"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....