The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 07/10/2005 - 07/17/2005

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Mastermind's amazing escape

THE hunt for the mastermind behind the London terror attacks dramatically widened last night with the arrest of four suspects, as authorities warned that further atrocities in the British capital were a "very strong possibility".

British police chief Sir Ian Blair admitted the man, whose identity had been known to investigators for days, was on a "watch list" as a low-grade suspect and arrived in Britain two weeks before the bombings. But he was not placed under surveillance.

He arrived at the Suffolk port of Felixstowe and left from Heathrow airport in full view of Special Branch agents hours before the blasts that left at least 54 dead, including Australian Sam Ly.

The man is known to have links to the top of al-Qaida, including two of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden's strategic lieutenants on the subcontinent and another in the US.

Jamaican-born husband and father Jermaine Lindsay was named as the "squadron leader" of the terrorists. Security chiefs believe he may have acted as the go-between with the terror mastermind.

Officials in Washington also claimed that Lindsay was on a watch list, but the British lost track of him.

Lindsay and another of the bombers were last night linked to a thwarted UK terror plot.

It was revealed yesterday that captured al-Qaida operatives issued at least two warnings that attacks were planned on London's commuter system.

Asked about the bungle that saw the suspected mastermind slip through the grasp of authorities, Sir Ian said: "Nothing at the moment . . . links him directly. But what we expect to find at some stage is that there is a clear al-Qaida link . . . because the four men who are dead, who we believe are the bombers, are in the category of foot soldiers."

Pakistani intelligence has previously indicated that one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, met a member of a group linked to al-Qaida during his visit to the country last December.

London bombers linked to U.S.

One of the bombers in last week's attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York.

Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.

In addition to Khan, two other men linked to the London bombings also had direct ties with the United States.

"Whilst we are watching the ports and the airports trying to prevent people from coming in," said M.J. Gohel, a terrorism analyst at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, "al Qaeda and its global jihadi friends are a step ahead. They have already penetrated into the West and are recruiting Western born Muslims to join terrorism."

Lindsay Germaine, one of the four dead bombers and a Jamaican who left behind a pregnant wife, had recently traveled to see relatives in Ohio.

Furthermore, Magdy El Nashar, 33, who was captured last night at his family's home outside of Cairo and then questioned by British agents, studied at North Carolina State University. Police believe he helped the bombers build their explosive devices. Now they want to know if there are more bombs and would-be bombers.

McCurry Sticks Up For McClellan, Says Leak Story Disproportionate

I know Democratic partisans are not supposed to get weepy watching the Bush team wilt under the hot lights of Plamegate, but allow me a little sympathy for Scott McClellan who gets sent out to roast every day from the hot breath of the White House press corps.

Been there, done that I would say. I was the press corps pinata for President Clinton during four zesty years that included l'affaire Monique. Sometimes it is the chosen assignment of the White House Press Secretary to go out and get whacked, over and over, to see if anything interesting will spill out.

Press secretaries suck it up and suck it in because sometimes the brief you are given to argue is pretty slim goings. I am familiar with the answer "we may not comment on that matter because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation." It happens to be the right answer when people face legal jeopardy and might go to jail. Or when there is a determined assault on the principle of executive privilege (not to mention attorney-client privilege) as we faced during the Clinton years at the hands of Judge Ken Starr.

I don't pretend to know much about Karl Rove's conversations or the machinations of the determined prosecutor this time around, Mr. Fitzgerald.

But it does seem to me that there must be something more to this than the conversation reported between Matt Cooper of Time and Rove. Rove was making a late week heads up call to the White House news magazine reporter and, believe me, that is not the time or place to dish major strategy. A two-minute call such as the one now reported is basically to get the signals straight -- green, yellow, red. Rove seems to have been telling Cooper that the yellowcake story was a flashing yellow and he needed to be cautious.

Unless conversations go well beyond what has been reported, there has to be some other explanation for the zeal with which this investigation is being pursued. Something consequential must have happened because of this leak that we have not yet read about. That's about all I can imagine, because otherwise the whole thing -- leak, story, investigation -- seems a little disproportionate.

Rove E-Mailed Security Official About Talk

After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl Rove alerted the president's No. 2 security adviser about the interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations the operative's husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence.

The July 11, 2003, e-mail between Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is the first showing an intelligence official knew Rove had talked to Matthew Cooper just days before the Time magazine reporter wrote an article identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer.

"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, recounting how Cooper tried to question him about whether President Bush had been hurt by the new allegations.

The White House turned the e-mail over to prosecutors, and Rove testified to a grand jury about it last year.

"Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming," Rove wrote in the e-mail to Hadley.

"When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Hadley, now Bush's national security adviser, said he could not comment due to the continuing criminal investigation. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said his client answered all the questions prosecutors asked during three grand jury appearances, never invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the president's executive privilege guaranteeing confidential advice from aides.

Rove, Bush's closest adviser, turned over the e-mail as soon as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's covert work for the CIA.

He later told a grand jury the e-mail was consistent with his recollection that his intention in talking with Cooper that Friday in July 2003 wasn't to divulge Plame's identity but to caution Cooper against certain allegations Plame's husband was making, according to legal professionals familiar with Rove's testimony.

Rove sent the e-mail shortly before leaving the White House early for a family vacation that weekend, already aware that another journalist he had talked with, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, was planning an article about Plame and Wilson.

The AP reported Thursday that Rove acknowledged to the grand jury that he talked about Plame with both Cooper and Novak before they published their stories but that he originally learned about the operative's identity from the news media, not government sources.

Republicans cheered the latest revelations Friday, saying they showed Rove wasn't trying to hurt Plame but instead was trying to informally warn reporters to be cautious about some of Wilson's claims.

"What it says is, Karl Rove wasn't the leaker, he was actually the recipient of the information not the provider," Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman said on Fox News. "So there are probably a lot of folks in Washington who have prejudged this, who have rushed to judgment who are trying to smear Karl Rove."

Democrats, however, said that even if Rove wasn't the leaker, someone still divulged Plame's identity and possibly violated the law.

California facilities on target list

Law enforcement authorities warned the Israeli Consulate and California National Guard that their facilities were on a list of possible terror targets that police found recently while investigating a string of robberies, officials said Friday.

``We're very concerned about it,'' said Maj. Jon Siepmann, the California National Guard's deputy director of communications. ``There was evidence that an attack was at least being planned.''

The list, which police found while searching the home of a man arrested last week in connection with a series of gas station robberies in south Santa Monica Bay communities, included three National Guard facilities in the greater Los Angeles area, Siepmann said. He said law enforcement authorities thoroughly briefed National Guard representatives on the possible threat, which he described as apparently ``very serious.''

Siepmann declined to discuss specifics of the case or which National Guard facilities were possible targets. He said the National Guard has strong security measures in place because its soldiers have been involved in anti-terror operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Asia. About 12,000 of the California Guard's 20,000 soldiers have been mobilized and deployed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he said.

The warnings followed the July 5 arrests by Torrance police of Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, of Gardena, and Levar Haney Washington, 25, of Los Angeles, on suspicion of robbery. Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges in Torrance Superior Court.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed last week that the agency's Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigating the case, but declined to describe the focus of the probe or provide other details.

US forces kill 24 militants in Pakistan

United States-led coalition forces killed 24 Taliban fighters two hundred metres inside Pakistan�s North Waziristan Agency, a military spokesman said on Friday.

The bodies of the 24 fighters, most of them Afghans, were found 200 metres inside Pakistani near Lawara Mandi in North Waziristan early on Friday, military spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan told Daily Times. The Taliban attacked a US military base in Paktia province late on Thursday evening, a source in Miranshah told Daily Times. �The Taliban attacked the base with rockets and killed and wounded Americans,� said the source. Sultan said that the US informed Pakistan and �we deployed troops to prevent the Taliban from crossing into our area.� He said the Taliban were killed by the US forces inside Pakistan.

The military spokesman did not say that Pakistan protested the US violation of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sultan said that the US side had informed Pakistan before opening fire on the fleeing militants. �There will still be a check to see whether there had been any violation of Pakistani territory or airspace.�

He said the authorities had not ascertained the nationalities of all the killed Talibans yet. �Most of them appear to be Afghans,� he said. But he did not rule out the involvement of local tribesmen in the Paktia attack.

He said no local civilian was killed or wounded in the US attack. �All killed were militants,� he said. He said that two twin cabin vehicles were hit in the attack. It was not clear whether the US forces killed the Taliban with missiles or chased them with helicopters. A witness said he saw US helicopters engaged in the attack, while a local TV channel said the fighters were killed by missile.

Al-Zarqawi Fled Baghdad Recently

The leader of Iraq's most feared terror group fled Baghdad about two weeks ago because a U.S.-Iraqi military operation in the capital was threatening his al-Qaida movement, Iraq's interior minister said in a television interview aired Friday.

Bayan Jabr told the U.S.-owned Al Hurra television that the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and many of his al-Qaida in Iraq followers fled Baghdad because of the success of Operation Lightning, launched May 28.

He nonetheless claimed many al-Qaida members had left the capital ``because they have lost the battle.'' Al-Zarqawi fled Baghdad 12 days ago after several car-rigging factories were discovered in a security operation, he said.

``Al-Zarqawi is in his last months,'' Jabr added.

Friday, July 15, 2005

Rumsfeld Victory in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

A federal district court ruling, widely touted by liberals, that found fault with the government's military tribunals has been struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit, which is the penultimate court in America. This decision is a victory in the war on terror.

Check out Powerline for analysis by the legal minds there.

UPDATE:
A federal appeals court put the Bush administration's military commissions for terrorist suspects back on track Friday, saying a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison who once was Osama bin Laden's driver can stand trial.

A three-judge panel ruled 3-0 against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose case was halted by a federal judge on grounds that commission procedures were unlawful.

"Congress authorized the military commission that will try Hamdan," said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The protections of the 1949 Geneva Convention do not apply to al Qaeda and its members, so Hamdan does not have a right to enforce its provisions in court, the appeals judges said.

Now that the top federal appeals court has confirmed that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists, as we have already stated, can the media drop the whole debate about it?

PLAME GAME: 'Most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee'

A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
"She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.

Soldier survives attack; captures, medically treats sniper (Video)

During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents.
Tschiderer, with E Troop, 101st �Saber� Cavalry Division, attached to 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemy�s position.

After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Iraqi Army Brigade, Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist who�d tried to kill him just minutes before.

See the video of the attack.

Read the account of the incident from the 256th Brigade Combat Team

John Kerry Outed Undercover CIA Agent

Sen. John Kerry, who called for Karl Rove to be fired over allegations that he revealed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame, outed a genuine undercover CIA agent just this past April - even after the agency asked that his identity be kept secret.

Kerry blew the cover of CIA secret operative Fulton Armstrong during confirmation hearings for U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton. Questioning Bolton, Kerry asked: "Did Otto Reich share his belief that Fulton Armstrong should be removed for his position?" - according to a transcript excerpted by the New York Times.

"The answer is yes," the top Democrat continued.

In his response to Kerry, Mr. Bolton did his best to maintain the agent's confidentiality, reverting to Armstrong's pseudonym.

"As I said," he told Kerry, "I had lost confidence in Mr. Smith, and I conveyed that."

Two years earlier, Armstrong had been identified in news reports on his dispute with other officials over intelligence involving Cuba. But he was operating in a different capacity and his identity wasn't secret at the time.

"When the Bolton nomination resurrected the old accounts, however, the C.I.A. asked news organizations to withhold his name," the Times said.

Apparently the CIA directive wasn't good enough for Sen. Kerry - who outed Armstrong anyway and later defended the move by saying his Republican colleague, Senator Richard Lugar, had also mentioned the name.

And besides, said Kerry, the secret agent's name "had already been in the press."

Sen. Intel Chair: Joe Wilson a Fraud

Thanks to the media's obsession with the Karl Rove pseudo-scandal, former Iraq ambassador Joseph Wilson is once again the toast of Washington, D.C. - appearing on dozens of TV and radio programs, airing his demand that President Bush "honor his word" to fire Rove.

It's almost as if last year's Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into Wilson's allegations never happened.

In fact, after probing Wilson's story, Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts publicly ripped the so-called "whistleblower" as a possible hoaxer and a fraud.
In a July 9, 2004 press release that's still available on Roberts' official Web site, the Kansas Republican said:

"The former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading. ...

"Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. As discussed in the Niger section of the [Committee's] report, not only did he NOT 'debunk' the claim, he actually gave some intelligence analysts even more reason to believe that it may be true."

Sen. Roberts continued:

"When asked how [Wilson] 'knew' that the Intelligence Community had rejected the possibility of a Niger-Iraq uranium deal, as he wrote in his book, he told Committee staff that his assertion may have involved 'a little literary flair.'"

The Intel Committee chair concluded:

"I believed very strongly that it was important for the Committee to conclude publicly that many of the statements made by Ambassador Wilson were not only incorrect, but had no basis in fact."

Saddam Harbored 4,000 Terrorists on War�s Eve

The �Voices of Soldiers� Truth Tour organized by Move America Forward and RighTalk Radio Network has learned in an exclusive briefing that Saddam Hussein harbored approximately 4,000 terrorists in Iraq in the six months leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Iraqi Lt. General Abdul Qader Jassim told the �Voices of Soldiers� Truth Tour delegation that these Iraqi-trained terrorists were designed to undermine Iraq�s enemies, most specifically Israel and Iran. Jassim also said that many of these same individuals are believed to be involved with or assisting the terrorist insurgents seeking to undermine the current Iraq regime.

�Saddam Hussein was operating as one of the world�s largest sponsors of terrorism before Coalition Forces put him out of business,� said Howard Kaloogian, Co-Chairman of Move America Forward.

We are closer to winning the war on terrorism because of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and anyone who doubts that needs only look to see how determined Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are to see us fail here,� Kaloogian said.

Alleged Mastermind of London Bombings Captured

Magdy Elnashar Is Taken Into Custody Outside Cairo After Worldwide Manhunt
The U.S.-trained chemist who police believe is the mastermind behind last week's London transit attacks has been captured, Egyptian and Western intelligence sources tell ABC News.

Magdy Elnashar, 33, who authorities believe helped build the bombs, was taken into custody in suburban Cairo, Egypt. Elnashar had left England two weeks before the bombings, and British authorities had initiated a worldwide manhunt for him.

Police say it was Elnashar who helped the bombers set up their bomb factory in Leeds.

Elnashar's capture came as British authorities released the first surveillance photo of one of the bombers in the hours before the attacks.

Hasib Hussain, 18, is seen carrying the backpack that exploded on a double-decker bus two-and-a-half hours later.

Hussain was described by Britain's top police official as just a foot soldier.

"What we've got to find now is the people who trained them, who built their bombs," said Ian Blair, commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police.

British authorities also identified a fourth bomber as a Jamaica-born man with a pregnant wife in England and a mother living in the United States.

U.S. authorities tell ABC News that Lindsey Germaine had been in the United States within the past two years, and the FBI is now investigating contacts he made in Ohio and New Jersey.

The FBI had also joined the search for Elnashar because he attended North Carolina State University in 2000.

But the best lead now is Elnashar himself. Officials in Cairo tell ABC News that state security officials have already begun to question him with British agents in attendance.

Source: Rove Got CIA Agent ID From Media

Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a person briefed on the testimony.

The person, who works in the legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, told The Associated Press that Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.

Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. The conversation eventually turned to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq war policy and the intelligence it used to justify the war, the source said.

The person said Rove testified that Novak told him he had learned and planned to report in a weekend column that Wilson's wife, Plame, had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims of alleged nuclear material sales to Iraq.

Novak's column, citing two Bush administration officials, appeared six days later, touching off a political firestorm and leading to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. That probe has ensnared presidential aides and reporters in a two-year legal battle.

Rove told the grand jury that by the time Novak had called him, he believes he had similar information about Wilson's wife from another reporter but had no recollection of which reporter had told him about it first, the source said.

When Novak inquired about Wilson's wife working for the CIA, Rove indicated he had heard something like that, according to the source's recounting of the grand jury testimony.

Rove told the grand jury that four days later, he had a phone conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and - in an effort to discredit some of Wilson's allegations - told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, though he never used her name.

An e-mail Cooper recently provided the grand jury shows Cooper reported to his magazine bosses that Rove had described Wilson's wife in a confidential conversation as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said Thursday his client truthfully testified to the grand jury and expected to be exonerated.

"Karl provided all pertinent information to prosecutors a long time ago," Luskin said. "And prosecutors confirmed when he testified most recently in October 2004 that he is not a target of the investigation."

CIA 'outing' might fall short of crime

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON � The alleged crime at the heart of a controversy that has consumed official Washington � the "outing" of a CIA officer � may not have been a crime at all under federal law, little-noticed details in a book by the agent's husband suggest.

In The Politics of Truth, former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Neither spouse, a reading of the book indicates, was again stationed overseas. They appear to have remained in Washington, D.C., where they married and became parents of twins.

Six years later, in July 2003, the name of the CIA officer � Valerie Plame � was revealed by columnist Robert Novak.

The column's date is important because the law against unmasking the identities of U.S. spies says a "covert agent" must have been on an overseas assignment "within the last five years." The assignment also must be long-term, not a short trip or temporary post, two experts on the law say. Wilson's book makes numerous references to the couple's life in Washington over the six years up to July 2003.

"Unless she was really stationed abroad sometime after their marriage," she wasn't a covert agent protected by the law, says Bruce Sanford, an attorney who helped write the 1982 act that protects covert agents' identities.

Joseph Wilson would not say whether his wife was stationed overseas again after 1997, and he said she would not speak to a reporter. But, he said, "the CIA obviously believes there was reason to believe a crime had been committed" because it referred the case to the Justice Department.

Spokesmen for both the CIA and federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating whether a crime was committed, also would not comment.

Though that key law may not have been broken in leaking the name, Fitzgerald must still be pursuing evidence of some type of wrongdoing, said Victoria Toensing, another of the attorneys who helped draft the 1982 act. Like Sanford, she doubts Valerie Wilson, as she now refers to herself, qualified as a "covert agent" under that law. She and Sanford also doubt Fitzgerald has enough evidence to prosecute anyone under the Espionage Act. That law makes it a crime to divulge "information relating to the national defense" that "the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury" of the nation.

But, Toensing said, "reading between the lines, I'd say he's got a 'Martha Stewart case' " involving perjury or obstruction of justice. In other words, though a crime may not have been committed at the start, one may have occurred during the investigation when someone lied to Fitzgerald or to a federal grand jury.
(End of Article)

( On Wednesday's show I talked about this very issue and stated that by the end of the week this case would no longer be about the Plame leak, that the left would now be hoping for perjury charges to emerge on Rove. Well folks, here is the USA Today basically suggesting just that. I told you, the MSNM and the left realize there is no crime here so they are hoping that Rove perjured himself. Highly unlikely folks, since Rove signed a waiver to allow prosecutors to question the reporters Rove spoke to, and then Rove himself cleared Cooper to talk to the Grand Jury resolving him of any confidentiality that existed. If Rove lied to the grand jury he would not have done either of those things. Hang on to your hats folks cause its going to be a bumpy ride but in the end Rove will have broken no law and therefore will not be prosecuted. It will be interseting to see who is though if Miller talks about her source, who is obviously not Rove or why would she go to jail to conceal someone who is already known.)

J.R.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Iraqi Army Foils Three Terrorist Attacks

Iraqi soldiers stopped three terrorist attacks against a water plant, a military recruiting drive, and a hospital July 11, all around Baghdad.

No soldiers or civilians were injured in any of the attacks, and the Iraqi troops' efforts saved the lives of countless citizens, officials noted.
At 3:25 a.m. that day, terrorists fired on Iraqi soldiers guarding the Khark Water Treatment Plant in north Baghdad. The guards returned fire, driving the attackers away and preventing any damage to the newly repaired facility, which provides fresh water to millions of people in the city.

In west Abu Ghraib, Iraqi soldiers guarding the site of an Iraqi Army recruiting drive spotted a mortar round less than 100 yards away from their checkpoint. A dispatched team of explosives experts safely detonated the bomb.

The third incident occurred just before noon, when a citizen told Iraqi soldiers he'd seen a car bomb parked near a hospital in south Baghdad. They secured the site and called in explosives experts to investigate.

The team found a white car with wires running from the transmission to two batteries. It also found a bomb near the hospital consisting of four mortar rounds. The team safely removed the car bomb and munitions from the site.
"These successes can be directly attributed to better-trained and more experienced Iraqi army soldiers patrolling the streets," said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman.

"They're making their presence known and they're talking to Iraqis they meet while patrolling," Kent noted. "As a result, Iraqis are gaining more confidence in their Army and providing the Soldiers with more information, which they can use to disrupt insurgent cells."

No Gitmo torture, Senate panel told

A military investigation of interrogations at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found no torture occurred, but one high-value al Qaeda operative was subjected to "abusive and degrading treatment" when he was forced to wear a brassiere, do dog tricks and stay awake for 20 hours a day.
"We looked at this very, very carefully -- no torture occurred," Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt testified yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Detention and interrogation operations across the board ... looking through all the evidence that we could, were safe, secure and humane."

London Bombers Tied to Al Qaeda Plot in Pakistan

At least two men who have connections to last week's London bombings are alive and still at large.

The first is a man, who was seen on surveillance tapes at Luton station, located outside of London, as he bid farewell to the four bombers the morning of the attacks. The other is Magdy El Nashar, an Egyptian chemist, who attended and received training at North Carolina State University.

British police think El Nashar may have helped the London group build their bombs before leaving England two weeks before the attacks. They have since issued a worldwide alert for him.

The picture shows Hasib Hussain, 18, at the Luton train station at 7:20 a.m., one week ago today. Two-and-a-half hours later, his backpack full of explosives was detonated. It killed him and 13 others on a crowded double-decker bus.

Now police are on the search for answers to how such a plot was carried out. "Who supported them? Who financed them?" asked Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch of the Metropolitan Police. "Who trained them? Who encouraged them?"

Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington.

"There's absolutely no doubt he was part of an al Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Great Britain," explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry who is now a senior terrorism consultant for ABC News.

At the time, authorities thought they had foiled the London subway plot by arresting more than a dozen young Britons of Pakistani descent last August in Luton, a city known for its ties to terrorism.

"For some time, the locus of terrorism in Britain has been around the Luton area and in some of the northern cities," said Michael Clark, professor of defense at King's College in London.

Security officials tell ABC News they have discovered links between the eldest of the London bombers, Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, and the original group in Luton. Officials also believe it was not a coincidence the subway bombers all met at the Luton train station last week.

"It is very likely this group was activated last year after the other group was arrested," Debat said.

Forces capture would-be bomber in Iraq

Iraqi and U.S. forces captured a suicide bomber before he could detonate his explosive belt Thursday, and announced a key suspect in the kidnap-slaying of Egypt's top envoy to Iraq had been arrested in what was hailed as a blow to the terror network.

The thwarted suicide attack - just 150 feet from the Green Zone, the site of the U.S. Embassy and major Iraqi government offices - was intended to be part of coordinated assaults by a suicide car bomber and two pedestrians strapped with explosives.

The attackers apparently planned to detonate the car bomb first. Then the two pedestrians would blow themselves up in the midst of troops, police and rescue workers rushing to the scene, U.S. officials said.

The car bomb exploded successfully. But one pedestrian bomber was killed after an Iraqi policeman shot him, setting off his explosive vest, a U.S. statement said.

The second pedestrian bomber was wounded by shrapnel from the blast before he could detonate his own vest, and was in critical condition at a U.S. military hospital in the Green Zone, the statement said.

Would-be bombers are rarely captured in Iraq. A 19-year-old Saudi was taken into custody after he somehow survived the explosion of his fuel tanker in December, a blast that nine people. A Yemeni was arrested in 2003 when his car bomb failed to detonate at a Baghdad police station.

There was no word on the identity of the failed bomber, but his arrest could yield valuable intelligence on the shadowy network of Islamic extremists - many of them believed to be foreigners linked to al-Qaida.

In another setback to insurgents, about 30 suspected al-Qaida members were arrested in the past week, including a key suspect in this month's killing of Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sherif and attacks on senior diplomats from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. command said.

Poll finds Muslim support for bin Laden waning

In heavily Islamic countries, support for terror attacks on Americans drops

WASHINGTON - Support for Osama bin Laden and terrorist bombings
against Americans and their allies in Iraq is falling in several
heavily Muslim countries, particularly those where terrorist attacks
have occurred.

According to surveys conducted for the Pew Research Center for the
People & the Press, young people in Morocco, Lebanon, Pakistan and
Turkey view America more favorably than the overall populations in
those countries.
"There are some signs � especially in Indonesia, Morocco and even
Turkey, where they've had their own experience with terrorist
bombings � that there's less support than there was in 2003 for
suicide bombings and for bin Laden," Pew director Andrew Kohut said.

Pew interviewed people in 17 countries, six of which � Indonesia,
Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey � have majority Muslim
populations. The polling was done before last week's terrorist
bombings in London.

Fewer justify suicide bombings
In Lebanon, the number of people who think the use of suicide bombing
and other forms of violence is justified in defense of Islam has
dropped from 73 percent in the summer of 2002 to 39 percent now.
Smaller drops were seen in Morocco, from 40 percent a year ago to 13
percent now, and in Pakistan and Indonesia. In Jordan, the number of
people who feel such violence is justified has grown slightly; the
number in Turkey remains very low.

Since March 2004, the sentiment for suicide bombing against Americans
and their allies in Iraq dropped from 70 percent to 49 percent in
Jordan, which neighbors Iraq, and dropped by smaller margins in
Pakistan, Turkey, and Morocco.

Public confidence in bin Laden has dipped sharply since May 2003 in
Indonesia, Morocco, Lebanon and Turkey � all countries that have
experienced recent terrorist bombings. In Pakistan and Jordan, a
majority of people continue to say they have at least some confidence
in bin Laden, the Saudi leader of al-Qaida.

A majority of people in Morocco and Pakistan say Islamic extremism
greatly threatens their country, and almost half in Indonesia and
Turkey said it poses a great threat. Few people in Lebanon and Jordan
felt that way.

Iraqis March Against Terror

There was a protest march of Iraqis against terror on July 5th. You probably haven't heard about it from Peter Jennings or Dan Rather:

QAYARRAH, Iraq: Citizens of the southern city of Qayarrah, of the northern province of Ninewah, gather to demonstrate their defiance against terrorism during the March Against Terror. Over 1,000 Iraqi citizens, including several influential political and religious leaders, marched alongside Iraqi Army and police officers in this first of several such demonstrations planned for the northern region of Iraq.

Call it the Iraqi version of We're Not Afraid.

Hat Tip To: BLACK FIVE

Joseph Wilson Calls on Bush to Fire Rove

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson called on President Bush Thursday to fire deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, saying Bush's top-level aide engaged in an "abuse of power" by discussing Wilson's wife's job with a reporter.

Wilson decried what he called a White House "stonewall" in the wake of revelations that Rove, a longtime Bush confidant, was involved in the leak to the news media that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer.

Bush said Wednesday that he would not comment on discussions that blew her cover because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, however, the president still has confidence in Rove.

Wilson, in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show, said he thinks the White House's posture in this controversy represents a continuing "cover-up of the web of lies that underpin the justification for going to war in Iraq."

Wilson was asked about statements by Rove's defenders noting that an e-mail describing Rove's conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper indicated that Rove did not specifically mention Valerie Plame by name.

"My wife's name is Mrs. Joseph Wilson," he replied. "It is Mrs. Valerie Wilson. He named her. He identified her," Wilson said. "So that argument doesn't stand the smell test ... What I do know is that Mr. Rove is talking to the press and he is saying things like my wife is fair game. That's an outrage. That's an abuse of power." (End of Article)


( Wow, this guy Wilson can't even read. Rove stated to Cooper that Joe Wilsons wife worked for the CIA. He did not name her. All through this story she has been referred to as Valerie Plame, I have never heard of her referred to as Mrs. Joseph Wilson or Mrs. Valerie Wilson. Now all of a sudden when Wilson see's that Rove has committed NO crime here, Plames last name suddenly changes to Wilson for the Dems and the MSNM convenience . What a joke this whole thing is turning out to be the MSNM and the Dummocrats are falling over each other trying to sink Rove and now Wilson tells one more lie.)

J.R.

FACE OF THE BUS BOMBER

Police have released a CCTV image of the man they believe bombed the No 30 bus in London's Tavistock Square.

They have appealed for information on the movements of 18-year-old Hasib Hussain while he was in London.

He was seen at Luton Station at 7.20am on the day of the bombings before travelling to King's Cross in London with three other men.

It is thought Hussain then tried to get on a Northern Line train but was unable to due to disruption on the line.

He could then have been on the No 30 bus for up to 45 minutes before he set off his bomb at 9.47am.

Up to 80 people were on the bus when it exploded.

Police want to hear from anybody who may have seen Hussain at any stage that morning.

The news comes as the number of people killed in the transport bombings rose to 53.

Seven people died in the Liverpool St/Aldgate blast; seven in the Edgware Road blast; 26 in the King's Cross/Russell Square bombing; and 13 in the No 30 bus.

Anti-terror police are now hunting two others suspects known as the "mastermind" and the "chemist".

They have named Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, both from the Leeds area, as two bombing suspects. Police said Tanweer carried out the Aldgate Tube attack.

The fourth bomber is believed to be a Jamaican-born Briton called Lindsey Germail.

DAC Peter Clarke of London's anti-terror branch said they were looking at "who committed the bombings, who supported them, sho financed them, who trained them and who encouraged them".

Kennedy raps Santorum for sex abuse remarks Made in 2002 ?

In a rare personal attack on the Senate floor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy accused Sen. Rick Santorum on Wednesday of being self-righteous and insensitive for a column he wrote three years ago linking Boston�s liberalism to the sex abuse scandal in its Catholic diocese.

Santorum, R-Pa., wrote in the July 2002 column for Catholic Online that promoting alternative lifestyles feeds such aberrant behavior as priests molesting children.

�Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture,� Santorum wrote. �When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.�

In a speech, Kennedy, D-Mass., called for Santorum to retract his remarks and apologize to the people of Boston and Massachusetts and the nation.

�The people of Boston are to blame for the clergy sexual abuse? That is an irresponsible, insensitive and inexcusable thing to say,� said Kennedy.

Robert Traynham, a spokesman for Santorum, said his boss recognizes that the church abuse scandal was not just in Boston, but all over the country.

Throughout the United States, sexual abuse by priests has cost the Catholic Church more than $1 billion. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has said that its records show 44 priests have been �credibly� accused of molesting minors since the 1950s.

Traynham said Santorum �was speaking to a broader cultural argument about the need for everyone to take these issues very, very seriously.� (End of Article)


(Well it looks like the Dems are really losing it folks, commenting on something that was stated in 2002 by a Republican to a church group. Wow. Just goes to show you what alcohol will do to your brain Mr. Kennedy. S L O W S I T W A Y D O W N !)

J.R.

Calif. National Guard Criticized for Poster Suggesting Dipping Bullets in Pig's Blood

Islamic leaders and peace groups are criticizing the California National Guard for a flier posted in its headquarters suggesting the United States execute Islamic terrorists with bullets dipped in pig's blood to deny them entry to heaven.

The flier attributed the practice to World War I General John J. Pershing.

"Maybe it is time for this segment of history to repeat itself, maybe in Iraq?" the flier stated. It was posted outside a cubicle in the Guard's Civil Support Division.

A second flier showed the wings and tail of a bomber forming a peace sign with the slogan, "Peace the old fashioned way."

Also posted was a cartoon from a Web site showing a Red Crescent ambulance stuffed with weapons and a caricature that looks like the late-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat unloading the weapons.

Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Doug Hart at first defended the postings to the San Jose Mercury News, which reported them Tuesday, but Hart later said they had been removed.

Peace activists spotted the fliers during a tour last week.

The tour came after peace groups and a state senator questioned whether a new Guard unit had been formed to spy on U.S. citizens and had monitored a Mother's Day anti-war rally. A federal investigation of the allegations is underway.

U.S. Military Arrests Suspect in Kidnap-Slaying of Egyptian Envoy

The U.S. military on Thursday announced the capture of two key members of Iraq's most-feared terror group, including one suspected in the kidnap-slaying of an Egyptian envoy and attacks on senior diplomats from Pakistan and Bahrain.

Khamis Farhan Khalaf Abd al-Fahdawi, known as Abu Seba, was arrested last Saturday following operations in the Ramadi area west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

He was accused of involvement in the abduction and killing of Egypt's top envoy in Iraq and attacks on Pakistani and Bahraini diplomats earlier this month.

"Seba served as a senior lieutenant of al-Qaida in Iraq, and is suspected in attacks against diplomats of Bahrain, Pakistan and the recent murder of Egyptian envoy, Ihab Salah al Din Ahmad al-Sherif," the U.S. statement said. "Al-Qaida ordered the attacks against Arab diplomats in an effort to reduce support for the government of Iraq according to a military spokesman."

Another al-Qaida in Iraq lieutenant, Abdullah Ibrahim Mohammed Hassan al Shadad, or Abu Abdul Aziz, was captured Sunday, the command said. It said Abu Abdul Aziz was a top lieutenant of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and served as operations officer for the group.

The statement said Abu Abdul Aziz was cooperating with coalition forces.

In an Internet statement Thursday, al-Qaida in Iraq acknowledged that Abu Abdul Aziz had been captured but described him as the commander of one of the group's Baghdad brigades.

"They invent the posts: here is the prince of Baghdad, the deputy of al-Zarqawi, or one of the top leaders," the group said. "God knows that our brother Abu Abdul Aziz, God free him from capture, is nothing but a leader of one of the brigades in Baghdad."

The group said he was detained when American and Iraqi forces stormed a house in Baghdad and that Abu Abdul Aziz was wounded and possibly killed.

Hat Tip: The Conservative Voice

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

CNN's Kyra Phillips: "definitely a major smear campaign going on" against Rove

CNN anchor Kyra Philips responded to a call by Democratic senators for President Bush to fire White House senior adviser Karl Rove for his alleged role in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame by saying: "definitely a major smear campaign going on."

Phillips made her comment on the July 12 edition of CNN's Live From ..., following footage of Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) calling for Rove to be fired:

PHILIPS: Bob, definitely a major smear campaign going on. I mean, what's the chances of hearing from Karl Rove? Could he speak? Could he come forward? A lot of people said that could just clear the air if he just came forward and gave the facts.

Pentagon says key Zarqawi operative caught in Iraq

American forces have captured a key operative in the organisation of Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top US general said.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the PBS program "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that Monday's capture of Abu Abd Al-Aziz, whom he called Zarqawi's "main leader in Baghdad," was "going to hurt that operation of Zarqawi's pretty significantly."

Myers said Al-Aziz was picked up "on the battlefield," but provided no other details.

A defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, "When you look at the picture of the Zarqawi network of the different elements that are known to exist, he's the second-in-command of the Baghdad element and has the reputation of being the 'emir of Baghdad' for Zarqawi."

The official said American forces were involved in the operation that snared Al-Aziz, but was unable to say whether Iraqi government forces played a role.

Robert Novak: Plame Source 'No Partisan Gunslinger'

The Washington press corps and their Democratic friends have been too busy this week chasing down Karl Rove to notice that columnist Robert Novak has offered a tantalizing clue about the identity of just who it was who leaked Valerie Plame's name to him back in July 2003.

And judging from Novak's revelation - it wasn't Karl Rove.

"During a long conversation with a senior administration official," he wrote, "I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger."

No partisan gunslinger?

Even fans of Mr. Rove would be hard-presseed to deny he's a "partisan gunslinger" - just the kind of person Novak says his leaker wasn't.

Prosecutor: Karl Rove Not Target of Probe

Plamegate special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had told top White House advisor Karl Rove that he's not a target of his investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA analyst Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak.

And Fitzgerald has also asked the top Bush aide not to discuss the case in public.

Speaking to National Review Online's Byron York late Tuesday, Rove attorney Robert Luskin said Fitzgerald "has told Rove he is not a 'target' of the investigation" - despite media reports suggesting otherwise.
Fitzgerald has also made it clear, however, that virtually anyone whose conduct falls within the scope of the investigation, including Rove, is considered a "subject" of the probe, Luskin told York.

"'Target' is something we all understand, a very alarming term," he added.

Former Reagan Justice Department official Mark Levin told York last night that Luskin's revelation made a big difference. "He is not a target, which is quite different from a subject," Levin said on his WABC radio show. "I know what a target is . . . the prosecutors are chasing you."

"If he's not a target, what the hell is the media up to" by making Rove the focus of their questions, Levin asked?

Luskin also told York that Rove has not spoken publicly, "because Fitzgerald specifically asked him not to."

Karl Rove, Whistleblower

From The Wall Street Journal


Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. ... But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.

On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail. ...

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know.

If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. ...

Sharp Increase in Tax Revenue Will Pare U.S. Deficit

For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion.

On Wednesday, White House officials plan to announce that the deficit for the 2005 fiscal year, which ends in September, will be far smaller than the $427 billion they estimated in February.

Mr. Bush plans to hail the improvement at a cabinet meeting and to cite it as validation of his argument that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and ultimately help pay for themselves.

Based on revenue and spending data through June, the budget deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was $251 billion, $76 billion lower than the $327 billion gap recorded at the corresponding point a year earlier.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the deficit for the full fiscal year, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be "significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion."

The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well.

Most of the increase in individual tax receipts appears to have come from higher stock market gains and the business income of relatively wealthy taxpayers. The biggest jump was not from taxes withheld from salaries but from quarterly payments on investment gains and business earnings, which were up 20 percent this year.

'Profiling' helped ID London bombers

The critical breakthrough in the hunt for the London bombers came on Monday night in a police video viewing suite.

Detectives involved in watching thousands of hours of film for glimpses of the terrorists had been given a "profile" based on a simple question posed for their guidance by senior officers.

The question was: what would the terrorists look like? The answer was that they would be young men, probably in their 20s and 30s, and they would be carrying rucksacks.

At 8pm on Monday, on footage from a camera at King's Cross station in central London, officers found images of four young men carrying bulky rucksacks, similar to those in which soldiers carry radios.

One source observed: "It was like the infantry going to war, or like they were going on a hiking holiday."

They were suicide bombers . . . and they were British

Four suicide bombers, at least three of them British, were responsible for the explosions that killed more than 50 people in London, senior security sources said last night.

The three were all thought to be of Pakistani ethnic origin and said by neighbours to have lived modest suburban lives in West Yorkshire.

One has yet to be identified, while the others were not known to police or the intelligence services as terrorist suspects.

One was the son of a fish and chip shop owner. Another was only 18 years old and was reported missing by his worried parents at 10pm on the day of the bombings.

Police said the bombers made a rendezvous somewhere outside London last Thursday morning, travelled together to King's Cross Thameslink station wearing large military-style rucksacks containing 10lb high-explosive bombs and split up to attack their assigned targets.

Three of the attackers were said to be from the Leeds area and were identified locally as British-born men.

Congressman to request al-Qaida nuke briefing

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a staunch critic of the federal government's lax immigration and border enforcement policies, said yesterday he would request a briefing from the Justice Department on information it has on plans revealed by WND this week for a nuclear attack on the U.S. by al-Qaida terrorists.
Tancredo said he was greatly alarmed by the report and would seek whatever information he could get from the nation's law enforcement authorities � either in classified or unclassified reports.

Al-Qaida's plans, known as "America's Hiroshima" according to captured terrorists and terrorist documents, calls for the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons, already in the possession of Osama bin Laden's operatives currently inside the U.S. The agents and arms having been smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups, according to the report originating in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, a premium, online intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND.

Russian WMDs hidden in U.S.?

New evidence suggests al-Qaida after them

It was little more than a rumor during the darkest days of the Cold War.

Did agents of the Soviet Union conceal nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction inside the U.S. and other western cities?

New evidence suggests they did � and that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorists network is determined to find them and use them with the help of bribed Russian spies or special forces soldiers who have maintained their secret locations for all these years.


According to a report by Gordon Thomas and David M. Dastych in the latest issue of the Polish news and opinion weekly Wprost, U.S. authorities searched in vain for the nuclear devices in New York City the day after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks.

They had been tipped off about the possible existence of Russian "suitcase nukes" in the area by officials in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to the report.

No nuclear weapons were found Sept. 12, 2001, or thereafter. But, more recently, U.S. intelligence services have become concerned about efforts by terrorists to buy off former Soviet and current Russian agents with knowledge of the weapons.

The report also cites the work of Paul L. Williams, an investigative reporter, former FBI consultant and author of several books, including "Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11," which claims al-Qaida sleeper agents have already stashed suitcase nukes in several major U.S. cities as well as Rappahannock, Va., where the U.S. government maintains an underground bunker as a command-and-control center for wartime or national emergency.

As WorldNetDaily reported earlier this week, Williams describes how al-Qaida has already purchased some post-Soviet mini-nukes and hired Russians to help them operate them. The report was first published in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by WND's founder.

Williams predicted in his book a nuclear attack by al-Qaida would be launched before the end of 2005.

Several U.S. officials have alluded to the threat recently.


"It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons," said Porter Goss, director of central intelligence before a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Robert S. Mueller III, director of the FBI, said: "I am also very concerned with a growing body of sensitive reporting that continues to show al-Qaida's clear intention to obtain and ultimately use some form of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear or high-energy explosives material in its attacks against America."

In addition, Thomas and Dastych report Britain's MI5 has identified 32 spies of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service operating under full diplomatic cover from their London embassy. The spies reportedly have links to deep-cover KGB agents who, during the Cold War, hid scores of genetically engineered biological warfare weapons in Britain's countryside. MI5 believes the Russian spies are still actively concealing the locations of the germ vials.

Meanwhile, KGB spymaster Alexander Kouzminov confirms his agents planted the vials. He, too, believes Russian agents are still involved in guarding them.

"Huge efforts and money was spent in our work," he explained. "It would be foolish to believe our people were stood down just because Russia took part in biological weapons talks in Geneva."

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Timeline: Guantanamo Bay Britons

The release of Britons detained at Gitmo who were captured on the battle fields of Afghanistan may hold the key answers to many questions about who the TERRORISTS are who bombed London. As you can see below in thei January article from the BBC there were several who were released into British custody after being received from Gitmo. Looks like a good place to start as any !

J.R.


2001

7 October - British and American forces invade Afghanistan.

2002

12 January - The first al-Qaeda prisoners are moved from detention centres in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay US naval base, Cuba. It emerges that there are Britons being held there.

27 January - The family of Guantanamo detainee Shafiq Rasul, 24, from Tipton, in the West Midlands, plead for him to be returned to Britain for questioning. He is in the camp with fellow Britons, Asif Iqbal, 20, also from Tipton, and Feroz Abbasi, 22, from Croydon, Surrey.

19 February - Foreign Office announces that five of the nine British men being held in Guantanamo Bay are to be released. They are named as Ruhal Ahmed, Tarek Dergoul, Jamal Udeen (also known as Jamal Al Harith), Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul.


9 March - The five arrive back in London to be questioned, though Jamal Udeen is soon released without charge.

9 February - A legal team representing Mr Iqbal, 20, and Mr Rasul, 24, calls on the US government to either justify their detention of the two men by bringing charges, or free them.

6 March - Lawyers for Mr Abbasi seek a judicial review of the government's co-operation with the US.

10 March - Tarek Dergoul, Shafiq Rasul, Ruhal Ahmed, and Asif Iqbal are released without charge.



They want to force Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to arrange legal representation for Mr Abbasi.

15 March - Mr Abbasi loses his High Court battle against the government.

1 July - Three senior judges give permission for a full hearing of Mr Abbasi's claims that the government is not protecting his rights while he is held by the US at Camp X-Ray.

6 November - The Court of Appeal rules that Mr Straw cannot be compelled to intervene over the detention by the US of Mr Abbasi.


2003

26 February - It emerges that Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, is now a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. He is reported to have been seized in Pakistan.

4 July - It emerges that two Britons, Mr Begg and Mr Abbasi, could be among the first detainees to face trial by secretive military tribunals.

18 July - The US agrees to suspend the threat of secret military hearings against the nine Britons being held pending talks between the two nations.

20 November - The immediate fate of the British detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be resolved "soon", Prime Minister Tony Blair says following talks with US President George Bush.

6 July - The US was not being "unreasonable" in refusing to release the last Britons at Guantanamo Bay, says Tony Blair, adding that he's not sure the security "machinery" is in place in the UK to ensure the detainees posed no threat.

2005

11 January - The remaining four Britons held by the US in Guantanamo Bay will be returned to the UK "in the next few weeks", Jack Straw announces.

25 January - The Pentagon confirms it has transferred four British detainees into UK custody.

They arrive back at RAF Northolt and are immediately arrested under the Terrorism Act.

26 January - Martin Mubanga, now 32, Feroz Abbasi, 24, Richard Belmar, 25, and Moazzam Begg, 36, are freed without charge after police questioning at London's Paddington Green Police station.

They are reunited with their families.

A US official says Britain has undertaken to monitor the four.

Budget Update Show Deficit Goal Being Reached Early

President George W. Bush's administration will report this week that surging tax revenue is shrinking this year's budget deficit from the record 2004 level, possibly by as much as $90 billion, giving him a shot at fulfilling his deficit reduction promise three years early.

With tax revenue running $1 billion a day ahead of the 2004 pace in late April and May, the deficit will likely decline to about $325 billion from $412 billion last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office and private forecasters such as Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut.

``An expanding economy, creating more receipts, is putting us on a very good path to deal with our deficit,'' Treasury Secretary John Snow said at a press conference in Calgary on July 8. ``It's pretty clear now the path we are on will take us below the president's initial target.''

Bush promised during his election campaign last year that he would pare the annual deficit to about 2.25 percent of the nation's gross domestic product by 2009.

As recently as February, the government was projecting the deficit would rise this year to $427 billion, or about 3.5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Some economists, including Mike Englund of Boulder, Colorado, research firm Action Economics LLC, now predict the shortfall will drop to 2.5 percent of GDP this year and as low as 2.0 percent next year. That would mean a deficit next year as low as about $250 billion.

the first eight months of the fiscal year the deficit was $272.2 billion, down from $346.3 billion at the same time last year, the Treasury said in a June 10 report. The monthly deficit fell to $35.3 billion in May, a bigger improvement than economists expected and the smallest gap for the month since 2001. Revenue rose 32 percent, with tax receipts from individuals surging 88 percent from May 2004, the biggest jump in five years. Spending increased 5.7 percent.

``Given the pace of income, wage and salary growth, there'll be plenty of money in the coffers,'' said Rich Yamarone, director of research at Argus Research Corp. in New York. ``I wouldn't be surprised with a $100 billion narrowing.''

Arrests reported in London bombings

Investigators in the London bombings said Tuesday they are focusing on four men, at least one of whom "very likely" died in one of the blasts. They also said that they had made an arrest in the investigation.

Identity documents of the four men were found very near the explosions, Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, told reporters. Closed-circuit TV video showed that all four had arrived together at King�s Cross station 20 minutes before the first blast, he added.

Clarke said that one of the four men under suspicion "very likely" died in one bombing, and that one person had been arrested in raids earlier Tuesday in Leeds, a city 185 miles north of London.

He added that at least three of the four men were from West Yorkshire, the county where Leeds is located.

Police and Army troops were led to six properties in Leeds after identifying a suspected bomber who died in the bus bombing, sources told the Press Association, a British news service. Scotland Yard refused to confirm the claims.

Earlier reports had quoted a witness on the bus who said he saw an �agitated� olive-skinned man rummaging in a backpack moments before the explosion.

The Leeds homes were searched and found to be unoccupied.

Several neighbors told NBC News that the area had been home to several young Pakistani men who had not been seen since before the bombings Thursday. The father of one man has been interviewed by police, NBC reported.

At one address, army experts carried out a controlled explosion to gain entry to the property and then helped police search it for explosives, Inspector Miles Himsworth of West Yorkshire Police told reporters.

Hours earlier, police searched five residences in the Beeston area of Leeds.

Himsworth said some material had been seized from the houses but would not elaborate.

In Luton, a city just north of London, police closed off the railway station and adjoining car park after coming across the vehicle suspected of being tied to the bombings.

Nearby streets were cordoned off, and police later blew up the car as a precaution. Located next to a regional airport, the Luton station is on the rail line that goes to King's Cross station, one of the three bombed last Thursday.

Zarqawi Is Heartened by Dick Durbin�s Statements

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda chief in Iraq, sent a thank you note to the Dick Durbins and Ted Kennedys of Congress in a message to his followers and sympathizers on July 5. According to an unreleased translation read to me by a Defense Department source, Zarqawi's message exhorted his terrorists to greater effort, because, Zarqawi said, it is very clear that America was being defeated in Iraq. Zarqawi's proof? His message said that the proof that America is losing is that some American congressmen are saying just that.


IT IS ESSENTIAL TO THE war that our enemy has no reason to doubt our resolve. Winston Churchill knew that. His ringing speeches, throughout the war, and especially in its darkest hours, were literally the fuel that propelled British courage when everyone, including many of his closest advisers, thought all was lost. When Dick Durbin compared our people at Gitmo to Nazis, Gulag guards, and Pol Pot's mass murderers, there was a short burst of outrage, quelled by his phony apology.

Hat Tip:: Save the GOP

Deputy AG: Valerie Plame Leak Not Illegal

The White House press corps lapsed into a full-blown feeding frenzy on Monday over the news that Karl Rove is identified in emails from Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper as someone who mentioned that Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA - just days before her name was revealed by columnist Robert Novak.

But the former deputy attorney general who helped draft Intelligence Identities Protection Act - which Bush critics insist was violated when Valerie Plame was identified to Novak - said earlier this year that it's unlikely any laws were broken in the case.

Writing in January in the Washington Post, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing explained that she helped draft the 1982 law in question.
Said Toensing: "The Novak column and the surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct."

For Plame's outing to have been illegal, the one-time deputy AG explained, "her status as undercover must be classified." Also, Plame "must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years."

Since in neither case does Plame meet those criteria, Toensing argued: "There is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as 'covert.'"

The law also requires that the celebrated non-spy's outing take place by someone who knew the government had taken "affirmative measures to conceal [the agent's] relationship" to the U.S.

Toensing said that's unlikely.

In fact, the myth that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was violated in the Plame case began to unravel in October 2003, when New York Times scribe Nicholas Kristof revealed that she abandoned her covert role a full nine years before the Novak column.

"The C.I.A. suspected that Aldrich Ames had given [Plame's] name [along with those of other spies] to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994," reported Kristof. "So her undercover security was undermined at that time, and she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons."

The Times columnist also noted that Plame had begun making the transition to CIA "management" even before she was outted by Novak, explaining that "she was moving away from 'noc' � which means non-official cover ... to a new cover as a State Department official, affording her diplomatic protection without having 'C.I.A.' stamped on her forehead."

Kristof concluded: "All in all, I think the Democrats are engaging in hyperbole when they describe the White House as having put [Plame's] life in danger and destroyed her career; her days skulking along the back alleys of cities like Beirut and Algiers were already mostly over."

Official: Afghans sheltered SEAL from Taliban

Afghan villagers sheltered a U.S. Navy SEAL wounded in a battle last month with the Taliban until they could get word to American forces to rescue him, a military official said Monday.

Military officials said a rocket exploded near the surviving SEAL, knocking him off his feet and down a mountainside in steep terrain. He then managed to stay out of sight of the insurgents, officials said.

The commando suffered multiple leg wounds but was able to walk about two miles (three or four kilometers) through the mountains to get away, according to a U.S. military official, who insisted on anonymity.

An Afghan villager found the SEAL and hid him in his village, the official said.

According to military accounts, Taliban fighters came to the village and demanded the American be turned over, but villagers refused.

The SEAL wrote a note verifying his identity and location, and a villager carried it to U.S. forces, the official said. The note indicated to U.S. troops that they wouldn't be entering into a trap. The commando was rescued July 3.

The military has not revealed his identity.

Terrorist 'used military explosives' in London

A SINGLE bombmaker using high-grade military explosives is believed to be responsible for building the four devices that killed more than 50 people last week, The Times can reveal.

Similar components from the explosive devices have been found at all four murder sites, leading detectives to believe that each of the 10lb rucksack bombs was the work of one man. They also believe that the materials used were not home made but sophisticated military explosives, possibly smuggled into Britain from the Balkans.

�The nature of the explosives appears to be military, which is very worrying,� said Superintendent Christophe Chaboud, the chief of the French anti-terrorist police, who was in London to help Scotland Yard.

It is understood that the examination of the No 30 bus at Tavistock Square has yielded vital fragments that have sharpened the focus of the police inquiry. Forensic pathologists have been paying particular attention to the remains of two bodies found in the mangled wreckage of the double-decker.

A senior police source said: �There are two bodies which have to be examined in great detail because they appear to have been holding the bomb or sitting on top of it. One of those might turn out to be the bomber.� A decapitated head was found at the bus scene which has been, in Israeli experience, the sign of a suicide bomber.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

At todays press briefing at the White house Scott MCClellan the President's press secretary was attacked by the main stream news media like sharks in a feeding frenzy over the alledged Rove/Plame leak. Scott held his own and told reporters that he would not comment on an ongoing investigation. The press tried to ambush him but he stuck to his guns.

This is SOP and the main stream news media knows it. Officials are always cautioned on speaking about an ongoing investigation. Scott Mc Clellan does not personally know whether Rove leaked Plame or not, therefore he should not comment either way until the investigation is complete and all the FACTS are in. Let the grand jury take its course and the cards fall where they may. ( My money's on this as a go nowhere deal, Plame is not and never was a covert cia operative, short of that you've got newspaper filler.) J.R.

Click on the title link for the full transcript.

Poll: Dems should confirm conservative

Majority of likely voters want support for Bush court pick

A majority of likely American voters believe Senate Democrats should confirm any qualified conservative nominated by President Bush for the Supreme Court.

According to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey, just 24 percent believe Democrats should oppose such a nominee, and 58 percent believe the pick should be confirmed.

The latest survey shows Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly support confirmation. Democrats are evenly divided � 43 percent say their senators should vote to confirm while 38 percent take the opposite view.

The divide among Democrats is strictly along ideological lines, the poll taker said. Fifty-eight percent of liberal Democrats want their party to oppose confirmation of a qualified conservative. Fifty-eight percent of moderate and conservative Democrats take the opposite view.

The survey also found 64 percent of men, and 53 percent of women believe Senate Democrats should vote to confirm a qualified conservative nominee.

That view is shared by 61 percent of white Americans and 50 percent of other Americans.

Another survey this year showed that 42 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly as many, 41 percent, have an unfavorable opinion.

Prisoners escape US Afghan base

Four "dangerous enemy combatants" have escaped from the main US base in Afghanistan, the US military has said.
A huge manhunt was launched around the Bagram air base, north of the capital Kabul, after the men escaped at about 0500 (0030 GMT).

The US says it is the first time any prisoner has escaped from Bagram.

Hundreds of detainees, most of them Afghan nationals but a number of senior foreign al-Qaeda suspects, are held at the detention centre.

"We have on operation to recover four individuals who escaped from our detention facility," said US military spokesman Lt-Col Jerry O'Hara. He would not say how the men escaped.

Body of U.S. Commando Found in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan - The body of a missing U.S. commando has been located in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Monday, bringing an end to the desperate search for the last member of an ill-fated, four-man special forces unit that disappeared last month.

One of the four men was rescued on July 3; the other two were found dead the next day.

The body of the fourth U.S. Navy SEAL was found Sunday in Kunar province by a search and rescue team, the military said in a statement. It said all indications are that he died in fighting, despite a claim by Mullah Latif Hakimi, a purported Taliban spokesman, that he was captured alive and beheaded.

"The location and disposition of the service member's remains indicate he died while fighting off enemy terrorists on or about June 28," the statement said.

U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts repeatedly denied Hakimi's claims.


"There have been claims of being dropped on a mountain wearing red clothes, there have been claims of being beheaded," he said. But "there was no indication supporting the claims. ... This individual was never in custody, he was never defamed or disgraced."

He said the injuries on the commando's body were consistent with "a firefight, a combat operation with smalls arms fire, RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds."

Yonts said the commando's body was found near the chopper crash site in an area "that we had looked over before, but where his body was located was hard to find."

The name of the commando was not immediately released, pending notification of family.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Guantanamo Bay detainees play soccer, eat well: US senator

Inmates from the US-led war on terror held at the prison camp at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are well treated, play outdoor sports, and have access to a broad Muslim-approved menu, a US senator who traveled to the site said.

US Senator Pat Roberts, a conservative Republican from Kansas, said on "Fox News Sunday" that he just returned from visiting the Guantanamo detention site.

"They have a Muslim menu down there of 113 dishes," said Roberts, chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

"I saw them playing soccer. I saw them playing ping-pong. I saw them playing ... I think it was volleyball," he said.

US camp guards "strictly observe with reverence all of the prayer calls, five times a day, 20 minutes," he said.

"And in regards to the health care, my word, they have better health care than many of my small communities in Kansas."

According to Roberts inmate treatment there "is carrots, not sticks. We are treating people humanely."

Meanwhile the US soldiers guarding the inmates "are getting very rough treatment from some of these detainees -- and I don't call them 'detainees,' I call them 'terrorists' -- throwing excrement at them and everything else."

The US guards "are more worried about what's happening in Congress in regards to their future than they are the terrorists," Roberts said.

Newsweek: E-mail Links Rove

In its latest issue, Newsweek reveals some emerging details of White House adviser Karl Rove's communications with Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper - in the critical time period just before the unlawful disclosure of the identity of a CIA operative.

Cooper's e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy:

"Subject: Rove/P&C," [for personal and confidential], Cooper wrote in the 2003 electronic mail. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation. ..."

According to the Newsweek report, Cooper then proceeded to spell out some guidance: "Please don't source this to Rove or even WH [White House]."

Cooper further wrote in the e-mail to his chief that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson."


Rove informed Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA" - CIA Director George Tenet - or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."

The e-mail about the Rove-Cooper conversation continued: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger. ... "

Newsweek noted that it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared - before Plame's identity had been published - and added that the e-mail provided a glimpse into what was unfolding at the highest levels as the administration defended a part of its case for going to war in Iraq.

Jailed American link to London bombing?

Admitted al-Qaida agent holds clues to UK attacks, investigators suspect

An American citizen arrested last year by the FBI, and who has admitted to being a sleeper agent for al-Qaida, may be a key source of information regarding last week's London terror attacks, WorldNetDaily has learned.

Mohammed Junaid Babar, a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, was secretly taken into custody by the FBI last April. He has since admitted to aiding an al-Qaida plot to blow up discos, restaurants and train stations in London in 2004. He also told interrogators he smuggled money and military supplies to a senior al-Qaida operative in Pakistan and helped set up a jihad training camp in south Waziristan.

British authorities foiled the 2004 London bombing plot following Babar's admissions, which led to the arrests of eight British suspects of Pakistani origin and the seizure of 1,000 pounds of ammonium-nitrate fertilizer, which can be used to make explosives, from a storage locker near central London.

But sources close to Babar's interrogation told WND elements of the foiled bombing Babar helped to plan bear striking resemblance to last week's bus and subway attacks.

They also say a London native in custody in Pakistan who has been previously identified by Babar as an al-Qaida agent could be a major source of information regarding last week's attacks.

U.S. Gen.: Terrorists Nearly Out of Business in Baghdad

U.S. and Iraqi forces have "mostly eliminated" the ability of insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity attacks in Baghdad, the top U.S. commander in the Iraqi capital said Friday.

Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr. said in a video-teleconference interview from Baghdad with reporters at the Pentagon that offensive operations by U.S. and Iraqi troops in recent weeks had sharply reduced the number of insurgent bombings. But he cautioned against concluding that the insurgency has been broken.

It's very difficult to know it's over," Webster said.
There were 14 to 21 car bombings per week in Baghdad before the May 22 start of the U.S. portion of the latest offensive, dubbed Operation Lightning, he said. That has dropped to about seven or eight a week now, Webster said, attributing the improvement to the disruption of insurgent cells and the availability of more and better intelligence.

"There are some more threats ahead," he said. "I do believe, however, that the ability of these insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity operations as they did last year, we've mostly eliminated that."

He said that about 1,700 suspected insurgents had been captured during Operation Lightning, including 51 foreigners.

U.S. Launches Operation Scimitar in Iraq

About 600 U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers have launched a fourth offensive against insurgents in less than a month in a volatile western province in Iraq, the military said Saturday.

Operation Scimitar started Thursday with targeted raids in the village of Zaidan, 20 miles southeast of Fallujah. So far, 22 suspected insurgents had been detained. Fallujah was a major insurgent bastion until U.S. forces overran the city in November.

A U.S. Air Force Predator also conducted a strike Friday against militants near Qaim, an Anbar province town on the Syrian border, the military said. The Predator fired a Hellfire missile at a truck carrying rocket-propelled grenades and suspected insurgents.

Two insurgents were killed, said Marine 1st Lt. Pamela Marshall, a spokeswoman.

The military said it did not announce the Operation Scimitar earlier because commanders did not want to tip off insurgents. The campaign - named after a curved Asian sword - includes 500 Marines from the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team-8, stationed in Okinawa, Japan, the military said.

About 100 Iraqi soldiers were supporting the operation, which was designed to disrupt insurgent activity in the Anbar province, which stretches from Baghdad to the Syrian border and holds a number of insurgent strongholds. Fallujah is 40 miles west of the capital.