Sibel Edmonds, Turkey, Nuclear Power, Missile Technology, Defense Industry

Luke Ryland has an interview with Sibel on OpEdNews (Jan 28, 2008, Sibel Edmonds: 'Buckle up, there's much more coming.'):

... Sibel Edmonds: ... The US media also suffers from a pack mentality. I was told by one executive that they weren't doing the story because it was 'old news' because 60 Minutes did a single segment in October 2002, even though they only covered a tiny part of the case. This executive literally told me that he'd only cover the story if it was 'hot and sexy.' I often think that I'd need to be able to hire Britney Spears to be a spokesperson - and this is not just for my case, but for any of the many other solid, important cases at the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Apparently this is what it would take to get any coverage.

Of course, given the pack mentality, if any of these stories does become 'hot and sexy' then all the journalists focus on the same issues and there's no differentiation in their reporting....

...Turkey's army of lobbyists in DC are very effective. The US press tends to stay away from any stories critical of Turkey, I would say even more than Israel.

There's also the possible problem of 'eating crow' but I hope this isn't an issue, this story is way too important for any of that. The information that has been published in the Times recently could have easily come out four years ago in the US press. We now need everyone to focus on the important issues....

... Luke Ryland: Two weeks after the first article in the Times about the involvement of high-level US officials being involved with Turkish and Israeli interests in supplying the nuclear black market, President Bush quietly announced that the US will start supplying nuclear technology to Turkey. Do you think that is a coincidence?

Sibel Edmonds: The timing is certainly very, very suspicious. The proposals that are being floated are very suspicious too. There are reports that Turkey will build an enrichment facility, and that Turkey will become the key supplier of nuclear fuel to other Muslim countries who want nuclear power plants. None of this makes any sense.

And again, the US media is nowhere to be seen on this issue. Where are the journalists? Do you remember the noise made a couple of years ago when the US announced that it would supply India with nuclear technology? So far, nearly a week after the announcement and not a single major US media outlet has even reported on the deal! Think of the hypocrisy, with all the saber-rattling at Iran over enrichment.

If it's such a good idea to sell nuclear technology to Turkey, why isn't the White House out there selling the idea? Where are the arguments in the press saying that this will be good for regional stability, or that it will help reduce demand for oil, or even that it is simply good business because US firms will be able to sell their hardware and knowledge? There's nothing! Silence. What does that tell you?....

From Reuters/UK (Jan 28, 2008, Turkish Enka, KEPCO to cooperate on nuclear energy):

Turkish energy-to-construction firm Enka Insaat ENKAI.IS has agreed with Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) ... to work together on nuclear energy in Turkey, the Turkish firm said on Monday.

Enka said in a statement to the stock market that the preliminary agreement was signed on Friday, but gave no more details.

Energy-importer Turkey has said it expects to hold tenders for its first nuclear power plants by May at the latest and aims for construction to start this year....

Note that Fikret Güler is a member of the Board of Enka (see Enka's website), and Hilmi Güler is the Turkish Energy Minister.

From Transnationale.org, KEPCO belongs to:

shareholder ... country ... %
Barclays Plc ... UK ... 0.2
Brandes Investment Partners, L.P ... US ... 3.2
Franklin Resources, Inc ... US ... 0.5
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ... US ... 0.3
ING Groep ... Netherlands ... 0.3

INVESCO International Ltd. ... Jersey ... 0.7
Mellon Financial Corp. ... US ... 0.2
Morgan Stanley ... US ... 0.2
Putnam LLC ... US ... 0.1

KEPCO is also working in Romania, see the 2002 article on PlanetArk.

Thomas Grove and Ercan Ersoy report for Reuters/UK (Jan 28, 2008, INTERVIEW-Turkey Sabanci to pick nuclear partner by mid-March):

Turkey's Sabanci Holding SAHOL.IS will choose by mid-March from up to six European and Asian companies to partner its bid in a Turkish nuclear power plant tender, the head of Sabanci's energy group said on Monday.

"We are looking for a utility company and are in talks with five or six companies ... (We can decide on one) at the end of February or the beginning of March," Selahattin Hakman, the president of the conglomerate's energy group, told Reuters.

Turkey will hold a tender for the construction and operation of three seperate nuclear power station tenders by May at the latest, and construction is targeted to begin this year, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said earlier this month.....

Interestingly, Mustafa Oguz reports for the Turkish Daily News (Jan 21, 2008, Turkey to face serious brainpower deficit in nuclear power):

.... About 20 years ago, Istanbul Technical University's (İTÜ) Nuclear Energy Institute annually received over 100 graduate studies applications, but now the Institute is merely a branch of the University's Energy Institute, preferred by only five graduate studies candidates. “The department has eight professors and five people apply. We must train our own workforce if we speak of independence,” said Bilge....

...“Me and my colleagues spent two years on the safety of a nuclear plant in 1986. I do not see that such precautions can be taken within the framework of the existing law,” he said....

... The nuclear issue, with its economic, scientific and political dimensions is one of the most important matters on Turkey's agenda, yet the country's opposition parties remain aloof to vital developments related to the subject. Representatives of Turkey's three main political parties, namely the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) were supposed to state their parties' views during the problems and solutions part of the Nuclear Energy Arena meet and hear criticism and remarks from experts in the field. Moreover, the platform was opened by the President of United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency Barbara Thomas Judge, who emphasized nuclear power's new age and spoke about the experiences of her country that is contemplating erecting fourth generation nuclear plants. However, other than the AKP delegate, Taner Yıldız, who gave evasive responses to questions posed by academics on the nuclear law and the lack of trained nuclear brainpower, opposition parties did not make a serious contribution to discussions. The MHP delegate, Professor Alim Işık, tailored his party's energy dossier minutes before his turn, to recite innumerable data on nuclear energy in the world and energy consumption in Turkey, a theme already covered several times during the day. As for the CHP, the party was simply absent. Although the name of Özlem Çerçioğlu was included in the list of speakers, she did not show up and the party did not care to send another representative to the platform.

The event was organized by the Strategic, Technical, Economic Research Center (STEAM).

Joshua Frank on DissidentVoice (Jan 25, 2008, Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey) has these insights:

According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds there is a vast black market for nukes, and certain U.S. officials have been supplying sensitive nuclear technology information to Turkish and Israeli interests through its conduits....

...In likely reaction to the London Times report, the Bush Administration quietly announced on January 22 that the president would like Congress to approve the sale of nuclear secrets to Turkey. As with most stories of this magnitude, the U.S. media has put on blinders, opting to not report either Edmonds’ story or Bush’s recent announcement....

...The Bushites seem to be covering their own exposed backsides, for the timing of Bush’s call to sell nuke secrets to Turkey is certainly suspicious, if not overtly conspicuous. It appears the White House has been spooked by Edmonds and hopes to absolve the U.S. officials allegedly involved in the illegal sale of nuclear technology to private Turkish “entities”....

...If Congress does not block or amend Bush’s legislation to sell nukes to Turkey within 90 days, it will become law automatically, likely acting retroactively to clear the alleged crimes of Marc Grossman and his neocon, nuke-trading friends.

Lale Sariibrahimoglu comments in Today's Zaman (Jan 22, 2008, Turkey to acquire missile technology):

...US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Ed McGinnis, in charge of developing the US's Global Energy Partnership (GNEP), had talks in Ankara on Jan. 17, reportedly supporting Turkey's nuclear energy development plans. But the US has also been urging Turkey to join the 19-nation GNEP platform that envisages, among other things, safe development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes while seeking to control nuclear arms proliferation.

By the way, it is worth recalling that earlier Turkish press reports stating that the US had been warm to the idea of turning Turkey into a nuclear uranium enrichment center through which Iran can also obtain uranium for peaceful purposes did not seem correct.

As far as I understand, the US is not of the opinion that it should encourage Turkey, which has not even started building nuclear energy plants, to enrich uranium. In the eyes of the US, supporting Turkey becoming a center for uranium enrichment is a premature idea....

...Once Turkey begins to acquire the capability to develop nuclear technology to meet its energy needs, its next or parallel step is expected to be to build its missile technology, not nuclear arms, says a Western military source.

Since 2004, Turkey has maintained a policy of boosting its poorly based defense industry toward its development from the status of a medium-level technology base to a higher-level and strategic country, mainly in areas such as missile-building, which requires high technological capability.

To reach that target and become a major player in the defense industry, Turkey has already taken steps to force major military-owned companies to intensify the building of high-tech defense equipment while ending joint production policies that have failed to enable the creation of a meaningful defense industry base in the country.

Ankara has thus increasingly been forging cooperation with countries, including South Korea, that are ready to share their technology with Turkey. China has also been cooperating with Turkey in the development of rockets with a range of 150 kilometers.

Timing is Everything

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets, Jan 6, 2008, Times (UK)


Within 2 days ....

From Poynter Online

Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 1/8/2008 1:56:11 PM
Title: AP to keep a closer eye on Britney
Posted By: Jim Romenesko



Memo from Associated Press' Los Angeles assistant bureau chief
From: Baker, Frank S.
Sent: Tue 1/8/2008 11:58 AM
To: News - Southern California Editorial Staff
Subject: Britney

All:

Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal. That doesn't mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we'll write something, we must expedite it.

Thanks.

Frank

"War on Terrorism" is BOGUS

Michel Chossudovsky's well researched Al Qaeda and the "War on Terrorism", found on GlobalResearch (Jan 20, 2008) provides a detailed history and excellent summary of what is really happening in this bogus war on terrorism:

....Known and documented, the "Islamic terror network" is a creation of the US intelligence apparatus. There is firm evidence that several of the terrorist "mass casualty events" which have resulted in civilian casualties were triggered by the military and/or intelligence services. Similarly, corroborated by evidence, several of the terror alerts were based on fake intelligence as revealed in the London 2006 foiled "liquid bomb attack", where the alleged hijackers had not purchased airline tickets and several did not have passports to board the aircraft.

The "war on terrorism" is bogus. The 911 narrative as conveyed by the 911 Commission report is fabricated. The Bush administration is involved in acts of cover-up and complicity at the highest levels of government.....

Lies for Iraq War

Douglass K. Daniel reports for the Associated Press (Jan 23, 2008, Study: False statements preceded war):

...in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.... The study counted 935 false statements.... It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

From the United Kingdom, the New Statesman reports (Jan 23, 2008, Another NS victory and 'Release dossier', ministry told):

The Information Tribunal has just rejected an appeal by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to stop the release, under the Freedom of Information Act, of an early draft of the now infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction dossier.

The September 2002 dossier formed part of the government’s spurious case for war in Iraq. The draft in question was produced by John Williams, the FCO’s Head of News at the time. Its existence tore apart the government’s assertion, to the Hutton and Butler inquiries, that the dossier was the work of the intelligence services.

The Tribunal criticised inconsistencies in the Foreign Office’s account. It noted that the FCO’s chief witness and Director of International Security, Stephen Pattinson, "was not involved at the time and volunteered no information about the source of his information".

The decision follows a three-year battle by Chris Ames, a charity researcher from Surrey, who persisted in his quest for the truth....

From Chris Ames:

...the Tribunal has allowed a handwritten note to be redacted which the Foreign Office claimed would be damaging to international relations.

The FCO has said that it is studying the Tribunal decision and declined to name the authors of the handwritten comments....

...The tribunal also reveals that the draft was “annotated in two different persons’ handwriting, suggesting that at least one person other than the author had reviewed and commented on it despite Mr Pattison’s statement that it was put aside the moment it was first presented.” Again here, the tribunal can be seen to be skeptical of the government’s claim that Williams’ work was not taken forward.

However, the tribunal has ordered that one of the handwritten notes should be redacted from the draft when it is published. It is clear that the Foreign Office has claimed that disclosure of this comment would be damaging to international relations, a claim that it did not make at the time of its initial refusal. The decision notice states that this issue is covered in a confidential annexe.

On the content of the draft itself, the Tribunal reveals that some intelligence-related sections of the published dossier bear a resemblance to parts of the Williams draft, although this does not “lead on easily to the conclusion that one had been based on the other”. The dossier was finally published on 24 September 2002, two weeks after Scarlett’s “first draft”, and was central to the case it made to Parliament for war in Iraq.

Responding to the Information Tribunal decision, Conservative MP John Baron said: "This decision lifts the lid on government efforts to cover-up the role played by spin doctors in producing the Iraq Dossier.

"I am now pressing the Foreign Secretary immediately to make public the Williams draft, so that we can assess for ourselves the significance of this document in the run up to war – a war which we should never had been party to.

"The Tribunal agrees that the Williams draft could have played a greater part in influencing the drafting of the dossier than the Government has so far admitted - even to the Hutton Inquiry. The Government cannot hide this document any longer."

US Nuclear Secrets For Sale ... US Media Snoozes

Editor & Publisher dared to stick their toe into the pool on Sunday (Jan 21, 2008, London 'Times' Story Says U.S. Complicit in Nuclear Proliferation --- Ellsberg Charges Media 'Coverup" Here), after the 2nd week of Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times (UK) publishing that which the US media will not touch: US elected & appointed officials selling nuclear secrets (the 1st scoop - see this blog entry here for link & excerpts - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 Sibel Edmonds Explosive Revelations in the Times). The 2nd scoop by Chris Gourlay, Jonathan Calvert and Joe Lauria at the Times (Jan 20, 2008, FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft) notes:

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said....

...Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they attracted less suspicion.

She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as drop-off points.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the ATC....

The RAW Story (Jan 20, 2008, British media confirms FBI whistleblower Edmonds' account of secret file) identifies MARC GROSSMAN (Ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997) as the person who provided the warning on Brewster Jennings.


Even the Times story itself has its own intrigue, as reported on The Brad Blog (Jan 19, 2008, UK Sunday Times Scoops US Media Again, Confirms FBI Cover-Up of Documents in Sibel Edmonds Nuke Secrets Case).

Daniel Ellsberg offers these insights on The Brad Blog (Jan 20, 2008, DANIEL ELLSBERG: Covering Up the Coverage - The American Media's Complicit Failure to Investigate and Report on the Sibel Edmonds Case):

... But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the U.S. Congress and the courts.

For the last two weeks --- one could say, for years --- the major American media have been guilty of ignoring entirely the allegations of the courageous and highly credible source Sibel Edmonds, quoted in the London Times on January 6, 2008 in a front-page story that was front-page news in much of the rest of the world but was not reported in a single American newspaper or network. It is up to readers to demand that this culpable silent treatment end.

Just as important, there must be pressure by the public on Congressional committee chairpersons, in particular Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Patrick Leahy. Both have been sitting for years on classified, sworn testimony by Edmonds --- as she revealed in the Times' new story on Sunday --- along with documentation, in their possession, confirming parts of her account. Pressure must be brought for them to hold public hearings to investigate her accusations of widespread criminal activities, over several administrations, that endanger national security. They should call for open testimony under oath by Edmonds --- as she has urged for five years --- and by other FBI officials she has named to them, as cited anonymously in the first Times' story....

...It's impossible to believe that they --- or Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal --- could not have acquired documents and testimony that Murdoch's London paper reports on today. Now the challenge to them is to end their silence on that reporting and do their job.....

Note the new rogues gallery (State Secrets Privilege Gallery) on Sibel Edmonds' website (http://www.justacitizen.com/).

The media in India accurately refer to al-qaeda as ISI-Qaeda. Refer to Michel Chossudovsky's excellent Cover-up or Complicity of the Bush Administration? The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks.

Musharraf, CIA Perform The Great Carnac

Pamela Hess reports for the Associated Press on the Detroit Free Press (Jan 18, 2008, CIA pins blame for Bhutto's assassination):

The CIA believes a Pakistani tribal leader’s network was behind the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Baitullah Mehsud is an extremist with strong ties to al Qaeda and is based in the
federally administered, lawless tribal area of Pakistan, along the Afghan border. He has been blamed for an organized campaign of assassinations of Pakistani officials and suicide bombings in the country.

The CIA arrived at the conclusion that Mehsud was behind the Dec. 27 killing of Bhutto shortly after it occurred, according to an intelligence official who spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The Washington Posts first reported the CIA’s take on Friday, in an interview conducted with CIA director Michael Hayden. “This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that,” Hayden told the Post.

The government of Pakastani President Pervez Musharraf has blamed Bhutto’s death on Mehsud, but some of her political party and family members have questioned those assertions....

White House E-mails

Dan Eggen and Elizabeth Williamson report for the Washington Post (Jan 18, 2008, White House Study Found 473 Days of E-Mail Gone):

The White House possesses no archived e-mail messages for many of its component offices, including the Executive Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President, for hundreds of days between 2003 and 2005, according to the summary of an internal White House study that was disclosed yesterday by a congressional
Democrat.

The 2005 study -- whose credibility the White House attacked this week -- identified 473 separate days in which no electronic messages were stored for one or more White House offices, said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.)....

...Waxman said he is seeking testimony on the issue at a hearing next month from White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, National Archivist Allen Weinstein and Alan R. Swendiman, the politically appointed director of the Office of Administration, which produced the 2005 study at issue....

...The White House is required by law to preserve e-mails considered presidential or federal records, and it is the target of several lawsuits seeking information about missing data and efforts to preserve electronic communications.

The internal study found that for Bush's executive office, no e-mails were archived on 12 separate days between December 2003 and February 2004, Waxman said. Vice President Cheney's office showed no electronic messages on 16 occasions from September 2003 to May 2005.

Archived e-mails were missing from even more days in other parts of the White House, the analysis found. The Council on Environmental Quality and the Council of Economic Advisers, for example, showed no stored e-mails for 2 1/2 months beginning in November 2003. The Office of Management and Budget showed no messages for 59 days -- including the period from Nov. 1, 2003, to Dec. 9, 2003 -- and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative showed no e-mail for 73 days.

Waxman said he decided to release the summary after White House spokesman Tony Fratto said yesterday that there is "no evidence" that any White House e-mails from those years are missing. Fratto's assertion "seems to be an unsubstantiated statement that has no relation to the facts they have shared with us," Waxman said....

...Two advocacy groups suing the Bush administration over its e-mail policies, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive, also said yesterday that the White House's new statements are incomplete and contrary to earlier acknowledgments that some e-mails are missing.

CREW also asserted in court papers filed yesterday that "critical and highly relevant evidence may have been destroyed" by the White House.....

Veterans' Charities Spending Addressed in Congress

Philip Rucker at the Washington Post (Jan 18, 2008, Chief of Veterans Charities Grilled on Groups' Spending) reports:

...At a raucous, three-hour hearing yesterday, House members questioned California entrepreneur Roger Chapin about his management of two charities. One charity, Help Hospitalized Veterans, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations that were to help wounded soldiers on personal expenses for Chapin, executive director Mike Lynch and Richard A. Viguerie, to whom the charity has awarded millions of dollars in fundraising-consulting contracts, the hearing found.

The expenses included at least $340,000 in meals, hotels and entertainment; a $135,000 loan to Lynch for a divorce settlement with his former wife; a $17,000 country club membership; three airplane tickets to Hawaii; and a $1 million loan to Viguerie for a start-up initiative at his firm, several members of the committee
said....

...Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the committee, said Help Hospitalized Veterans raised more than $168 million from 2004 to 2006. The charity spent a quarter of those donations on the veterans, with the rest going to direct-mail fundraising, salaries and other expenses, Waxman said....

...Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) asked Chapin what would happen if his charities told donors how their donations were spent.

"If we disclose, which I'm more than happy to do, we'd all be out of business," Chapin said. "Nobody would donate. It would dry up."...

...In one heated exchange yesterday, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) questioned Chapin's compensation. In 2006, Chapin and his wife took home a combined $561,971 in salary, bonuses and pension contributions, the committee said.

"I've tried everything under the sun to lower our fundraising costs," Chapin said.

"How about reducing your salary?" Cummings said. "You appear to be doing quite well for yourself and your wife."

"By whose standards?" Chapin shouted back....

Iraq Security Forces Will Need US MIL Assistance for Decade

Ann Scott Tyson at the Washington Post (Jan 18, 2008, Iraq May Need Military Help for Years, Officials Say) reports:

Senior U.S. military officials projected yesterday that the Iraqi army and police will grow to an estimated 580,000 members by the end of the year but that shortages of key personnel, equipment, weaponry and logistical capabilities mean that Iraq's security forces will probably require U.S. military support for as long as a decade.

"The truth is that they simply cannot fix, supply, arm or fuel themselves completely enough at this point," said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, head of the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq....

...Iraq "remains reliant on the coalition" for critical gear, such as helicopters, mortars, artillery and intelligence-gathering equipment, he said. Moreover, Iraq's shortage of mid-grade leaders represents "a very real and very tangible hole in proficiency that . . . will affect them for at least a decade."...

...Iraqi officials predict that their forces will be able to assume responsibility for internal security sometime between early 2009 and 2012, and that they will be able to handle external security by 2018 or 2020, according to Dubik....

...The second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T.
Odierno, said yesterday that Iraq could require a U.S. military presence for many years. For example, the United States could provide helicopters and other aircraft to support Iraqi combat operations for "five to 10 years," with "an appropriate number of ground forces that go along with that," Odierno told a Pentagon news conference.

However, such U.S. air support could also be provided by forces stationed outside Iraq at existing U.S. military bases in the Middle East, said Mark Kimmitt, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle Eastern affairs, who also testified before the House panel yesterday....

Bush Admin Pulls a "Clinton"

Pete Yost reports for the Associated Press on the Detroit Free Press (Jan 16, 2008, White House may have erased e-mail evidence):

The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide.

The White House “does not know if any e-mails were not properly preserved in the archiving process,” said the statement by Theresa Payton, chief information officer for the White House Office of Administration. “We are continuing our efforts,” said Payton, whose staff is responsible for the White House e-mail system.

If the e-mails were not saved, the White House might have violated two laws requiring preservation of documents that fall into the categories of federal records or presidential records....

...Payton’s sworn statement was filed in response to a federal court order last week in lawsuits by two private groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive.

The lawsuits allege that millions of e-mails are missing from White House servers. The recycling of backup tapes leaves doubt whether any missing e-mails will be recoverable.

“If the backup tapes have been erased or taped over or recycled, it’s hard to imagine where we will find copies of many lost e-mails,” said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, said in an interview Wednesday.

“It appears that the White House has now destroyed the evidence of its misconduct,” said Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for the ethics group.

“The White House declaration raises more questions than it answers, specifically the likelihood that for a very significant period of time — March 2003 to October 2003 — the White House recycled its backup tapes,” said Weismann.

“As a result there may be no way to recover the missing e-mails from a period in which the U.S. decided to go to war with Iraq, White House officials leaked the identity of Valerie Plame and the Justice Department started a criminal investigation of the White House,” the lawyer said....

The silence of the republicans who decried Clinton's email archival "problem" is deafening.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell - NSA owns the internet

John Leyden at The Register (UK, Jan 16, 2008, US chief spook pushes electronic dragnet policy) reports:

US cyber-security policies may give US intelligence agencies access to any email, file transfer or web search.

The proposals from National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, which have entered into a draft of US Cyber-Security Policy, would legitimise data trawling on a scale that would make the current controversy about warrantless wiretapping seem like much ado about nothing....

...Intelligence agencies have long angled for this kind of surveillance ability. The infrastructure and computing power needed to tap into Americans' email and web search history may already exist....

For some background, see Reason's interview with NSA whistleblower Russell Tice (Jan 13, 2006, Inside the Puzzle Palace), a good post on the CannonFire Blog (July 31, 2007, Data mining, the NSA, DOJ corruption and impeachment), UPI's Feb 14, 2006 story Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger, and two stories on SpamDailyNews (April 08, 2006, Whistleblower outs NSA's secret spy room at AT T; and April 07, 2006, EFF: AT T forwards all Internet traffic into NSA) about AT&T forwarding all internet traffic to the NSA.

Michigan Republican Former Representative Mark Deli Siljander

Lara Jakes Jordan reports for the Associated Press (on Chicago Tribune, Jan 16, 2008, Ex-Lawmaker Charged in Terror Conspiracy) on the ex-Congressman, ex-U.S. delegate to the U.N., ex-lobbyist & his indictment:

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday on charges of being part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to a supporter of al-Qaida and the Taliban who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

The 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying -- money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Siljander, who served in the House from 1981-1987, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987....

...In the indictment, the government alleges that IARA employed a man who had served as a fundraising aide to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader and mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The indictment accuses IARA of sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.

Authorities described Hekmatyar as an Afghan mujahedeen leader who articipated in and supported terrorist acts by al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Justice Department said Hekmatyar "has vowed to engage in a holy war against the United States and international troops in Afghanistan."

The charges paint "a troubling picture of an American charity organization that engaged in transactions for the benefit of terrorists and conspired with a former United States congressman to convert stolen federal funds into payments for his advocacy," said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein.....

...After leaving the government, he founded the Washington-area consulting group Global Strategies Inc.

The indictment says Siljander was hired by IARA in March 2004 to lobby the Senate Finance Committee in an effort to remove the charity from the panel's list of suspected terror fundraisers.

For his work, IARA paid Siljander with money that was part of U.S. government funding awarded to the charity years earlier for relief work it promised to perform in Africa, the indictment says. Under the grant agreement, IARA was supposed to return any unused funds after the relief project ended in 1999.

Instead, Siljander and three IARA officers agreed to cover up the money's origins and use it on the lobbying effort, the indictment charges....

...The indictment also alleges that on 11 separate occasions the defendants transferred funds from the United States to Iraq through Amman, Jordan, to promote unlawful activity that violated Iraq sanctions....

It has been noted that the USAID is just a front for the CIA (see here, and here, and here, and here, and loads more - google them), and the CIA funded islamists throughout the 1980s & 1990s (Afghanistan & Balkans adventures). Is Siljander/IARA's current predicament just more clean-up from 9/11?

Oil Rebuff

The Saudis rebuffed Bush's plea for increased oil production to ease prices (see Mark Silva's Saudis reject Bush oil plea, Jan 16, 2008, Chicago Tribune).

However, lack of production/inventory does not seem to be sourcing the rise in prices, as Alan Greenspan stated repeatedly, its oil speculation. For a historical look over the past decade, see the article What Is Driving Oil Prices? by Richard G. Anderson and Jason J. Buol on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' website, from January 2005 ... there's a nice graphic (from 2004) showing historical spot and future prices for oil. BusinessWeek from November 26, 2007 (A Hot Hand in Oil Speculation) references a Goldman Sachs analyst - Jeffrey Currie - who should be listened to, given his remarkable run at predictions in the oil market. Keith Fitz-Gerald reports on MondayMorning (Jan 10, 2008, Investors Will Benefit From New Plan to Have the United States and China Cooperate in Curbing Oil Speculation) about the future cooperation of the US and China on oil speculation.

Oil speculation is delved into by David Usher on TheReaganWing (June 10, 2007, Oil Price Gouging: From Enron With Love):

...Savvy investment firms and avaricious lawyers analyzed the Enron case – realizing they could turn a huge buck on oil futures – so long as they tacitly let oil companies constrain the oil supply without manipulating the supply directly themselves.

Giant speculative investment funds and oil companies now make tremendous profits raiding the oil spot-market, playing seemingly separate but implicitly cooperative roles serving up the same end-effect as Enron wreaked on California. But this time, the victim is the American consumer, not energy producers and distributors.

Federal and state politicians in both parties have failed to address this “Enroning of America” because government is on the take too. Taxes rise with gasoline prices, fattening political contributions while feeding slush budgets and pork barrels at both the state and federal levels....

...: “Investment banks from Morgan Stanley to Goldman Sachs are making so much money from oil futures that they’ve become a hot investment for all sorts of big-money players.” Ben Dell, an oil analyst and Sanford Bernstein calls it correctly, if not conservatively: “pension funds and other investors are buying oil to remove it from the market — which can help drive up demand — before selling it for a profit some months later”....

...Here is what we can take away from the above information:
(1) U.S. oil companies cut back U.S. distillation capacity substantially between 1980 and 2004. This seeded fears. Spot market prices rose tremendously, thus increasing profits to oil companies.

(2) U.S. oil companies decreased stateside production 40.3% between 1980 and 2004, driving fears about dependence on foreign oil, and creating an illusion that shortages were imminent.

(3) These two items, in conjunction with speculative manipulation of the spot market by banks and pension funds, caused oil company profits to soar. The world’s three largest oil companies netted profits of $172,000 per minute during the second quarter of 2006. Profits going forward look similarly bullish.(22) ....

...This problem is not limited to oil markets. In the name of “deregulation”, investors are now raiding electricity markets nationwide. This is driving up home energy costs for everyone, causing utility companies to defer lifecycle replacement of end-of-life equipment, resulting in massive power outages caused by wet or cold weather failures of antiquated step-down equipment never before experienced by customers....

US Gov't Finally Stops Fighting Family of 9/11 Volunteer EMT

The Associated Press on the Long Island Newsday (Jan 15, 2008, Feds recognize slain 9/11 volunteer EMT):

After a five year battle, the U.S. government has dropped its effort to prevent a volunteer firefighter killed at the World Trade Center from receiving a federal death benefit for public safety officers who die on the job.

The decision is a belated victory for the family of Glenn Winuk, a longtime member of the Jericho Volunteer Fire Department who rushed to the burning towers on Sept. 11, 2001, to tend to victims of the terrorist attack.

Winuk, 40, died when the skyscrapers collapsed, but for years, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance fought his family's effort to collect a $250,000 payment due to police officers, firefighters and other government emergency workers killed in the line of duty.

The agency took the position that the benefit was only intended to go to active-duty public safety officers, and Winuk didn't qualify because he hadn't been on regular duty with his volunteer department on Long Island since 1998.

The long court battle finally ended on Jan. 10, after the Office of the Solicitor General decided to drop its last appeal in the case.

"It's really terrific. This fight has gone on too long," said Glenn's brother, Jay Winuk.

The move clears the way for Winuk's parents to receive the $250,000 payment, but the family maintains that their primary interest was not getting money, but achieving proper government recognition for Glenn's public service.

"It's very meaningful to my parents," Jay Winuk said.

He added that he hoped President Bush would now see fit to award his late brother the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor, which was given to the relatives of 442 other public safety officers killed in the terror attacks.

Glenn Winuk was working at his Manhattan law office the morning of the attacks, but he grabbed a medical bag and raced to pitch in with the rescue effort. When his body was found in the rubble, months later, he was wearing surgical gloves and a stethoscope.

A number of New York officials supported the family's campaign for a payment from the Public Safety Officers Benefits Program, including state lawmakers who passed a statute declaring that Winuk died in the line of duty.

The turning point in the case came when a judge on the Federal Court of Claims sided with the family last June, ruling that the government's denial of the benefit had been arbitrary.

Saudi Weapons Deal, bin Laden's message, Iraq

Michael Scheuer has a piece on Asia Times Online (Jan 12, 2008, Bin Laden turns heat on Saudi Arabia) analyzing bin Laden's latest (12-29-07) message:

....Bin Laden urges the Iraqi fighters to heed the lesson of the Afghans' historic post-Soviet debacle because "the same thing applies to Iraq today"; leaders are more interested in their own power and status than in making Islam and the ummah (Islamic community) victorious. And while bin Laden warns that Washington is using promises of money, military training and arms to entice the "Islamic Party and some fighting groups [to] support America against Muslims", he leaves no doubt that the Islamists' main enemy in Iraq is now Saudi Arabia, not the supposedly militarily defeated United States....

...Bin Laden goes on to claim that the Saudis are trying to co-opt some of the Sunni mujahideen in Iraq by allowing "some groups to confidently move in the Gulf to receive [financial] support". Riyadh is careful to avoid officially funding its Iraqi insurgent favorites, so its support "is channeled under the banner of raising donations by some unofficial scholars and preachers". Bin Laden warns that "many of them ... are loyal to the state and seek to implement [Riyadh's] policy by pulling the rug from under the honest mujahideen's feet" and forcing them to support a national-unity government that is designed to be the agent of the United States and Saudi Arabia.

He asks the Iraqi mujahideen how they can trust Saudi King Abdullah, who is the "malignant foe" of Islam, the "main US agent in the region" and a man who took it on himself "to tempt and tame every free, virtuous, and honest person with the aim of dragging him to the path of temptation and misguidance ... [and] the path of betraying the religion and nation and submitting to the will of the Crusader-Zionist alliance"....

...While it is clear in the December 29 tape that bin Laden rates the Saudis as the main obstacle to God's victory in Iraq, there is little indication of what he intends to do to destroy Riyadh's ability to stymie the mujahideen there as it did in Afghanistan....

...If bin Laden's assertions are true, and Saudi Arabia's Afghanistan-like intervention in Iraq continues to prevent the mujahideen unity bin Laden advocates, the al-Qaeda chief and his shura (consultative) council may soon confront the very unpalatable necessity of having to break with their traditional grand strategy and move to try to destroy the Saudi regime....

Anne Gearan and Terence Hunt report for the Associated Press on the Detroit Free Press (Jan 14, 2008, Bush Delivers Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia and Bush Seeks Stronger Ties With Arms Deal):

Anne Gearan's article:

...The administration was notifying Congress of its intent to sell $20 billion in weapons, including precision-guided bombs, to the Saudis. It is "a pretty big package, lots of pieces," national security adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters on Air Force One....

Terence Hunt's article:

...Coinciding with Bush's arrival, the administration officially notified Congress it will offer Saudi Arabia sophisticated Joint Direct Attack Munitions - or "smart bomb" - technology and related equipment. The deal envisions the transfer of 900 of the precision-guided bomb kits, worth $123 million, that would give Saudi forces highly accurate targeting abilities.

Some lawmakers fear the systems could be used against Israel but Congress appears unlikely to block the deal because of Saudi Arabia's cooperation in the war on terror and in deterring aggression from Iran.

The United States already has notified Congress of five other packages to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, including Patriot missiles. The total amount of eventual sales as part of the Gulf Security Dialogue is estimated at $20 billion, a figure subject to actual purchases....

HIV Replication Stop Mechanism

UPI story (Jan 14, 2008, Study finds cell protein that stops HIV):

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have found a key protein in dendritic cells can stop the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS from replicating.

UCLA researchers found the protein prevents HIV "budding" -- part of the virus' life cycle that is crucial to its ability to replicate and infect other cells.

"If we can block virus generation, then we can control the disease," said UCLA Associate Professor Shen Pang, lead author of the study.

Dendritic cells are specialized white blood cells in the skin, mucosa and lymph nodes that activate lymphocytes, including the T cells that HIV targets. Although dendritic cells can be infected with HIV, studies have shown viral generation from such cells is nearly 100 times lower than from infected T cells, indicating the cells may possess some inhibiting property.

Pang hypothesized that DC-SIGN, a protein expressed in dendritic cells, might be responsible for such inhibition. He and his colleagues found DC-SIGN and a related protein, DC-SIGNR, both demonstrated 95 percent to 99.5 percent inhibition of viral production from host cells.

The study that included postgraduate researcher Qiuwei Wang is scheduled for publication in the April issue of the FASEB Journal and is now available online at www.fasebj.org/cgi/rapidpdf/fj.07-9443comv3.pdf

Queen's Warning to Paul Burrell

Gordon Rayner and Natalie Paris have this interesting bit on the Telegraph (Jan 14, 2008, Queen warns Paul Burrell of 'powers at work' after Diana's death):

The Queen warned former butler Paul Burrell of "powers at work in this country" shortly after the death Diana, Princess of Wales, her inquest was told.

Mr Burrell said the Queen had made the remarks during a 90-minute meeting with him, but that he had not asked her to clarify what she meant.

Ian Burnett QC, counsel for the inquest, suggested that possible explanations included media chiefs, the Establishment and the security services....

...Mr Burrell said the Queen had shown her concern in such a way because she is "just a wonderful lady"."I think it was a general 'be careful warning' over many issues," he told the court....

The Filipino Monkey Strikes Again! - Iran Threat Source

Tom Chivers at the Telegraph (Jan 14, 2008, 'Iran threats' may have been work of a heckler)reports:

Threats to US ships in the Strait of Hormuz heard at the end of a Pentagon-released recording of an incident between Iranian patrol boats and US Navy warships last week may have been the work of a local heckler known as the "Filipino Monkey", The Navy Times has reported....

...In accented English a voice is heard to say "I am coming to you ... You will explode in a few minutes." Pentagon officials had previously stated that the voice came from one of the boats, but they are now distancing themselves from that claim, saying instead that they do not know the source of the transmission.

The Navy Times said that the voice in the audio did not match that of an Iranian officer shown speaking to Navy cruiser USS Port Royal over the radio in a video released by the Iranian authorities.

This has led several Navy experts to raise the possibility that a heckler, known locally as the "Filipino Monkey" - or a copycat - could have made the threats.

"Filipino Monkey" is believed to be more than one person. Its modus operandi is to listen in to ship-to-ship radio traffic before jumping in with insults and threats.

According to The Navy Times, US Navy women come in for particularly harsh treatment.

A civilian mariner told the paper that the "Filipino Monkey" phenomenon is worldwide, but more common in areas of heavy shipping such as the Strait of Hormuz....

Philip Agee

The Telegraph (2:08am GMT 10/01/2008, Philip Agee) has this obituary:

Philip Agee, who died in Havana on Monday aged 72, turned from being a CIA agent into the most notorious of its "ideological defectors"; after leaving the agency in 1969, he made a career out of exposing the names of CIA personnel and attacking its methods.

Agee established his reputation as a critic of the CIA with Inside the Company: A CIA Diary, published in Britain in 1975 prior to its release in America. The book identified approximately 250 Agency officers and agents and claimed that "millions of people all over the world had been killed or had their lives destroyed by the CIA and the institutions it supports".

According to the British and American security services, the book led directly to the deaths of several agents. "It was not enough simply to describe what the CIA does," Agee recalled. "It was important to neutralise the effectiveness of everybody doing it."

In 1975, after requests from the American government as well as an MI6 report that blamed Agee's work for the execution of two of its agents in Poland, an order was issued to deport Agee from Britain, where he had been living....

...Agee's version was that it was his Roman Catholic conscience that had persuaded him to leave the CIA, and he certainly succeeded in presenting himself as a principled critic of US intelligence. In 1978 he and a small group of his supporters began publishing the Covert Action Information Bulletin, a platform for his campaign to "expose" the workings of the CIA. In 1978-79 Agee published two volumes of Dirty Work, which exposed more than 2,000 covert CIA agents in western Europe and Africa as well as details about their activities....

...The son of a Florida businessman, Philip Burnett Franklin Agee was born on July 19 1935. He joined the CIA straight out of college in 1957 and worked as a case officer in several Latin American countries. He described himself as being politically "naive" in his youth, and colleagues recalled him as Right-wing; he argued against the minimum wage, saying that it would bankrupt small businessmen such as his father, who ran a laundry and uniform rental service in Tampa.

By his own account Agee became increasingly disillusioned with the way in which the CIA was supporting the traditional power structures in Latin America, where wealth was in very few hands. "We call this the 'free world'," he wrote, "but the only freedom under these circumstances is the rich people's freedom to exploit the poor."....

...Agee, who was twice married and had two sons, was described after his death by the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma as a "loyal friend of Cuba and staunch defender of the people's struggle for a better world".

Sir Edmund Hillary

The New Zealand Herald (11:37AM Friday January 11, 2008, Sir Edmund Hillary dies at 88) has Sir Edmund Hillary's obituary, biography:

Sir Edmund Hillary has died aged 88.

Sir Edmund shot to international stardom when he was the first man to scale Mt Everest in 1953.

Prime Minister Helen Clark today described Sir Edmund as the best-known New Zealander to have ever lived and said his passing was a profound loss to New Zealand....

US-British forces blood donations

Michael Evans, Defence editor for the Times (UK, January 11, 2008, US may have given injured British forces infected blood transfusions) reports:

The medical records of hundreds of British servicemen seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 have had to be investigated by the Ministry of Defence after the Americans admitted that they may have given some of the injured infected blood transfusions.

The Pentagon revealed at a meeting in Washington in early November that, according to its records, 11 British servicemen had received life-saving blood transfusions from American volunteer donors at US military centres in Iraq and Afghanistan over the six-year period. None of the donors had been pre-screened to detect for any sign of HIV, hepatitis C, syphilis or other blood diseases.

However, MoD officials discovered that the US military medical record-keeping was “so poor”, according to one source, that Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, ordered an immediate search of British records to check whether the Americans had treated other wounded servicemen. After weeks of trawling through all the records of those who had been wounded and might have received blood transfusions, the MoD discovered that there were seven more who had received on-the-spot blood donations from American military personnel, giving a total of 18. Two of them had left the Armed Forces. Six British civilian security contractors working for the US military in Iraq had also received emergency blood transfusions after being wounded....

...The Pentagon said the American donors who provided the blood had now tested negative for hepatitis and HIV.

However, there are blood diseases that still have to be eliminated, and none of the 24 Britons involved will know if they are free of contamination for another three weeks. One official said it took three weeks to check for any sign of Chagas disease, a blood infection that can be picked up from insects in South America....

...Although British officials could barely suppress their anger and frustration over the delay by the Americans in informing them of the potential medical crisis, it was acknowledged that the fresh blood provided by the volunteer donors almost certainly saved the lives of the 24 Britons.

Professor Stan Urbaniak, a consultant at the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service in Aberdeen, said that fresh blood,for life-threatening wounds, was the only realistic source to stop massive haemorrhaging and give a chance of survival. “It’s a question of making a judgment between risk and benefit,” he told The Times.

What angered the MoD, however, was that under British procedures, even the emergency blood donors have to be prescreened for contamination. “When there’s an emergency, donors are called for from a panel of servicemen who have been checked. But the US doesn’t do this, they do the checking after the blood has been donated,” one official said....

Abdul Salaam - Afghan warlord who fought against coalition now a governor

Nick Meo reports on the Times (UK, January 9, 2008, Taleban warlord gets new job as governor):

A feared Taleban commander who fought against British troops until he changed sides has been named governor of the key town of Musa Qala.

The appointment of Abdul Salaam to the crucial job was hailed last night by the Afghan Government, which is redoubling British-supported efforts to persuade Taleban commanders to end their armed struggle.

Officials hope that persuading Mullah Salaam, formerly one of their most ferocious enemies, to “reconcile” will encourage other Taleban commanders to change sides....

...the appointment will be opposed bitterly by many anti-Taleban Afghans who fear that the reconciliation process will allow fundamentalists to return to power, at least at local level. It will also put British soldiers in the unusual position of working closely with a man who was pledged to kill them a few weeks ago.

During the ten months when the Taleban ran Musa Qala, a key opium bazaar town in the north of Helmand, Afghans accused of being British spies were hanged in public, and suspected government collaborators were tortured. Heroin was traded openly in the town, and an estimated half a billion dollars of drugs were stockpiled there. Mullah Salaam was an important leader in the town during that time....

...Yesterday the new governor said that the Taleban had been divided for a while in Musa Qala but the majority were behind him.

“There are two groups of Taleban fighters in Musa Qala and I have the backing of the major one. The Taleban who are against peace and prosperity in Afghanistan, I will fight them,” he said.

The appointment comes soon after two senior international officials from the UN and EU were ordered to leave the country by President Karzai, who accused them of trying to negotiate with Taleban commanders in Musa Qala....

US Navy Backing Off Iranian Threat Claims

Agence France-Presse on News.com.au (January 11, 2008 08:35am, US Navy threat may not have been Iranian) has this interesting info:

THE US navy says there is "no way to know" if a threat radioed to US warships in the Strait of Hormuz came from Iranian speedboats, casting doubt on the earlier US version of Sunday's confrontation.

"There is no way to know where this (radioed threat) exactly came from. It could have come from the shore... or another vessel in the area,'' Lieutenant John Gay of the US Navy Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said....

...overnight Iran released its own video to counter the charges, showing the crew of a speedboat contacting an American sailor via radio, asking him to identify the US vessels and state their purpose.

State-run Press-TV in Iran said the footage had been released by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological force involved in the incident. Lt Gay said the threat was made through an "open bridge to bridge circuit'' and it would be "very difficult to determine'' that it came from the Iranian speedboats....

Richard Holt on the Telegraph has this story (5:37pm GMT 10/01/2008, Iranian video 'shows no threat to US navy'):

Iran has released a video which is claimed to show that its boats did not threaten US navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as has been claimed by the Americans.

...the new video, broadcast by Iran's Press TV satellite station, gives a completely different version of the incident....

...Guards Brigadier General Ali Fadavi said Iran's boats had only approached the US ships to examine the registration numbers as they had been unreadable, Press TV said.

The video showed an Iranian naval officer on a small boat speaking via radio to a ship which can not be clearly identified. A total of three ships can be seen on the video.

The Iranian officer says: "Coalition warship 73 this Iranian navy patrol boat".

"This is coalition warship 73. I read you loud and clear," the person replied in what appears to be an American accent.

The Iranian officer then appears to ask for the ships to identify themselves, although not all his words can be understood: "Coalition warship 73 this Iranian navy patrol boat, request side number ... operating in the area this time," the Iranian voice says....


Video : http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1137942530/bclid1155254697/bctid1370834932