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Archived News Articles: NMD and Global Policy - 1st Qtr. 2004
From Pravda: 01/03/2004 12:40
Bush vs. Hitler By David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor of PRAVDA
Although the quest for or preservation of "democracy" is often used as a justification for war, history has incessantly revealed that such a quest is often little more than a thinly-veiled attempt to install a puppet regime. Nazi leader Herman Goering once remarked that it was easy to lead people into war, regardless of whether they resided within "a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship." All that was required, Goering argued, is for their government to "tell them they are being attacked, and [then] denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger." ... In fact, several disturbing analogies exist between George W. Bush and history's most infamous fascist, Adolph Hitler....
From Moveon at The Republican National Committee: January 4, 2004
Bush/Hitler Ad #1 -
Bush/Hitler Ad #2
From The Toronto Sun: January 4, 2004
America: The real danger lies within By ERIC MARGOLIS
"PALM BEACH -- The year 2003 dramatically and dolefully illustrated Lord Acton's famous dictum that absolute power corrupts absolutely. An almighty United States, unrestrained by any rival, international body, or world opinion, bestrode the globe, a belligerent colossus determined to monopolize global oil reserves and use its vast military power to crush lesser nations or malefactors that disturbed the Pax Americana. For America's hard right - a curious farrago of Armageddon-seeking southern Protestants; neo-conservative supporters of Israel's right-wing Likud party; and the military-industrial-petroleum complex - the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy of world domination, and utter contempt for international laws and old allies, marks a new era of national greatness. President George Bush, who vowed his foreign policy would be "humble" and "compassionate," has turned out to be the most radical president in modern U.S. history. ...
"In 2003, we saw an abject, cowardly Congress violate its duty as the republic's premier political organ by disgracefully handing the barely elected president carte blanche to wage an unprovoked war against Iraq that was justified by a torrent of ludicrous lies worthy of Dr. Goebbels. Lies and propaganda that were packaged in the best tradition of Soviet agitprop as news, then force-fed by a servile media to an ill-informed public shockingly deficient in any sense of history, geography, or foreign affairs. ...
"Though the mighty United States, with only 5% of world population, accounts for nearly 50% of total global military spending, the continuing Orwellian message from Washington was of fear and vulnerability. ... The so-called "war on terrorism" was a hoax used to mask and justify the long-planned expansion of U.S. military power around the globe. ... Those who truly love and respect the United States, like this writer, a conservative and U.S. Army veteran, see the very qualities that made America a beacon to the world - its very soul - now under heavy assault by a cabal of religious fanatics, foreign-leaning ideological extremists, and self-enriching Enron-Republicans. That is a danger considerably greater than al-Qaida."
From Reuters: Sunday, January 04, 2004 5:30 p.m. ET
Purported Bin Laden Tape Mentions Saddam Capture By Heba Kandil
DUBAI (Reuters) - The Arabic television channel Al Jazeera aired an audio tape on Sunday purported to be from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in which he mentioned the arrest of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein by U.S. troops last month. ...
At Mother Jones: January 5, 2004
Empire of Lies By Tom Engelhardt
At Consortiumnews.com: January 5, 2004
Bush & Democracy Hypocrisy Part 2: The Hypocrisy at Home, By Nat Parry
From Wired News: 02:00 AM Jan. 06, 2004 PT
Bush Grabs New Power for FBI By Kim Zetter
While the nation was distracted last month by images of Saddam Hussein's spider hole and dental exam, President George W. Bush quietly signed into law a new bill that gives the FBI increased surveillance powers and dramatically expands the reach of the USA Patriot Act. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 grants the FBI unprecedented power to obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge. ... The so-called Patriot Act II was discovered by the
Center for Public Integrity last year, which exposed the draft legislation and initiated a public outcry that forced the government to back down on its plans. But critics say the government didn't abandon its goals after the uproar; it simply extracted the most controversial provisions from Patriot Act II and slipped them surreptitiously into other bills, such as the Intelligence Authorization Act, to avoid raising alarm. ...
Commentary at t r u t h o u t: Tuesday 06 January 2004
That Pesky Bush-Hitler Thing By Marc Ash
"They wanted it to happen."
Speech To Manchester Support Group 1/7/04 By John Buchanan
" ... We have all been lied to about 9/11, the country is in mortal danger and only you can make it right. ... "
From The NYT: January 7, 2004
Bush Would Give Illegal Workers Broad New Rights By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 — President Bush will propose a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws on Wednesday that could give legal status to millions of undocumented workers in the United States, senior administration officials said Tuesday night. Under Mr. Bush's proposal, which effectively amounts to an amnesty program for illegal immigrants with jobs in the United States, an undocumented worker could apply for temporary worker status here for an unspecified number of years, with all the employee benefits, like minimum wage and due process, accorded to those legally employed. Workers who are approved would be permitted to travel freely between the United States and their home countries, the officials said, and would also be permitted to apply for a green card granting permanent residency in the United States. Administration officials said that Mr. Bush would also propose increasing the number of green cards issued each year, which is now about 140,000, but they did not provide a specific number. ... The president's proposals were designed to appeal to Hispanic groups, a constituency that the White House is focusing on as Mr. Bush seeks re-election this year. .. Mr. Bush's proposals apply to all illegal immigrants in the United States, which officials estimate at 8 million to 14 million people. About 60 percent are thought to be Mexican...
From The NYT: January 7, 2004
I.M.F. Report Says U.S. Deficits Threaten World Economy
By ELIZABETH BECKER and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 — With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United States is running up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy, according to a report made public today by the International Monetary Fund. In nearly 60 pages of carefully worded analysis, the report sounded a loud alarm about the shaky fiscal foundation of the United States, questioning the wisdom of the Bush administration's tax cuts and warning that large budget deficits posed "significant risks" not just for the United States but for the rest of the world. The report warned that the net financial obligations of the United States to the rest of the world could equal 40 percent of its total economy within a few years — "an unprecedented level of external debt for a large industrial country" that it said could play havoc with the value of the dollar and international exchange rates. The dangers, according to the report, are that the United States' voracious appetite for borrowing could push up global interest rates and thus slow down global investment and economic growth. ...
White House officials dismissed the report as alarmist, saying President Bush had already vowed to reduce the budget deficit by half over the next five years. ... Administration officials have made it clear they are not worried about the the United States' burgeoning external debt or the declining value of the dollar, which has lost nearly one-fifth of its value against the euro in 18 months and which hit new lows earlier this week. ...
At Foreign Policy In Focus, FPIF-PetroPolitics Special Report: January 2004
Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil By Michael Klare
From The BBC: Friday, 9 January, 2004, 12:36 GMT
Bush proposal to send man to Mars
President George W Bush will announce proposals next week to send Americans to Mars, and back to the Moon. Senior US officials say he will also reveal plans for the construction of a permanent lunar space station. ... Correspondents say Mr Bush had been expected to propose a bold new space mission as part of his re-election campaign. ... As part of the Bush space initiative, there will reportedly be more exchanges of technology between the US space agency (Nasa) and the Pentagon. ...
Reader Submission at t r u t h o u t: Friday 09 January 2004
The Bush Hitler Thing
Comment at Online Journal: January 10, 2004
Paranoid shift By Michael Hasty
From Reuters: Sat Jan 10,10:08 AM ET
Bush Launches Election-Year Tax Cut Drive By Adam Entous
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Seizing on trillion-dollar stock market gains as proof the economy is on the right track, President Bush on Saturday launched an election-year drive to make his sweeping tax cuts permanent. ...
From Reuters: Saturday, January 10, 2004 5:38 p.m. ET
Venezuela's Chavez Hits Back at U.S. Before Summit By Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told the United States on Saturday to stop "sticking its nose" in his country's affairs in a scathing rebuttal of U.S. criticism days before a regional summit. ...
From AP: Jan 12, 8:10 PM (ET)
Gov't Seeks Probe Amid O'Neill Interview By JEANNINE AVERSA
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Treasury Department is seeking an investigation into whether a classified document might have been shown during a TV show in which former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill spoke out against the Bush administration. Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said Monday that the department has asked the Office of Inspector General to look into the matter. ... On "60 Minutes," CBS journalist Lesley Stahl said O'Neill had gotten briefing materials involving Iraq. Suskind said: "There are memos. One of them, marked secret, says 'Plan for post-Saddam Iraq.'" A spokesman for "60 Minutes" said a cover sheet of the briefing materials was shown. "We don't have a secret document. We didn't show a secret document. We merely showed a cover sheet that alluded to such a document," said CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco. ...
Opinion at the NYT By PAUL KRUGMAN: January 13, 2004
The Awful Truth
At the Propaganda Matrix: TUESDAY JANUARY 13TH 02:10 GMT
Militarization Not Exploration: Bush's Moon/Mars Program Is About Space Empire
By Paul Joseph Watson
From The Mirror: Jan 13 2004
BUSH 'ON PAR WITH GERMAN WAR PLAN'
AMERICA'S war on terror was likened yesterday to Germany's strategy during two world wars. President Bush was warned that his campaign could drag the US into conflicts with countries that posed no real threat. The invasion of Iraq was an unnecessary part of America's "dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious" war on terror, said a report published by the US Army War College. It said the White House should focus on al-Qaeda. The report's author, Professor Jeffrey Record, said the anti-terrorism campaign is "strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate US military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security". Prof Record, comparing Bush's strategy to Germany's, said: "Keep your enemies to a manageable number. The Germans were defeated in two wars...because their strategic ends outran their means." ...
From Reuters: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 3:31 p.m. ET
Bush Told U.S.-Imposed Policies Are 'Perverse' By Kieran Murray
MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Latin American leaders told President Bush on Tuesday that "perverse" economic policies imposed by Washington had failed their countries, mired in debt and poverty. Bush tried at an Americas-wide summit to win back the support of regional leaders after neglecting them over the last two years to focus on Iraq and security. He instead heard stinging criticism that rampant free market policies had done nothing to ease poverty and had forced countries like Argentina into deep crisis. Brazil's leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the "Washington consensus" recipe of unfettered capitalism in Latin America in the last decade had not delivered growth and kept millions of people hungry in shanty towns and far-flung villages. "After the 1980s -- the so-called lost decade -- the 90s was a decade of despair," he said, calling for new policies to tackle poverty directly. "It was a perverse model that wrongly separated the economic from the social, put stability against growth and separated responsibility and justice," Lula said. "Economic stability turned its back on social justice." ...
From Reuters: Thursday, January 15, 2004 7:45 p.m. ET
Venezuela Hails Latin American 'Axis' Against US
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday his country was forging an alliance with Argentina and Brazil to lead Latin America's opposition to U.S. free trade plans for the region. ...
From The Washington Post: Thursday, January 15, 2004; 11:00 AM
Bush Space Plans By Dr. John H. Gibbons
President Bush will ask Congress for $12 billion during the next five years for research and development to return man to the moon as early as 2015 and to use it as a stepping stone to human exploration of Mars. ...
From AFP at Sify News (India): Thursday, 15 January , 2004, 18:55
Russia mulls missions to Moon and Mars
In an echo of the Cold War space race, Russia said Thursday that it had the knowhow to relaunch its space exploration programs, a day after Washington laid out ambitious plans to return to the Moon and press on to Mars. ...
From AFP: Jan 15 '04
Bush seeks billions for religious groups
NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) — US President George W. Bush asked his Justice Department to take steps to release some 3.7 billion dollars in federal monies aimed at helping religious charities, the White House said. ...
From The San Francisco Chronicle: Thursday, January 15, 2004
Cheney's grim vision: decades of war
Vice president says Bush policy aimed at long-term world threat
By James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer
Los Angeles -- In a forceful preview of the Bush administration's expansionist military policies in this election year, Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday painted a grim picture of what he said was the growing threat of a catastrophic terrorist attack in the United States and warned that the battle, like the Cold War, could last generations. ... "One of the legacies of this administration will be some of the most sweeping changes in our military, and our national security strategy as it relates to the military and force structure, and how we're based, and how we used it in the last 50 or 60 years, probably since World War II," Cheney said. "I think the changes are that dramatic." He also said the administration was planning to expand the military into even more overseas bases so the United States could wage war quickly around the globe. ... "Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives as the result of a single attack, or a set coordinated of attacks," Cheney said. ...
From Reuters: Friday, January 16, 2004 6:47 p.m. ET
With U.S. Help, Israel May Boost Missile Production By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With an expected boost in U.S. funding, Israel plans to step up production of Arrow missile interceptors to expand its missile defense system, diplomats and defense analysts said on Friday. Components for the Arrow missiles would be produced in the United States under a deal between state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries and U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co. ... "We will be increasing production in a substantial way," one Israeli source said after talks in Washington between U.S. and Israeli missile defense officials. ...
From AFP at SpaceWar: Jan 16, 2004
Australia, US set to sign Son of Starwars, PM says
SYDNEY (AFP) - Prime Minister John Howard fended off criticism of Australia's decision to support a US missile defence system Friday, saying it would be "recklessly negligent" not to expore ways of defending the country against missile attack. ...
From Reuters: Sun January 18, 2004 02:27 PM ET
U.S. Eyes Space as Possible Battleground By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's plan to expand the exploration of space parallels U.S. efforts to control the heavens for military, economic and strategic gain. ... Outlining his election-year vision for space exploration last week, Bush called for a permanent base on the moon by 2020 as a launch pad for piloted missions to Mars and beyond. One unspoken motivation may have been China's milestone launch in October of its first piloted spaceflight in earth orbit and its announced plan to go to the moon. "I think the new initiative is driven by a desire to beat the Chinese to the moon," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and space policy research group. ...
The moon, scientists have said, is a source of potentially unlimited energy in the form of the helium 3 isotope -- a near perfect fuel source: potent, nonpolluting and causing virtually no radioactive byproduct in a fusion reactor. ... Gerald Kulcinski of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison estimated the moon's helium 3 would have a cash value of perhaps $4 billion a ton in terms of its energy equivalent in oil. Scientists reckon there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the earth for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 30 tons could meet all U.S. electric power needs for a year, Kulcinski said by e-mail. ...
From Reuters: Mon Jan 19, 6:38 PM ET
Bush Wants Increase in Domestic Security Spending By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seizing on an issue critical to Americans and his own re-election campaign, President Bush will propose boosting domestic security spending by about 9 percent in his 2005 budget, congressional sources said on Monday. The White House declined to comment on the reported increase -- one of the biggest in Bush's new budget scheduled for release on Feb. 2. Counter-terrorism efforts at home will be a major component of Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday. As part of the broader war on terrorism, Bush is expected to nearly double U.S. aid to Afghanistan to nearly $1 billion in his budget for fiscal year 2005. ... the Republican president's $2.3 trillion budget for 2005 will call for limiting spending growth in most other government programs ... The deficit could top $500 billion this fiscal year alone. The 9 percent increase would push the 2005 budget for domestic security efforts to nearly $45 billion. The proposed increase does not include defense-related homeland security spending or Bush's 10-year, $5.6 billion Project BioShield ...
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Thursday, January 22, 2004
Boeing-led missile shield may not work, Pentagon says
By TONY CAPACCIO, BLOOMBERG NEWS
The U.S. missile defense system -- being tested initially as a potential shield against North Korean missiles aimed at the West Coast -- may not work when it's deployed Oct. 1, according to the Pentagon's top weapons tester. Tests to date haven't truly challenged the ground-based system, and two intercepts slated this year leave "very limited time" to show that key components will work, Thomas Christie said. ... The system -- which initially will include six missile silos at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California -- comes 21 years after President Reagan declared in 1983 the need for a "Strategic Defense Initiative," then dubbed "Star Wars." Christie's report for the first time explicitly acknowledges that the system is being tested for its ability to meet an attack from North Korean intercontinental missiles. ...
Comment at The Guardian: Monday January 26, 2004
The US is now in the hands of a group of extremists By George Soros
Fundamentalism has spawned an ideology of American supremacy
From AFP: Thu Jan 29, 7:08 PM ET
BBC plunged into crisis as it says sorry to Blair over Iraq report
From Reuters: Fri January 30, 2004 12:46 PM ET
Bush Seeks Big Jump in Missile Defense Spending By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will ask Congress to boost spending on missile defense by $1.2 billion next year and nearly double funding to modernize the Army in the $401.7 billion U.S. military budget for 2005, according to Pentagon documents released on Friday. The defense plan is part of a proposed $2.3 trillion federal budget President Bush will send to lawmakers on Monday. It includes a 7 percent increase in defense spending over the current level of $375 billion. ... The administration seeks to boost funding for its controversial missile defense program by 13 percent to $10.2 billion next year from $9 billion requested for fiscal 2004. ... The defense budget does not include up to $40 billion or more in supplemental spending for military operations in Iraq, which congressional sources and analysts say the White House could seek from Congress late this year or early next year. ...
From The Washington Post: Monday, February 2, 2004; Page A10
U.S. Missile Defense Set to Get Early Start
Pentagon Planning to Deploy Interceptors At Alaskan Military Base This Summer
By Bradley Graham, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Pentagon plans to begin operation of a national missile defense system this summer, putting the first missile interceptors on alert weeks ahead of a previous autumn deadline, according to senior defense officials. ... The next flight tests are scheduled for May and July; thus, the Pentagon could end up activating the anti-missile system before results of the summer tests have been fully assessed. ... The Pentagon plans to start loading interceptors into silos at Fort Greely in May or June, continuing through the autumn there and into January at Vandenberg. ... By the end of 2005, plans call for adding 10 more interceptors at Fort Greely as well as 10 ship-based, intermediate-range interceptors, a new floating tracking radar and an upgraded radar at Fylingdales in Great Britain. ...
From Reuters at Global Policy Forum: February 2, 2004
Bush Moves Toward 'Star Wars' Missile Defense By Jim Wolf
From Reuters at the Toronto Star: Feb. 3, 2004. 01:00 AM
Bush pushes plan for space weapons By CHARLES ALDINGER AND JIM WOLF
WASHINGTON—U.S. President George W. Bush is planning to put the first weapons in space despite broad international opposition, budget papers sent yesterday to the American Congress showed. ...
Comment at Consortiumnews.com: February 3, 2004
A Political Battle for Planet Earth By Sam Parry
OP-ED at the NYT: February 6, 2004
Get Me Rewrite! By PAUL KRUGMAN
Right now America is going through an Orwellian moment. On both the foreign policy and the fiscal fronts, the Bush administration is trying to rewrite history, to explain away its current embarrassments. ...
From Reuters: Sat February 7, 2004 01:32 AM ET
G7 Seeks Consensus on Dollar Drop By Mike Dolan
BOCA RATON, Fla. (Reuters) - World financial leaders, meeting in a Florida resort for talks on the global economy, face the tough job on Saturday of agreeing on wording to stop the U.S. dollar's drop from spinning out of control. ...
From Greg Palast: Monday Feb 9, 2004
Khan Job: Bush Spiked Probe of Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, BBC reported in 2001
On November 7, 2001, BBC Television's Newsnight and the Guardian of London reported that the Bush administration thwarted investigations of Dr. A.Q. Khan, known as the "father" of Pakistan's atomic bomb. This week, Khan confessed to selling atomic secrets to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. ...
From The NYT: February 11, 2004
Bush Plans to Focus on Fuel Ban to End Spread of A-Bombs By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — President Bush is to announce a new proposal on Wednesday to limit the number of nations allowed to produce nuclear fuel, senior administration officials said Tuesday. He will declare that the global network in nuclear goods set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, developer of Pakistan's bomb, exposed huge gaps in accords to stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology, they added. ...
He is expected to implicitly reject .. an alternative proposal by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, for an international organization to control the production of all nuclear fuel and how it is used. The Bush adminstration has already, in effect, dismissed that approach as unworkable, in part, experts say, because it would limit Washington's ability to produce fuel for its nuclear arsenal. Mr. Bush's insistence on moving ahead with research on a new class of so-called bunker-busting nuclear weapons has been cited by his opponents — including many in Europe — as an example of a double standard in which he seeks to stop other states from building weapons while continuing to improve the American arsenal. ...
Mr. Bush will also call for an expansion of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a loose affiliation of countries, organized by the United States, to intercept unconventional weapons. ...
From AP and CBS News: Feb. 11, 2004
Bush Seeks Nuke Crackdown
WASHINGTON - President Bush, pointing to the recent disclosure of an extensive black market weapons network led by the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, said Wednesday that no new countries should be allowed to possess the ability to enrich or process nuclear material. He argued that international efforts to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction have been neither broad nor effective enough and require tougher action from all nations. "The greatest threat before humanity today is the possibility of secret and sudden attack with chemical or biological or radiological or nuclear weapons," Bush said. "We must confront the danger with open eyes and unbending purpose," he said in a speech at the National Defense University. "I've made clear to all the policy of this nation: America will not permit the terrorists and dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most deadly weapons." ...
Bush singled out the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, for criticism, calling for the creation of a special committee to focus on safeguards and verification and to ensure that nations comply with international obligations. ...
Also, From The NYT: February 12, 2004
Bush Proposes Strict Limits on Black Market Sale of Equipment to Make Nuclear Fuel
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 — President Bush on Wednesday proposed a seven-point plan to make it far more difficult to sell nuclear equipment on the black market, declaring that the ease with which North Korea, Iran and Libya received help from a Pakistani scientist showed that the United States must "prevent governments from developing nuclear weapons under false pretenses." ... Mr. Bush proposed a significant expansion of his Proliferation Security Initiative ... Mr. Bush also said that starting next year he wanted to make sure no country shipped nuclear equipment to any nation that had not signed the "additional protocol" to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. That protocol gives expanded rights to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, to inspect a country's nuclear facilities. Among those that have not yet adopted the protocol is the United States, and Mr. Bush called on the Senate to ratify it. ...
Comment at The NYT: February 12, 2004
Saving Ourselves From Self-Destruction By MOHAMED ELBARADEI
VIENNA - Nuclear proliferation is on the rise. Equipment, material and training were once largely inaccessible. Today, however, there is a sophisticated worldwide network that can deliver systems for producing material usable in weapons. The demand clearly exists: countries remain interested in the illicit acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. If we sit idly by, this trend will continue. Countries that perceive themselves to be vulnerable can be expected to try to redress that vulnerability — and in some cases they will pursue clandestine weapons programs. The supply network will grow, making it easier to acquire nuclear weapon expertise and materials. Eventually, inevitably, terrorists will gain access to such materials and technology, if not actual weapons. If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction. ... We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security — and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use. ...
From Reuters: Thu February 12, 2004 12:51 PM ET
Russia Says Will Sign Deal on Nuclear Fuel for Iran By Maria Golovnina
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday it planned to sign a deal with Iran next month to ship nuclear fuel for Iran's power plant, defying U.S. pressure on Moscow to sever nuclear ties with the Islamic Republic. ...
From Reuters: Fri February 13, 2004 05:39 PM ET
U.S. Warns Haiti Opposition Against Aristide Ouster By Saul Hudson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Haiti's opposition on Friday against ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was restored to power a decade ago by a U.S. invasion and now faces an armed revolt. "We will accept no outcome that is not consistent with the constitution. We will accept no outcome that in any way illegally attempts to remove the elected president of Haiti," Powell told reporters after a crisis meeting with mediators. ...
From AP at My Way News: Feb 15, 10:15 PM (ET)
Iran Offers to Sell Potential Nuke Fuel By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran declared Sunday it plans to sell nuclear reactor fuel internationally, establishing the Islamic republic as a country in possession of technology the United States wants to keep from spreading. Announcing the decision, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Iran has made an "important achievement" in possessing the technology to enrich uranium, and insisted the project would be for peaceful use. ...
From AFP at SpaceWar: Feb 18, 2004
Canadian government insists it will not agree to "weaponisation of space"
OTTAWA (AFP) - The Canadian government confirmed Tuesday its frequently stated policy of opposing "the weaponisation of space" even though it is discussing participation in the US nuclear missile defence programme. Defence Minister David Pratt told the House of Commons that Canada will not even sign on to the high-tech missile shield without further consultations with Parliament and without knowing all the facts. ...
Opinion at The American Conservative: March 1, 2004 issue
No End to War By Patrick J. Buchanan
The Frum-Perle prescription would ensnare America in endless conflict.
From Wired News: 02:00 AM Feb. 20, 2004 PT
Pentagon Preps for War in Space By Noah Shachtman
An Air Force report is giving what analysts call the most detailed picture since the end of the Cold War of the Pentagon's efforts to turn outer space into a battlefield. ...
the U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan (PDF)... Released in November ... makes U.S. dominance of the heavens a top Pentagon priority in the new century. And it runs through dozens of research programs designed to ensure that America can never be challenged in orbit -- from anti-satellite lasers to weapons that "would provide the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space." ...
At The Detroit News from the Los Angeles Times: Saturday, February 21, 2004
State Dept. excluded from Senate intelligence hearing By Greg Miller
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. State Department’s intelligence branch, whose skeptical prewar assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs were more accurate than other agencies’ judgments, is being excluded from a panel that advises Congress each year on worldwide threats. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research was not invited by Republican leaders to testify at the annual threat hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee being held Tuesday, even though the bureau has participated in the hearing every year since it began in the early 1990s, congressional and administration officials said. ...
At The Guardian: Tuesday February 24, 2004
Amnesty barred from Guantanamo trials By Ewen MacAskill
Amnesty International and two other leading human rights organisations are protesting to the Pentagon about its decision not to let them attend the planned trials of al-Qaida suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ...
From Reuters: Tue February 24, 2004 06:46 PM ET
CIA Chief: Al Qaeda Can Still Do 9/11 Style Attack By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director George Tenet said on Tuesday that despite strides made against al Qaeda it remained capable of conducting an attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, and he warned of dangers from broader anti-American sentiment among Muslim extremists. "We are still at war," Tenet said at an annual Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats. Al Qaeda remained committed to attacking the United States and its allies, he added. ... Also, an audiotape of bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, which the CIA said was probably authentic, was broadcast on Tuesday by Al Jazeera television in which he warned President Bush to prepare for more attacks. FBI Director Robert Mueller described al Qaeda as flexible and adaptable with the capability to strike "with little or no warning" inside the United States and overseas. ... Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said ... "Left unchecked, Iraq has the potential to serve as a training ground for the next generation of terrorists," ...
From The Globe and Mail: 5:15 AM EST Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004
Canada seeking new treaty on space weapons By JEFF SALLOT
Ottawa — Canada is trying to get the United States and other countries to agree to a treaty banning weapons in outer space. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has asked his counterparts in the Group of Eight leading industrial countries to consider how the nations of the world can keep space free of weapons. ...
From AP at MSNBC: 2:06 p.m. ET Feb. 25, 2004
Greenspan urges future Social Security cuts
Fed chairman advises Congress on deficit reduction
WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged Congress on Wednesday to deal with the country’s escalating budget deficit by cutting benefits for future Social Security retirees. Without action, he warned, long-term interest rates would rise, seriously harming the economy. In testimony before the House Budget Committee, Greenspan said the current deficit situation, with a projected record red ink of $521 billion this year, will worsen dramatically once the baby boom generation starts becoming eligible for Social Security benefits in just four years. ... Greenspan, who turns 78 next week, said that the benefits now received by current retirees should not be touched but he suggested trimming benefits for future retirees and doing it soon enough so that they could begin making adjustments to their own finances to better prepare for retirement. Greenspan did not rule out using tax increases to deal with the looming crisis in Social Security, but he said that tax hikes should only be considered after every effort had been made to trim benefits. ...
From AP: Feb 25, 6:25 PM (ET)
U.S. Cites China, Russia on Human Rights By GEORGE GEDDA
WASHINGTON (AP) - China has been "backsliding on key human rights issues," the State Department said Wednesday in a report (its annual report on the state of human rights worldwide) that also accused Russia of manipulating elections and making threats against opposition parties. ...
From The NYT: February 26, 2004
Bush to Limit Testimony Before 9/11 Panel By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have placed strict limits on the private interviews they will grant to the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that they will meet only with the panel's top two officials and that Mr. Bush will submit to only a single hour of questioning, commission members said Wednesday. The commission, which has 10 members and is bipartisan, said in a statement that it had also been informed by the White House that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, had rejected its request that she testify in public about the intelligence reports that reached her desk before the Sept. 11 attacks. ...
From The Washington Post: Friday, February 27, 2004; Page A01
Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets By David E. Hoffman
Book Recounts Cold War Program That Made Technology Go Haywire
At Centre for Research on Globalisation: 29 February 2004
US Sponsored Coup d'Etat: The Destabilization of Haiti by Michel Chossudovsky
From The Taipei Times: Monday, Mar 01, 2004, Page 9
The fire this time in Haiti was US-fueled By Jeffrey Sachs
The Bush administration appears to have succeeded in its long-time goal of toppling Aristide through years of blocking international aid to his impoverished nation
From Reuters: Sun Feb 29, 2004 06:43 PM ET
Aristide Quits Haiti, Bush Orders Marines In By Jim Loney and Alistair Scrutton
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled his chaotic Caribbean country on Sunday in the face of a bloody armed revolt, and President Bush ordered in U.S. Marines to restore order. ... The United States, which along with former colonial power France had called on Aristide to quit to help bring an end to the crisis, urged rebels to lay down their arms. ... The departure of Aristide, who had been insisting up until late this week that he would serve out his second term until 2006, was arranged by U.S. officials. ...
From Reuters: Mon Mar 1, 2004 01:47 PM ET
Aristide Tells U.S. Contacts He Was Abducted
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted as Haitian president on Sunday, told U.S. lawmakers and other contacts by telephone on Monday that he was abducted by U.S. soldiers and left his homeland against his will. ... Rep. Charles Rangel and Randall Robinson .. said in separate interviews with CNN that Aristide called them from the Central African Republic, where he is in temporary exile. ... "The president said to me that he had been abducted from his home by about 20 American soldiers in full battle gear with automatic weapons and put on a plane" on Sunday morning, (Robinson) said. ... "He said to me twice before he had to get off the phone, 'Tell the world that it's a coup. That American soldiers abducted (me)."' ...
At the NYT By REUTERS: February 29, 2004 8:40 p.m. ET
Chavez Calls Bush 'Asshole' as Foes Fight Troops
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called President Bush an ``asshole'' on Sunday for meddling, and vowed never to quit office like his Haitian counterpart as troops battled with opposition protesters demanding a recall referendum against him. ...
also: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=28902&spf=true
From The NYT: March 1, 2004
Venezuelan Leader, Battling a Recall, Mocks Bush By JUAN FORERO
CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 29 — President Hugo Chávez railed against the Bush administration on Sunday in a speech before tens of thousands of supporters, accusing it of meddling in Venezuelan affairs and supporting antigovernment forces trying to remove him from office. Mr. Chávez, whose language has become increasingly hostile in the face of American support for a recall referendum, warned that if the Bush administration carried out what he called American aggressions, "the people of the United States should know that they will not get another drop of oil from Venezuela." The American energy market is heavily reliant on Venezuela, one of the top four providers of petroleum to the United States. Accusing the Bush administration of destabilizing Venezuela and coveting the country's huge oil reserves, Mr. Chávez mocked President Bush, saying he stole the 2000 elections and "is not even the legitimate president of the United States." ...
From The NYT: March 3, 2004
9/11 Panel Rejects White House Limits on Interviews By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, March 2 — The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is refusing to accept strict conditions from the White House for interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and is renewing its request that Mr. Bush's national security adviser testify in public, commission members said Tuesday. ... "We have held firm in saying that the conditions set by the president and vice president and Dr. Rice are not good enough," said Timothy J. Roemer, a former Indiana congressman who is one of five Democrats on the 10-member commission. Mr. Roemer said that former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore had agreed to meet privately with the full bipartisan commission, and that Samuel R. Berger, Ms. Rice's predecessor, would testify in public. ... Commission officials said that if the White House continued to insist on limitations on the interviews with Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, there might be little that the panel could do to force the issue and that the commission might have to accept the White House's terms. And they said that despite internal conversation about the possibility of issuing a subpoena for Ms. Rice's public testimony, that move was unlikely. Ms. Rice provided several hours of private testimony last month and has suggested that she is willing to answer additional questions behind closed doors.
From The FEC: March 3, 2004
SOFT MONEY DONATIONS RESULT IN $132,000 IN CIVIL PENALTIES
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has entered into conciliation agreements with the Republican National Committee (RNC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), and the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") resolving violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act (the Act). The conciliation agreement resulted in total civil penalties of $132,000. Fannie Mae will pay $10,000, the NRSC will pay $24,000, and the RNC will pay a penalty of $98,000. The Commission found that certain donations from Fannie Mae during the period from 1998 through 2000 were made to or deposited in nonfederal accounts of the party committees that were not "building funds." The Act prohibits contributions or expenditures from Congressionally chartered corporations in connection with any election. The law in effect at the time provided for a specific exception for contributions to building fund accounts. According to the conciliation agreement, Fannie Mae donated $51,470 to the Republican Governors’ Association and these funds were deposited in the Republican National State Elections Committee account of the RNC. The RNC also improperly deposited $250,000 received from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac") in its general nonfederal account in 2001 even though the donation had been properly designated for the building fund. Fannie Mae also made donations of $50,000 to the 1999 Senate-House Dinner Committee and $100,000 to the 2000 House-Senate Dinner Committee that did not contain specific building fund designations at the time the donations were made. The Dinner Committees did, however, deposit the donations in building fund accounts. The Commission also found that the NRSC improperly deposited three different donations it received from Freddie Mac (totaling $130,250) into nonfederal accounts not designated as building funds. ...
From The Telegraph: 06/March/2004
Blair's blueprint to strike at terror By George Jones
Tony Blair called yesterday for a change in international law to legitimise pre-emptive military action against rogue states that developed weapons of mass destruction, co-operated with terrorists or brutalised their people. He said the "global threat" posed by Islamic extremism and global terrorism meant it was time to rethink the centuries-old rule that the only clear case for armed intervention was "self-defence in response to aggression". ... Mr Blair called on his critics to stop attacking his integrity and accept that the decision to go to war was a matter of judgment. ... ".. But, of course intelligence is precisely that: intelligence. It is not hard fact." (said Mr Blair) ... Tam Dalyell, the anti-war Labour MP, described the Prime Minister's speech as "passionate, self-justifying drivel". He said the Iraq war had been illegal and Mr Blair was "in the position of a war criminal".
Comment at Strike The Root: March 10, 2004
9-11: Enigmas and Illusions of the State by Abe Arias
""In fact, a coup d'etat was pulled on the morning of September 11th. Only it was an administrative or what we call a cold coup d'etat." ~ Col. Donn de Grand-Pre, United States Army (ret), (interview on the Alex Jones Show)
"The State will always do what is in its own best interest at the expense and blood of the people. This was true during the horrid Crusades, the Roman bloodshed in Germania and Britannia and the Dark Age Inquisition. Unsurprisingly, this practice still remains with us today in times of low-grade nukes, cluster bombs and non-precision air bombings.
Everyone who resents the State and the rearing of its ugly head must be the first to question the sincerity of the State's own investigation into September 11th. The truth is that George W. & Co. has stonewalled, avoided and misrepresented the government's failures and actions on that dark, dreadful morning. Count Kerry and Edwards in as well... "
From Reuters: Thu Mar 11, 2004 04:12 PM ET
Madrid Bombs Kill 192; Purported Al Qaeda Claim By Daniel Trotta
MADRID (Reuters) - Simultaneous bomb blasts ripped through four packed commuter trains in Madrid on Thursday, killing 192 people and injuring 1,421 in Europe's bloodiest attack for more than 15 years. Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's government focused blame on the Basque separatist group ETA, but a purported al Qaeda letter to an Arabic newspaper claimed responsibility for the 10 blasts, which triggered fear in world financial markets. After initially blaming ETA outright for the attack, three days before Spain's general election, the government later said a stolen van had been found near Madrid carrying seven detonators and an Arabic tape of verses from the Koran. ...
From Reuters: Thu Mar 11, 2004 04:37 PM ET
Purported Qaeda Letter Says Strike on U.S. Near
From Reuters: Thu Mar 11, 2004 07:02 PM ET
Pentagon's Tester Unsure Missile Shield Will Work By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. weapons tester told Congress on Thursday it was too early to say if a multibillion-dollar missile shield -- due to start deployment this year -- would thwart a North Korean attack. ... Bush has requested $10.2 billion for program in fiscal 2005, which begins Oct. 1, up 13 percent from this year. That is more than for any other weapons program. CIA Director George Tenet told the same Senate committee on Tuesday that North Korea may be ready to flight-test its Taepo Dong-2 missile, capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear payload. ...
Commentary at Slate: Friday, March 12, 2004, at 2:48 PM PT
Bush's Latest Missile-Defense Folly By Fred Kaplan
Why spend billions on a system that might never work?
" ... Bush is starting to deploy very expensive weapons without the slightest bit of evidence that they have any chance of working. In the past six years of flight tests, here is what the Pentagon's missile-defense agency has demonstrated: A missile can hit another missile in mid-air as long as a) the operators know exactly where the target missile has come from and where it's going; b) the target missile is flying at a slower-than-normal speed; c) it's transmitting a special beam that exaggerates its radar signature, thus making it easier to track; d) only one target missile has been launched; and e) the "attack" happens in daylight. Beyond that, the program's managers know nothing—in part because they have never run a test that goes beyond this heavily scripted (it would not be too strong to call it "rigged") scenario. ... "
From The Guardian: Monday March 15, 2004
US sends special forces into north Africa by Giles Tremlett
Pentagon fears growth of terrorist haven
US special forces troops have arrived in several north African countries over recent months amid Pentagon warnings that the region runs the risk of becoming an al-Qaida recruiting ground and a possible back door into Europe. ... The focus on Africa also comes amid a push by some in the US, especially conservative thinktanks, to do more to secure alternatives to oil from the volatile Middle East. West Africa supplies 15% of US oil and the figure is growing. ...
From AFP at Yahoo: Mon. March 15, 2004 8:38AM ET
Spanish PM-elect vows to pull troops out of Iraq, lashes Bush
MADRID (AFP) - Spain's prime minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero vowed to withdraw troops from Iraq and criticised US President George W. Bush after Spanish voters ousted governing conservatives who took the country into the controversial war. "The war in Iraq was a disaster, the occupation of Iraq is a disaster," Zapatero, 43, told Cadena Ser radio on Monday. He spoke just before the European Union held three minutes' silence in tribute to the 200 people killed in last Thursday's bombings of crowded Madrid commuter trains. An ongoing investigation into the attacks has found growing evidence they were carried out by Islamic extremists linked to Al-Qaeda as punishment for Spain's help in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Voters turned out in force for Sunday's elections. Many of them expressed anger at retiring Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar when he cast his ballot, jostling and booing him while some shouted "Aznar: your war, our dead." Zapatero, whose Socialist Party ended eight years of rule by Aznar's Popular Party (PP) after winning 43 percent of the ballots to the PP's 38 percent, said near-total public opposition to the Iraq war had been key. He said that barring new developments in Iraq before June 30 -- the date the United States has promised to hand power over to an Iraqi provisional government -- Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq "will return home" as he had promised before the elections. ... "You can't bomb a people just in case" .. Zapatero said .. "You can't organise a war on the basis of lies," .. "Wars such as that which has occurred in Iraq only allow hatred, violence and terror to proliferate," ...
From Reuters at The Sydney Morning Herald: March 18, 2004
Al-Qaeda group calls truce in Spain: report
A group claiming to have links with al-Qaeda said today it was calling a truce in its Spanish operations to see if the new government would withdraw its troops from Iraq, a pan-Arab newspaper said. In a statement sent today to the Arabic language daily al-Hayat, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings that killed 201 people, also urged its European units to stop all operations. ...
From Reuters at Yahoo: Wed Mar 17, 4:56 PM ET
Purported Al Qaeda Letter Calls Truce in Spain By Opheera McDoom
CAIRO (Reuters) - A group claiming to have links with al Qaeda said on Wednesday it was calling a truce in its Spanish operations ... An unrelated videotape of a man describing himself as al Qaeda's European military spokesman also claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombing ... "The Spanish people... chose peace by choosing the party that was against the alliance with America," the statement said. The statement said it supported President Bush in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry, as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom." ...
From The Washington Post: Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A23
Spain's Next Prime Minister Says U.S. Should Dump Bush By Keith B. Richburg
MADRID, March 17 -- Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday described the U.S. occupation of Iraq as "a fiasco" and suggested American voters should follow the example set by Spain and change their leadership by supporting Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts for president in November. ...
From Xinhuanet: 2004-03-19 02:00:10
US population may grow to over 400 million in 2050
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Xinhuanet) -- The US population would increase by 48.8 percent from 282.1 million in 2000 to 419.9 million in 2050, with non-Hispanic Whites possibly dropping to half of the total population, the US Census Bureau announced on Thursday. The non-Hispanic, white population in the country would increase from 195.7 million to 210.3 million, an increase of 7 percent, but its share in the total population would decrease to just 50.1 percent in 2050 from 69.4 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the nation's Hispanic and Asian populations would triple over the next half century, interim population projections released by the bureau showed. ...
From IWCT at Centre for Research on Globalization: March 19, 2004
Tokyo War Crimes indictment against George W. Bush
International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan
Professor Ms Niloufer Bhagwat J., Tokyo 13TH March 2004
At The Atlantic Monthly: March 2004
The Armageddon Plan by James Mann
During the Reagan era Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were key players in a clandestine program designed to set aside the legal lines of succession and immediately install a new "President" in the event that a nuclear attack killed the country's leaders. The program helps explain the behavior of the Bush Administration on and after 9/11
From AP at The Guardian: Saturday March 20, 2004 11:46 PM (GMT)
Bush's Ex-Terror Adviser Blasts President By TED BRIDIS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaida threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating America into war with Iraq with dangerous consequences. He accuses Bush of doing ``a terrible job on the war against terrorism.'' ... ``I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things, and I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me,'' Clarke said. ``But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something.'' ...
From Bloomberg: March 20, 2004 15:36 EST
Bush `Ignored Terrorism for Months,' Clarke Tells `60 Minutes' by Laurence Arnold
" ... In the interview, Clarke said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld advocated military action against Iraq soon after the terror attacks of Sept. 11. ``Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq, and we all said, `No, no, al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan,''' Clarke said. ``Rumsfeld said there aren't good targets in Afghanistan, and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.'' Clarke said he believes administration officials wanted to believe there was a connection between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Sept. 11 attackers. ``But the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying we've looked at this issue for years, for years we've looked for a connection, and there's just no connection,'' he said. ... "
At the Daily Mislead: March 24, 2004
Bush Administration Resorts to Lies About 9/11
At Tom Flocco: March 24, 2004 12:15 EST
DOJ Asked FBI Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts by Tom Flocco
Washington, DC -- FBI translator Sibel Edmonds was offered a substantial raise and a full time job to encourage her not to go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA. Edmonds, a ten year U.S. citizen who has passed a polygraph examination, speaks fluent Farsi and Turkish and had been working part time with the FBI for six months--commencing in December, 2001. In a 50 reporter frenzy in front of some 12 news cameras, Edmonds said, "Attorney General John Ashcroft told me 'he was invoking State Secret Privilege and National Security' when I told the FBI I wanted to go public with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts." ... "My translations of the pre 9-11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date specific information enough to alert the American people, and other issues dating back to 1999 which I won't go into right now." .. "The senate Judiciary Committee, and the 911 Commission have heard me testify for lengthy periods of time (3 hours) about very specific plots, dates, airplanes used as weapons, and specific individuals and activities." ...
From Reuters at MSNBC: 10:18 a.m. ET March 28, 2004
Hamas leader: Bush is enemy of God, Islam
Rantisi says war against United States and Israel is ongoing
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - U.S. President George W. Bush is the enemy of God and Islam, the new Hamas chief in Gaza said Sunday, declaring that God's war against the United States and Israel was ongoing. ...
From ABC News: 03/30/04
Shooting Stars By Marc Lallanilla
U.S. Military Takes First Step Towards Weapons in Space
Mar. 30 — For all of human history, people have looked at the stars with a sense of wonder. More recently, some U.S. military planners have looked skyward and seen something very different — the next battlefield. While the military's presence in space stretches back decades, now there appears to be a new emphasis. Officials in the Bush administration and the Department of Defense are actively pursuing an agenda calling for the unprecedented weaponization of space. The first real step in that direction appears to be coming in the form of a little-noticed weapons program at the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. The agency has now earmarked $68 million in 2005 for something called the Near Field Infrared Experiment. The NFIRE satellite is primarily designed to gather data on exhaust plumes from rockets launched from earth, and defense officials claim it is therefore designed as a defensive, rather than offensive weapons. But the satellite will also contain a smaller "kill vehicle," a projectile that takes advantage of the kinetic energy of objects traveling through low-Earth orbit (which move at several times the speed of a bullet) to disable or destroy an oncoming missile or another orbiting satellite. ...
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