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Iraq war ‘lost’ says top Democrat

Friday, April 20th, 2007

The US war in Iraq is lost and a further build-up of US troops in the country will not recover the situation, the senior Democrat in the US senate has said.

Reid (right) and congressional leaders held talks at the White House on Wednesday [GALLO/GETTY]

“This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,” Harry Reid, the senate Democratic majority leader, told reporters.

Reid, who held talks with George Bush on Wednesday, said he told the president that he thought the war could not be won through military force.

Only political, economic and diplomatic means could bring success, he said.

His comments came as the US defence secretary told Iraqi leaders that US support for the country was not an “open-ended commitment”.

Robert Gates was speaking as he left Tel Aviv for his first visit to Iraq since the US decided to send an extra 30,000 troops to the country in what the Bush administration has labelled a troop surge.

On Wednesday at least 180 people were killed in a series of bombings in Baghdad, with one blast near a market killing more than 140 people – the deadliest single bomb attack in the capital since the US-led invasion in 2003.

On Thursday, the violence continued when a suicide car bomber rammed into a fuel truck, killing 12 people and injuring 24 others in the Jadiriya district of Baghdad.

Angry reaction

Wednesday's bombings were among Reid’s comments drew a swift response from the White House and an angry reaction from Republicans in congress who accused the senate majority leader of turning his back on US troops.

“I can’t begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat leader of the United States senate has declared the war is lost,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the senior Republican in the senate, said.

Reid’s assessment of the situation in Iraq came before the House of Representatives voted 215-199 to uphold legislation ordering troops out of Iraq next year.

Bush did not directly address Reid’s comments.

However, a White House spokeswoman quickly fired back that they were at odds with US military assessments of the two-month-old effort to quell sectarian violence in Iraq.

“If this is his true feeling, then it makes one wonder if he has the courage of his convictions and therefore will decide to defund the war,” Dana Perino said as Bush called for his plan to be given time to work.

Funding row

Locked in a bitter row with Democrats over emergency war funding, Bush said that no crackdown could ever fully banish such attacks such as the ones that took place in Baghdad on Wednesday.

“If the definition of success in Iraq - or anywhere - is ‘no suicide bombers’, we’ll never be successful,” he told an audience at a high school in Tipp City, Ohio.

“I’m optimistic we can succeed. I wouldn’t ask families to have their troops there if I didn’t think, one, it was necessary, and two, we can succeed. I believe we’re going to succeed,” he said.

Democrats, who owe their control of the US congress to deep US public anger over the war, have tied timetables calling for a withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq in 2008 to a $100bn emergency war funding measure.

Bush, who has vowed to veto any measure with a deadline, warned on Thursday that “the very radicals and extremists who attack us would be emboldened” by a hasty US withdrawal, and violence could spread beyond Iraq’s borders.

The version of the funding bill in the House of Representatives would pull US combat troops out by September 2008.

The senate version would begin getting US forces out in mid-2007 with the goal of having most of them withdrawn by March 31, 2008.

Agencies

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World Bank steps up pressure on Wolfowitz

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Krishna Guha

The World Bank’s executive board on Friday ratcheted up the pressure on Paul Wolfowitz to step down as president by simultaneously promising swift action on the Shaha Riza controversy and broadening the scope of its investigations to include other issues as well.

The board, which is made up of directors representing shareholder governments including the US, instructed a subcommittee of seven directors to “consider immediately arrangements made for the secondment of the staff member closely associated with the president”.

The decision came after a marathon 10-hour session that ended at about 1am on Friday.

Mr Wolfowitz is in trouble following revelations that he ordered the bank’s head of human resources to give Ms Riza, his girlfriend at the time, a large pay rise as part of a secondment package.

The board said the subcommittee should consider whether the arrangements for Ms Riza violated the staff rules, the bank’s code of conduct, the president’s own contract and “conflict of interest, ethical, reputational and other relevant standards”.

The promise of swift action is not necessarily bad news for Mr Wolfowitz, who has been pushing for a quick resolution of the Riza controversy. If the board vindicates him or fails to produce a clear ruling, he will claim the question has been dealt with and the bank should move on.

But if the board finds that Mr Wolfowitz’s conduct violated one or other of the rules, codes and ethical norms it laid out, it would further undermine his hopes of remaining in office.

Moreover, the board sent an unmistakable signal to Mr Wolfowitz that its investigation of him and his officials will not end with its judgment on the Riza secondment.

It said other issues “will need to be addressed, including the various public communications made by the bank on the matter and issues around employment contracts made in the office of the president”.

Many directors want Mr Wolfowitz to understand there is no prospect of the board agreeing to a quick fix that would let him get on with running the bank.

The board expressed “great concern” about the current turmoil within the bank, where Graeme Wheeler, one of Mr Wolfowitz’s two deputies, called on him to resign on Wednesday. The overwhelming majority of managers and staff have sided with Mr Wheeler.

European governments are more determined than ever to get Mr Wolfowitz out.

A formal vote of no confidence, though, is out of the question while the White House stands by him.

The US has not retreated an inch from its statement that it has “full confidence” in Mr Wolfowitz. But in a sign that it is not completely indifferent to the fate of the bank, a White House spokesman said this week that the board should think about the “long-term effectiveness of the institution”.

Mr Wolfowitz’s office issued a statement saying he “welcomes the decision of the board to move forward and resolve this very important issue. He looks forward to implementing the recommendations of the board”.

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US bombs Iraqi mosque

Friday, April 20th, 2007

American helicopter gunships and jet fighters have attacked a mosque in Baiyaa, west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad just before Friday prayers.

“We were unarmed worshippers heading to the mosque for Friday
prayers, and American Apache (helicopters) and tanks bombed the mosque and opened fire on worshippers,” AP quoted Basim Abu Ali, a witness who lived nearby.

Four people were killed and seven others hurt, witnesses said.

State television also reported a US jet fighter bombed the Ali al-Baiyaa mosque, but gave no further details.

Abu Ali said U.S. tanks and humvees set up a cordon around the building, and forbid civilians to enter or exit. Parts of the mosque were damaged, he added.

MJ/SM/DB
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=6782&sectionid=3510202

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Government Heard 9/11 Plans from Hijackers’ Own Mouths

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Many essays have discussed the U.S. government’s foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, the number of facts pointing towards likely foreknowledge are so numerous that it is easy to get lost in the details.

This essay focuses solely on the proof that American and allied intelligence services actually heard the hijackers discuss and make their plans before 9/11.

Initially, an FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000.

And a CIA agent allegedly met with Bin Laden in an American hospital in July 2001

Furthermore, Israel tracked the hijackers’ every move prior to the attacks, and sent agents to film the attack on the World Trade Centers.

Moreover, the intelligence services of the French and other governments had infiltrated the highest levels of Al-Qaeda’s camps, and actually listened to the hijackers’ debates about which airlines’ planes should be hijacked, and allied intelligence services also intercepted phone conversations between Al-Qaeda members regarding the attacks.

And the National Security Agency and the FBI were each independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind’s phone calls. The day before 9/11, the mastermind told the lead hijacker “tomorrow is zero hour” and gave final approval for the attacks. The NSA intercepted the message that day and the FBI was likely also monitoring the mastermind’s phone calls.

Shortly before 9/11, the NSA also intercepted multiple phone calls to the United States from Bin Laden’s chief of operations.

The CIA and the NSA had been intercepting phone calls by the hijackers for years.

Indeed, two days before 9/11, Osama Bin Laden called his stepmother and told her “In two days, you’re going to hear big news and you’re not going to hear from me for a while.” US officials later told CNN that “in recent years they’ve been able to monitor some of bin Laden’s telephone communications with his [step]mother. Bin Laden at the time was using a satellite telephone, and the signals were intercepted and sometimes recorded.” Indeed, before 9/11, to impress important visitors, NSA analysts would occasionally play audio tapes of bin Laden talking to his stepmother.

Forget complicated arguments about warnings. The government actually heard the plans for 9/11 from the hijackers’ own mouths.

http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2007/04/government-heard-911-plans-from.html

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Youtube Censors And Cheats 9/11 TRUTH (What should we do about this)

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Somebody Please Let Alex Jones Team and Other Supporters in the 9/11 Truth Movement Know about this.

This BBC Wtc-7 foreknlege Has 390,000 views and 9400 Comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7SwOT29gbc

With 9400 Comments:

It should be #8 In HONORS in Most Discussed for ALL TIME in NEWS and Policits. and its not!!!
http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=md&t=a&c=25&l=

It should be #26 in HONORS in Most Discussed for ALL TIME, In ALL TIME and its not!!
http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=md&t=a&c=0&l=&p=2

We have just shy of 400k Views, They have been cheating us for over a month, If they would have done it fair, We would have had over 1 Million More people See this Video, Totalling 1.4 Million Instead of 400k. as a result of those 2 extra honors.

If it was just an honest mistake, YOUTUBE Should Give this clip the exposure it missed in the past. I hope you guys understand what im saying.

What should we do about this????

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Human rights report: Israeli forces injure children, women and the disabled this week

Friday, April 20th, 2007

This week Israeli forces assassinated a Palestinian activist in Jenin after having arrested him. The Israelis also invaded West Bank towns 33 times and arrested 70 people, including children.

The PCHR report follows.

IOF extra-judicially executed a Palestinian activist in Jenin after having arrested him.

IOF destroyed a Palestinian house in Qalqilya in the context of collective punishment.

6 Palestinian civilians (2 women, 3 children and a mentally disabled man) were wounded by IOF gunfire.

IOF conducted 33 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

IOF arrested 70 Palestinian civilians, including 14 children and a girl.

IOF raided offices of a number of charities in Hebron and Tulkarm.

IOF transformed 3 houses into military sites.

IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT.

IOF positioned at various checkpoints and border crossings in the West Bank arrested 6 Palestinian civilians.

IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank.

IOF demolished a brick factory to the west of Ramallah.

Israeli settlers took over a hill to the south of Hebron and set up tents on it.

Israeli settlers have continued to occupy a house in Hebron for the 4th consecutive week.

Summary

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law continued in the OPT during the reporting period (12 – 18 April 2007):

Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF killed a Palestinian activist in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, and wounded 6 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday afternoon, 17 April 2007, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) extra-judicially executed a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (an armed wing of Fatah movement) near Jenin town in the northern West Bank. IOF shot him dead after having arrested him.

During the reporting period, 5 Palestinian civilians (2 women and 3 children) were wounded by the IOF gunfire in the West Bank. IOF also destroyed a house in Qalqilya on 14 April 2007, in the context of the policy of collective punishment against families of Palestinian resistance activist. The owner of the house was arrested by IOF nearly two weeks ago for being a member of a Palestinian resistance group.

In the Gaza Strip, on 16 April 2007, IOF positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip fired at mentally disabled Palestinian civilian in Beit Lahia town for no apparent reason. He was wounded by a gunshot to the right knee.

Incursions: During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 33 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During those incursions, IOF arrested 70 Palestinian civilians, including 14 children and a girl. Thus, the number of Palestinians arrested by IOF in the West Bank since the beginning of this year has mounted to 963. During the reporting period, raided and searched offices of a number of charities and civil society organizations in the West Bank. They confiscated a number of documents and computer sets. IOF also transformed 3 Palestinian houses near Jenin into military sites.

Restrictions on Movement: IOF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
Read More…

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U.K. Police Send Cash-For-Honors File to Prosecutors

Friday, April 20th, 2007

April 20 (Bloomberg) — U.K. police investigating claims Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour Party gave political honors in exchange for money have submitted a file to prosecutors, who will now decide if there is enough evidence to charge anyone.

“We have had extensive consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service during the inquiry and provided them with reports together with over 6,300 documents,” the Metropolitan Police said in an e-mailed statement today. “It is now a matter for the CPS to consider the evidence, advise us on whether any further enquiries are necessary and whether any charges should be brought.”

The 216-page report is the culmination of a yearlong inquiry, which began after Labour disclosed that it received 14 million pounds ($28 million) in loans from 12 of its supporters to help the party fight the May 2005 general election. Other parties subsequently disclosed details of their financial backers.

Police have been examined whether Blair’s office improperly recommended people for seats in the House of Lords, parliament’s upper chamber, in exchange for political donations.

Blair became the first prime minister to be questioned in connection with a criminal inquiry, and two of his aides have been arrested.

Michael Levy, Blair’s chief fundraiser, was arrested on Jan. 30 on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Ruth Turner, an aide to Blair, was held on similar grounds on Jan. 19. Both have consistently denied any wrongdoing. Blair himself has been questioned twice, as a witness rather than a suspect.

The Metropolitan Police today said it had “extensive consultation” and that 136 people have been interviewed as either witnesses or suspects. The file of evidence submitted today is the main one of 12 submissions.

Lawmakers today called for political neutrality.

“I do hope that Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, will stay out of it, otherwise nobody will be satisfied that is due process” Elfyn Llewyd, the leader of opposition party Plaid Cymru said, in a telephone interview. “It should be entirely a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service and independent lawyers if there are calls to prosecute.”

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Gonzales Can’t Recall Meetings That Led to Attorney Firings

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified Thursday before a Senate committee that he could not recall the details of any of the meetings he participated in over the course of two years, in which he and his staff discussed a plan to fire eight US attorneys.

“I have searched my memory,” Gonzales said, in response to a question by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) about one meeting Gonzales attended in November 2006 when he discussed the firings. “I have no recollection of the meeting…. I don’t remember the contents of this meeting.”

Gonzales was visibly defensive as a frustrated group of bipartisan senators pounded the attorney general with some tough questions about his role in firings. Throughout the daylong hearing, Gonzales testified more than 70 times that he could not recall any part of the conversations or details of the backdoor meetings he had with White House officials or members of his staff surrounding the questionable dismissals of the US attorneys. He added that he could not recall whether he had certain conversations over the telephone or in person.

Immediately following Gonzales’s testimony, Sen. Chuck Schumer D-New York) said that if Gonzales wanted to restore integrity and credibility to the Department of Justice, he would “look into his heart, he would march over to Pennsylvania Avenue and submit his resignation.”

The hearing began Thursday morning with an impassioned opening statement by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, who said the Department of Justice has been “experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled during its 137-year history.

“There is the growing scandal swirling around the dismissal and replacement of several prosecutors, and persistent efforts to undermine and marginalize career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division and elsewhere in the department,” Leahy said. “Since Attorney General Gonzales last appeared before this committee on January 18, we have heard sworn testimony from the former US attorneys forced from office and from his former chief of staff. Their testimony sharply contradicts the accounts of the plan to replace US attorneys that the attorney general provided to this committee under oath in January and to the American people during his March 13 press conference.”

In his opening statement, Gonzales said he has “nothing to hide,” but senators from both parties said Gonzales’s failure to provide answers to their questions about why the attorneys were fired and how the plan to oust them was conceived left them with no choice but to conclude Gonzales was being less than truthful in his testimony, and to demand that he immediately resign.

Gonzales said he did not see how his resignation would solve the matter. He said he stood behind the decision to fire the attorneys because some of them were not tough on voter fraud or immigration issues and other performance-related issues. However, Justice Department documents released over the past few months show that the US attorneys in question had impeccable evaluations from their superiors. Still, if he had to do it over, Gonzales said, he would fire the attorneys again.

“At the end of the day, I know I did not do anything improper,” Gonzales said.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) told Gonzales he believed that the attorney general and Justice Department staffers had fabricated a story about the US attorneys’ job performance in order to justify the purge.

Graham added that it was clear to him that some of the [US attorneys] had personality problems with people in the White House, and there was no truth, in his opinion, that the attorneys had performed poorly.

Thursday’s testimony was seen as crucial in order for Gonzales to keep his job. Immediately after the committee adjourned, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush still “has full confidence” in Gonzales’s ability to perform his job as attorney general.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York), however, said Gonzales “made the case that he shouldn’t stay.”

“He took 20 steps back,” Schumer told reporters at the conclusion of Gonzales’s testimony. “Republicans agree. He was dodging and weaving. Today’s hearing set the White House cause back. It’s hard to believe after today’s performance the White House would want him to stay on.”

Schumer said Gonzales’s testimony did not answer lingering questions about why the US attorneys were fired, how they came to be included on a list prior to their dismissal last year, and what role White House political adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers played in the ordeal. The White House, citing executive privilege, has refused to allow Rove and Miers to testify under oath and with a public record of their testimony.

“I think it’s really important to hear from Rove and Miers,” Schumer said. “I think what happened today strengthens the case for Rove and Miers to come forward with transcripts.

Schumer said that, despite the fact that the committee could not get answers to their questions from Gonzales, they will continue to pursue the case.

“One thing I can assure you of is this is not over,” Schumer said. “Far from it. There [are] so many loose ends in terms of their privilege argument. The claims of privilege almost never work. If you look at the times [the issue of executive privilege] has gone to court, it is usually resolved in months, not years,” meaning the senator will pursue the issue, even if the committee fails to come to an agreement with the White House on Rove’s and Miers’s testimony and it ends up in court.

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