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Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evildoers
Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evildoers
Ask not for whom the Iguana stalks, the Iguana stalks for you...
War, politics, religion... & other stuff you shouldn't talk about over dinner...
Dedicated to the proposition that GW Bush and Saddam Hussein are figments of our unconscious minds
Cost of the War in Iraq
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According to Amnesty International, Iraq executes "scores" of political prisoners every year, at least 31 confirmed last year. How
long would it have taken Saddam to execute the 6000+ Iraqi civilians we've killed this year? Figure it out.
Cosmic Iguana UPDATED Highlights!
Bush Deified!
Governor Arnold?
Uday & Qusay Get Medals
Aliens Find WMDs!
Republican Affective Disorder
Iraqi Looter's Festival
Ashcroft Eats Babies!
Crypto-Fascists on Parade
The Manchurian President
Tatu Terrorist Organization?
Why They Hate Us
Psychic Bubba?
Shock'N'Awe
My Inner Saddam
America as SUV
Don't Watch TV
Iraqi Baseball
Survivor: Iraq
France Attacks!
Links
NEW! Focus on Intelligence The Spy Game by manis2society
The Manis Wire
The Agonist
American Empire
Atrios
Back To Iraq
Counterspin
Cowboy Kahlil
Daily Kos
DDjangoWIrE
Dem Vets
Dear Raed
Digby's Blog
Interesting Times
Intl-News
Jihad Unspun
Kevin Sites
Ruminate This!
Saddam Hussein's Blog
South Knox Bubba
UggaBugga
The Wacky Iraqi
HOME
Contact Me?
Our Leader
Co-Conspirators:
*Bill "Morpheus" Bojangles
*Unnamed Iraqi Civilians
*Renegade Civil Libertarians
LEAGUE OF LIBERALS
SADDAM CAUGHT..... WAR OVER..... LET'S GO HOME!
Note: Comments (sigh) working again...
Saturday, July 26, 2003
How Bush Sacrifaced the War on Al Queda for the War on Iraq
Thursday, July 24th, 2003, DEMOCRACY NOW
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh details how the Bush Administration destroyed U.S.-Syrian relations by attacking a convoy of cars inside Syria last month in an attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein. It turned out the convoy was made up of dozens smuggling goods out of Iraq. Syria has since stopped sharing intelligence with the U.S....
... "The best relationship we probably had of any ally in terms of learning about Al Qaeda [was Syria] and they blew it. They blew it for short-term, ideological reasons, which is nothing new for this government," said Hersh about the Bush administration. LINK
Pentagon pins hope on foreign soldiers
By Esther Schrader
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's plan for defeating insurgents in Iraq relies heavily on applying "a full-court press" to persuade more countries to send troops to relieve overstretched U.S. forces, senior defense officials said Thursday.
In separate appearances at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States is negotiating with Pakistan, India and Turkey to supply tens of thousands of troops.
LINK
Of course, when you see "negotiating", read "bribing" and/or "threatening."
Friday, July 25, 2003
HOW THEY CAUGHT UDAY AND QUSAY
BAGHDAD -- US officials explained this afternoon how they caught Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, after earlier displaying their bodies on Iraqi TV.
General Fritz Frankfurter stated that they identified the bodies with the aid of dental records and an identification number imprinted on a plate in Uday's leg.
When asked how they obtained that information considering the brothers had secret government physicians from Saddam's personal staff, the General smiled, "That was a triumph of US Intelligence. Years ago we decided to lure the brothers into the private sector, where we could buy off a dentist to provide us the records."
That deed was accomplished by using a popular Baghdad dentist named Hassan Ali, DDS, or as he's often known, "Dental Ali." Dental Ali planned on advertising use of nitrous oxide to lure in the drug-abusing brothers. The scheme almost foundered when the CIA learned that they would have to found 200 Dental Ali clinics in order to have one outside of every palace, but the funding came and Dental Ali became the most successful dentist in Iraqi history. One morning Qusay, obviously hung over, happened to stroll in.
"The rest is history," he said proudly.
Similarly, the CIA found and funded a surgeon, Dr. Mahmoud Ali, known as "Medical Ali", and then planned an assassination campaign to knock off all other qualified practitioners, so that when Uday was wounded in a bomb attack in 1996, Medical Ali was the only surgeon he could turn to. Medical Ali promptly gave the plate ID to US intelligence.
"It was a complex scheme, but Cheney and Rumsfeld had been planning this campaign since 1992, and that gave us plenty of time," the official commented.
"Most people think we just knocked off a couple of their body doubles, but that would have been the easy way out. They don't realize the time it took to set up the operation."
"But when the time came, it was very simple," said Frankfurter, "After the Niger Uranium story made the cover of Newsweek,we got the order to bring them in pronto. Fortunately, we had a number of tips to choose from just lying around." The one they chose was from Ahmad Ali, known to authorities as "Stool Pigeon Ali."
"He's the go to guy, whenever we get the order to round up 'the usual suspects'."
WHAT ISN'T SAID IS AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT IS SAID IN 9-11 REPORT
The 9/11 Investigation
by DAVID CORN, THE NATION
[from the August 4, 2003 issue]
The attacks of September 11 might have been prevented had the US intelligence community been more competent. And the Bush Administration is refusing to tell the public what intelligence the President saw before 9/11 about the threat posed by Al Qaeda.
...One crucial matter is missing from the report: how the White House responded to the intelligence on the Al Qaeda threat. That is because the Administration will not allow the committees to say what information reached Bush. The Administration argued, according to a Congressional source, that to declassify "any description of the president's knowledge" of intelligence reports--even when the content of those reports have been declassified--would be a risk to national security. It is difficult to see the danger to the nation that would come from the White House acknowledging whether Bush received any of the information listed above or the other intelligence previously described by the committees. (The latter would include a July 2001 report that said bin Laden was looking to pull off a "spectacular" attack against the United States or US interests designed to inflict "mass casualties." It added, "Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning. They are waiting us out, looking for a vulnerability.")
It is unusual--if not absurd--for an administration to claim that the state of presidential knowledge is top-secret when the material in question has been made public. But that's what Bush officials have done. Consequently, the public does not know whether these warnings made it to Bush and whether he responded.... LINK
It's time for committee Chairman Bob Graham to speak out and tell the world: What did Bush know and when did he know it?
Thursday, July 24, 2003
BUSH AWARDS POST-HUMOUS MEDALS TO UDAY AND QUSAY
Washington-- President Bush hailed the recently killed sons of Saddam Hussein as American Heros in a press conference today, and awarded them posthumously the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"I know they were bad guys, and they were sons of Saddam, but yesterday they performed the ultimate sacrifice in giving their lives so that the Niger Uranium scandal was knocked off the front page," he said from the White House Rose Garden.
"I don't know how we do it, but whenever I get in trouble the CIA or FBI pulls out some poor fool to kill or arrest to get me off the front page and back to the Gym where I belong. Of course, I don't really know if they were Saddam's sons, but the point is, neither do you.
"And if it does turn out we got the right guys, ya still got to hand to the spooks for keeping them under wraps till just the right moment.
"Of course, my born-again followers will see it as more evidence that Almighty God is propping up our little regime, and who are we to tell them otherwise?" he told the press corps.
WAR ON DRUGS OVER IN AFGHANISTAN
Bumper year for Afghan poppies
Money from the opium trade may diminish US influence over the warlords, and aid Taliban.
By Owais Tohid | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
BATIKOT, AFGHANISTAN – Gul Hazrat Bacha has turned his attention from his fields to building a new house for his family - a dream fulfilled by his recent opium poppy crop.
Only two years ago, Mr. Bacha and his four brothers grew wheat - and fell deeper into debt each year. Now, they make 12 times their former income, have paid back lenders, and see a future for the family. "Honestly speaking, whatever I have is because of poppy," says Bacha with a smile. "Money, happiness, and the house ... everything."
Afghan farmers are producing a bumper crop of poppies this year, despite a ban imposed by President Hamid Karzai's government, and just three years after the Taliban clamped down on cultivation.
The resurgence of this plant - used to make heroin - could unravel the relationships between warlords and the US military that have brought a modicum of peace to Afghanistan. link
In LA, street dealer Frankie the Skunk said, "Man,it's good news for us. That Afghani Brown is hitting the streets just when we needed it. Thank God for George Bush."
UDAY'S "FIDAY" WANTS PROOF, BLAMES U.S.
Body double needs to see proof that Uday is dead
TRACEY LAWSON, THE SCOTSMAN
..."Only when I have seen a photograph of Uday’s body can I believe he is dead," said [Latif] Yahia yesterday. "Only then will I go to sleep very well after 12 years of knowing that Uday is trying to kill me."
He was speaking just hours after the United States said it had unequivocal proof that Uday and his younger brother, Qusay, were shot dead in a fierce gunfight with US troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday.
Should Yahia get the confirmation he requires, he will have more cause than most to celebrate the death of the man who was heir apparent to Saddam’s regime of terror.
His role as Uday’s "fiday" - the Arabic word for body double - required him to mimic the lifestyle of Uday, and so brought the trappings of fast cars, fine clothes, imported cognac and cigars, and access to the corridors of power of Iraq.
But it also made him a victim of Uday’s penchant for violence, and witness to untold atrocities against his countrymen.
"At first I refused to be his body double," recalls Yahia, of the day in 1987 that changed the course of his life. "So I was taken straight to prison and put in the Red Room - a cell measuring one metre by one metre. It was painted red and there was a red light. It is a psychological device to send people mad....
Now Yahia awaits further evidence that Uday is forever out of his life. "The US would say anything for propaganda. If he is dead, show me the photo. They put Saddam in power, he was their friend, and I blame them also for the terrible things which happened to me."
He regrets that Uday was not caught and brought to trial for his crimes.
"Don’t tell me that the US could not have taken him alive," he comments on the 200- soldier operation which took Uday and Qusay’s lives. "But the Americans did not want this because if you put these people in the dock, they would tell everyone that a lot of what they did they did because the American agents told them to."... Link
Check out his book at amazon.com (It's pretty good): link
WHY BUSH IS STILL PRESIDENT
I won't say our press is too credulous but... check out this example from the July 28 Newsweek (Periscope):
May (insert name here) Rest in Peace
... For $29 www.speechwriters.com, you can buy a prewritten eulogy for a mother, a father or even a neighbor. Grieving customers choose from a list of relations, then simply click “add to cart.”...
...Her Web site brims with positive feedback. MK from Washington writes: “How did you write such a wonderful speech when I provided you with so little information? It was like you knew my wife longer than I do.”
Give me a break! She's a professional ghost writer. She probably wrote the testimonial, too!
The press these days are alot like Fundamentalists. "They said it, I believe it, and that settles it."
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
WHAT IF?
What if they faked killed killing Qusay and Uday (The Saddamese Twins)? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the occupation was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
What if they faked Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the attack in Basra was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
What if they faked WMD evidence about Iraq? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the run up to the war was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
What if they faked not knowing about 9-11? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the Bush Administration was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
Just something to think about...
US IRAQ CASUALTIES GOING UP
From kos: 1 per day in the months after the war was declared "over" to 1.3/day in the last month. link
That's a 30% increase. Bush was right to tell them "Bring 'em on." Maybe.
NEW UPDATED HIGHLIGHTS!
Column Left!
WHITE HOUSE PUNISHES SEN. DURBIN FOR EXPOSING COOKED INTELLIGENCE
Senator Accuses White House of Retaliation
Tue Jul 22, 7:16 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic lawmaker accused the White House on Tuesday of trying to have him removed from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in retaliation for remarks critical of the administration over Iraq.
Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois charged that the White House had floated a bogus story that he had disclosed classified information regarding Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction.
"The White House allegations ... were, in fact, false, and inaccurate," Durbin said on the Senate floor.
"Sadly, what we have here is a continuing pattern by this White House," Durbin said. "If any member of this Senate ... questions this White House policy ... be prepared for the worst." LINK
It's good to know that they don't retaliate only against our men and women in uniform.
SEND ME SOME NEW WAR PLANS, RUMMY!
GOP Frets About Bush Re-Election Chances
Tue Jul 22, 7:37 PM ET
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer
WASHINGTON - For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, rank-and-file Republicans say they are worried about President Bush's re-election chances based on the feeble economy, the rising death toll in Iraq and questions about his credibility. LINK
"Can we get enough missiles ready to attack Iran?"
THEY WERE JUST IRAQIS ANYWAY
Interesting old facts about Iraq
Jon Carroll , SF CHRONICLE
...It now appears that the war on Iraq began far earlier than we had thought. The Pentagon has admitted that its air strikes "in retaliation for violations of the no-fly zones" were in fact aimed at taking out Iraq's fiber-optic communications system to make the country more vulnerable. This information comes from Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, who was in charge of the campaign.
And here's a thing: Air war commanders were required to get permission from Donald Rumsfeld personally if any attack might result in the death of more than 30 civilians. Fifty such requests were made; none was turned down.
Wouldn't it have been more prudent to turn down, I dunno, one request? Just so Rumsfeld could pretend he actually gave a fig about the lives of the people in the nation he was supposedly liberating? link
Here's a question for the peanut gallery: Did Uday and Qusay kill more innocent Iraqis than Rumsfeld?
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
EXTRA!!! SADDAM'S SONS JUMP THE SHARK
MOSUL (JULY 22) -- Saddam's sons Qusay and Uday were cancelled today from that long-running Iraqi hit "All Saddam's Sons".
Sources said that their cancellation was long expected ever since series star Saddam went AWOL, as the series tanked in April.
"We were getting sick and tired of those two," said one Baghdad viewer. "Always the same old shtick: whipping people with cables, raping virgins and firing their guns in the air. The bad boy act gets old after a while."
Baghdad TV producer Ahmed Hassan reassured TV watchers that there would be no lag in viewing pleasure, however.
"We've got a whole new series and it's almost in the can. It's dramatic, exciting, and topical. We're tenatively calling it 'Sunni or Shi'ite: The Iraqi Civil War.'"
Hassan is also racing to complete a new sitcom called "Death to America," where a "wacky family of disgruntled civil servants turns to looting and bombing to make ends meet," he added.
WEATHER TO CENSOR?
Baghdad: 83...112 F
Hong Kong: 81...90 F
Las Vegas, NV: 86...110 F
Los Angeles, CA: 66...80 F
-SOURCE: REUTERS (UK)
Baghdad: Current Conditions Not Available
Hong Kong: 81...90 F
Las Vegas, NV: 86...110 F
Los Angeles, CA: 66...80 F
-SOURCE: LA TIMES (US)
They Even Lie About the Weather
by Alan Bisbort, July 17, 2003 -- HARTFORD (apj.us)
... yet another indication of the lengths to which the Bush White House will go to deceive and confuse the American people. To wit, they are apparently blocking all meteorological data that comes from Iraq, so that the American people will not know that our bravest men and women are roasting like rotisserie chickens in the 110F-plus heat in order to protect the Bush cartel's oil.
...[The LA TIMES response]: Just days prior to the opening offensive strikes on the city of Baghdad, the two official overseers of international weather information -- The International Weather Source, and the World Meteorological Organization -- ceased listing actual temperature reports on their respective web-sites from the city of Baghdad. We are not certain as to who is directly responsible for holding back this information -- the U.S. Government, the U.S. Military, the CIA, NOAA -- or why.
Nonetheless, it has been a long standing practice of The Times to only publish actual temperature data that is managed by organizations that are recognized as legitimate providers of weather information by the National Weather Service. As of today, Tuesday, July 15, the Baghdad reports were still unavailable. Be assured, however, that if the data does become attainable for publication we will resume publishing the Baghdad reports...
Sincerely,
Mark Phillips
Weather Editor
LINK
Are we to assume Reuters isn't legitimate? Or that BushCo doesn't want us to know and the Times is rolling over...
UH-OH!
Iran's supreme leader inaugurates missile
July 21 2003, Sidney Morning Herald
Iran's supreme leader has inaugurated a new ballistic missile that brings Israel within range of the Islamic republic, hailing the event as a key moment in the defence of the Palestinian cause.
"Today our people and our armed forces are ready to defend their goals anywhere," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a ceremony for the elite Revolutionary Guards yesterday.
"This divine force has answered all threats, and we are witnessing today that this divine force is now doing the same for the Lebanese and the Palestinian people," he added in the ceremony to bring the Shahab-3 missile into service.
In Jerusalem, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman David Saranga told AFP that the new missile "is a threat not only to Israel but to the whole region and also to Europe".
Television pictures showed Ayatollah Khamenei flanked by officers and other clerics, at least 1000 troops in ceremonial dress, and three of the Shahab-3 rockets on what appeared to be mobile launchers. ... link
Vegas bookmakers are offering the following odds:
War with Iran 2-1
War with N. Korea 3-2
Quagmire in Iraq 4-5
HE'S NOT A HYPOCRITE, HE'S AN AMERICAN!
Wolfowitz: All foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq
Random Iguana: Aren't you being hypocritical?
Wolfowitz: I'm not a damned foreigner, I'm an American!
Monday, July 21, 2003
DANG, IT WAS CLINTON'S FAULT!
Speaking up for the Bush administration, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said on the same program that the decision to include the sentence "was made by the speechwriters and by the folks in the White House" using various intelligence sources that were thought reliable. If it wasn't, he said, much of the blame falls on former President Clinton.
"You know, intelligence is not an exact science," said Hastert, R-Ill. Before the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, "we had a hard time just figuring out what was going, because our foreign intelligence was decimated. The human intelligence was decimated in 10 years before" by Clinton's proclivity not to use human rights violators and other shady individuals as intelligence operatives. LINK
It's so unfair. Since he wouldn't use criminals and liars, we had to make up our own lies...
FLASH FORWARD: Miami, July 21, 2049. World Dictator Sonny Bono Bush excused the destruction of most of North America that followed his preemptive strike on Mars, as due to faulty intelligence under 20th century President Bill Clinton. "He didn't invest enough in investigating UFO reports," he whined.
THEY DON'T GET IT
More than a dozen US troops have been killed since Bush's "Bring 'em on" statement was uttered.
Be careful what you wish for, O Clueless George!
Speaking of wishes or rather wishful thinking, US officials are amping up the hunt for Saddam, training their own Iraqi puppet army, and blowing up statues of Saddam, all in hopes that the firestorm can be quelled. But they're like the proverbial drunk looking under the street light for the keys he lost in the dark.
The problem they have the answer for is Saddam. The problem they don't have the answer for is Islamic nationalism.
"They are all waged in the name of God, none of them have any relation to the former regime...All Iraqis have been harmed by the former regime," [the gunman] said, standing in a group of about 10 masked men, some carrying rifles.
"America and its allies say they have tanks, they have warplanes, they have technology. We have something stronger than all of this. We have God supporting us." LINK
Does anyone really think that if Saddam is found that problem will go away?
THE COSTS OF EMPIRE
Officials Debate Whether to Seek a Bigger Military
By THOM SHANKER, NY TIMES
WASHINGTON, July 20 — The strains on American ground forces as the Bush administration extends their global missions are prompting new debates on Capitol Hill and within the Pentagon over the question of whether the military needs more troops worldwide. LINK
Shades of Vietnam, folks, I have a funny feeling I know where this all is heading ... the Draft.
Sunday, July 20, 2003
MORE GOOD NEWS!
"Decades of devastation ahead as global warming melts the Alps," says Robin McKie, science editor for The Observer, "A mountain of trouble as Matterhorn is rocked by avalanches" link
Of course, we're still not going to sign the Kyoto treaty...
WE CAN'T GET SADDAM, SO WE'LL BLOW UP ANOTHER STATUE
Statue blown up a day after another 'Saddam tape' emerges
18/07/2003 - 10:19:25, IRELAND ONLINE
US troops blew up a 30ft statue of Saddam Hussein on horseback today, a day after a new tape apparently from the former Iraqi dictator urged his followers to continue a “holy war” against the Allies. link
Authorities in Washington commented, "Like we said back in April, it's a voodoo thing. We blow his statue, we blow him up. Plus it makes us feel better."
Source: antiwar.com
HIDING THE WITNESSES
Iraq row over fate of seized scientists
Red Cross urges US to clarify status of three dozen prisoners held in unknown conditions near Baghdad
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad, Sunday July 20, 2003, The Observer
American efforts at finding top Iraqi scientists who can attest to Saddam Hussein hiding weapons of mass destruction have turned out to be as fruitless as the search for the weapons themselves.
The continued detention of leading Iraqi scientists and other officials by US forces is swiftly turning into a major human rights row.
Washington officials hoped that, with Saddam's removal, the people who had intimate knowledge of Iraq's secret arms industry would give a different story from the denials given while he still held sway.
But as pressure intensifies on President George Bush and Tony Blair to prove Iraq had WMD, the inability to produce a single scientist from the former regime to confirm the assertions about an alleged threat is becoming an embarrassment....
LINK
As BUZZFLASH comments:
Row Over Fate of Seized Iraqi Scientists: Is the Bush Cartel Keeping Them Hidden So They Won't Dispute the Bush Pre-War Claims. Let's Put It This Way, If They Could Confirm the Bush Lies, Don't You Think They Would Have Been Paraded on TV By Now?
Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evildoers
Ask not for whom the Iguana stalks, the Iguana stalks for you...
War, politics, religion... & other stuff you shouldn't talk about over dinner...
Dedicated to the proposition that GW Bush and Saddam Hussein are figments of our unconscious minds
Cost of the War in Iraq
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According to Amnesty International, Iraq executes "scores" of political prisoners every year, at least 31 confirmed last year. How long would it have taken Saddam to execute the 6000+ Iraqi civilians we've killed this year? Figure it out.
Cosmic Iguana UPDATED Highlights!
Bush Deified!
Governor Arnold?
Uday & Qusay Get Medals
Aliens Find WMDs!
Republican Affective Disorder
Iraqi Looter's Festival
Ashcroft Eats Babies!
Crypto-Fascists on Parade
The Manchurian President
Tatu Terrorist Organization?
Why They Hate Us
Psychic Bubba?
Shock'N'Awe
My Inner Saddam
America as SUV
Don't Watch TV
Iraqi Baseball
Survivor: Iraq
France Attacks!
Links
NEW! Focus on Intelligence The Spy Game by manis2society
The Manis Wire
The Agonist
American Empire
Atrios
Back To Iraq
Counterspin
Cowboy Kahlil
Daily Kos
DDjangoWIrE
Dem Vets
Dear Raed
Digby's Blog
Interesting Times
Intl-News
Jihad Unspun
Kevin Sites
Ruminate This!
Saddam Hussein's Blog
South Knox Bubba
UggaBugga
The Wacky Iraqi
HOME
Contact Me?
Our Leader
Co-Conspirators:
*Bill "Morpheus" Bojangles
*Unnamed Iraqi Civilians
*Renegade Civil Libertarians
LEAGUE OF LIBERALS
SADDAM CAUGHT..... WAR OVER..... LET'S GO HOME!
Note: Comments (sigh) working again...
Saturday, July 26, 2003
How Bush Sacrifaced the War on Al Queda for the War on Iraq
Thursday, July 24th, 2003, DEMOCRACY NOW
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh details how the Bush Administration destroyed U.S.-Syrian relations by attacking a convoy of cars inside Syria last month in an attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein. It turned out the convoy was made up of dozens smuggling goods out of Iraq. Syria has since stopped sharing intelligence with the U.S....
... "The best relationship we probably had of any ally in terms of learning about Al Qaeda [was Syria] and they blew it. They blew it for short-term, ideological reasons, which is nothing new for this government," said Hersh about the Bush administration. LINK
Pentagon pins hope on foreign soldiers
By Esther Schrader
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's plan for defeating insurgents in Iraq relies heavily on applying "a full-court press" to persuade more countries to send troops to relieve overstretched U.S. forces, senior defense officials said Thursday.
In separate appearances at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States is negotiating with Pakistan, India and Turkey to supply tens of thousands of troops.
LINK
Of course, when you see "negotiating", read "bribing" and/or "threatening."
Friday, July 25, 2003
HOW THEY CAUGHT UDAY AND QUSAY
BAGHDAD -- US officials explained this afternoon how they caught Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, after earlier displaying their bodies on Iraqi TV.
General Fritz Frankfurter stated that they identified the bodies with the aid of dental records and an identification number imprinted on a plate in Uday's leg.
When asked how they obtained that information considering the brothers had secret government physicians from Saddam's personal staff, the General smiled, "That was a triumph of US Intelligence. Years ago we decided to lure the brothers into the private sector, where we could buy off a dentist to provide us the records."
That deed was accomplished by using a popular Baghdad dentist named Hassan Ali, DDS, or as he's often known, "Dental Ali." Dental Ali planned on advertising use of nitrous oxide to lure in the drug-abusing brothers. The scheme almost foundered when the CIA learned that they would have to found 200 Dental Ali clinics in order to have one outside of every palace, but the funding came and Dental Ali became the most successful dentist in Iraqi history. One morning Qusay, obviously hung over, happened to stroll in.
"The rest is history," he said proudly.
Similarly, the CIA found and funded a surgeon, Dr. Mahmoud Ali, known as "Medical Ali", and then planned an assassination campaign to knock off all other qualified practitioners, so that when Uday was wounded in a bomb attack in 1996, Medical Ali was the only surgeon he could turn to. Medical Ali promptly gave the plate ID to US intelligence.
"It was a complex scheme, but Cheney and Rumsfeld had been planning this campaign since 1992, and that gave us plenty of time," the official commented.
"Most people think we just knocked off a couple of their body doubles, but that would have been the easy way out. They don't realize the time it took to set up the operation."
"But when the time came, it was very simple," said Frankfurter, "After the Niger Uranium story made the cover of Newsweek,we got the order to bring them in pronto. Fortunately, we had a number of tips to choose from just lying around." The one they chose was from Ahmad Ali, known to authorities as "Stool Pigeon Ali."
"He's the go to guy, whenever we get the order to round up 'the usual suspects'."
WHAT ISN'T SAID IS AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT IS SAID IN 9-11 REPORT
The 9/11 Investigation
by DAVID CORN, THE NATION
[from the August 4, 2003 issue]
The attacks of September 11 might have been prevented had the US intelligence community been more competent. And the Bush Administration is refusing to tell the public what intelligence the President saw before 9/11 about the threat posed by Al Qaeda.
...One crucial matter is missing from the report: how the White House responded to the intelligence on the Al Qaeda threat. That is because the Administration will not allow the committees to say what information reached Bush. The Administration argued, according to a Congressional source, that to declassify "any description of the president's knowledge" of intelligence reports--even when the content of those reports have been declassified--would be a risk to national security. It is difficult to see the danger to the nation that would come from the White House acknowledging whether Bush received any of the information listed above or the other intelligence previously described by the committees. (The latter would include a July 2001 report that said bin Laden was looking to pull off a "spectacular" attack against the United States or US interests designed to inflict "mass casualties." It added, "Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning. They are waiting us out, looking for a vulnerability.")
It is unusual--if not absurd--for an administration to claim that the state of presidential knowledge is top-secret when the material in question has been made public. But that's what Bush officials have done. Consequently, the public does not know whether these warnings made it to Bush and whether he responded.... LINK
It's time for committee Chairman Bob Graham to speak out and tell the world: What did Bush know and when did he know it?
Thursday, July 24, 2003
BUSH AWARDS POST-HUMOUS MEDALS TO UDAY AND QUSAY
Washington-- President Bush hailed the recently killed sons of Saddam Hussein as American Heros in a press conference today, and awarded them posthumously the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"I know they were bad guys, and they were sons of Saddam, but yesterday they performed the ultimate sacrifice in giving their lives so that the Niger Uranium scandal was knocked off the front page," he said from the White House Rose Garden.
"I don't know how we do it, but whenever I get in trouble the CIA or FBI pulls out some poor fool to kill or arrest to get me off the front page and back to the Gym where I belong. Of course, I don't really know if they were Saddam's sons, but the point is, neither do you.
"And if it does turn out we got the right guys, ya still got to hand to the spooks for keeping them under wraps till just the right moment.
"Of course, my born-again followers will see it as more evidence that Almighty God is propping up our little regime, and who are we to tell them otherwise?" he told the press corps.
WAR ON DRUGS OVER IN AFGHANISTAN
Bumper year for Afghan poppies
Money from the opium trade may diminish US influence over the warlords, and aid Taliban.
By Owais Tohid | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
BATIKOT, AFGHANISTAN – Gul Hazrat Bacha has turned his attention from his fields to building a new house for his family - a dream fulfilled by his recent opium poppy crop.
Only two years ago, Mr. Bacha and his four brothers grew wheat - and fell deeper into debt each year. Now, they make 12 times their former income, have paid back lenders, and see a future for the family. "Honestly speaking, whatever I have is because of poppy," says Bacha with a smile. "Money, happiness, and the house ... everything."
Afghan farmers are producing a bumper crop of poppies this year, despite a ban imposed by President Hamid Karzai's government, and just three years after the Taliban clamped down on cultivation.
The resurgence of this plant - used to make heroin - could unravel the relationships between warlords and the US military that have brought a modicum of peace to Afghanistan. link
In LA, street dealer Frankie the Skunk said, "Man,it's good news for us. That Afghani Brown is hitting the streets just when we needed it. Thank God for George Bush."
UDAY'S "FIDAY" WANTS PROOF, BLAMES U.S.
Body double needs to see proof that Uday is dead
TRACEY LAWSON, THE SCOTSMAN
..."Only when I have seen a photograph of Uday’s body can I believe he is dead," said [Latif] Yahia yesterday. "Only then will I go to sleep very well after 12 years of knowing that Uday is trying to kill me."
He was speaking just hours after the United States said it had unequivocal proof that Uday and his younger brother, Qusay, were shot dead in a fierce gunfight with US troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday.
Should Yahia get the confirmation he requires, he will have more cause than most to celebrate the death of the man who was heir apparent to Saddam’s regime of terror.
His role as Uday’s "fiday" - the Arabic word for body double - required him to mimic the lifestyle of Uday, and so brought the trappings of fast cars, fine clothes, imported cognac and cigars, and access to the corridors of power of Iraq.
But it also made him a victim of Uday’s penchant for violence, and witness to untold atrocities against his countrymen.
"At first I refused to be his body double," recalls Yahia, of the day in 1987 that changed the course of his life. "So I was taken straight to prison and put in the Red Room - a cell measuring one metre by one metre. It was painted red and there was a red light. It is a psychological device to send people mad....
Now Yahia awaits further evidence that Uday is forever out of his life. "The US would say anything for propaganda. If he is dead, show me the photo. They put Saddam in power, he was their friend, and I blame them also for the terrible things which happened to me."
He regrets that Uday was not caught and brought to trial for his crimes.
"Don’t tell me that the US could not have taken him alive," he comments on the 200- soldier operation which took Uday and Qusay’s lives. "But the Americans did not want this because if you put these people in the dock, they would tell everyone that a lot of what they did they did because the American agents told them to."... Link
Check out his book at amazon.com (It's pretty good): link
WHY BUSH IS STILL PRESIDENT
I won't say our press is too credulous but... check out this example from the July 28 Newsweek (Periscope):
May (insert name here) Rest in Peace
... For $29 www.speechwriters.com, you can buy a prewritten eulogy for a mother, a father or even a neighbor. Grieving customers choose from a list of relations, then simply click “add to cart.”...
...Her Web site brims with positive feedback. MK from Washington writes: “How did you write such a wonderful speech when I provided you with so little information? It was like you knew my wife longer than I do.”
Give me a break! She's a professional ghost writer. She probably wrote the testimonial, too!
The press these days are alot like Fundamentalists. "They said it, I believe it, and that settles it."
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
WHAT IF?
What if they faked killed killing Qusay and Uday (The Saddamese Twins)? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the occupation was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
What if they faked Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the attack in Basra was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
What if they faked WMD evidence about Iraq? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the run up to the war was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
What if they faked not knowing about 9-11? Coming conveniently after all that criticism that the Bush Administration was going badly... Oh, they'd never do that would they?
Just something to think about...
US IRAQ CASUALTIES GOING UP
From kos: 1 per day in the months after the war was declared "over" to 1.3/day in the last month. link
That's a 30% increase. Bush was right to tell them "Bring 'em on." Maybe.
NEW UPDATED HIGHLIGHTS!
Column Left!
WHITE HOUSE PUNISHES SEN. DURBIN FOR EXPOSING COOKED INTELLIGENCE
Senator Accuses White House of Retaliation
Tue Jul 22, 7:16 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic lawmaker accused the White House on Tuesday of trying to have him removed from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in retaliation for remarks critical of the administration over Iraq.
Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois charged that the White House had floated a bogus story that he had disclosed classified information regarding Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction.
"The White House allegations ... were, in fact, false, and inaccurate," Durbin said on the Senate floor.
"Sadly, what we have here is a continuing pattern by this White House," Durbin said. "If any member of this Senate ... questions this White House policy ... be prepared for the worst." LINK
It's good to know that they don't retaliate only against our men and women in uniform.
SEND ME SOME NEW WAR PLANS, RUMMY!
GOP Frets About Bush Re-Election Chances
Tue Jul 22, 7:37 PM ET
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer
WASHINGTON - For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, rank-and-file Republicans say they are worried about President Bush's re-election chances based on the feeble economy, the rising death toll in Iraq and questions about his credibility. LINK
"Can we get enough missiles ready to attack Iran?"
THEY WERE JUST IRAQIS ANYWAY
Interesting old facts about Iraq
Jon Carroll , SF CHRONICLE
...It now appears that the war on Iraq began far earlier than we had thought. The Pentagon has admitted that its air strikes "in retaliation for violations of the no-fly zones" were in fact aimed at taking out Iraq's fiber-optic communications system to make the country more vulnerable. This information comes from Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, who was in charge of the campaign.
And here's a thing: Air war commanders were required to get permission from Donald Rumsfeld personally if any attack might result in the death of more than 30 civilians. Fifty such requests were made; none was turned down.
Wouldn't it have been more prudent to turn down, I dunno, one request? Just so Rumsfeld could pretend he actually gave a fig about the lives of the people in the nation he was supposedly liberating? link
Here's a question for the peanut gallery: Did Uday and Qusay kill more innocent Iraqis than Rumsfeld?
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
EXTRA!!! SADDAM'S SONS JUMP THE SHARK
MOSUL (JULY 22) -- Saddam's sons Qusay and Uday were cancelled today from that long-running Iraqi hit "All Saddam's Sons".
Sources said that their cancellation was long expected ever since series star Saddam went AWOL, as the series tanked in April.
"We were getting sick and tired of those two," said one Baghdad viewer. "Always the same old shtick: whipping people with cables, raping virgins and firing their guns in the air. The bad boy act gets old after a while."
Baghdad TV producer Ahmed Hassan reassured TV watchers that there would be no lag in viewing pleasure, however.
"We've got a whole new series and it's almost in the can. It's dramatic, exciting, and topical. We're tenatively calling it 'Sunni or Shi'ite: The Iraqi Civil War.'"
Hassan is also racing to complete a new sitcom called "Death to America," where a "wacky family of disgruntled civil servants turns to looting and bombing to make ends meet," he added.
WEATHER TO CENSOR?
Baghdad: 83...112 F
Hong Kong: 81...90 F
Las Vegas, NV: 86...110 F
Los Angeles, CA: 66...80 F
-SOURCE: REUTERS (UK)
Baghdad: Current Conditions Not Available
Hong Kong: 81...90 F
Las Vegas, NV: 86...110 F
Los Angeles, CA: 66...80 F
-SOURCE: LA TIMES (US)
They Even Lie About the Weather
by Alan Bisbort, July 17, 2003 -- HARTFORD (apj.us)
... yet another indication of the lengths to which the Bush White House will go to deceive and confuse the American people. To wit, they are apparently blocking all meteorological data that comes from Iraq, so that the American people will not know that our bravest men and women are roasting like rotisserie chickens in the 110F-plus heat in order to protect the Bush cartel's oil.
...[The LA TIMES response]: Just days prior to the opening offensive strikes on the city of Baghdad, the two official overseers of international weather information -- The International Weather Source, and the World Meteorological Organization -- ceased listing actual temperature reports on their respective web-sites from the city of Baghdad. We are not certain as to who is directly responsible for holding back this information -- the U.S. Government, the U.S. Military, the CIA, NOAA -- or why.
Nonetheless, it has been a long standing practice of The Times to only publish actual temperature data that is managed by organizations that are recognized as legitimate providers of weather information by the National Weather Service. As of today, Tuesday, July 15, the Baghdad reports were still unavailable. Be assured, however, that if the data does become attainable for publication we will resume publishing the Baghdad reports...
Sincerely,
Mark Phillips
Weather Editor
LINK
Are we to assume Reuters isn't legitimate? Or that BushCo doesn't want us to know and the Times is rolling over...
UH-OH!
Iran's supreme leader inaugurates missile
July 21 2003, Sidney Morning Herald
Iran's supreme leader has inaugurated a new ballistic missile that brings Israel within range of the Islamic republic, hailing the event as a key moment in the defence of the Palestinian cause.
"Today our people and our armed forces are ready to defend their goals anywhere," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a ceremony for the elite Revolutionary Guards yesterday.
"This divine force has answered all threats, and we are witnessing today that this divine force is now doing the same for the Lebanese and the Palestinian people," he added in the ceremony to bring the Shahab-3 missile into service.
In Jerusalem, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman David Saranga told AFP that the new missile "is a threat not only to Israel but to the whole region and also to Europe".
Television pictures showed Ayatollah Khamenei flanked by officers and other clerics, at least 1000 troops in ceremonial dress, and three of the Shahab-3 rockets on what appeared to be mobile launchers. ... link
Vegas bookmakers are offering the following odds:
War with Iran 2-1
War with N. Korea 3-2
Quagmire in Iraq 4-5
HE'S NOT A HYPOCRITE, HE'S AN AMERICAN!
Wolfowitz: All foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq
Random Iguana: Aren't you being hypocritical?
Wolfowitz: I'm not a damned foreigner, I'm an American!
Monday, July 21, 2003
DANG, IT WAS CLINTON'S FAULT!
Speaking up for the Bush administration, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said on the same program that the decision to include the sentence "was made by the speechwriters and by the folks in the White House" using various intelligence sources that were thought reliable. If it wasn't, he said, much of the blame falls on former President Clinton.
"You know, intelligence is not an exact science," said Hastert, R-Ill. Before the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, "we had a hard time just figuring out what was going, because our foreign intelligence was decimated. The human intelligence was decimated in 10 years before" by Clinton's proclivity not to use human rights violators and other shady individuals as intelligence operatives. LINK
It's so unfair. Since he wouldn't use criminals and liars, we had to make up our own lies...
FLASH FORWARD: Miami, July 21, 2049. World Dictator Sonny Bono Bush excused the destruction of most of North America that followed his preemptive strike on Mars, as due to faulty intelligence under 20th century President Bill Clinton. "He didn't invest enough in investigating UFO reports," he whined.
THEY DON'T GET IT
More than a dozen US troops have been killed since Bush's "Bring 'em on" statement was uttered.
Be careful what you wish for, O Clueless George!
Speaking of wishes or rather wishful thinking, US officials are amping up the hunt for Saddam, training their own Iraqi puppet army, and blowing up statues of Saddam, all in hopes that the firestorm can be quelled. But they're like the proverbial drunk looking under the street light for the keys he lost in the dark.
The problem they have the answer for is Saddam. The problem they don't have the answer for is Islamic nationalism.
"They are all waged in the name of God, none of them have any relation to the former regime...All Iraqis have been harmed by the former regime," [the gunman] said, standing in a group of about 10 masked men, some carrying rifles.
"America and its allies say they have tanks, they have warplanes, they have technology. We have something stronger than all of this. We have God supporting us." LINK
Does anyone really think that if Saddam is found that problem will go away?
THE COSTS OF EMPIRE
Officials Debate Whether to Seek a Bigger Military
By THOM SHANKER, NY TIMES
WASHINGTON, July 20 — The strains on American ground forces as the Bush administration extends their global missions are prompting new debates on Capitol Hill and within the Pentagon over the question of whether the military needs more troops worldwide. LINK
Shades of Vietnam, folks, I have a funny feeling I know where this all is heading ... the Draft.
Sunday, July 20, 2003
MORE GOOD NEWS!
"Decades of devastation ahead as global warming melts the Alps," says Robin McKie, science editor for The Observer, "A mountain of trouble as Matterhorn is rocked by avalanches" link
Of course, we're still not going to sign the Kyoto treaty...
WE CAN'T GET SADDAM, SO WE'LL BLOW UP ANOTHER STATUE
Statue blown up a day after another 'Saddam tape' emerges
18/07/2003 - 10:19:25, IRELAND ONLINE
US troops blew up a 30ft statue of Saddam Hussein on horseback today, a day after a new tape apparently from the former Iraqi dictator urged his followers to continue a “holy war” against the Allies. link
Authorities in Washington commented, "Like we said back in April, it's a voodoo thing. We blow his statue, we blow him up. Plus it makes us feel better."
Source: antiwar.com
HIDING THE WITNESSES
Iraq row over fate of seized scientists
Red Cross urges US to clarify status of three dozen prisoners held in unknown conditions near Baghdad
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad, Sunday July 20, 2003, The Observer
American efforts at finding top Iraqi scientists who can attest to Saddam Hussein hiding weapons of mass destruction have turned out to be as fruitless as the search for the weapons themselves.
The continued detention of leading Iraqi scientists and other officials by US forces is swiftly turning into a major human rights row.
Washington officials hoped that, with Saddam's removal, the people who had intimate knowledge of Iraq's secret arms industry would give a different story from the denials given while he still held sway.
But as pressure intensifies on President George Bush and Tony Blair to prove Iraq had WMD, the inability to produce a single scientist from the former regime to confirm the assertions about an alleged threat is becoming an embarrassment....
LINK
As BUZZFLASH comments:
Row Over Fate of Seized Iraqi Scientists: Is the Bush Cartel Keeping Them Hidden So They Won't Dispute the Bush Pre-War Claims. Let's Put It This Way, If They Could Confirm the Bush Lies, Don't You Think They Would Have Been Paraded on TV By Now?