February 28, 2007

U.S. Stock market falls,...

 
Stocks sink on fears about China and growth
 
By Ellis Mnyandu

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled on Tuesday, driving the Dow Jones industrial average down in its worst slide since the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, as a sell-off in China's stock market raised concerns that equity valuations may be too high.

A U.S. government report showing a bigger-than-expected drop in January's new orders for U.S.-made durable goods
added to investors' concerns about the outlook for economic growth and corporate profits. Those worries added more fuel to the sell-off and helped contribute to a loss of about $600 billion in market value for the day.

The New York Stock Exchange's closing bell was greeted with a chorus of "boos" from the trading floor. A surge in trading volume triggered a technical glitch in late afternoon, contributing to an abrupt swing in the Dow average, which briefly fell 500 points. A Dow Jones Indexes spokeswoman said the glitch did not affect stock prices.

Investors dumped stocks with the biggest exposure to Chinese demand, including Caterpillar Inc., whose shares slid 3.6 percent, while Tuesday's sell-off wiped out the year's gains for all three major U.S. stock indexes.

"There seems to be just an air of nothing is safe anymore, there's nowhere to go and people are rotating into bonds as a safe haven," said Andre Bakhos, president of Princeton Financial Group in Princeton, New Jersey.

The Dow Jones industrial average slid 416.02 points, or 3.29 percent, to end at 12,216.24. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 50.33 points, or 3.47 percent, to finish at 1,399.04. The Nasdaq Composite Index sank 96.65 points, or 3.86 percent, to close at 2,407.87.

GOODBYE TO THE YEAR'S GAINS

At one point, the Dow fell as much as 546.20 points, or 4.32 percent, to a session low at 12,086.06. It was its biggest one-day point decline since after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 had their worst one-day percentage drop in almost four years, while the Nasdaq had its worst day since December 2002.

For the year to date, the Dow was down about 2 percent, while the S&P 500 was down about 1.36 percent and the Nasdaq was down about 0.31 percent.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note dropped to 4.50 percent, the lowest since late December, as investors bought bonds in a flight to quality. The 10-year note's price, which moves in the opposite direction of its yield, rose more than a full point, or 1-1/32, to 101.

BAD NEWS BEFORE THE BELL

On Tuesday, the die for the trading day was cast when China's Shanghai Composite Index dropped almost 9 percent on fears that the government would crack down on speculation that has driven stock prices there to record highs.

Before Wall Street's opening bell, there was more bad news. A government report showed a much bigger-than-expected drop of 7.8 percent in January's new orders for U.S.-made durable goods, which added to concerns about a slowdown in economic growth. Durable goods are big-ticket items, including home appliances and computers, intended to last three years or more.

"Durable goods are a key forward-looking indicator of business activity, so the broad-based drop that we saw today means that confidence in the economy is weaker across a number of sectors and the chance of an investment-led recession is quite a bit higher," said Andrew Bernard, professor of International Economics at the Tuck School of Business in Dartmouth, New Hampshire.

FEAR FACTOR SKYROCKETS

In one sign of how shaken investors were, the CBOE Volatility Index, known as Wall Street's "fear gauge," surged 70.5 percent to a session high at 19.01 and then retraced its steps a bit to end at 18.31, a gain of 64.2 percent.

Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor's, said the stock market's tumble wiped out more than $430 billion in the S&P 500 stock values, almost matching the value of stock buybacks by S&P 500 companies last year.

He estimated that for the overall market, the loss was $600 billion.

All 30 stocks in the blue-chip Dow average finished in the red as investors unloaded shares of companies with big exposure to the Chinese economy.

During the session, all three major U.S. stock indexes broke below their 60-day moving averages -- a sign that the momentum that has carried U.S. stocks through a record run higher from July has begun to stall.

Exxon Mobil Corp. was the biggest decliner in both the Dow and the S&P 500, with its stock falling 4.7 percent, or $3.57, to $71.83 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Caterpillar Inc., the U.S. heavy equipment maker that does extensive business in China, dropped 3.6 percent, or $2.43, to $64.83, also on the NYSE.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange's semiconductor index ended down 3.1 percent, its second-sharpest one-day slide this year.

Shares of technology bellwether Cisco Systems Inc. skidded 5.6 percent, or $1.53, to $25.71. The stock was among the biggest losers in both the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500.

A rare bright spot on the Big Board was RadioShack Corp., up 11.9 percent, or $2.68, at $25.13. The stock was the NYSE's No. 1 percentage gainer after reporting higher quarterly profit, due to cutting costs and closing unprofitable stores.

Volume was heavy on the NYSE, where about 2.41 billion shares changed hands, well above last year's estimated daily average of 1.84 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 3.02 billion shares traded, sharply exceeding last year's daily average of 2.02 billion.

On the Nasdaq, the number of advancing issues totaled just 281 stocks -- the smallest number in about 10 years. In contrast, a total of 2,832 stocks fell on the Nasdaq -- with the decliners outnumbering the advancers by a ratio of slightly more than 10 to 1.

On the NYSE, more than six stocks fell for every one that rose. A total of 2,949 NYSE stocks declined, while only 451 shares rose and 104 issues were unchanged.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch, Emily Chasan and Bill Rigby)

 
 
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February 23, 2007

Why did the CIA give Iran blueprints to build a bomb?

 
George Bush insists that Iran must not
be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

So why, six years ago, did the CIA give
the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb?

In an extract from his explosive book, New York Times reporter James Risen reveals the bungles and miscalculations that led to a spectacular intelligence fiasco

By James Risen



She had probably done this a dozen times before. Modern digital technology had made clandestine communications with overseas agents seem routine. Back in the cold war, contacting a secret agent in Moscow or Beijing was a dangerous, labour-intensive process that could take days or even weeks. But by 2004, it was possible to send high-speed, encrypted messages directly and instantaneously from CIA headquarters to agents in the field who were equipped with small, covert personal communications devices. So the officer at CIA headquarters assigned to handle communications with the agency's spies in Iran probably didn't think twice when she began her latest download. With a few simple commands, she sent a secret data flow to one of the Iranian agents in the CIA's spy network. Just as she had done so many times before.

But this time, the ease and speed of the technology betrayed her. The CIA officer had made a disastrous mistake. She had sent information to one Iranian agent that exposed an entire spy network; the data could be used to identify virtually every spy the CIA had inside Iran.

Mistake piled on mistake. As the CIA later learned, the Iranian who received the download was a double agent. The agent quickly turned the data over to Iranian security officials, and it enabled them to "roll up" the CIA's network throughout Iran. CIA sources say that several of the Iranian agents were arrested and jailed, while the fates of some of the others is still unknown.

This espionage disaster, of course, was not reported. It left the CIA virtually blind in Iran, unable to provide any significant intelligence on one of the most critical issues facing the US - whether Tehran was about to go nuclear.

In fact, just as President Bush and his aides were making the case in 2004 and 2005 that Iran was moving rapidly to develop nuclear weapons, the American intelligence community found itself unable to provide the evidence to back up the administration's public arguments. On the heels of the CIA's failure to provide accurate pre-war intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the agency was once again clueless in the Middle East. In the spring of 2005, in the wake of the CIA's Iranian disaster, Porter Goss, its new director, told President Bush in a White House briefing that the CIA really didn't know how close Iran was to becoming a nuclear power.

But it's worse than that. Deep in the bowels of the CIA, someone must be nervously, but very privately, wondering: "Whatever happened to those nuclear blueprints we gave to the Iranians?"

The story dates back to the Clinton administration and February 2000, when one frightened Russian scientist walked Vienna's winter streets. The Russian had good reason to be afraid. He was walking around Vienna with blueprints for a nuclear bomb.

To be precise, he was carrying technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block, otherwise known as a "firing set", for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. He held in his hands the knowledge needed to create a perfect implosion that could trigger a nuclear chain reaction inside a small spherical core. It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short.

The Russian, who had defected to the US years earlier, still couldn't believe the orders he had received from CIA headquarters. The CIA had given him the nuclear blueprints and then sent him to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). With the Russian doing its bidding, the CIA appeared to be about to help Iran leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon. The dangerous irony was not lost on the Russian - the IAEA was an international organisation created to restrict the spread of nuclear technology.

The Russian was a nuclear engineer in the pay of the CIA, which had arranged for him to become an American citizen and funded him to the tune of $5,000 a month. It seemed like easy money, with few strings attached.

Until now. The CIA was placing him on the front line of a plan that seemed to be completely at odds with the interests of the US, and it had taken a lot of persuading by his CIA case officer to convince him to go through with what appeared to be a rogue operation.

The case officer worked hard to convince him - even though he had doubts about the plan as well. As he was sweet-talking the Russian into flying to Vienna, the case officer wondered whether he was involved in an illegal covert action. Should he expect to be hauled before a congressional committee and grilled because he was the officer who helped give nuclear blueprints to Iran? The code name for this operation was Merlin; to the officer, that seemed like a wry tip-off that nothing about this programme was what it appeared to be. He did his best to hide his concerns from his Russian agent.

The Russian's assignment from the CIA was to pose as an unemployed and greedy scientist who was willing to sell his soul - and the secrets of the atomic bomb - to the highest bidder. By hook or by crook, the CIA told him, he was to get the nuclear blueprints to the Iranians. They would quickly recognise their value and rush them back to their superiors in Tehran.

The plan had been laid out for the defector during a CIA-financed trip to San Francisco, where he had meetings with CIA officers and nuclear experts mixed in with leisurely wine-tasting trips to Sonoma County. In a luxurious San Francisco hotel room, a senior CIA official involved in the operation talked the Russian through the details of the plan. He brought in experts from one of the national laboratories to go over the blueprints that he was supposed to give the Iranians.

The senior CIA officer could see that the Russian was nervous, and so he tried to downplay the significance of what they were asking him to do. He said the CIA was mounting the operation simply to find out where the Iranians were with their nuclear program. This was just an intelligence-gathering effort, the CIA officer said, not an illegal attempt to give Iran the bomb. He suggested that the Iranians already had the technology he was going to hand over to them. It was all a game. Nothing too serious.

On paper, Merlin was supposed to stunt the development of Tehran's nuclear programme by sending Iran's weapons experts down the wrong technical path. The CIA believed that once the Iranians had the blueprints and studied them, they would believe the designs were usable and so would start to build an atom bomb based on the flawed designs. But Tehran would get a big surprise when its scientists tried to explode their new bomb. Instead of a mushroom cloud, the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle. The Iranian nuclear program would suffer a humiliating setback, and Tehran's goal of becoming a nuclear power would have been delayed by several years. In the meantime, the CIA, by watching Iran's reaction to the blueprints, would have gained a wealth of information about the status of Iran's weapons program, which has been shrouded in secrecy.

The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. "This isn't right," he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. "There is something wrong." His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian's assertion that the blueprints didn't look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either.

In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian's personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. "He wasn't supposed to know that," the CIA case officer told his superior. "He wasn't supposed to find a flaw."

"Don't worry," the senior CIA officer calmly replied. "It doesn't matter."

The CIA case officer couldn't believe the senior CIA officer's answer, but he managed to keep his fears from the Russian, and continued to train him for his mission.

After their trip to San Francisco, the case officer handed the Russian a sealed envelope with the nuclear blueprints inside. He was told not to open the envelope under any circumstances. He was to follow the CIA's instructions to find the Iranians and give them the envelope with the documents inside. Keep it simple, and get out of Vienna safe and alive, the Russian was told. But the defector had his own ideas about how he might play that game.

The CIA had discovered that a high-ranking Iranian official would be travelling to Vienna and visiting the Iranian mission to the IAEA, and so the agency decided to send the Russian to Vienna at the same time. It was hoped that he could make contact with either the Iranian representative to the IAEA or the visitor from Tehran.

In Vienna, however, the Russian unsealed the envelope with the nuclear blueprints and included a personal letter of his own to the Iranians. No matter what the CIA told him, he was going to hedge his bets. There was obviously something wrong with the blueprints - so he decided to mention that fact to the Iranians in his letter. They would certainly find flaws for themselves, and if he didn't tell them first, they would never want to deal with him again.

The Russian was thus warning the Iranians as carefully as he could that there was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it. At the same time, he was still going through with the CIA's operation in the only way he thought would work.

The Russian soon found 19 Heinstrasse, a five-storey office and apartment building with a flat, pale green and beige facade in a quiet, slightly down-at-heel neighbourhood in Vienna's north end. Amid the list of Austrian tenants, there was one simple line: "PM/Iran." The Iranians clearly didn't want publicity. An Austrian postman helped him. As the Russian stood by, the postman opened the building door and dropped off the mail. The Russian followed suit; he realised that he could leave his package without actually having to talk to anyone. He slipped through the front door, and hurriedly shoved his envelope through the inner-door slot at the Iranian office.

The Russian fled the mission without being seen. He was deeply relieved that he had made the hand-off without having to come face to face with a real live Iranian. He flew back to the US without being detected by either Austrian security or, more importantly, Iranian intelligence.

Just days after the Russian dropped off his package at the Iranian mission, the National Security Agency reported that an Iranian official in Vienna abruptly changed his schedule, making airline reservations to fly home to Iran. The odds were that the nuclear blueprints were now in Tehran.

The Russian scientist's fears about the operation seemed well founded. He was the front man for what may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W Bush has called the "axis of evil".

Operation Merlin has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan was first approved by Clinton. After the Russian scientist's fateful trip to Vienna, however, the Merlin operation was endorsed by the Bush administration, possibly with an eye toward repeating it against North Korea or other dangerous states.

Several former CIA officials say that the theory behind Merlin - handing over tainted weapon designs to confound one of America's adversaries - is a trick that has been used many times in past operations, stretching back to the cold war. But in previous cases, such Trojan horse operations involved conventional weapons; none of the former officials had ever heard of the CIA attempting to conduct this kind of high-risk operation with designs for a nuclear bomb. The former officials also said these kind of programs must be closely monitored by senior CIA managers in order to control the flow of information to the adversary. If mishandled, they could easily help an enemy accelerate its weapons development. That may be what happened with Merlin.

Iran has spent nearly 20 years trying to develop nuclear weapons, and in the process has created a strong base of sophisticated scientists knowledgeable enough to spot flaws in nuclear blueprints. Tehran also obtained nuclear blueprints from the network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and so already had workable blueprints against which to compare the designs obtained from the CIA. Nuclear experts say that they would thus be able to extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.

"If [the flaw] is bad enough," warned a nuclear weapons expert with the IAEA, "they will find it quite quickly. That would be my fear"
© James Risen 2006

This is an edited extract from State of War, by James Risen, published by The Free Press

 
 
 
 
 
 
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US Iran intelligence 'is incorrect'

 
US Iran intelligence 'is incorrect'
 
By Julian Borger in Vienna

Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.

The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.

That report, delivered to the security council by the IAEA director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, sets the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran and raises the possibility that the US could resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

At the heart of the debate are accusations - spearheaded by the US - that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.  However, most of the tip-offs about supposed secret weapons sites provided by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have led to dead ends when investigated by IAEA inspectors, according to informed sources in Vienna.

"Most of it has turned out to be incorrect," a diplomat at the IAEA with detailed knowledge of the agency's investigations said.

"They gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of [banned nuclear] activities.

"Now [the inspectors] don't go in blindly. Only if it passes a credibility test."

One particularly contentious issue was records of plans to build a nuclear warhead, which the CIA said it found on a stolen laptop computer supplied by an informant inside Iran.

In July 2005, US intelligence officials showed printed versions of the material to IAEA officials, who judged it to be sufficiently specific to confront Iran.

Tehran rejected the material as forged, and there are still reservations within the IAEA about its authenticity, according to officials with knowledge of the internal debate in the agency.

"First of all, if you have a clandestine program, you don't put it on laptops which can walk away," one official said. "The data is all in English which may be reasonable for some of the technical matters, but at some point you'd have thought there would be at least some notes in Farsi. So there is some doubt over the provenance of the computer."

IAEA officials do not comment on intelligence passed to the watchdog agency by foreign governments, saying all such assistance is confidential.

A western counter-proliferation official accepted that intelligence on Iran had sometimes been patchy, but argued that the essential point was Tehran's failure to live up to its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty.

"I take on board on what they're saying, but the bottom line is that for nearly 20 years [the Iranians] were violating safeguards agreements," the official said. "There is a confidence deficit here about the regime's true intentions."

That deficit will be deepened by yesterday's IAEA report, which concluded bluntly that "Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities", in defiance of a December UN ultimatum to stop.

The report noted that Iran had continued with the operation of a pilot enrichment plant.

Furthermore, the report said Iran had informed the agency of its plan to install 18 arrays, or cascades, of 164 centrifuges in an underground plant by May - a total of nearly 3,000.

At the moment, Iran's centrifuges are being used to make low enriched uranium, but if they were switched to making highly enriched, weapons grade uranium they could produce enough for a bomb in less than a year.

Mr ElBaradei's report said that Iran had so far not agreed to the IAEA installing remote monitoring devices in the enrichment plant to keep constant tabs on what the Iranians were doing with them.

Furthermore, the IAEA still has a string of questions about the Iranian programme that remain unanswered. Until they are, the agency will not give Iran a clear bill of health.

One of the "outstanding issues" listed in yesterday's report involves a 15-page document that appears to have been handed to IAEA inspectors by mistake with a batch of unrelated paperwork in October 2005.

That document roughly describes how to make hemispheres of enriched uranium, for which the only known use is in nuclear warheads. Iran has yet to present a satisfactory explanation of how and why it has the document.

"The issue here is the Iranians have not addressed outstanding issues, and we are still uncertain about the scope and intent of the program," a senior UN official said last night.

"We cannot ensure the correctness and completeness of their declaration."

 
 
 
 
 
 
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February 20, 2007

Secure Your Home Now from Lock Bumping

 

 


 

By BO WILLIAMS
 Good Morning Tennessee Anchor/Reporter

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- A practice called lock bumping can get criminals inside your home with no sign of forced entry. But there are some simple ways you can protect your property.

Lock bumping, a practice started by locksmiths to service locks, has been around since the 1800's. Now, thanks to the world wide web, knowledge of lock bumping is spreading easily.

"We've seen Web sites go up 200,00 or 300,000 thousand times a day in hits," says Bill Peters, a locksmith with FM George Safe & Lock Company in Knoxville.

"You can lock and unlock a door and nobody knows it," Peters explains. "We've heard insurance companies will deny claims because there is no proof of forced entry so it does cause alarm. It's something for people to think about."

Criminals bump locks by altering basic house keys with a series of cuts. When they use the bump key at a home, they put it in the lock, make a tap or series of taps that affect the pins and the door unlocks.

6 News put lock bumping to the test recently after some home owners gave us permission. Unfortunately, it only took one bump key and a couple taps for us to get in. The altered key doesn't go to the lock or the house. But it could've gotten us into more than one house.

"It is basically picking a lock with a key. It's very simple to do," Peters says.

One thing you can do to protect your home is replace your locks with high security class one locks.

One residential deadbolt lock made by Medeco is bump proof and pick proof. It's also under a utility patent, meaning no one can duplicate your key without authorization. These locks run between $150 - $200.
Another option is to have a locksmith replace your lock's cylinder with one that is bump proof. These cost roughly between $65 - $80.

Your other options include keyless locks, jimmy proof locks and biometric locks.

You can also help protect your home with better lighting, pets and alarm systems.

 

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

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February 18, 2007

The War Pimp

 

THE WAR PIMP

By Karen Kwiatkowski
by Karen Kwiatkowski

The DoD Inspector General, after over fourteen months of diligent and surely difficult investigation, has concluded that the Office of Special Plans, and Doug Feith as Under Secretary for Policy,

…developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence committee and… presented these to senior decision makers.

I’m happy to say it didn’t take me fourteen months to figure that out. I’m happy to say that it didn’t take most of us who worked in the Under Secretariat for Defense Policy, Near East and South Asia directorate fourteen months to figure it out. We saw the CIA and DIA intelligence, we understood the region, and we watched Doug Feith, Abe Shulsky, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Ahmad Chalabi, Bill Luti and a handful of others in and around the upper echelons of the Pentagon create a preferred alternate universe, and then foist it on an unsuspecting country.

We knew Scooter before the world did.

Doug Feith retired a year and a half ago – and has been quietly embarrassing Georgetown ever since. Now he’s back in the news, sputtering and whining and becoming really quite angry.

Here’s what he says now:

We weren’t creating alternative intelligence, we were just "criticizing" the CIA. Isn’t that a good thing?

The CIA had it wrong anyway, so what’s the problem?

It wasn’t illegal, according to the IG report….

It’s not a crime, it’s just criticism.

The government should be doing more of it, and it is misguided …that intelligence people should not be allowed to raise questions about – policy people should not be allowed to raise questions about intelligence.

Feith makes his points – long before the IG report was published – in a 2005 interview with Wolf Blitzer. In 2005, he says things like "I don’t know where [former Army Secretary Thomas White] got [the idea that Feith's team had the mindset that this would be a relatively straightforward, manageable task …[and] reconstruction would be short-lived] from" and "I think the Iraq operation was done very well." Feith goes on to say, "As you know… if you have the ability to produce insecticide or fertilizer, you have the ability to produce chemical and biological weapons stockpile." In Feithland, to be truly safe, you bomb the farmers AND the factories.

These days, Feith is telling Wolf that "we are in trouble in Iraq because of errors that the CIA made" and "I believed George Tenet" [on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda].

Clearly, Douglas Feith is the victim here.

Here’s how it goes. Feith was working hard at the highest levels of the Pentagon, and he noticed that the story being put out about the threat Iraq posed to the United States was simply wrong and inconsistent with the facts. Strangely wrong and absurdly inconsistent with the facts. Feith criticizes those who are putting out the bad poop to decision-makers. He tries to speak out, but faces leadership obstacles at every turn. Finally, he quits his post and goes public with his observations, and begins to do his small part to improve the system from the outside, as a member of the loyal opposition. He suffers public defamation, insults and demagoguery from the Pentagon machine he once served.

No. Wait… sorry. That’s my story.

Here’s the Feith story. Wanted to bring on the next phase of an Israel-centered Middle East, which required a UN Security Council veto and a great big military-industrial complex with expansionist dreams. The United States could provide both, but the CIA stood in the way because there was no legitimate casus belli to rally the Congress or the people. Surely the invasion couldn’t be advertised in the context of oil contracts, propping up the petrodollar, Tim LeHaye’s visions, or a personal vendetta by a half-witted President. 9-11 could serve – if only Saddam Hussein could be associated with dangerous weapons of mass destruction, anti-American terrorists, and if there were an Iraqi link to 9-11. An alternate universe of propaganda was necessary, and Feith worked hard to make it happen. The propaganda machine was emplaced, and any CIA intelligence that did not fit this normative agenda was "criticized." Further, this critique (alternate universe style) was provided to willing (if often passive) partners in the executive branch, the media, and Congress as if it were valid and validated. Yes, inappropriate in the eyes of some, illegal, immoral and impeachable offenses to others. But history, Feith feels, will prove the wisdom of this Feith-based initiative, a.k.a. "Pimp Your War."

Doug Feith and his ideological partners have whored out the American defense establishment, and if a few thousand soldiers and marines get beat up or even killed, well, at least the game goes on. For Feith and his friends, physical destruction of inconvenient states is a victimless crime, and a whole lot of fun to boot. So what if a few lies were told to make the deal. And are we really going to stop after we’ve come this far?

And unlike prostitution, it wasn’t even illegal. It’s enough to have people saying, "There ought to be a law!"

If Feith’s protestations – that he was just innocently helping the CIA do a better job – fail to convince an increasingly disgusted public and a slowly awakening Congress, he will, like Scooter before him, begin to say, "I was set up!" I can’t wait to watch the next episode.


LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for MilitaryWeek.com, hosted the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com and Liberty and Power. Archives of her American Forum radio program can be accessed here and here. To receive automatic announcements of new articles, click here.

Copyright © 2007 Karen Kwiatkowski

Karen Kwiatkowski Archives

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski174.html

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

 

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February 16, 2007

US soldier/students tout military terrorism in America's schools,...

 
Killers in the Classroom
By Dr. June Scorza Terpstra

During a heated debate in a class I teach on social justice, several US Marines who had done tours in Iraq told me that they had "sacrificed" by “serving” in Iraq so that I could enjoy the freedom to teach in the USA. Parroting their master’s slogan about “fighting over there so we don’t have to fight over here”, these students proudly proclaimed that they terrorized and killed defenseless Iraqis. They intimated that their Arab victims are nothing more to them than collateral damage, incidental to their receipt of some money and an education.

A room full of students listened as a US Marine told of the invasion of Baghdad and Falluja and how he killed innocent Iraqis at a check point. He called them “collateral damage” and said he had followed the “rules”. A Muslim-American student in front of him said “I could slap you but then you would kill me”. A young female Muslim student gasped “I am a freshman; I never thought to hear of this in a class. I feel sick, like I will pass out.”

I knew in that moment that this was what the future of teaching about justice would include: teaching war criminals who sit glaring at me with hatred for daring to speak the truth of their atrocities and who, if paid to, would disappear, torture and kill me. I wondered that night how long I really have in this so called “free” country to teach my students and to be with my children and grandchildren.

The American military and mercenary soldiers who “sacrificed” their lives did not do so for the teacher’s freedom to teach the truth about the so-called war on terror, or any of US history for that matter. They sacrificed their lives, limbs and sanity for money, some education and the thrills of the violence for which they are socially bred. Sacrificing for the “bling and booty” in Iraq or Afghanistan, The Philippines, Grenada, Central America, Mexico, Somalia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the other numerous wars and invasions spanning US history as an entity and beginning with their foundational practice of killing the Indians and stealing their land.

Many of the classes that I teach now include students who “served” in the US military and security corporations. There are also many students who intend to join the US military upon completion of a degree because with the degree they get a bigger “sign on” bonus of ten to fifty thousand dollars. Their position is supported by many of the student body, who, vegetating according to the American Plan, believe they should “support their troops”. The excuses that they give for joining or intending to join the US military terrorist training camps are first and foremost motivated by a desire for money. One student proudly said that he is willing to kill for money, a better standard of living and an education. Another student, who had done two tours of duty to the Empire in Iraq, justified killing and torture, citing the importance of staying on top as the world’s number one super power so that his family could have the highest standard of living and unlimited access to the world’s oil supplies.

Yet another soldier-student said that there would always be wars and someone had to do it. The”it” is killing, rape, and plunder for profit. Some of the soldier-students agreed that military terrorism was thrilling. Stopping and killing people at checkpoints in order to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in the USA was worth the risk of being killed or maimed. Little did they know that the very education they would kill for could include a course on social justice in which they would be compelled to examine their motives, beliefs and actions in an evil, illegal, immoral and unjust invasion and occupation of a people who never hurt or harmed them or any of their fellow citizens.

To be fair, in this week’s discussion in class there was some mention that some of the student’s intentions had been honorable at the time that they joined the military. They wanted to “help other people”. A few woman students who want to join the military commented that they would be working to “free and defend” people here and abroad. However, for the most part and by their own admission, personal financial gain was their main focus in signing on. Their bottom line was getting the money and their thrills by joining and belonging to the biggest terrorist organization in the world, the USA.

What appears to trouble the soldier student is that the rhetoric of fighting for freedom and democracy is a lie that cannot blanket the horror and guilt of their terrorism. They do not want to hear that participation in invasion and occupation, murder and pillaging, is logically inconsistent with any legitimate concept of freedom or liberation. They know the greed and programmed lust for violence that motivates them. They expect that if they can make it out alive, they get some money, a comfortable lifestyle and an education. Their plan is to secure the oil, the diamonds, the gold, the water, the guns, the drugs, and the bling for their masters, who they hope will cut them in on the swag. They say that someone has to be on top and they want to be on the side of the strong, not the weak. Robbing Hoods, not Robin Hoods.

And now, here they sit in my course on social justice, terrorist war criminals, wanting high paying “criminal justice” jobs in a university Justice Studies program. They want approval, appreciation and honors for terrorism, torture, and murder. They want a university degree so they can get an even higher salary terrorizing more people around the world with security companies such as Blackwater or Halliburton. They want that appropriately named “sheepskin” so they can join the CIA, FBI, and other police and track down and terrorize US residents here.

These military and mercenary terrorist-students are trained in terrorist training camps all under the USA, funded by American taxpayers. In fact, people under the USA are “sacrificing” their health care and their children’s educations while donating their tax dollars to these terrorist training camps. These terrorist camps train money hungry working class stiffs to murder, steal and plunder for the power hungry US corporate war lords.

There is a saying that “if you do the crime, you do the time”. My response is that “If you do the war crimes, you will do time in hell, whether the hell of war trauma and shock, of diseases such as those caused by depleted uranium, the old-fashioned traditional hell, fire and brimstone assigned to malefactors…or the hell of sitting in a social justice class and discovering what the hell you are in hell for, or are about to be.

Please visit Dr Terpstras' website www.juneterpstra.com

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK
 
 
 
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February 15, 2007

General Pace Disputes US Military Claim on Iran,..

 
 
Top American General Disputes US Military Claim on Iran
  
By Al Pessin
 Canberra, Australia

The top American military officer, General Peter Pace, declined Monday to endorse the conclusions of U.S. military officers in Baghdad, who told reporters on Sunday that the Iranian government is providing high-powered roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq. General Pace made his comments during a visit to Australia, and VOA's Al Pessin reports from Canberra.

General Pace said he was not aware of the Baghdad briefing, and that he could not, from his own knowledge, repeat the assertion made there that the elite Quds brigade of Iran's Republican Guard force is providing bomb-making kits to Iraqi Shiite insurgents.

"We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se [specifically], knows about this," he said. "It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it's clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit."

Military officers who spoke to reporters in Baghdad, Monday, on condition of anonymity, said the high-powered projectile bombs are made with parts manufactured in Iran and that intelligence indicates the parts are sent to Iraq with the approval of senior Iranian officials. The officials said the bombs, whose projectiles can pierce the skin of an armored vehicle, have killed 170 American troops.

General Pace also commented on an issue that has received a lot of attention in recent hours - the question of whether setting a specific timeline for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is a good idea. He says a withdrawal before Iraq's government and military can maintain stability would be disastrous and would have a 'spillover' effect in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The general commented shortly after meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, but without specific reference to Howard's long-distance dispute with U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama.

"I don't see precise timelines as being useful. It should not be an open-ended commitment. Certainly it's time for the Iraqis, as they are, to stand up and take on more of their own responsibility. But to put a precise timeline on it means that you are signaling to your potential enemies that, if they just hold their breath for this amount of time, then we'll all be gone and they can come back out of the woodwork."

The latest person to enter the race to become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate next year, Senator Obama, has called for a withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq by March of next year. The Australian prime minister said terrorists would support such a plan. From around the world, Obama shot back that, if Howard feels so strongly, he should send 20,000 more Australian troops to Iraq.

Australia has just 1,400 troops in Iraq, and its entire active duty military is only 52,000 strong. But General Pace told reporters Monday the Australian troops are making a valuable contribution, in spite of their low numbers.

"The fight we're in against terrorism is not about large armies versus large armies. It's about small groups of individuals - five, 10, 15, 20 - who are reaching out to assist those who are in need," he said. "And, in that regard, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, Australia should be able to take great pride."

The general says all nations that value freedom should participate in fighting the global terrorist threat.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Hook, Line and Sinker,...NYTimes Falls for Bogus Iran Weapon Charges,...

 

New York Times Falls for Bogus Iran Weapons Charges

Completely Implausible Numbers are Thrown Around - Repeat of Judy Miller Scandal

By Juan Cole

 

"ICH" -- -- This NYT article depends on unnamed USG sources who alleged that 25 percent of US military deaths and woundings in Iraq in October-December of 2006 were from explosively formed penetrator bombs fashioned in Iran and given to Shiite militias:' In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military officials say.'

This claim is one hundred percent wrong. Because 25 percent of US troops were not killed fighting Shiites in those three months. Day after day, the casualty reports specify al-Anbar Province or Diyala or Salahuddin or Babil, or Baghdad districts such as al-Dura, Ghaziliyah, Amiriyah, etc.--and the enemy fighting is clearly Sunni Arab guerrillas. And, Iran is not giving high tech weapons to Baathists and Salafi Shiite-killers. It is true that some casualties were in "East Baghdad" and that Baghdad is beginning to rival al-Anbar as a cemetery for US troops:

 Robert Burns of AP observes,


"The increasingly urban nature of the war is reflected in the fact that a higher percentage of U.S. deaths have been in Baghdad lately. Over the course of the war through Feb. 6, at least 1,142 U.S. troops have died in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, according to an AP count. That compares with 713 in Baghdad. But since Dec. 28, 2006, there were more in Baghdad than in Anbar - 33 to 31."

Over all, only a fourth of US troops had been killed Baghdad (713 or 23.7 percent of about 3000) through the end of 2006. But US troops aren't fighting Shiites anyplace else-- Ninevah, Diyala, Salahuddin--these are all Sunni areas. For a fourth of US troops to be being killed or wounded by Shiite EFPs, all of the Baghdad deaths would have to be at the hands of Shiites!

The US military often does not announce exactly where in Baghdad a GI is killed and so I found it impossible to do a count of Sunni versus Shiite neighborhoods. But we know that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was running interference for the Mahdi Army last fall, and it seems unlikely to me that very many US troops died fighting Shiites in Baghdad. The math of Gordon's article does not add up at all if this were Shiite uses of Iran-provided EFPs.

So the unnamed sources at the Pentagon are reduced to implying that Iran is giving sophisticated bombs to its sworn enemies and the very groups that are killing its Shiite Iraqi allies every day. Get real!

Moreover, there is no evidence of Iranian intentions to kill US troops. If Iran was giving EFPs to anyone, it was to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary, for future use. SCIRI is the main US ally in Iraq aside from the Kurds. I don't know of US troops killed by Badr, certainly not any time recently.

It is far more likely that corrupt arms merchants are selling and smuggling these things than that there is direct government- to- militia transfer. It is possible that small Badr Corps stockpiles were shared or sold. That wouldn't have been Iran's fault.

Some large proportion of US troops being killed in Iraq are being killed with bullets and weapons supplied by Washington to the Iraqi army, which are then sold by desperate or greedy Iraqi soldiers on the black market. This problem of US/Iraqi government arms getting into the hands of the Sunni Arab guerrillas is far more significant and pressing than whatever arms smugglers bring in from Iran.

We now know that Iran came to the US early in 2003 with a proposal to cooperate with Washington in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and that VP Richard Bruce Cheney rebuffed it. The US could have had Iran on its side in Iraq!

The attempt to blame these US deaths on Iran is in my view a black psy-ops operation. The claim is framed as though this was a matter of direct Iranian government transfer to the deadliest guerrillas. In fact, the most fractious Shiites are the ones who hate Iran the most. If 25 percent of US troops are being killed and wounded by explosively formed projectiles, then someone should look into who is giving those EFPs to Sunni Arab guerrillas. It isn't Iran.

Finally, it is obvious that if Iran did not exist, US troops would still be being blown up in large numbers. Sunni guerrillas in al-Anbar and West Baghdad are responsible for most of the deaths. The Bush administration's talent for blaming everyone but itself for its own screw-ups is on clear display here.

For more skepticism, see this column at Huffington; and Glenn Greenwaldand Think Progress . Labels: ,

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute. Visit his blog www.juancole.com

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

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February 13, 2007

Escalation is Hardly the Answer - Hon. Ron Paul of Texas

 

HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS

Before the U.S. House of Representatives 

January 11, 2007

 

 Escalation is Hardly the Answer

 

Mr. Speaker, A military victory in Iraq is unattainable, just as it was in the Vietnam war.

At the close of the Vietnam war in 1975, a telling conversation took place between an NVA Colonel named Tu and an American Colonel named Harry Summers.  Colonel Summers reportedly said, “You never beat us on the battlefield.”  Tu replied, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”  It is likewise irrelevant to seek military victory in Iraq.
 
As conditions deteriorate in Iraq, the American people are told more blood must be spilled to achieve just such a military victory. 20,000 additional troops and another $100 billion are needed for a “surge.” Yet the people remain rightfully skeptical.
 
Though we’ve been in Iraq nearly four years, the meager goal today simply is to secure Baghdad.  This hardly shows that the mission is even partly accomplished.
 
Astonishingly, American taxpayers now will be forced to finance a multi-billion dollar jobs program in Iraq.  Suddenly the war is about jobs!  We export our manufacturing jobs to Asia, and now we plan to export our welfare jobs to Iraq-- all at the expense of the poor and middle class here at home.
 
Plans are being made to become more ruthless in achieving stability in Iraq.  It appears Muqtada al Sadr will be on the receiving end of our military efforts, despite his overwhelming support among large segments of the Iraqi people.

It’s interesting to note that one excuse given for our failure is leveled at the Iraqis themselves.  They have not done enough, we’re told, and are difficult to train.

Yet no one complains that Mahdi or Kurdish militias or the Badr Brigade (the real Iraq government, not our appointed government) are not well trained.  Our problems obviously have nothing to do with training Iraqis to fight, but instead with loyalties and motivations.
 
We claim to be spreading democracy in Iraq, but al Sadr has far more democratic support with the majority Shiites than our troops enjoy.  The problem is not a lack of democratic consensus; it is the antipathy toward our presence among most Iraqis.
 
In real estate the three important considerations are location, location, location.  In Iraq the three conditions are occupation, occupation, occupation.  Nothing can improve in Iraq until we understand that our occupation is the primary source of the chaos and killing.  We are a foreign occupying force, strongly resented by the majority of Iraq’s citizens.
 
Our inability to adapt to the tactics of 4th generation warfare compounds our military failure.  Unless we understand this, even doubling our troop strength will not solve the problems created by our occupation.
 
The talk of a troop surge and jobs program in Iraq only distracts Americans from the very real possibility of an attack on Iran.  Our growing naval presence in the region and our harsh rhetoric toward Iran are unsettling.  Securing the Horn of Africa and sending Ethiopian troops into Somalia do not bode well for world peace.  Yet these developments are almost totally ignored by Congress.

Rumors are flying about when, not if, Iran will be bombed by either Israel or the U.S.-- possibly with nuclear weapons.  Our CIA says Iran is ten years away from producing a nuclear bomb and has no delivery system, but this does not impede our plans to keep “everything on the table” when dealing with Iran. 

We should remember that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world nation without a significant military.  Nothing in history hints that she is likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone do anything to America or Israel.  I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin- type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran. 

Even if such an attack is carried out by Israel over U.S. objections, we will be politically and morally culpable since we provided the weapons and dollars to make it possible.

Mr. Speaker, let’s hope I’m wrong about this one.

 

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

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February 11, 2007

Brzezinski: "time for the Congress to assert itself"

 
Criminals Control the Executive Branch

By Paul Craig Roberts


Gentle reader, you are probably unaware of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski’s damning indictment of the Bush Regime in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 1, 2007, as the United States no longer has a media--only a government propaganda ministry.


Brzezinski damned the Bush Regime’s war in Iraq as “a historic, strategic, and moral calamity.” Brzezinski damned the war as “driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris.” He damned the war for “intensifying regional instability” and for “undermining America’s global legitimacy.”

Finally, a voice with weight speaks. Brzezinski is a real intellect, a real expert, unlike the political hacks who have followed him in the office.

Brzezinski told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam.” Brzezinski predicts “some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

There is something deadly wrong with a society and a political system that permits a Regime capable of such insane and criminal “leadership” to remain in power. By the time Hitler launched World War II, the German Reichstag had no power to prevent him. But we have not yet reached that point in the United States.

Brzezinski concludes his testimony with the statement that it is “time for the Congress to assert itself.”

The reasons for impeaching Bush and Cheney exceed by many multiples all the reasons for impeaching every president combined in US history. The reasons have been enumerated many times and do not need repeating. If members of Congress were faithful to their oaths of office to uphold the Constitution, Bush and Cheney would already have been impeached and convicted.

The very least Congress can do at this very late stage is to make it perfectly clear in no uncertain terms that any attack on Iran under any pretext without the authorization of Congress after a careful examination of the pretext will lead to the immediate removal of Bush and Cheney from power, as will any escalation of the war in Iraq without explicit authorization by Congress.

Having delivered this ultimatum, Congress must immediately begin investigations of the Bush Regime’s attack on civil liberties and the separation of powers, on the Bush Regime’s use of lies and deception to lead America into a war with Iraq, on the Bush Regime’s violation of the Geneva Conventions, and on the Bush Regime’s plans to attack Iran.

The American people and their representatives in Congress must face the fact that criminal and dictatorial persons control executive power in the United States and immediately rectify this highly dangerous situation.


Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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