The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 10/10/2004 - 10/17/2004

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Germany stands firm on refusal to send troops


OCT 14, 2004

BERLIN - The German government said yesterday it will
not budge from its refusal to send troops to Iraq,
reinforcing its position after its Defence Minister
appeared to suggest that Berlin might one day consider
a deployment.

Germany strongly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq
and has refused to send any troops to the country - a
position that officials have said will hold no matter
who wins the US presidential election.

'I want to say clearly and unmistakably what the
Chancellor told the Cabinet: the position of the
German government as far as Iraq is concerned is clear
- it will not be changed,' Mr Thomas Steg, a spokesman
for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, told reporters after
a Cabinet meeting.

'It will remain in the future what it was in the past
- there will be no German soldiers in Iraq.'

Mr Steg's comments came after Defence Minister Peter
Struck was quoted in a newspaper interview as saying
that while he ruled out a deployment now, he could not
make 'binding statements' about the future.

'I rule out the deployment of German troops in Iraq
now,' he told the Financial Times.

'In general, however, there is no one who can predict
developments in Iraq in such a way that he can make
binding statements.'

Mr Struck and other German officials said developments
in Iraq meant the position on sending troops was under
constant review, noting that Berlin was already
providing financial assistance to Iraq.

A senior official said: 'When the situation in Iraq
changes, when elections have been held or there are
other developments, then we will make decisions on
this basis.'

If a democratically elected Iraqi government were to
ask the United Nations for support, the international
community, including Germany, must be in a position to
respond, he added.

France, Germany and other Nato members agreed in June
at a summit in Istanbul to create an alliance training
mission for Iraq. -- AP,Financial Times



Copyright @ 2004 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights
reserved.




Iranian intel: Tehran harboring bin Laden

2 officials say they've seen terrorist
under care of Revolutionary Guard


Posted: October 8, 2004
5:00 p.m. Eastern




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Iran's cleric leaders are harboring Osama bin Laden,
according to two Iranian intelligence officials cited
in a new book.

The sources say they have seen the al-Qaida terrorist
leader alive and well, although he no longer resembles
the picture on FBI wanted posters.

Author Richard Miniter writes in "Shadow War: The
Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror"
that bin Laden "has trimmed his beard to fit the more
traditional look of a Shi'ite cleric and he seemed to
have put on weight, according to intelligence
officials."


The sources say bin Laden is constantly on the move,
"shuttling from Iranian safe houses controlled by the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard to areas of Afghanistan
controlled by the Iranian-backed warlord Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar."

"Choopan," one of the sources, gives three reasons why
Tehran would give safe haven to bin Laden, risking the
wrath of the West.

"First, the Iranians believe they can keep bin Laden's
presence a secret and plausibly deny it if publicly
accused," Miniter writes. "Second, the mullahs are
feeling increasingly threatened by the War on Terror.

"The mullahs, Choopan says, fear a counter-revolution
and see bin Laden's fighters as tools they can use to
ensure the failure of these young democracies in Iraq
and Afghanistan and the survival of mullah-dominated
Iran. Finally, they share enemies, including many Arab
leaders, the United States and the rest of the Western
world."

The book, launched earlier this week by Regnery,
publisher of "Unfit for Command," already is No. 2 on
the Amazon.com list.





Fox Panel: Debate a 'Knock Out' for Bush

Fox News Channel's debate panel ruled the last of
three face-offs
between John Kerry and President Bush a clear win for
the president,
with panelist Bill Kristol saying Kerry had been
"knocked out."

"I think Bush knocked Kerry out tonight," he told Fox
debate anchor
Brit Hume. "He just slaughtered him.

"I was keeping track of the twenty questions," Kristol
said. "I
don't have Kerry winning any question outright. I
think maybe six or
seven were tied. And I have Bush winning outright a
majority of the
questions."
Panelist Fred Barnes concurred.

"It was clearly President Bush's best debate. He
seemed to marshall
all the arguments that he wanted on all these domestic
issues - many
of which are traditional Democratic issues, including
health care."

Barnes said this was the first debate where Bush
seemed "animated
and strong" on the early questions. "In the others
it's taken him
sort of a half hour to get rolling."

"If he had done as well in the first debate as he did
tonight, he'd
have a much bigger lead in this race," he added.

Panelist Morton Kondracke agreed, saying, "I think
Kerry was on the
defensive a lot of the time so I think it was a much
better
performance by Bush."








Navy Stripped Kerry Of Security Clearance!!!!!!

Unauthorized Contacts With
Enemy Agents!

DC Reporter | DC Reporter / MB26


Posted on 10/13/2004 9:48:00 AM PDT by MindBender26


Kerry Lost Security Clearance!

Just spoke with reporter friend in DC. She is talking
with former USN ONI types who worked on DOD/USN
investigation that resulted in total loss of
Kerry's Navy security clearance.

Kerry had been granted a Top Secret by the Navy on
October 11, 1967 based on a routine background
investigation by Office of Naval Intelligence. A top
secret clearance was required for his work at that
time.

Obtaining and holding a security clearance of any
level, especially TS or above, requires certain terms,
obligations, commitments and conditions from the
holder. One of the most important is the holder of the
clearance must promptly and fully any contacts with
any foreign officials, agents, etc.

Lieutenant Kerry left active duty with the Navy on
January 3, 1970, but he still carried those
obligations as a commissioned officer of the Naval
Reserve. Without telling anyone and without receiving
permission from
superiors,FBI or counter-intelligence officers, he
traveled to Paris in the summer of 1970. He claimed
the purpose of his trip was a honeymoon with his first
wife, Julia Thorne, but there was another hidden
purpose.

Numerous North Vietnamese and Viet Cong intelligence
agents and officials were in Paris, having arrived a
year earlier for the "Peace Talks." While in Paris,
Kerry met with agents on a number of occasions and had
extensive
discussions with them about U.S. plans, procedures and
how to get the U.S. to essentially surrender in
Vietnam.

These clandestine meetings were never reported to the
Navy.

Almost a year later, in April 1091, speaking as the
leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against The War,
Lieutenant Kerry told a Senate hearing about his
meetings with enemy agents. Senior DOD officials
wanted to prosecute him as a Naval Reserve officer for
violating a number of laws and regulations, but this
was vetoed by the Nixon White House. They didn't want
to give the
anti-war crowd any additional PR ammunition.

However, the Navy immediately pulled Kerry's security
clearance. He became a Naval Reserve officer who was
known not to be trusted. He kept his commission, but
lost all access to any classified information. In the
words
of one of the now-retired agents, "Lieutenant Kerry
wasn't cleared to know what time it was!"

The bottom line is, Kerry was on the Intelligence
Committee of the Senate after the Paris fiasco and
another trip to support the Moscow-backed Sandinistas
in Nicaragua.

Today, he couldn't get a security clearance to pull KP
duty, but he wants to be Commander in Chief of all our
military in the War on Terrorism!




Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge

BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun
October 13, 2004

An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign
Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge
from the Reserves" opens a door on a well kept secret
about his military service.

The document is a form cover letter in the name of the
Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W.
Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as
being subsequent to the review of "a board of
officers." This in it self is unusual. There is
nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action
in the Navy that requires a review by a board of
officers.

According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the
"authority of reference" this board was using in
considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S.
Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to
the grounds for involuntary separation from the
service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr.
Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And
it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there
would have been no point in any review at all. The
review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status
of discharge from a less than honorable discharge to
an honorable discharge.

A Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, was asked
whether Mr. Kerry had ever been a victim of an attempt
to deny him an honorable discharge. There has been no
response to that inquiry.

The document is dated February 16, 1978. But Mr.
Kerry's military commitment began with his six-year
enlistment contract with the Navy on February 18,
1966. His commitment should have terminated in 1972.
It is highly unlikely that either the man who at that
time was a Vietnam Veterans Against the War leader,
John Kerry, requested or the Navy accepted an
additional six year reserve commitment. And the
Claytor document indicates proceedings to reverse a
less than honorable discharge that took place sometime
prior to February 1978.

The most routine time for Mr. Kerry's discharge would
have been at the end of his six-year obligation, in
1972. But how was it most likely to have come about?

NBC's release this March of some of the Nixon White
House tapes about Mr. Kerry show a great deal of
interest in Mr. Kerry by Nixon and his executive
staff, including, perhaps most importantly, Nixon's
special counsel, Charles Colson. In a meeting the day
after Mr. Kerry's Senate testimony, April 23, 1971,
Mr. Colson attacks Mr. Kerry as a "complete
opportunist...We'll keep hitting him, Mr. President."

Mr. Colson was still on the case two months later,
according to a memo he wrote on June 15,1971, that was
brought to the surface by the Houston Chronicle.
"Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes
another Ralph Nader." Nixon had been a naval officer
in World War II. Mr. Colson was a former Marine
captain. Mr. Colson had been prodded to find "dirt" on
Mr. Kerry, but reported that he couldn't find any.

The Nixon administration ran FBI surveillance on Mr.
Kerry from September 1970 until August 1972. Finding
grounds for an other than honorable discharge,
however, for a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against
the War, given his numerous activities while still a
reserve officer of the Navy, was easier than finding
"dirt."

For example, while America was still at war, Mr. Kerry
had met with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
delegation to the Paris Peace talks in May 1970 and
then held a demonstration in July 1971 in Washington
to try to get Congress to accept the enemy's seven
point peace proposal without a single change. Woodrow
Wilson threw Eugene Debs, a former presidential
candidate, in prison just for demonstrating for peace
negotiations with Germany during World War I. No court
overturned his imprisonment. He had to receive a
pardon from President Harding.

Mr. Colson refused to answer any questions about his
activities regarding Mr. Kerry during his time in the
Nixon White House. The secretary of the Navy at the
time during the Nixon presidency is the current
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
Senator Warner. A spokesman for the senator, John
Ullyot, said, "Senator Warner has no recollection that
would either confirm or challenge any representation
that Senator Kerry received a less than honorable
discharge."

The "board of officers" review reported in the Claytor
document is even more extraordinary because it came
about "by direction of the President." No normal
honorable discharge requires the direction of the
president. The president at that time was James
Carter. This adds another twist to the story of Mr.
Kerry's hidden military records.

Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general
amnesty for draft dodgers and other war protesters.
Less than an hour after his inauguration on January
21, 1977, while still in the Capitol building, Mr.
Carter signed Executive Order 4483 empowering it. By
the time it became a directive from the Defense
Department in March 1977 it had been expanded to
include other offenders who may have had general, bad
conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other
discharge or sentence with negative effect on military
records. In those cases the directive outlined a
procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a
board of officers. A satisfactory appeal would result
in an improvement of discharge status or an honorable
discharge.

Mr. Kerry has repeatedly refused to sign Standard Form
180, which would allow the release of all his military
records. And some of his various spokesmen have
claimed that all his records are already posted on his
Web site. But the Washington Post already noted that
the Naval Personnel Office admitted that they were
still withholding about 100 pages of files.

If Mr. Kerry was the victim of a Nixon "enemies list"
hit, one might have expected him to wear it like a
badge of honor, like many others such as his friend
Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, CBS's
Daniel Schorr, or the actor Paul Newman, who had made
Mr. Colson's original list of 20 "enemies."

There are a number of categories of discharges besides
honorable. There are general discharges, medical
discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other
than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is
one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the
possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably
discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his
medal certificates and that is why he asked that they
be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is
issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all
medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months
after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one
single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry's medals were
reissued.




THE TROOPS HAVE SPOKEN {who they picked for president}

The Military Times 2004 Election Survey was the latest
in a series
of efforts to gauge the attitudes and opinions of a
crucial but
hard-to-measure group- members of the U.S. military.
To gather
military opinion on this year's election, Military
Times began with
a list of more than 31,000 subscribers to Army Times,
Navy Times,
Marine Corps,and Air Force Times who gave the papers
their
e-mail addresses. From Sept. 21 until Sept 28, 2,754
active-duty
members and 1,411 members of the National Guard or
reserve
responded.

THE REPONSE:

If the presidential election were held today, for whom
would
you vote ?

Active Duty:
Bush...........72%
Kerry...........17%
undecided...6%
Nader...........1%
other.............1%
declined......2%

Guard&Reserve:
Bush...........73%
Kerry...........18%
Nader............!%
other.............1%
undecided...5%
Declined.......!%


Do you approve of the way President Bush is handling
the
situation in Iraq ?

Active Duty:
Approve.........60%
Disapprove...23%
No opinion......8%
Declined..........8%

Guard&Reserve:
Approve.........63%
Disapprove...25%
No opinion......5%
Declined.........6%


What are the most important issues for you in deciding
for
whom you will vote for president ?

Active Duty:
The war in Iraq................................66%
The character of the candidate.........64%
The economy..................................53%
Social Issues..................................34%
None of the Above............................4%

Guard&Reserve:
The war in Iraq................................72%
The character of the candidate..........66%
The economy..................................58%
Social Issues..................................36%
None of the above............................3%


This survey tells it all ~ from people who are the
most

Directly involved - putting their lives on the line
daily.


Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Blix Believed Iraq Dossier Was 'Understated'

By Gavin Cordon, Whitehall Editor, PA News


Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believed
the Government�?s controversial Iraq weapons dossier
actually understated the case against Saddam Hussein,
according to documents released today by the Foreign
Office.

The papers released by the FO show that British
officials at the United Nations in New York showed a
draft of the dossier to Dr Blix in September 2002, two
weeks before the final version was published.

A note from one official, Adam Bye, said that Dr Blix
had liked the section on chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons as he believed that it did not
exaggerate the facts.

According to the note, Dr Blix said that the dossier
even risked understating Iraq�?s ability to produce
weapons of mass destruction �? particularly the lethal
anthrax virus.

He also described the claim that even if Iraq was able
to acquire fissile material from abroad, it would
still take at least two years to build a working
nuclear bomb as �?modest�?.

Since war, Dr Blix has strongly criticised the case
made for war by Britain and the United States, based
on Saddam Hussein�?s supposed possession of illegal
WMD.

However, in a Commons statement, Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw said that at the time the dossier was
published, the assumption that Iraq did indeed have
WMD was shared across the international community.

In his note, sent to Mr Straw�?s office, Mr Bye said:
�?On the whole, Blix liked section 6 (on WMD) �? he felt
it did not exaggerate the facts, nor revert to
rhetoric, probably both desirable for its credibility.

�?Blix felt that more evidence of illegal procurement
activities would have been good �? this was the sort of
activity/evidence that most impressed him when reading
WMD reports (Blix is of course a more sophisticated
reader than most).

�?Blix also thought that the section risked
understating Iraq�?s indigenous capacity to produce WMD
(ie meaning that, even if it held low stocks of WMD,
it could quickly produce more).

�?Specific mention of anthrax might be particularly
worthwhile in this respect �? Unmovic (the UN weapons
inspectors) believed this was an area where Iraq had
very likely maintained indigenous capability (though
Unmovic had not said so in public, nor was the case
totally watertight).�?

Under �?additional thoughts�?, Mr Bye noted that Dr Blix
regarded the assessment in the dossier of the time it
would take for Iraq to build a nuclear bomb as
�?modest�?.

�?Blix believed the IAEA (International Atomic Energy
Agency) had, at the time, assessed Iraq could complete
a nuclear bomb within a year. While Iraq had trouble
putting together a missile (mismatch between the size
of the bomb and size of the missile) a bomb could have
been delivered by plane,�? he wrote.

Mr Bye said Dr Blix also regarded the section on
Iraq�?s chemical weapons capacity as �?modest�? and he
had not challenged the claim in the dossier that Iraq
had tried to acquire uranium from the African state of
Niger.

�?He thought we should be clear that such uranium was
not weapons usable without enrichment (no small feat).
However it was illegal for Iraq to buy it,�? Mr Bye
wrote.

However Dr Blix did challenge claims in the dossier
that aluminium pipes acquired by Iraq were for the
purpose of uranium enrichment and that castor oil
resin could be used by the Iraqis to create a
battlefield weapon.

The comments by Dr Blix were made before UN weapons
inspectors were able to re-enter Iraq and see for
themselves conditions on the ground.

However they will be seen by the Foreign Office as
further corroboration for their view that at the time
the dossier was published, the view that Iraq had WMD
was widely shared across the international community.




N-bomb equipment 'lost in Iraq'

By Paul Waugh Deputy Political Editor, Evening
Standard

Nuclear bomb- making equipment could end up in the
hands of terrorists because of the chaos in Iraq, a
United Nations watchdog has warned.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said
that high-precision tools and materials had gone
missing from the country since the war ended.

The claims are sure to be seized on by anti-war MPs
today as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw faces Commons
questions on the Iraq Survey Group's failure to find
weapons.

Last night backbenchers confronted Tony Blair to
demand a proper apology for the Government's misuse of
intelligence in the run-up to war. The UN agency's
criticism will be embarrassing to Mr Blair as he has
said all along that the main reason for war was to
prevent possible proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.

The IAEA said that new satellite images showed that
entire buildings in Iraq had been dismantled and
neither the Baghdad government nor Washington appeared
to have noticed.

The buildings once housed equipment that could help a
government or terror group make nuclear bombs,

watchdog said in a report to

Security Council.

Equipment and material helpful in making bombs have

been removed from open storage areas in Iraq and have
disappeared without trace, according to IAEA
directorgeneral Mohamed el Baradei.

It was "concerned about

widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement"

nuclear equipment, he added. The United States barred

return of UN weapons investigators after launching the


on Iraq in March last year, preventing the IAEA from
keeping tabs on hi-tech equipment

materials up to the present

Under anti-proliferation agreementsthe US occupation
authorities which administered Iraq until June, then
the Iraqi interim government that took power at the
end of June, would have to inform the IAEA if they
moved or exported any of that material or equipment.

But no such reports have been received since the
invasion, officials of the watchdog agency said.

UN diplomats said the satellite images could mean the
equipment had been moved to new sites inside Iraq or
stolen.

If stolen, it could end up in the hands of a terrorist
group. " We simply don't know, although we are trying
to get the information," said one UN insider.


UN inspectors: Saddam shipped out WMD before war and after.

UN inspectors: Saddam shipped out WMD before war and
after.

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Friday, June 11, 2004 (Archive)
The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein
shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well
as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and
after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission briefed the Security Council on new
findings that could help trace the whereabouts of
Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that
demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled
his missile and WMD sites before and during the war.
Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic
missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw
a satellite image of the same location in February
2004, in which facilities had disappeared.

UNMOVIC acting executive chairman Demetrius Perricos
told the council on June 9 that "the only controls at
the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and
to check whether there are any explosive or
radioactive materials within the scrap," Middle East
Newsline reported.

"It's being exported," Perricos said after the
briefing. "It's being traded out. And there is a large
variety of scrap metal from very new to very old, and
slowly, it seems the country is depleted of metal."

"The removal of these materials from Iraq raises
concerns with regard to proliferation risks," Perricos
told the council. Perricos also reported that
inspectors found Iraqi WMD and missile components
shipped abroad that still contained UN inspection
tags.

He said the Iraqi facilities were dismantled and sent
both to Europe and around the Middle East. at the rate
of about 1,000 tons of metal a month. Destinations
included Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey.



53 chemical weapons found including 41 sarin/cyclosarin rockets at one site!!!

CIA ^ | 10/7/2004 | Duelfer


"Since May 2004, ISG has recovered a total of 53
chemical weapons from various sources and military
units throughout Iraq. A preliminary assessment
indicates they are part of Iraq's pre-1991 stockpile.
Variations in size, type, and agent fill raise the
possibility that other, similar rounds remain at
large." - Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor
to the DCI on Iraq's WMD, Volume 3, page 30. Including
in Khamisiyah forty-one 122-mm sarin/cyclosarin
SAKR=18 rockets!!!!!!!! 4-Jun, 25-Jun, 29 July 2004



Iraq's WMD's Located in Lebanon's Bekka Valley !

U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction have finally been located.
Unfortunately, getting to them will be nearly
impossible for the United States and its allies,
because the containers with the strategic materials
are not in Iraq.

Instead they are located in Lebanon's
heavily-fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian
and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents,
Geostrategy-Direct.com will report in Wednesday's new
weekly edition.

U.S. intelligence first identified a stream of
tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to
Lebaon in January 2003. The significance of this
sighting did not register on the CIA at the time.

U.S. intelligence sources believe the area contains
extended-range Scud-based missiles and parts for
chemical and biological warheads. Mutually-lucrative
Iraqi-Syrian arms transactions are nothing new. Firas
Tlas, son of Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas, has
been the key to Syria's rogue alliance with Iraq. He
and Assad made hundreds of millions of dollars selling
weapons, oil and drugs to and from Iraq, according to
the May 13, 2003 edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com.

The CIA now believes a multi-million dollar deal
between Iraq and Syria provided for the hiding and
safekeeping of Saddam's strategic weapons.

Not surprisingly, U.S. inquiries in Beirut and Syria
are being met with little substantive response, U.S.
officials said.