What a Difference Four Years Makes: Why U.N. inspectors left Iraq--then and now

FAIR does it again. Point this out the next time someone talks about the "liberal media".

An example:

Immediately after submitting his report on Baghdad's noncompliance, Butler ordered his inspectors to leave Iraq.

--Los Angeles Times, 12/17/98

It is not known whether Iraq has rebuilt clandestine nuclear facilities since U.N. inspectors were forced out in 1998, but the report said the regime lacks nuclear material for a bomb and the capability to make weapons.

--Los Angeles Times, 9/10/02

BuzzFlash Reader Commentary - Rumsfeld and North Korea

What's the connection? Well, first, let's see who sold that nuclear equipment to North Korea:

It's a group called ABB Ltd. A look at their website shows that they are actually quite proud of this.

Another look at another part of their website gives us the following fun tidbit:

The company said that Donald Rumsfeld has resigned his membership on the Board as a result of his recent appointment as U.S. Secretary of Defense. In addition, Göran Lindahl and Peter Sutherland have both decided not to stand for re-election.

BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | US grants N Korea nuclear funds

Yeah, it's from April. Here's a fun tidbit from the article, however.

Under the 1994 Agreed Framework an international consortium is building two proliferation-proof nuclear reactors and providing fuel oil for North Korea while the reactors are being built.

In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework's requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors.

President Bush argued that the decision was "vital to the national security interests of the United States".

No proof of Iraq-al-Qaeda link: Chirac

Oops. Was that the French President calling Bush a liar?

Secret Military Spy Planes Enlisted in Hunt for Sniper

Err, Posse Comitatus? So, they going to be flying over the protests next, as well?

We're on a steep slippery slope, here, people.

The deployment of the Army's Airborne Reconnaissance Low planes is the latest and perhaps most dramatic tactic in the sniper investigation. Military and Justice Department officials wrestled for much of the day today with the question of how and whether the Pentagon could aid in the sniper investigation without violating an 1878 law, the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts military personnel from taking part in domestic law enforcement operations. Lawyers ultimately decided that the military could offer equipment in the manhunt without violating the law.

Lean Left has this story about the death penalty in Illinois. I'd add only that I find it exceedingly brave that Ryan would even consider this move, and would love for Governors around the country to show the same bravery and integrity. Let's move from here to a reworking of our entire judicial system.

The Influenza is kicking my butt. I hate the Influenza, I really really do.

Until I regain my strength, I'll simply ask that you all keep discussing HR 3598. It's not the War, it's the Draft.

So, I'm perusing the Patriot Act, and see this little tidbit.

Anybody out there doubt the ability of Ashcroft to twist this to include arrest of anti-war protestors for treason?

"Under Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act, a person commits the crime of domestic terrorism if within the U.S. they engage in activity that involves acts dangerous to human life that violate the laws of the United States or any State and appear to be intended: (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping."

Worldandnation: Missing pilot's status changed

Remember the Maine! Shrub's got his excuse, let's ensure thousands die because we've suddenly changed our minds about one pilot.

No, this isn't suspicious timing, not at all........

A recent post over at the Democratic Underground brings up a brilliant strategy for the Democrats.

Let's all start discussing HR 3598.

Haven't heard of this one? Here's the description:

To require the induction into the Armed Forces of young men registered under the Military Selective Service Act, and to authorize young women to volunteer, to receive basic military training and education for a period of up to one year.

When the Republicans talk war, let's make sure the parents out there hear the word "draft".

ajc.com | News | Bush hitting campaign trail He's actually making love to the campaign trail.

Bush will be at the White House just two days next week. After that, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "the president will be on the road every day until Election Day."

What the bleeding hell did he need to force this war vote through for? He's not even doing his job! According to Bush, Saddam is an imminent threat, so, the first thing we do is take another month off to go campaigning?

Impeachment for dereliction of duty. It has to be done.

Judge says state can't ban sale of sexual devices

Well, this is exciting. Note that the case was lost four years ago, but UberGeneral Pryor decided to waste a lot more of our money pursuing an appeal.

In the desperate fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun......

BBC NEWS | Europe | Carter wins Nobel peace prize

Take that, Bush.

Next, we all ask President Carter to oversee US elections next month.

Bush's Science Advisers Drawing Criticism Democrats

Yet another example of how different things are, and will continue to be, under these fascists.

Some interesting bits:

At issue is how Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, and his staff are reconstituting the expert committees that advise Mr. Thompson and the agencies under his control. The experts are influential in shaping federal policy.

In a particularly controversial case, the Food and Drug Administration has asked an obstetrician-gynecologist who strongly opposes abortions to serve on the panel that reviews reproductive health drugs. The doctor, Dr. W. David Hager, teaches at the University of Kentucky and has written popular books asserting the healing power of faith in Jesus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, is considering a toxicologist who has advised the lead industry for a panel weighing the contentious issue of whether the federal government should lower its acceptable limits of lead in the blood.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat'

Officials in the CIA, FBI and energy department are being put under intense pressure to produce reports which back the administration's line, the Guardian has learned. In response, some are complying, some are resisting and some are choosing to remain silent.

"Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence.

Two Fights Could Produce a Big Winner (washingtonpost.com)

Beyond that, this could decide the future of our nation.

Here's the key fight:

But the Bush administration, arguing in court 11 days ago, suggested that the legislative branch should not have the ability to take the executive branch to court -- period. "It basically would make the executive privilege of the president absolute by saying Congress can never sue," former Reagan Justice official Bruce Fein said. "The president could never be forced to turn anything over."

snip

Bush's lawyers said Congress has another option: Start a political fight with the president. "They can simply say, 'Look, Mr. President, that energy policy proposal you've sent up here is dead on arrival until you give us some information about how you went about formulating this policy,'" Clement said.

For that to work, a president's opponents would need to control the House or a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate -- and even then they would have little chance of winning a political fight against the bully pulpit. That means if the administration succeeds in cutting off the ability of Congress to sue the executive branch, Bush -- and those who follow him -- could be essentially immune from congressional scrutiny.

Chicago Tribune | Bush threatens veto over pension benefit

Wait, that's not the best part. Guess who's pension benefits he's upset about, and doesn't want to pay? Hint: We're on the brink of war.

That's right, veterans. It's such a short piece, I'll post it in full.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Alarmed by the cost of expanding military entitlement programs, President Bush has threatened to veto the entire $355 billion defense authorization bill for the new fiscal year if House and Senate conferees do not eliminate new pension benefits for disabled military retirees that could cost $18.5 billion to $58 billion over the next decade.

The Pentagon now spends more than $35 billion a year on military pension and health-care entitlements that are among the most generous in the country for public or private-sector employees.

The pension provision at issue would for the first time allow military retirees to collect retirement benefits from the Pentagon and disability benefits from the Veterans Administration at the same time.

Conferees could decide the issue this week.

Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune

The Sunday Herald has this article. Guess what? It's the oil after all.

The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs. It was commissioned by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, and submitted to Vice-President Dick Cheney in April 2001 -- a full five months before September 11. Yet it advocates a policy of using military force against an enemy such as Iraq to secure US access to, and control of, Middle Eastern oil fields.

One of the most telling passages in the document reads: 'Iraq remains a destabilising influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets.

'This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan-Arab leader ... and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments.

'The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies.'

Representatives of foreign oil firms have already met with leaders of the Iraqi opposition. Ahmed Chalabi, the London-based leader of the Iraqi National Congress, said: 'American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil.'

The Memory Hole > Transcript: Call to Police About Noelle Bush Allegedly Bringing Crack into a Drug-Treatment Center

Truly sad.

Oh, and there's more fun.
ORLANDO, Florida (AP) -- Noelle Bush's attorneys have asked a judge to bar the public from court hearings on their client's drug treatment, saying media attention violates her right to privacy, according to court records.

Peter Antonacci, one of three lawyers representing Gov. Jeb Bush's only daughter, cited a judge's ruling this week that drug treatment workers do not have to testify about a piece of crack cocaine allegedly found in her shoe.

"This harsh glare of the public scrutiny is the exact evil that both Congress and the Florida Legislature sought to remedy by enacting broad confidentiality provisions to protect substance abuse patients," Antonacci said in court documents filed Friday.

Republicans make the machines that count the votes.

Just read it. Explains a lot about what has happened, and what probably will happen.

National Defense Magazine has a truly frightening article.

A brief breakdown of the article: We're running out of stuff. All the money is going to those pretty smart bombs, made by Boeing and Raytheon (a Carlysle subsidiary, imagine that!).

Some choice quotes:

The U.S. engineering and production capabilities for cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions are adequate, despite the consolidation of the industry in recent years, Palaschak said. “The problem with precision-guided munitions is not the health of the industry, but the fact that they can’t produce them fast enough to replenish the inventories after a conflict.”

After the Gulf War, he noted, “it took us a long time to replenish precision-guided bombs and cruise missiles.”

During his confirmation hearing in August as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, Gen. John Jumper said that the service has a $2 billion shortfall in its munitions accounts.

snip

Even though there are still significant amounts of conventional ammunition in war reserve, the stockpile is aging and needs to be modernized, said Col. James Naughton, deputy chief of staff for ammunition at the Army Materiel Command.

In a briefing to industry executives in February, Naughton said that there is not enough money to remanufacture obsolete ammunition stockpiles. Outdated ammunition not only poses a safety hazard, but also is unusable for combat.

According to statistics provided by the Munitions Industrial Base Task Force, the U.S. military munitions accounts are under-funded by more than $400 million in fiscal year 2002.

At the briefing, officials from the Industrial Committee of Ammunition Producers said that the Defense Department should be concerned about the “availability of product or re-supply” during a conflict and the “ability to replenish inventories” after a conflict.

I haven't blogged much lately. And it shows, people aren't viewing the site as much.

I apologise to the folks that do check in regularly, and since the travel and general frustration of the last two weeks is over, I'll be back at it, starting now.

McBride promises to say in public what he says in private

But this is really about Jeb Bush. First, he talked about the "juicy details" of a missing girl's caregivers, they turn out to be lesbian, and they may even be Liberals!

The latest, I thought, was his being taped (unawares) in a meeting where he said he had "devious plans" to torpedo a vote on capping class sizes.

But then he comes out with this one, just a few hours later.
[blockquote]
In Orlando, Bush told about 600 black supporters, including large numbers of ministers, that funding for predominantly black universities has increased under his watch and that more appointments of minority candidates have been made to the state's boards and commissions.

[b]"I try not to make decisions with white men who look and think like me," said Bush[/b], who has been criticized by some black leaders for eliminating affirmative action programs in university admissions and the awarding of state contracts.
[/blockquote]

I'd be real happy if people who think like him were never in a decision-making position again, to be honest.

France finds 'zero' al-Qaeda links with Iraq

Well, now, lookie what we have here. "Jean-Louis Bruguière told the Financial Times: "We have not found any link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Not a trace. There is no foundation, according to our investigations, for the information given by the Americans.""

Wow. So Rummie and Bush and Condi lied? Shocked, SHOCKED I am to find this out.

The Pensacola News Journal has this classy tidbit from Jeb Bush.

With the arrest of Rilya Wilson's caregivers on allegations of welfare fraud, Gov. Jeb Bush added his own "juicy details" in the national case.


Pamela Graham and Geralyn Smith were arrested Wednesday on allegations they illegally collected public assistance checks, including those for Wilson, 6, who lived in Miami until she disappeared eight months ago.


Bush told a visiting delegation of Panhandle legislators the news, adding he had "some juicy details."


He then implied the women are lesbians.


"As (Graham) was being arrested, she told her co-workers, `Tell my `wife' I've been arrested.' The wife is the grandmother, and the aunt is the husband," Bush explained, using his fingers to indicate quotation marks to emphasize the word "grandmother."


"Bet you don't get that in Pensacola," Bush told his visitors, which included a News Journal capital bureau reporter.

CNN.com - Noelle Bush case on 'inactive' status - Oct. 1, 2002

Three strikes, and it's the next inning. Welcome to the Wonderful Life Of a Bush.

ABCNEWS.com : W. Coast Ports Stay Shut Until Deal

The deal being, the dock workers want increased safety. They are also simply asking that any jobs introduced due to new technology be union jobs.

Horrors! They're commies! Must stop, must stop!

Bush has already threatened to send in troops. He's made a couple of critical errors here, however.

First, dock workers are no longer simply strong backs and weak minds hauling cargo around. These guys are very well trained in some seriously difficult work, running huge cranes at top speed. No way Bush has 80,000 trained dock workers socked away in the National Guard somewhere.

The other error he's made is "misunderestimating" his opponents. These guys aren't the air traffic controllers. These guys are old school union, and there's likely to be bloodshed if scabs try to cross the line.

And I'm curious as to when the Teamsters or the east coasters are going to get involved? One Billion Dollars a Day. That's what this is costing us for now. Wait until both coasts are shut down.

Merry Christmas.

Agency disavows report on Iraq arms -- The Washington Times

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist.

"There's never been a report like that issued from this agency," Mark Gwozdecky, the IAEA's chief spokesman, said yesterday in a telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

"We've never put a time frame on how long it might take Iraq to construct a nuclear weapon in 1998," said the spokesman of the agency charged with assessing Iraq's nuclear capability for the United Nations.

In a Sept. 7 news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr. Bush said: "I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied — finally denied access (in 1998), a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon.

Ashcroft’s Baghdad Connection

Well, now. John, you planning any trips to Gitmo any time soon?

Rapture Index

Fasten your seat belt, it's the end of the world.......

Yahoo! News - Agent Cited WTC Attack Ahead of 9/11

"A Minneapolis FBI ( news - web sites) supervisor said in a pre-Sept. 11 conversation with headquarters that he wanted to prevent suspicious student pilot Zacarias Moussaoui from flying a plane into the World Trade Center, a congressional investigator testified Tuesday. "

But according to Condi "Supertanker" Rice, we had no idea that anybody would even think of such a thing.

It's becoming clearer and clearer that impeachment of the President for dereliction of duty is called for.

BBC News Online | UK dossier on Iraq

And here it is. The "Smoking Gun". A few comments:

1. Under Saddam Hussein Iraq developed chemical and biological weapons, acquired missiles allowing it to attack neighbouring countries with these weapons and persistently tried to develop a nuclear bomb. Saddam has used chemical weapons, both against Iran and against his own people. Following the Gulf War, Iraq had to admit to all this. And in the ceasefire of 1991 Saddam agreed unconditionally to give up his weapons of mass destruction.

Not so much developed as had given to him, by the UK and the US. This like a pusher criticising users for possession, isn't it?

7. Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq had a well-developed ballistic missile industry.

Um, imported SCUDs from the former USSR? Right......

8. Iraq had made frequent use of a variety of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. Many of the casualties are still in Iranian hospitals suffering from the long-term effects of numerous types of cancer and lung diseases. In 1988 Saddam also used mustard and nerve agents against Iraqi Kurds at Halabja in northern Iraq (see box on p15). Estimates vary, but according to Human Rights Watch up to 5,000 people were killed.

9. Iraq used significant quantities of mustard, tabun and sarin during the war with Iran resulting in over 20,000 Iranian casualties.

A month after the attack on Halabja, Iraqi troops used over 100 tonnes of sarin against Iranian troops on the al-Fao peninsula. Over the next three months Iraqi troops used sarin and other nerve agents on Iranian troops causing extensive casualties.

10. From Iraqi declarations to the UN after the Gulf War we know that by 1991 Iraq had produced a variety of delivery means for chemical and biological agents including over 16,000 free-fall bombs and over 110,000 artillery rockets and shells.

Iraq also admitted to the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) that it had 50 chemical and 25 biological warheads available for its ballistic missiles.

Once again, he was sold or given these weapons by the US and the UK, and trained in their use by a cabal of people including Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell.

11. Iraq fired over 500 SCUD-type missiles at Iran during the Iran-Iraq War at both civilian and military targets, and 93 SCUD-type missiles during the Gulf War. The latter were targeted at Israel and Coalition forces stationed in the Gulf region.

That bastard had the gall to fire at us when we attacked him! How dare he?

This was achieved despite a continuous and sophisticated programme of harassment, obstruction, deception and denial (see Part 2). Because of this UNSCOM concluded by 1998 that it was unable to fulfil its mandate. The inspectors were withdrawn in December 1998.

Lie by implication. The inspectors were withdrawn so we could bomb Iraq, not because UNSCOM "was unable to fulfil its mandate."

The rest of the dossier is a Bush-like rant that "we have intelligence" that Iraq is doing bad things, without any details whatsoever.

BBC NEWS | UK | Politics | Saddam must be stopped - Blair

[i]UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has told his cabinet that the policy of "containing" Saddam Hussein has failed and that the Iraqi dictator must be stopped. [/i]

Well, this brings to mind a couple of questions that nobody is answering because nobody is asking.

Mr Blair, How has the policy of containment failed? And what must he be stopped from doing? As far as I can tell, he hasn't actually done anything yet, has he?