only one third of the dead since May came
from snipers or bombs or rocket-propelled grenades. Dead is dead,
however. There is no comforting them.
A significant portion of the dead and wounded came after Bush
performed his triumphant swagger across the deck of an aircraft
carrier that was parked just outside San Diego bay. Those dead and
wounded came because the Bush administration's shoddy planning for
this whole event left the troopers on the firing line wide open to the
slow and debilitating bloodletting they have endured. A significant
portion of the dead and wounded came after Bush stuck his beady chin
out on national television and said, "Bring 'em on!"
When a leader sends troops out into the field of battle, they become
his responsibility. When his war planning is revealed to be profoundly
faulty, flawed in ways that are getting men killed, he should not
stick his banty rooster chest out to the cameras and speak with the
hollow bravado of a man who knows he is several time zones away from
the violence and bloodshed.
Such behavior is demonstrably criminal from a moral standpoint. The
events that led to this reprehensible display were criminal in a far
more literal sense.
Bush and the White House told the American people over and over again
that Iraq was in possession of vast stockpiles of chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons. Bush and the White House said over and over again
that this was a direct threat to the United States. Bush and the White
House told the American people over and over again that Iraq was
directly connected to al Qaeda terrorism, and would hand those
terrible
weapons over to the terrorists the first chance they got. Bush and the
White House told Congress the same thing. Very deliberately, Bush and
the White House tied a war in Iraq to the attack of September 11.
It was all a lie. All of it.
When George W. Bush delivered his constitutionally-mandated State of
the
Union Address in January 2003, he stated flatly that Iraq was
attempting
to develop a nuclear weapons program. "The British government has
learned," said Bush in his speech, "that Saddam Hussein recently
sought
significant quantities of uranium in Africa." He delivered this
proclamation on the basis of intelligence reports which claimed that
Iraq was attempting to procure uranium from the African nation of
Niger.
Vice President Cheney got the Niger ball rolling in a speech delivered
August 26, 2002 when he said Saddam Hussein had "resumed his effort to
acquire nuclear weapons." As the data clearly shows, Mr. Cheney was a
central player in the promulgation of the claim that Iraq was grubbing
for uranium in Africa. This statement was the opening salvo.
CIA Director George Tenet made this same claim in a briefing to the
Senate Intelligence Committee on September 24, 2002. This briefing was
the deciding factor for a number of Senatorial fence-sitters unsure
about voting for war. Bush, in a speech delivered on the eve of the
Congressional vote for war on Iraq, referenced the Niger uranium
claims
again when he raised the specter of a "mushroom cloud" just three
sentences after evoking "The horror of September 11."
That sealed the deal. Congress voted for war, and a clear majority of
the people supported the President.
In the last week, a blizzard of revelations from high-ranking members
of
the intelligence community has turned these Bush administration claims
inside out. It began with a New York Times editorial by Joseph Wilson,
former US ambassador to several African nations. Wilson was dispatched
in February of 2002 at the behest of Dick Cheney to investigate the
veracity of the Niger evidence. Wilson spent eight days digging
through
the data, and concluded that the evidence was completely worthless.
The
documents in question which purportedly indicated Iraqi attempts to
purchase uranium were crude forgeries.
Upon his return in February of 2002, Ambassador Wilson reported back
to
the people who sent him on his errand. According to his editorial, the
CIA, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Vice
President's office were all informed that the Niger documents were
forged. "That information was erroneous, and they knew about it well
ahead of both the publication of the British white paper and the
president's State of the Union address," said Wilson in a 'Meet the
Press' interview last Sunday.
"I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence
related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate
the
Iraqi threat," Wilson wrote in his Times editorial. "A legitimate
argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses." He
elaborated further in a Washington Post interview, saying, "It really
comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue
that was a fundamental justification for going to war. It begs the
question, what else are they lying about?"
Ambassador Wilson's claims are not easily dismissed. Wilson is a
23-year
veteran of the foreign service who was the top diplomat in Baghdad
before the first Gulf War. In 1990, he was lauded by the first
President
Bush for his work. "What you are doing day in and day out under the
most
trying conditions is truly inspiring," cabled Bush Sr. "Keep fighting
the good fight."
A great hue and cry has been raised as to the timing of the data
delivery to the policy-makers. Don Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice have
both claimed they knew nothing of the forged Niger evidence, claiming
the information was buried in the "bowels" of the intelligence
services.
Vice President Cheney's office has made similar demurrals. Obviously,
the administration is attempting to scapegoat the CIA.
Given the nature of Wilson's claims, and given who he is, and given
the
fact that he was sent to Niger at the behest of Dick Cheney, it is
absurd to believe the administration was never given the data they
specifically asked for over a year before the war began, and eleven
months before Bush's fateful State of the Union Address.
27-year CIA veteran Ray McGovern, writing in a recent editorial,
described a conversation he had with a senior official who recently
served at the National Security Council. "The fact that Cheney's
office
had originally asked that the Iraq-Niger report be checked out," said
the official, "makes it inconceivable that his office would not have
been informed of the results."
Wilson is not alone. Greg Thielmann served as Director of the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research until his retirement
in
September. Mr. Thielmann has come forward recently to join Ambassador
Wilson in denouncing the Bush administration's justifications for war
in
Iraq.
"I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture
to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq," said
Thielmann on Wednesday. During his press conference, Mr. Thielmann
said
that, as of the commencement of military operations in March of 2003,
"Iraq posed no imminent threat to either its neighbors or to the
United
States". Mr. Thielmann also dismissed the oft-repeated claims of a
connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. "This administration has had a
faith-based intelligence attitude," he said.
Thielmann could have saved his breath, and Wilson could have saved
himself a trip, if the Bush administration had bothered to pay any
attention to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA's chief
spokesman, Mark Gwozdecky, said on September 26, 2002 that no such
evidence existed to support claims of a nascent Iraqi nuclear program.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer on July 8 stood before the press
corps and said the President's statements during the State of the
Union
address had been "incorrect."
Let us look at the timeline of this and consider the definition of
"incorrect":
· February 2002: Ambassador Joseph Wilson is dispatched by Cheney to
Niger to investigate Iraq-uranium claims. Eight days later, he reports
back that the documentary evidence was a forgery;
· August 26, 2002: Dick Cheney claims Iraq is developing a nuclear
program;
· September 24, 2002: CIA Director Tenet briefs the Senate
Intelligence
Committee on the reported Iraqi nuclear threat, using the Niger
evidence
to back his claims;
· September 26, 2002: The IAEA vigorously denies that any such nuclear
program exists in Iraq;
· October 6, 2002: George W. Bush addresses the nation and threatens
the
American people with "mushroom clouds" delivered by Iraq, using the
same
Niger evidence;
· October 10, 2002: Congress votes for war in Iraq, based on the data
delivered by Tenet and by the nuclear rhetoric from Bush four days
prior;
· January 2003: George W. Bush, in his State of the Union Address,
says,
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought
significant quantities of uranium in Africa."
· March-April 2003: War in Iraq kills thousands of civilians and
destabilizes the nation;
· April-July 2003: No evidence whatsoever of chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons can be found in Iraq. 212 American soldiers have died,
and 1,044 more have been wounded, as a guerilla war is undertaken by
Iraqi insurgents;
· July 2003: Amid accusations from former intelligence officials, the
Bush administration denies ever having known the Niger evidence was
fake.
The Bush administration knew full well that their evidence was
worthless, and still stood before the American people and told them it
was fact. Bush sent the Director of the CIA to the Senate under orders
to use the same worthless evidence to cajole that body into war.
That is not being "incorrect." That is lying. In the context of Bush's
position as President, and surrounded by hundreds of dead American
soldiers piled alongside thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, that is a
crime.
They know it, too.
A report hit the Reuters wires late Tuesday night announcing the
arrest
of an Iraqi intelligence official named Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir
al-Ani. An unnamed "US official" claimed al-Ani had reportedly met
with
9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta in Prague just months before the attack.
The old saw about Iraq working fist in glove with al Qaeda to bring
about September 11 was back in the news.
According to the story, neither the CIA or the FBI could confirm this
meeting had taken place. In fact, a Newsweek report from June 9
entitled
"Where are the WMDs?" shows the FBI was completely sure such a meeting
had never taken place. The snippet below is from the Newsweek article;
the 'Cabal' statement refers to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his
coterie of hawks who have been all-out for war on Iraq since 1997:
"The Cabal was eager to find a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda,
especially proof that Saddam played a role in the 9-11 attacks. The
hard-liners at Defense seized on a report that Muhammad Atta, the
chief
hijacker, met in Prague in early April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence
official. Only one problem with that story, the FBI pointed out. Atta
was traveling at the time between Florida and Virginia Beach, Va. (The
bureau had his rental car and hotel receipts.)"
Amid the accusations that have exploded surrounding the revelations of
Wilson, Thielmann and other high-ranking intelligence officials, comes
now again reports of the infamous Iraq-al Qaeda connection, an
administration claim meant to justify the war. As with the Niger
forgery, however, it is too easily revealed to be utterly phony.
It reeks of desperation. This administration is learning a lesson that
came to Presidents Nixon and Johnson with bitter tears: Scapegoat the
CIA at your mortal peril.
There are many who believe that blaming George W. Bush for the errors
and gross behavior of his administration is tantamount to blaming
Mickey
Mouse for mistakes made by Disney. There is a great deal of truth to
this. Groups like Rumsfeld's 'Cabal,' and the right-wing think tanks
so
closely associated to the creation of administration foreign policy,
are
very much more in control of matters than Bush.
Yet Bush knew the facts of the matter. He allowed CIA Director Tenet
to
lie to Congress with his bare face hanging out in order to get that
body
to vote for war. He knew the facts and lied himself, on countless
occasions, to an American people who have been loyally supporting him,
even as he beats them over the head with the image of collapsing
towers
and massive death to stoke their fear and dread for his own purposes.
In
doing these things, he consigned 212 American soldiers to death, along
with thousands of innocent bystanders in Iraq. Given the current
circumstances, there will be more dead to come.
There is no "The President wasn't told" justification available here,
no
Iran/Contra loophole. He knew. He lied. His people knew. They lied.
Death knows no political affiliation, and a bloody lie is a bloody lie
is a bloody lie. The time has come for Congress to fulfill their
constitutional duties in this matter, to defend the nation and the
soldiers who live and die in her service. The definition of 'is' has
flown right out the window. This 'is' a crime. George W. Bush lied to
the people, and lied to Congress. There are a lot of people dead
because
of it.
One Congresswoman, Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of
Illinois,
released a statement on July 8 that cuts right to the heart of the
matter:
"After months of denials, President Bush has finally admitted that he
misled the American public during his State of the Union address when
he
claimed that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium in Africa. That is why
we need an independent commission to determine the veracity of the
other
so-called evidence used to convince the American people that war with
Iraq was unavoidable.
"It is not enough for the White House to issue a statement saying that
President Bush should not have used that piece of intelligence in his
State of the Union address at a time when he was trying to convince
the
American people that invading Iraq was in our national security
interests. Did the president know then what he says he only knows now?
If not, why not, since that information was available at the highest
level.
"What else did the Bush Administration lie about? What other faulty
information did Administration officials, including President Bush,
tell
the American people and the world? Did the Bush Administration
knowingly
deceive us and manufacture intelligence in order to build public
support
for the invasion of Iraq? Did Iraq really pose an imminent threat to
our
nation? These questions must be answered. The American people deserve
to
know the full truth."
The voice of Rep. Schakowsky must be followed by others both within
and
without the majority. If nothing is done about this, American justice
is
a sad, sorry, feeble joke.
-------
William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a
New
York Times best-selling author of two books - "War On Iraq" available
now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," now
available from Pluto Press at www.SilenceIsSedition.com.
© Copyright 2003 by TruthOut.org