The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 06/18/2006 - 06/25/2006

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Bush executive order limits property seizure

On 1-year anniversary of Kelo decision president puts curb on eminent domain

On the one-year anniversary of the controversial Supreme Court decision expanding the government's power of eminent domain, President Bush issued an executive order preventing federal agencies from seizing private property except for public projects such as hospitals or roads.

The Supreme Court ruled last June in Kelo v. City of New London the municipal government could seize the homes and businesses of residents to facilitate the building of an office complex that would provide economic benefits to the area and more tax revenue to the city. Though the practice of eminent domain is provided for in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, the case was significant because the seizure was for private development and not for "public use," such as a highway or bridge.

The court, however, noted states are free to enact additional protections. Since then, 31 states have passed laws restricting the use of eminent domain.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, praised President Bush's order, but the senator pointed out the federal government has a limited role in such projects. He has introduced legislation to block federal funding for any state or local projects in which land was taken through eminent domain.

"The protection of homes and small businesses and other private property against government seizure or unreasonable government interference is a fundamental principle of American life and a distinctive aspect of our form of government," Cornyn said, according to the Associated Press. "The Supreme Court's decision last year represented a radical departure from the decisions handed down interpreting that constitutional provision over the last 200 years, and the president's action was an important step toward righting that wrong."

A supporter of the Connecticut city's right to take the homes in the Kelo case dismissed the order as a political move.

Doug Kendall, executive director of the Community Rights Counsel, said he's not aware of any federal government agency that takes property for economic development.

"It's an effort to appease the property rights base, while ignoring the difficult question of when eminent domain should be used to help downtrodden communities," he said, according to the AP.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the executive order put the federal government on record opposing eminent domain for merely economic development purposes.

"The president is a strong supporter of private property rights," she said.

Since the Kelo decision, an avalanche of property confiscations have followed, including these cases:


Oakland, Calif.: A week after the Kelo ruling, Oakland city officials used eminent domain to evict John Revelli from the downtown tire shop his family has owned since 1949. Revelli and a neighboring business owner had refused to sell their property to make way for a new housing development. Said Revelli of his fight with the City, "We thought we'd win, but the Supreme Court took away my last chance."

Boynton Beach, Fla.: Under the threat of eminent domain, the 50-year-old Alex Sims Barber Shop is selling to the City of Boynton Beach to make way for new residences and storefronts. Guarn Sims called the Kelo ruling "the nail in the coffin" that ended his hope of saving the business.

Baltimore, Md. Baltimore�s redevelopment agency, the Baltimore Development Corp., is exercising eminent domain to acquire more than 2,000 properties in East Baltimore for a biotech park and new residences. BDC Executive Vice President Andrew B. Frank told the Daily Record the Kelo decision "is very good news. It means many of the projects on which we�ve been working for the last several years can continue."

Boston, Mass.: Two days after the Kelo decision, Boston City Council President Michael Flaherty called on the mayor of Boston to seize South Boston waterfront property from unwilling sellers for a private development project.

Richmond Heights, Mo.: City officials are taking bids to demolish 200 homes in the Hadley Township Neighborhood, just to turn the land over to a private developer who will build more homes.

Spring Valley, N.Y.: Less than a week after the Kelo decision, Spring Valley officials asked the New York Supreme Court to authorize the condemnation of 15 downtown properties in an area where a private developer plans to construct residential and retail buildings.

Ventor City, N.J.: Mayor Tim Kreischer wants to demolish 126 buildings � mom-and-pop shops, $200,000 homes, and apartments � to erect luxury condos, high-end specialty stores, and a parking garage.

Read President Bush's executive order Here

CRAZY SADDAM: AMERICANS MIGHT REINSTALL ME AS PRESIDENT!

Sat Jun 24 2006 11:25:37 ET

Saddam Hussein believes the Americans may reinstall him as president of Iraq, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Sunday, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Saddam Hussein has no illusions, his chief lawyer says. As he sits in his prison cell reading the Quran and writing poetry, he knows the inevitable is coming -- a death sentence handed down by the Iraqi court trying him for crimes against humanity.

Yet Saddam refuses to submit to the fate that awaits him, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said, for he believes there is a way out:

President Bush will use the court's sentence as leverage to try to persuade Saddam to tamp down the insurgency, he said, so desperate are the Americans to stanch their losses.

In his madness, Saddam believes the Americans might even reinstall him as president of Iraq!

"He'll be the last resort; they'll knock on his door," al-Dulaimi said. "The United States will use this sentence to pressure Saddam to save it from its mess."

Developing...

Official: U.S. Can Hit N. Korea Missile

The Pentagon's missile defense chief predicted on Friday that interceptor rockets would hit and destroy a North Korean missile in flight if President Bush gave the order to attack it on a path to U.S. territory.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told reporters he has little doubt that the interceptor system would work, even though it has never been used in a real emergency and even though the U.S. government knows relatively little about how the North Korean missile would perform.

Obering refused to say whether the U.S. missile defense system is ready now for a possible intercept mission, but noted that it has been designed specifically to defend U.S. territory against known missile threats from North Korea.

"(From) what I have seen and what I know about the system and its capabilities, I am very confident," he said when asked at a news conference about the likelihood that one of the 11 missile interceptors based in Alaska and California would succeed against North Korea's long-range Taepodong 2 missile.

Obering refused to discuss more specifically the level of his confidence.

He also would not say whether the missile defense system, which includes missile-tracking radars and a communications system linked to the interceptors in underground silos, is currently in an "operational" status. He said it is shifted from a test mode to an operational mode frequently. "We do it all the time," he said.

The system is not ready at all times for actual use in an emergency because it is often preparing for or conducting tests.

Noting that North Korea has not conducted a test flight of a ballistic missile since 1998, Obering said that means the Pentagon has a limited amount of information about how a long-range Korean missile would function.

"It's very, very difficult to understand what they may have, how it may perform," he said, adding that any long-range ballistic missile would have to follow known trajectories in order to reach U.S. territory.

The Taepodong 2 missile is a newer version that has never been flight tested.

Poll:GOP voters back 2-tier immigration

Despite vocal conservative opposition to any kind of amnesty for illegal immigrants, a large majority of likely Republican voters support a two-tier approach that strengthens enforcement while providing a path to citizenship, according to a new poll released Thursday.

And they want action this year, even as Congress loses enthusiasm for tackling the contentious issue with an election months away.

The Tarrance Group, a GOP polling firm, conducted the national survey of 800 registered, likely voters June 12-15 for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative think tank.

Three-quarters of the voters favored a policy that reflects Senate legislation.

It would create a system that allows illegal immigrants to come forward, pay a fine and receive a temporary worker permit; and provide these temporary workers with a multi-year path to citizenship if they are put behind others who have applied before them, don't commit crimes, learn English and pay taxes. The proposal also calls for increasing border security and imposing tougher penalties on employers who hire illegal workers.

Forty-nine percent said they did not view this policy as amnesty, while 39 percent said it is amnesty.

The poll found that 47 percent of likely voters supported an immigration reform proposal similar to that backed by the House, while 46 percent said they opposed the House measures.

That legislation calls for increased border security, tougher penalties on employers and workers who violate immigration laws, and an expanded guest worker program that would allow people to work in the country temporarily but generally bans bids for citizenship by illegal workers in the country now.

Although Congress appears unlikely to pass an immigration measure before the mid-term elections in November, 95 percent of voters said it is important that Congress solve the immigration problem this year.

Read this about the same poll ?

Friday, June 23, 2006

Bombing N. Korean Missile Unlikely

The U.S. suggested Thursday it has limited ability to shoot a North Korean missile out of the sky and spurned suggestions of a pre-emptive strike on the ground. Still, it warned the Koreans would pay a cost for a missile launch.

The nation's missile defense system, which now includes about a dozen interceptor missiles in Alaska and California and on some Navy ships, has suffered multiple test failures since President Bush ordered the Reagan-era program accelerated in early 2001.

Missile defense experts disagree on current U.S. ability to destroy a long-range missile once it is fired. But they seemed in agreement that shooting at it - and missing - would be a huge embarrassment.

A better solution, said Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, was for the North to "give it up and not launch" the missile that the U.S. believes is being fueled and prepared. "We think diplomacy is the right answer and that is what we are pursuing," Hadley said.

Tensions persisted over North Korea's apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile amid disagreements over U.S. military options for responding. The missile, with a believed range of up to 9,300 miles, is potentially capable of reaching the mainland United States.

Pentagon officials said they were prepared to use the nation's missile defense system if needed.

The program is a downscaled land-and-sea version of a global defense network first proposed by Reagan that was dubbed "Star Wars" by critics. Interceptor missiles - linked to a network of satellites, radar, computers and command centers - are designed to strike and destroy incoming ballistic missiles.

The Pentagon says the rudimentary system is capable of defending against a limited number of missiles in an emergency _ such as a North Korean attack. More than $100 billion has been spent on the program since 1983, including $7.8 billion authorized for the current fiscal year.

In the most recent test, a Navy ship late last month successfully shot down a long-range missile in its final seconds of flight. Before a successful test in the Pacific in December 2005, interceptor tests had failed five of 11 times.

In developments Thursday:


William Perry, defense secretary in the Clinton administration, advocated a strike on the missile on its launch pad. "Diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature," wrote Perry and former assistant defense secretary Ashton B. Carter in Thursday's Washington Post.

Vice President Dick Cheney said North Korea's "missile capabilities are fairly rudimentary" but that developments were being closely monitored. In an interview with CNN, Cheney rejected Perry's suggestion for a pre-emptive strike. "I think the issue is being addressed appropriately," the vice president said.

Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said Pyongyang risks unspecified retaliation in proceeding. "If such a launch takes place, we would seek to impose some cost on North Korea," Rodman told the House Armed Services Committee.

Loren Thompson, a defense consultant at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., said there are "two basic problems" with trying to shoot down a Korean missile in the air. "Our system is barely operational. And the impact on Korean perceptions if we miss could be counterproductive."

Said Ivo Daalder, a former Clinton national security aide now at the Brookings Institution: "Either it won't work, in which case you've just undermined the rationale for the system. Or if it does work, you have created an even bigger international crisis."

Hadley, the president's national security adviser, brushed aside Perry's suggestion for a strike against the missile on the launch pad. Instead, he said, "We hope it (North Korea) would come back to the table, and we hope it would be a little sobered by the unanimous message that the international community has sent."

NAS Report Refutes Global Warming Theory

A Congressionally commissioned review by the National Academy of Sciences refutes the so-called "hockey stick" study that supposedly confirmed the existence of global warming.

The hockey stick study, by Dr. Michael Mann and his colleagues, was thus named because of a stick-shaped graph that plotted global temperatures against time.

The hockey stick graph purported to show that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century.

Al Gore showed hockey stick depictions of temperature rises in his global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

But the NAS's report "Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years" noted in its summary that there were "relatively warm conditions centered around A.D. 1000 (identified by some as the �Medieval Warm Period') and a relatively cold period (or �Little Ice Age') centered around 1700."

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in a statement Thursday:

"Today's NAS report reaffirms what I have been saying all along, that Mann's �hockey stick' is broken. Today's report refutes Mann's prior assertions that there was no Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age." The NAS report also stated that there are "substantial uncertainties" regarding Mann's claims that the last few decades of the 20th century were the warmest in last 1,000 years.

The report further chastises Mann by declaring: "Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that �the 1990's are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium�'

"This report shows that the planet warmed for about 200 years ... when we were coming out of the depths of the Little Ice Age where harsh winters froze the Thames and caused untold deaths.

"Trying to prove man-made global warming by comparing the well-known fact that today's temperatures are warmer than during the Little Ice Age is akin to comparing summer to winter to show a catastrophic temperature trend."

Walter Mondale: Blow Up North Korean Missile

Former Vice President Walter Mondale said Friday he supports a pre-emptive U.S. strike against a North Korean missile, saying the U.S. should tell North Korea to dismantle the missile or "we are going to take it out."

"I think it would end the nuclear long-range dreams of this dangerous country," said Mondale, who was the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee and a former U.S. ambassador to Japan.

The tensions are over North Korea's apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile, which is believed to have a range of up to 9,300 miles. That would make it capable of hitting much of the U.S. mainland.

Mondale, 78, said North Korea already has nuclear weapons and its ambition to develop a long-range missile is "one of the most dangerous developments in recent history." It's so dangerous, he said, because of the nation's isolation from the international community and its unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Il.

Here's this bizarre, hermit kingdom over there with a paranoid leader getting ready to test a missile system that can hit us," Mondale said.
Former President Clinton's defense secretary, William Perry, also advocated a pre-emptive strike in The Washington Post, but National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley brushed aside Perry's suggestion. Mondale spoke about a pre-emptive strike during an appearance on WCCO-AM in Minneapolis.

Dear Alan Colmes: You know squat about mustard gas.

Jim Gerahty Reporting:
06/22 09:14 AM
Alan Colmes, last night:

�Jim Angle, who reported this for FOX News, quotes a defense official who says these were pre-1991 weapons that could not have been fired as designed because they�d already been degraded and the official went on to say these are not the WMD�s this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had and not the WMD�s for which this country went to war.�

Here's what you find when you do some digging on the Internet about mustard gas: a letter from two United Nations weapons inspectors to the President of the Security Council from 1999:

550 Artillery shells filled with Mustard 33. Iraq declared that 550 shells filled with mustard had been "lost" shortly after the Gulf War. To date, no evidence of the missing munitions has been found. Iraq claimed that the chemical warfare agents filled into these weapons would be degraded a long time ago and, therefore, there would be no need for their accounting. However, a dozen mustard-filled shells were recovered at a former CW storage facility in the period 1997-1998. The chemical sampling of these munitions, in April 1998, revealed that the mustard was still of the highest quality. After seven years, the purity of mustard ranged between 94 and 97%. Thus, Iraq has to account for these munitions which would be ready for combat use. The resolution of this specific issue would also increase confidence in accepting Iraq�s other declarations on losses of chemical weapons which it has not been possible to verify.
A 94 to 97 percent purity after seven years strikes me as pretty long lasting. Presuming that the rate of degradation is stable (is there a reason deterioration would accelerate in year eight or later?) the year 2003 would mean that at the time of the invasion, these shells had a purity of 88 to 94 percent. Sounds pretty potent to me.

Try researching, Alan. Mustard gas keeps its toxicity for a long time. Stop telling your viewers and listeners that the weapons were "degraded" � which, without context, sounds like "harmless."

UPDATE: The sarin is another story. This declassified CIA report that appears to be from during or shortly after Operation Desert Storm suggests that the mustard gas should "quite stable for some time"; the sarin may have a shelf life of only "a few weeks" because of impurities.

Also, TKS reader Ed notes that every year, some unlucky French farmers have health complications from run-ins with mustard gas left over from World War One.

For Diehards, Search for Iraq's W.M.D. Isn't Over

The United States government abandoned the search for unconventional weapons in Iraq long ago. But Dave Gaubatz has never given up.

Mr. Gaubatz, an earnest, Arabic-speaking investigator who spent the first months of the war as an Air Force civilian in southern Iraq, has said he has identified four sites where residents said chemical weapons were buried in concrete bunkers.

The sites were never searched, he said, and he is not going to let anyone forget it.

"I just don't want the weapons to fall into the wrong hands," Mr. Gaubatz, of Denton, Tex., said.

For the last year, he has given his account on talk radio programs, in Congressional offices and on his Web site, which he introduced last month with, "A lone American battles politicians to locate W.M.D."

Some politicians are outspoken allies in Mr. Gaubatz's cause. He is just one of a vocal and disparate collection of Americans, mostly on the political right, whose search for Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons continues.

More than a year after the White House, at considerable political cost, accepted the intelligence agencies' verdict that Mr. Hussein destroyed his stockpiles in the 1990's, these Americans have an unshakable faith that the weapons continue to exist.

The proponents include some members of Congress. Two Republicans, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania held a news conference on Wednesday to announce that, as Mr. Santorum put it, "We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

American intelligence officials hastily scheduled a background briefing for the news media on Thursday to clarify that. Hoekstra and Mr. Santorum were referring to an Army report that described roughly 500 munitions containing "degraded" mustard or sarin gas, all manufactured before the 1991 gulf war and found scattered through Iraq since 2003.

Such shells had previously been reported and do not change the government conclusion, the officials said.

Such official statements are unlikely to settle the question for the believers, some of whom have impressive credentials. They include a retired Air Force lieutenant general, Thomas G. McInerney, a commentator on the Fox News Channel who has broadcast that weapons are in three places in Syria and one in Lebanon, moved there with Russian help on the eve of the war.

"I firmly believe that, and everything I learn makes my belief firmer," said Mr. McInerney, who retired in 1994. "I'm amazed that the mainstream media hasn't picked this up."

Also among the weapons hunters is Duane R. Clarridge, a long-retired officer of the Central Intelligence Agency who said he thought that the weapons had been moved to Sudan by ship.

"And we think we know which ship," Mr. Clarridge said in a recent interview.

The weapons hunters hold fast to the administration's original justification for the war, as expressed by the president three days before the bombing began in 2003. There was "no doubt," Mr. Bush said in an address to the nation, "that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

The weapons hunters were encouraged in February when tapes of Mr. Hussein's talking with top aides about his arsenal were released at the Intelligence Summit, a private gathering in northern Virginia of 600 former spies, former military officers and hobbyists.

"We reopened the W.M.D. question in a big way," said John Loftus, organizer of the conference.

In March, under Congressional pressure, National Intelligence Director John D. Negroponte began posting on the Web thousands of captured Iraqi documents. Some intelligence officials opposed the move, fearing a free-for-all of amateur speculation and intrigue.

But the weapons hunters were heartened and began combing the documents for clues.

Mr. Gaubatz, 47, now chief investigator for the Dallas County medical examiner, said he knew some people might call him a kook.

"I don't care about being embarrassed," he said, spreading snapshots, maps and notebooks documenting his findings across the dining room table in an interview at his house. "I only brought this up when the White House said the hunt for W.M.D. was over."

Last week, Mr. Gaubatz achieved a victory. He presented his case to officers from the Defense Intelligence Agency in Dallas. The meeting was scheduled after the intervention of Mr. Hoekstra and Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, second-ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Weldon spoke with Mr. Gaubatz last month in a lengthy conference call.

Mr. Hoekstra "has said on many occasions that we need to know what happened to Saddam's W.M.D.," his spokesman, Jamal Ware, said. Mr. Hoekstra "is determined to make sure that we get the postwar intelligence right," Mr. Ware added.

The authoritative postwar weapons intelligence was gathered by the Iraq Survey Group, whose 1,200 members spent more than a year searching suspected chemical, biological and nuclear sites and interviewing Iraqis.

The final report of the group, by Charles A. Duelfer, special adviser on Iraqi weapons to the C.I.A., concluded that any stockpiles had been destroyed long before the war and that transfers to Syria were "unlikely."

"We did not visit every inch of Iraq," Mr. Duelfer said in an interview. "That would have been impossible. We did not check every rumor that came along."

But he said important officials in Mr. Hussein's government, with every incentive to win favor with the Americans by exposing stockpiles, convinced him that the weapons were gone.

Mr. Duelfer said he remained open to new evidence.

"I've seen lots of good-hearted people who thought they saw something," he said. "But none of the reports have panned out."

The hunt clearly appeals to the sleuth in Mr. Gaubatz, who was in the Air Force for 23 years, much of it investigating murder, drug and other criminal cases for the Office of Special Investigations. He retired in 1999 and worked as an investigator for Target, the retail chain, but soon returned to the investigations agency as a civilian.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mr. Gaubatz spent a year learning Arabic and in February 2003 was sent to Saudi Arabia and then Iraq after the war began.

Stationed near Nasiriya, he and a colleague headed out in a utility vehicle at 6 a.m. and spent their days talking with anyone they saw � Bedouin tribesmen, farmers, hospital workers, former military officers, police officers and city bureaucrats.

Eventually, by his account, Iraqis led him to four places where they said they thought that chemical weapons were hidden in underground bunkers or, in one case, under the Euphrates River.

"We were very excited," he recalled. "We could hardly wait to get back and do our reports."

An official of the investigating agency who was granted anonymity to discuss a former employee said Mr. Gaubatz was known as "a gung-ho, good agent."

When the sites identified to him were not searched, he said, he called the 75th Exploitation Task Force every other day, and later the Iraq Survey Group, pleading with whoever answered to send a team with heavy digging equipment.

He recalled: "They'd say, 'We're in a combat zone. We don't have the people or the equipment.' "

His informants grew angry. "They said, 'We risked our lives and our families to help you, and nothing's happened,' " Mr. Gaubatz recounted.

He was disillusioned.

"I didn't imagine it would be a battle to get them to search," he said. "One of the primary reasons for going into combat was the W.M.D."

Mr. Gaubatz came home in mid-July 2003, and settled in with his wife, Lorrie, a teacher, and their daughter, Miranda, 7. He continued to lobby for searches, but his Iraqi informers and Air Force colleagues have told him that there were no searches, he said.

At his two meetings last week with officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency � meetings that the agency confirms occurred but will not otherwise discuss � he reviewed satellite photographs of the supposed weapons sites with the officers.

"They're very interested," he said.

Yet, he added, "I'm still afraid they might not follow through."

He has revised his Web site to put the nation on notice. "My Web site will remain open," he wrote, "until the sites are searched."

7 arrested in Miami for Sears Tower plot

Sources: Targets may have included Sears Tower, FBI building

Seven people are in custody after a sweep by law enforcement authorities in connection with an alleged plot against targets that may have included the Sears Tower, officials told CNN.

Officials said no weapons or bomb-making materials had been found in the searches in the Miami area by FBI and state and local law enforcement officials. The city is under no imminent threat, according to the FBI.

Law enforcement sources told CNN that the arrests disrupted what may have been the early stages of a domestic terrorist plot to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, the FBI building in Miami, and possibly other targets. (Watch details of the raids -- 2:53)

The 110-story Sears Tower is the world's third-tallest building and the tallest in North America.

Barbara Carley, managing director of the Sears Tower, said in a statement that "it would be inappropriate for us to confirm or deny details of news reports about federal law enforcement action before an official statement from the Justice Department.

"However, Sears Tower security officials regularly speak with the FBI and local law enforcement authorities who track and investigate terrorism threats. Today was no exception," she said. "Despite new information, law enforcement continues to tell us that they have never found evidence of a credible terrorism threat against Sears Tower that has gone beyond criminal discussions."

Law enforcement sources told CNN that some of the suspects are members of a radical Muslim group and that at least one had taken "an al Qaeda oath." They had carried out surveillance on the Sears Tower and FBI building in Miami, the sources said.

Federal law enforcement sources said five of the seven men were Americans, one was an illegal immigrant from Haiti whose visa had expired and the seventh was a resident alien.

Sources told CNN that the arrests culminated a monthslong undercover operation. The suspects believed they were dealing with an al Qaeda operative but the person was actually a government informant, the sources said.

Documents related to the investigation have been sealed.

One of the arrests was made before Thursday, officials said, and one of Thursday's arrests took place in Atlanta, Georgia.

The FBI said one search warrant was executed in a warehouse near a housing project in Liberty City, a predominantly black and low-income area of Miami.

Cedric Thomas, a co-owner of Thomas Produce Market, told the Miami Herald that the area around his store was teeming with federal agents.

''There is a ton of guys in uniforms moving around, blocking the streets. I'm not sure what they are doing,'' Thomas told the newspaper.

Neighbors told CNN the men, who wore turbans, caused no problems but acted oddly.

"All you could do was just see their eyes. They had their whole head wrapped up. Just the eyes showing. And they were standing guard -- one here, one there -- like soldiers. Very quiet," one woman said.

A man said the men never spoke to neighbors and would just nod their heads if spoken to.

"They was acting like they was in military training," he said.

Residents living near the warehouse told The Associated Press that the men taken into custody called themselves Muslims and had tried to recruit young people.

The men slept in the warehouse, Tashawn Rose, 29, told the AP.

"They would come out late at night and exercise," she said. "It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard."

The residents told the AP that FBI agents spent several hours seeking information from people in the neighborhood. They said the suspects, who appeared to be in their teens or 20s, had lived in the area for about a year, the AP reported.

"We are conducting a number of arrests and searches, and we'll have more about that when the operation is completed, probably tomorrow morning," FBI Director Robert Mueller told CNN's Larry King in an interview broadcast Thursday night.

"Because it's an ongoing operation, we really can't get into details," Mueller said. "But whenever we undertake an operation like this, we would not do it without the approval of a judge. We've got search warrants and arrest warrants and the like."

In a statement, the U.S. attorney's office in Miami said federal, state and local agencies made the arrests in connection with a domestic "terrorist-related matter."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will hold a news conference Friday regarding the raids.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Senate Rejects Democratic Plans to Withdraw U.S. Troops From Iraq

An amendment calling for a short timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq faced a lopsided defeat Thursday, failing 86-13. The Senate also rejected a second amendment that had a longer and more open-ended schedule for withdrawal. That failed 39-60.

The tallies were taken after finishing up about an hour and a half of debate on the Democratic measures following a late night session that ended near midnight Wednesday. After the vote, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats were pleased with the outcome.

"Being bogged down in Iraq like we have been makes America less safe, but that's apparently what Republicans want," Reid, D-Nev., said after the vote.

"Senate Democrats coalesced strongly this morning around a policy of changing the course in a balanced and common sense way," added Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who sponsored the second amendment.

The first failed amendment, sponsored by Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, a former and possible future presidential candidate respectively, called for troops to be out of Iraq and redeployed elsewhere in the region by July 1, 2007.

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq

The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.
Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

Click here to read the declassified portion of the NGIC report.[pdf file]


He added that the report warns about the hazards that the chemical weapons could still pose to coalition troops in Iraq.

"The purity of the agents inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal," Santorum read from the document.

"This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows tha t years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.
Hoekstra said the report, completed in April but only declassified now, shows that "there is still a lot about Iraq that we don't fully understand."

Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "a re not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

The official said the findings did raise questions about the years of weapons inspections that had not resulted in locating the fairly sizeable stash of chemical weapons. And he noted that it may say something about Hussein's intent and desire. The report does suggest that some of the weapons were likely put on the black market and may have been used outside Iraq.

He also said that the Defense Department statement shortly after the March 2003 invasion saying that "we had all known weapons facilities secured," has proven itself to be untrue.

"It turned out the whole country was an ammo dump," he said, adding that on more than one occasion, a conventional weapons site has been uncovered and chemical weapons have been discovered mixed within them.

Hoekstra and Santorum lamented that Americans were given the impression after a 16-month search conducted by the Iraq Survey Group that the evidence of continuing research and development of weapons of mass destruction was insignificant. But the National Ground Intelligence Center took up where the ISG left off when it completed its report in November 2004, and in the process of collecting intelligence for the purpose of force protection for soldiers and sailors still on the ground in Iraq, has shown that the weapons inspections were incomplete, they and others have said.

"We know it was there, in place, it just wasn't operative when inspectors got there after the war, but we know what the inspectors found from talking with the scientists in Iraq that it could have been cranked up immediately, and that's what Saddam had planned to do if the sanctions against Iraq had halted and they were certainly headed in that direction," said Fred Barnes, editor of The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor.

"It is significant. Perhaps, the administration just, they think they weathered the debate over WMD being found there immediately and don't want to return to it again because things are otherwise going better for them, and then, I think, there's mindless resistance to releasing any classified documents from Iraq," Barnes said.

The release of the declassified materials comes as the Senate debates Democratic proposals to create a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq. The debate has had the effe ct of creating disunity among Democrats, a majority of whom shrunk Wednesday from an amendment proposed by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to have troops to be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of next year.

At the same time, congressional Republicans have stayed highly united, rallying around a White House that has seen successes in the last couple weeks, first with the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then the completion of the formation of Iraq's Cabinet and then the announcement Tuesday that another key Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, "religious emir" Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, was also killed in a U.S. airstrike.

Santorum pointed out that during Wednesday's debate, several Senate Democrats said that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, a cl aim, he said, that the declassified document proves is untrue.

"This is an incredibly � in my mind � significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," he said.

As a result of this new information, under the aegis of his chairmanship, Hoekstra said he is going to ask for more reporting by the various intelligence agencies about weapons of mass destruction.

"We are working on the declassification of the report. We are going to do a thorough search of what additional reports exist in the intelligence community. And we are going to put additional pressure on the Department of Defense and the folks in Iraq to more fully pursue a complete investigation of what existed in Iraq before the war," Hoekstra said.

Senator Santorum announces WMD HAS been found in Iraq.

Transcript of News Conference to Release a Report on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction

From the Radioblogger.com.

Interview of Senator Santorum by Hugh Hewitt (audio mp3)

Hugh Hewitt's Interview with Senator Santorum in regards to WMD Announcement

HH: Joined now by United States Senator Rick Santorum from the great state of Pennsylvania. Senator, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show.

RS: Hugh, it is great to be with you again. Thank you, pal.

HH: Well, you've made some news today, and I'd like to explore with you what exactly was being said, because we can't find the tape. Evidently, you've got some declassified information detailing 500 different shells containing prohibited weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But let me ask you, what did you announce today?

RS: What we announced was that after two and a half months of being aware of this document, we were able to get a copy of the document, and convince the intelligence community to give us a declassified version of the document. It is a very short synopsis, and I would argue incomplete synopsis, but nevertheless, it's vitally important, because what it does say, and I'll quote from it, "since 2003," so since the Iraq War, "coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain mustard or sarin nerve agent."

HH: Who is the document from, Senator Santorum, and to whom was it addressed?

RS: It's from the National Ground Intelligence Center, which is a division of the United States Pentagon. I think it's the Army.

HH: Okay. And to whom was it addressed?

RS: Well, it's a classified report. It's just a report that they published. It's not addressed to anybody. It's a report which is a survey of ongoing recovery of chemical munitions. And what they go on to say is, and I'll quote again from the summary, not the classified report, "despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist beyond the 500 that they have recovered."

HH: Now of these 500 shells that they have recovered, Senator Santorum, does the document, the unclassified version, tell you in how many batches they were discovered? Was it one? Was it 50 of 100, or one of 500?

RS: You know, I can't talk about what additionally it tells you. All I can tell you is there have been published reports on blog sites about this report...and the published reports say that 75% of these 500 or so weapons were in fact filled and usable, and very dangerous for the...if got to improper hands.

HH: Senator Santorum, can you tell us the name of the blog on which that report was featured?

RS: I will get it to you. How's that? I don't have it in front of me.

HH: That's fine. Again, putting away the classified stuff, focusing on the unclassified and published reports, is it your impression, Senator Santorum, that there have been a number of such discoveries?

RS: It is my impression that there have been a number of such discoveries. It's my impression that this is a very dangerous situation in Iraq, with the number of chemical weapons still believed to exist out there, and the threat that they might in fact get into the wrong hands. So Saddam, it is clear, from this report, had lots of chemical weapons around, and that people got their hands on them. So this is exactly what we were concerned about, that Saddam in fact had large stockpiles of chemical weapons, and would in fact...those chemical weapons could in fact get into the hands of people who would like to do harm to America.

HH: Now Senator, is it your impression that the classified nature of this material is in place in order to protect the information that might assist insurgents from finding additional stockpiles? Is that...

RS: There's certainly...that is clearly an element, and there are certainly parts of this report that were not released that should not be released. And that would certainly be one element of it. But there are other elements that I think can be released that could shed more light as to the volume of the problem that we're confronting, or that we confronted in the sense that how many chemical weapons did Saddam Hussein have prior to the Gulf War, the second Gulf War.

HH: Now you were joined by Congressman Hoekstra, who's the chair of the permanent intelligence committee in the House...

RS: Right.

HH: ...and you're the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. Is there any doubt in your mind that a fair-minded observer of the material you've had a right to see would conclude there is a serious threat of additional WMD as yet unsecured in Iraq?

RS: I think most people would look at this as a serious threat, and most people would look at this as saying that anybody who would claim that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction prior to the second Gulf War would not be taking a fair look at this situation as it is.

HH: Have you approached any of your colleagues from the other side of the aisle, Senator Rockefeller comes to mind, and ask them in the interest of national security to confirm your assessment?

RS: In fact, I just left the floor of the United States Senate, and asked each one of my colleagues to go up and look at it. This is a secret document. This is not a top secret document. This is a document that every member of the United States Senate has access to. And if they want to go upstairs in the Capitol building to look at this document, they can do so tonight.

HH: And did you get any response as you exited the floor? Were there other Senators about?

RS: Well, Senator Boxer was the next speaker, and she didn't comment at all on what I said. She moved on to another subject.

HH: Now the media thus far, I've seen it reported on Fox News, the website Freerepublic.com has got a number of threads running on it, but there is nothing about your announcement in the Washington Post or the New York Times as of three minutes ago. Are you surprised?

RS: Unfortunately not. When we called the press...I will admit, we had hoped to get this document released to us earlier in the day, but we did not get it released to us until 4:30. There was a brief on it until 5:15. We had a press conference at 5:30, which as you know, is not prime time to have press conferences. But since the document was now available, declassified and available to all members, and was faxed around to several other members' offices, we thought it was important to characterize and put this in context. So we hastily called a press conference, of which...normally, I would think if you're announcing the finding of weapons of mass destruction, you'd get more than four or five reporters, but that's all we could seem to drum up.

HH: When you said you had a brief on it, who conducted the briefing?

RS: The intelligence community did a brief for Congressman Hoekstra in the Intelligence Committee over in the House.

HH: And did any United States Senator, other than yourself, attend that? Or did you...

RS: I'm not on the committee, so I could not attend the briefing.

HH: And so, why did Pete Hoekstra call you? Because of your long-standing interest in this?

RS: Actually, I went to Pete Hoekstra. I found about this from a tip, wrote two letters, one to the head of the Ground Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Center, and one to Director Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, asking for the report. It got nowhere until I called Pete two weeks ago and said Pete, have you heard of this report? He had not heard of the report. He was not aware of it. And he didn't know of its existence, took him a few days, but he was able to find out it existed, and then got a copy, and the rest is history.

---

HH: Senator, of those 500 different shells, located in numerous place across Iraq, post-invasion, have any analysis been done as to whether or not any of them were manufactured after the Gulf War?

RS: The ones that are identified in the declassified information, are identified as pre-1991 munitions. Again, a lot of the discussion...there's going to be discussion of well, we haven't found any post-1991 munitions. And again, what I think the Duellfer report was pretty clear about was that he had weapons programs in place, but that the sanctions were in fact effective in stopping him from producing more. But again, you can think about it this way. If you have X number, and let's just use number X for now. But if you have X numbers, and large amounts of weapons, why would you risk violating sanctions in trying to produce these things, when you have a program in place that once sanctions are lifted, you could produce very quickly, as well as you had stockpiles that you wouldn't have to produce if you needed to use them.

HH: There was also in a previous announcement of a small seizure of WMD, they were sarin shells, I believe, not long after the war. But it was about a dozen, maybe two dozen. The explanation was that they had just simply been misplaced, and overlooked in the effort to destroy the pre-existing, pre-Gulf War stockpiles. Is there information in these documents that indicate that there was an intentional effort on the part of Saddam's government to secret these weapons?

RS: I'm not...first of all, I think the answer to that is no, as far as if you're saying was there an effort, do we know from this document whether there was an effor for Saddam to actually proliferate these weapons? No, I can't recall anything in the report that says anything...

HH: No, what I'm looking for is more he knew he had them, and he was trying to hide them as opposed to he'd forgotten where he put them.

RS: Oh, I'm sorry. Secret them. I thought you meant secrete, as in get them out.

HH: No, no, no.

RS: Well, there is additional information that I think the public should be made aware of that could answer that question.

HH: Very interestingly put, but you can't answer that based on what was declassified, and what was not?

RS: That's right.

HH: All right. Let me ask you then about the Christopher Hitchens remark earlier on this show. If nothing else, this demonstrates conclusively that the weapons inspectors would not have found these weapons. Can you concur with that?

RS: I would say that there's certainly a lot of the weapons...from what we...we know the nature of this, which is an ongoing process of trying to track and find these weapons, that this is now reported some three years afterwards, and they're continuing to find these weapons. That to me tells you that...and we control the entire countryside and have free access everywhere. So that'll give you an idea of how difficult this has been.

HH: Is it your impression, Senator Santorum, that we're receiving an increasing amount of assistance from Iraqi nationals in this WMD hunt?

RS: I don't know the answer to that. We are certainly receiving a lot of help, additional help, based on...and this is why these two Senate votes that we're going to be taking tomorrow are so important. We need to show the Iraqi people we are not going anywhere, that we're going to stay there, that they can trust us, that we're not going to be leaving in two or three years, then they're going to have to face all these people that they were able to provide information on, or that they're not going to have to pay consequences of cooperating with their government and with the United States, and with the coalition forces. That is vitally important, and that is now...with the government being established, our track record, and the President's clarity, we are starting to see a lot more cooperation, and I'm hopeful that that will lead to more cooperation with respect to the recovery of other weapons of mass destruction.

HH: Last question, Senator Rick Santorum. From the information that you have seen that you can discuss, as well as other published reports, are you concerned that al Qaeda has in fact obtained any of these pre-'91 weapons?

RS: Well, the report says that it has been reported in open press that I'm quoting, that Iraqi insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons. So it is known that they are trying to. We have recovered some 500. We are still looking for, and that's, I think that's a fair analysis of the public statement. And so, this may be overhyping it, who finds them first?

HH: Do you believe...but is there any report that they have already obtained them?

RS: We have...I have no information about that.

HH: Senator Rick Santorum, thanks for spending time with us on a busy afternoon. More details at Ricksantorum.com. I appreciate it, Senator.

End of interview.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Families, Friends Remember Slain Soldiers

Pfc. Thomas Tucker thrived on adrenaline, whether he was working construction in Oregon or manning checkpoints in Iraq. His fellow soldier, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca was a quiet Texan, proud to serve in the military, who wanted to work for the U.S. Border Patrol.

As word slowly spread Tuesday that their bodies had been found in Iraq, both tortured in what an Iraqi official called a "barbaric way," their families were swept through a mix of grief, outrage, and for some, a measure of acceptance.

"Our son, as far as we're concerned, he has died for the freedom of everybody in the United States," Tucker's father, Wes Tucker, said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday.


He talked with pride about his son's enthusiasm and devotion to his work, but while he was grieving, he said he also understood that his son was a soldier in a

"Our son was there doing a job. The people over there that did this, they are sons and they're doing their job," he said. "I'm not trying to be cold, I love my son dearly, but they're doing their job."


Menchaca's uncle Ken MacKenzie reacted with anger as he learned of the deaths, saying the military should have done more to keep the men safe and get them back alive. Another uncle, Mario Vasquez, was upset that the family had to learn so many gruesome details of his nephew's death through the media.

At a home in Brownsville, Texas, Menchaca's close-knit Mexican-American family gathered around his mother and remembered the 23-year-old soldier as a sweet, quiet young man.

"He talked about how happy he was that he was serving his country," said Sylvia Grice, 37, Menchaca's cousin.


"Everyone he met liked him. He had that kind of personality," Grice said. "He liked to help people. He was just the kind of person you enjoyed being with."


U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the remains believed to be those of Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., were spotted late Monday and recovered Tuesday not far from where the men disappeared Friday. He said the recovery was delicate because the area had been rigged with hidden explosives.

The bodies will be flown from Kuwait to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for positive identification through autopsies and DNA testing.

Both Army privates and Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., who died in the attack, were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky.

In Oregon, at the gas station where Tucker worked as a teenager, car wash manager Ed Bockoven tied red-white-and-blue balloons to the store's sign to remember the soldiers.

"He has a lot of friends in town," Bockoven said.

In one of his last phone calls home, Tucker's mother, Meg Tucker, said, she told him to get enough sleep because she worried about him. "He said, 'Mom, I've only been here for five months. These men have been here for a year.' He said, 'I don't mind. I don't mind. I will do my share.'"


Tucker graduated from high school in 1999 and worked a variety of construction jobs before he decided to join the Army last summer. His friends said he liked to angle for catfish in the Prineville Reservoir and hunt deer in the Ochoco Mountains.

He enjoyed the adrenaline rush, his father said.

"It didn't matter if it was the triangle of death, or whatever they call it. If that's where the action was, Tom wanted to be where the action was," his father said. "I'm sure that he might have been a little scared, but he took it on as a job, a job that needed to be done."


Menchaca, who was married, joined the military last year and deployed to Iraq within months. He was attending a work-force training center when the Army recruited him, his brother Julio Vasquez said.

"He wanted to go infantry," Vasquez said. "We were telling him the dangers that infantrymen had, but that's what he wanted to do."

al-Qaida Video Shows Alleged 20th Hijacker

Al-Qaida has identified a would-be 20th hijacker for the Sept. 11 attacks as a Saudi operative who was killed in a 2004 shootout with his country's security forces.

In a statement accompanying a new video, the terrorist network's propaganda arm identified Fawaz al-Nashimi, also known as Turki bin Fuheid al-Muteiry, as the operative who would have rounded out a team that ultimately took over United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field before reaching its intended target.

A 54-minute video featuring al-Nashimi was obtained Tuesday by IntelCenter, a U.S. government contractor based in Virginia. U.S counterterrorism officials declined to comment on the authenticity of the video and its claims.

The video included a screen crediting the al-Sahab media committee with producing the message. While no one is known to have forged the group's work, its statements are often difficult to verify.

The video includes footage of al-Nashimi justifying attacks against the West. It also contains 27 minutes of previously unheard audio of a siege that he took part in on oil facilities in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

Screeching car tires and gunfire are heard as the terror cell moved from building to building. A voice in Arabic can be heard saying: "Where are the Americans? ... Give me the information."

The demands are punctuated with more gunfire.

In the May 2004 attack, militants dressed in military-style uniforms opened fire inside two oil industry office compounds, then moved to an upscale residential area. They took 45 to 60 hostages.

Saudi security forces stormed the complex, but three of the militants escaped, including al-Nashimi. Twenty-two people were killed in the 25-hour rampage, almost all of them foreigners, including one American.

Al-Nashimi was killed the following month in gunbattle with Saudi forces.

The Khobar assault was one of a series of attacks against foreigners by al-Qaida's Saudi branch in 2003 and 2004, aimed at undermining its U.S.-allied royal family.

If the statements on the new video are true, they would also fill in a missing piece of the puzzle of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

During a May audio message, Osama bin Laden said Moussaoui was not the 20th hijacker "as your government has claimed." He didn't provide the actual identity. Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings and is serving a life sentence at a federal prison in Colorado.

TERROR SHEIK BLOWN TO KINGDOM COME

A key leader of al Qaeda in Iraq described as the group's "religious emir" was killed in a U.S. Airstrike, the military said yesterday.

Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, and two foreign fighters were killed as they tried to flee in a vehicle near the town of Youssifiyah, in the so-called Sunni "Triangle of Death."

U.S. Coalition forces had been tracking al-Mashhadani for some time, American military spokesman William Caldwell said in announcing the death. He said al-Mashhadani was an Iraqi, 35 to 37 years old, and that one of the men killed with him was an al Qaeda cell leader identified as Abu Tariq.

The three men were killed just hours before a terror attack on a traffic checkpoint near Youssifiyah, by a Euphrates River canal. One U.S. Soldier was killed in the attack, and two - Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, whose mutilated bodies were recovered yesterday - were captured and killed by al Qaeda in Iraq. Caldwell said the Iraqi militant played a key religious and recruiting role in the group. The spokesman said Mansour was linked to the senior leadership, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7 U.S. Airstrike, and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the man the U.S. Military has identified as al-Zarqawi's replacement.

Mansour "reportedly served as a right-hand man of Zarqawi's, and also served as a liaison between al Qaeda in Iraq and the various tribes in the Youssifiyah area, as well as playing a key role in their media operations," Caldwell said.

Citing intelligence sources, Caldwell also said Mansour was responsible for the shooting down of a coalition aircraft this spring. The militant joined al Qaeda in Iraq sometime in the fall of 2004, Caldwell said.

FBI Declares Lack of Evidence to Connect Bin Laden to 9/11 ?

What follows is an article by American researcher and citizen Ed Haas, proving that the US has sought to misuse the occasion for indicting the world of Islam for belligerency and hostile attitudes based on no substantiating evidence.

This past weekend, a thought provoking e-mail circulated through Internet news groups, and was sent to the Muckraker Report by Mr. Paul V. Sheridan (Winner of the 2005 Civil Justice Foundation Award), bringing attention to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist web page for Osama Bin Laden. In the e-mail, the question is asked, "Why doesn't Osama Bin Laden's Most Wanted poster make any direct connection with the events of September 11, 2001?" The FBI says on its Bin Laden web page that Osama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. According to the FBI, these attacks killed over 200 people. The FBI concludes its reason for "wanting" Bin Laden by saying, "In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorists attacks throughout the world."

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden's Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Osama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden's Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."

Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an astonishing statement, I asked, "How this was possible?" Tomb continued, "Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11." I asked, "How does that work?" Tomb continued, "The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11."

Read More Here

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Deficit Surging...."DOWNWARD" !

Surging

By the Editors of NRO

More than two years ago, when President Bush announced his aim to cut the federal budget deficit in half by 2009, many critics guffawed. They called the goal an impossibility, a na�ve and futile effort that would be undermined by the fat-cat Republican tax cuts. A Boston Globe headline declared, �Bush�s plan to halve federal deficit seen as unlikely; Higher spending, lower taxes don�t mix, analysts say.� An Associated Press story went out on the wire with the headline, �Bush goal of halving federal deficits draws skepticism, derision.�

In that AP article, Sen. Kent Conrad, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, was quoted deriding Bush�s plan: �It�s like so much with this administration in respect to fiscal matters, it�s all spin, all the time.� Former Congressional Budget Office director Robert Reischauer called the proposal �fanciful.� To Democrats, the AP reported, Bush�s goal was simply �laughable.�

But the critics are no longer laughing. Driven by a surging national economy, tax revenues are increasing and the deficit is rapidly shrinking. The president�s deficit-reduction plan looks like it will not only succeed, but will do so years ahead of schedule.

The country was facing the largest projected deficit in history when Bush promised to halve it as a percentage of GDP by 2009. Due to high wartime spending and the residual effects of the 2000�01 recession, the White House expected the 2004 deficit to reach $521 billion, or 4.5 percent of GDP. Bush�s goal was to reduce this to 2.25 percent by 2009.

After all the beans were finally counted, the 2004 deficit came in at $413 billion�roughly 3.5 percent of GDP. The economy had begun expanding, partly in response to Bush�s tax cuts, creating jobs and boosting revenue. This trend continued into the next year, pushing the deficit down to $319 billion in 2005.

This year, the projections look even better. Through the first eight months of this budget year, the deficit is $227 billion�16.7 percent lower than this time last year. That�s largely because government revenues in these eight months have reached $1.545 trillion, up 12.9 percent from last year.

This huge revenue boost means that the deficit is going down even as an out-of-control Congress continues its spending profligacy. Federal spending has already swelled by $130 billion so far this fiscal year�a 7.9 percent increase compared with the same period last year. Such increases can�t be blamed entirely on the demands of the War on Terror, either, as Defense and Homeland Security together account for only 30 percent of Congress�s total spending increases since 2001.

Despite the strong updraft of federal spending, the deficit is on track in the next few years to continue falling until it approaches 2 percent of GDP. This is below the 2.5 percent that has been the national average since 1970, demonstrating that the president�s critics were simply wrong when they claimed that the Bush tax cuts would lead the country into economic ruin.

There is a lesson here, and it is vindicatory of the central claim of supply-side theory: Easing the national tax burden spurs economic growth, significantly mitigating the revenue loss that results from tax cuts. The national economy is a dynamic system, and it responds to the incentives and disincentives imposed on it by government policies. When businesses and individuals are allowed to keep more of what they produce, they produce more. And when investors are allowed to keep higher returns, they invest in more productive endeavors. This boosts GDP, which in turn boosts tax revenues.

We cannot grow our way out of our long-term fiscal woes. Pro-growth tax policies must be supplemented by serious entitlement reform to curtail the huge unfunded liabilities created by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And spending cuts on other domestic programs would be worthwhile as a way to reduce Washington�s influence to its proper size, quite apart from their effect on budget balances. Surging revenues are a reason to stick with the tax cuts. They are no reason to quit trying to bring spending under control.

Poll: Clinton gets high 'no' vote for 2008

With the presidential election more than two years away, a CNN poll released Monday suggests that nearly half of Americans would "definitely vote against" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Respondents were asked whether they would "definitely vote for," "consider voting for," or "definitely vote against" three Democrats and three Republicans who might run for president in 2008.

Regarding potential Democratic candidates, 47 percent of respondents said they would "definitely vote against" both Clinton, the junior senator from New York who is running for re-election this year, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party's candidate in 2004. (Poll)

Forty-eight percent said the same of former Vice President Al Gore, who has repeatedly denied he intends to run again for president.

Among the Republicans, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani fared better than the Democrats, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush fared worse.

Only 30 percent said they would "definitely vote against" Giuliani; 34 percent said that of McCain.

As for Bush, brother of the current president, 63 percent said there was no way he would get their vote. The younger Bush has denied interest in running for president in 2008.

Among all choices, Clinton had the highest positive number; of those polled, 22 percent said they would "definitely vote for" her.

Giuliani was next with 19 percent, followed by Gore with 17 percent, Kerry with 14 percent, McCain with 12 percent and Bush at 9 percent.

This telephone poll of 1,001 adult Americans was conducted June 1-6 by Harris Interactive for CNN. The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Iraq Official: U.S. Soldiers' Bodies Found

The bodies of two missing U.S. soldiers have been found, a senior Iraqi military official said Tuesday, but the U.S. military said it could not confirm the report.

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed said the bodies of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Army Pfc. Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., were found on a street near a power plant in the town of Youssifiyah, just south of Baghdad.

U.S. Maj. Doug Powell said he could not confirm the report.

The soldiers came under attack Friday at a traffic checkpoint near Youssifiyah. A third soldier, Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the attack. All three were from the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Ky.

An umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in a statement Monday that it had kidnapped the two U.S. soldiers, but it did not name them.

Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, has told The Associated Press that he witnessed seven masked gunmen seize the soldiers near Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, in a region known as the "Triangle of Death."

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization for a variety of insurgent factions led by al-Qaida in Iraq, offered no video, identification cards or other evidence to prove that they had the Americans. The group had vowed to seek revenge for the June 7 killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, in a U.S. airstrike.

Kidnappings of U.S. service members have been rare since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, despite the presence of about 130,000 forces.

The last U.S. soldier to be captured was Sgt. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, who was taken on April 9, 2004 after insurgents ambushed his fuel convoy. Two months later, a tape on Al-Jazeera purported to show a captive U.S. soldier shot, but the Army ruled it was inconclusive.

Six soldiers, including Pvt. Jessica Lynch, were captured in an ambush in southern Iraq in the early days of the war _ March 23, 2003. Lynch was rescued April 1, 2003, the others 12 days later.

Read More Here:Iraqi: U.S. bodies showed signs of torture

Democrats Fortify Plan to Pull Troops From Iraq

Senate Democrats coalesced Monday around a proposal urging the Bush administration to start pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by year's end, brushing aside calls by some in the party for a firm withdrawal timetable.

"Three-and-a-half years into the conflict, we should tell the Iraqis that the American security blanket is not permanent," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who helped write the nonbinding resolution that quickly drew criticism from Republican leaders.

"Let me be clear: Retreat is not a solution," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said, chastising Democrats for espousing a "cut-and-run" strategy that "threatens our national security and poses unacceptable risks to Americans."

The Senate is to take up the resolution Tuesday and vote on it before Friday as debate on Iraq spills over into a second week on Capitol Hill, less than five months before midterm elections that will decide whether Democrats or Republicans control Congress.

Last week, the GOP-controlled Senate and House soundly rejected timetables for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, back-to-back votes that forced lawmakers in both parties to go on record on a major issue in re-election campaigns nationwide.

As the U.S. death toll and war spending continue to climb, polls show the public increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the conflict, which began in spring 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.

Democrats in Congress have long been divided over the way ahead in Iraq.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., failed to get her caucus to rally around one position last week. Senate Democrats also spent the week trying to come up with a "consensus" position, and it appeared they had largely succeeded.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada backs the resolution and his aides say they expect 38 to 40 Democrats and a few Republicans to vote for the symbolic statement. However, they don't expect to get the 51 votes needed to attach the resolution to an annual military bill.

The resolution would urge - but not require - the administration to begin "a phased redeployment of U.S. forces" in 2006 and, by year's end, give Congress its plan for "continued redeployment" thereafter.

Additionally, the resolution calls for American troops, which have been focused on combat operations in Iraq, to more quickly switch to "a limited mission of training and logistic support of Iraqi security forces, protection of U.S. personnel and facilities, and targeting counterterrorism activities."

It also maps out steps Senate Democrats say the fledgling Iraqi government must take to lay the foundation for a successful democracy and calls for an international conference to help Iraq overcome problems it faces.

Even as the GOP leadership criticized the resolution, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called it "a very serious-minded approach." He declined to endorse it but nonetheless promised to give it careful consideration.

Three Democrats distanced themselves from the resolution.

Seeking a stronger position on Iraq, John Kerry of Massachusetts, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Barbara Boxer of California intend to push for a vote on their own proposal.

It would require the administration to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007, leaving in place only U.S. troops essential to training Iraqi security forces, conducting counterterrorism operations and protecting U.S. personnel and facilities.

"A deadline gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government, and most importantly, it allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country," Kerry and Feingold, two Democrats eying potential presidential candidacies in 2008, said in a joint statement.

Their proposal is expected to be rejected overwhelmingly.

N. Korean threat activates shield

The Pentagon activated its new U.S. ground-based interceptor missile defense system, and officials announced yesterday that any long-range missile launch by North Korea would be considered a "provocative act."

Poor weather conditions above where the missile site was located by U.S. intelligence satellites indicates that an immediate launch is unlikely, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
However, intelligence officials said preparations have advanced to the point where a launch could take place within several days to a month.

Two Navy Aegis warships are patrolling near North Korea as part of the global missile defense and would be among the first sensors that would trigger the use of interceptors, the officials said yesterday.

The U.S. missile defense system includes 11 long-range interceptor missiles, including nine deployed at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The system was switched from test to operational mode within the past two weeks, the officials said.

One senior Bush administration official told The Washington Times that an option being considered would be to shoot down the Taepodong missile with responding interceptors.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice added that any launch would be a serious matter and "would be taken with utmost seriousness and indeed a provocative act."
White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to comment when asked if shooting down a launched missile was being considered as an option.

President Bush had telephoned more than a dozen heads of state regarding North Korea's launch preparations, Mr. Snow said. He did not identify the leaders who were called by Mr. Bush.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.S. has made it clear to North Korea that the communist regime should abide by the missile-test ban it imposed in 1999 and reaffirmed in a pact with Japan in 2002.

"The United States has a limited missile defense system," Mr. Whitman said. He declined to say if the system is operational or whether it would be used.
"U.S. Northern Command continues to monitor the situation, and we are prepared to defend the country in any way necessary," said spokesman Michael Kucharek.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Ayatollah's grandson calls for U.S. overthrow of Iran

An Iranian Shia cleric � and grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the 1979 Iranian Revolution who dubbed the U.S. the "Great Satan" � has called on the President Bush to "come and occupy Iran" and "break the prison [doors open]."

Speaking from the Shia holy city of Qom, Hossein Khomeini, in an interview marking the 17th anniversary of the ayatollah's death, blasted the current regime and it's alleged quest for nuclear weapons and called for freedom to come to Iran.

"My grandfather's revolution has devoured its children and has strayed from its course," he told Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based Arabic-language station. "I lived through the revolution and it called for freedom and democracy � but it has persecuted its leaders."

He dismisses the clerics who inherited power from the revolution as "wearers of the turban" and accuses them of abusing their power.

Khomeini made headlines in 2003 when he criticized the Islamic Republic during a visit to Washington and New York, where he called for an armed invasion of Iran. He avoided retaliation from the regime when he returned to Iran due to the protection of his grandfather's widow, but media organizations were banned from interviewing him. The hardline opposition to the Ahmadinejad government, expressed in the Al-Arabiya interview, is the first time he's broken his silence in three years.

"Iran will gain real power if freedom and democracy develop there," Khomeini said, adding that if he came to power, one of his first acts would be to make wearing of the Muslim veil optional for Iranian women. "Strength will not be obtained through weapons and the bomb."

As for his call for the U.S. military to occupy his country, he said, "Freedom must come to Iran in any possible way, whether through internal or external developments. If you were a prisoner, what would you do? I want someone to break the prison [doors open]."

Prosecution: Saddam Should Be Executed

The prosecutor asked for the death penalty for Saddam Hussein and two of his co-defendants, saying in closing arguments Monday that the former Iraqi leader and his regime committed crimes against humanity in a "revenge" attack on Shiite civilians in the 1980s.

The arguments brought the eight-month-old trial into its final phase. After Monday's session, the court adjourned until July 10, when the defense will begin making its final summation.

Saddam, dressed in a black suit, sat silently, sometimes taking notes, as chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi delivered his arguments, listing the evidence against each of the eight defendants.

Concluding his remarks, al-Moussawi asked for the death penalty against Saddam, his half brother Barzan Ibrahim - the head of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time - and Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former senior regime member. The method of execution is hanging.

"The prosecution asks for the harshest penalty against them, because they spread corruption on earth, they showed no mercy even for the old, for women or for children, and even the trees were not safe from their oppression," he said. "The law calls for the death penalty and this is what we ask be implemented."

"Well done," Saddam muttered sarcastically.

The defense will likely take several sessions for its closing arguments. Then the five-judge panel is expected to call an adjournment to consider its verdicts against the eight defendants.

It is not known how long it will take for the judges to reach a decision. But the timeframe could mean verdicts as early as August or September.

Group Claims It Kidnapped U.S. Soldiers

An umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in a Web statement Monday that it had kidnapped two U.S. soldiers reported missing south of Baghdad. The same group also claimed it had kidnapped four Russian diplomats and killed a fifth.

There was no immediate confirmation that the statement was credible, although it appeared on a Web site often used by al-Qaida-linked groups.

U.S. officials have said they were trying to confirm whether the missing soldiers were kidnapped.

"Your brothers in the military wing of the Mujahedeen Shura Council kidnapped the two American soldiers near Youssifiya," the group said in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site.

The Web site did not name the soldiers.

The soldiers were reported missing Friday after insurgents attacked a checkpoint. The Defense Department identified the missing men as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.

The soldier who was killed was identified as Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass. The three were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.

The U.S. military said Monday that seven American troops have been wounded, three insurgents have been killed and 34 detained during an intensive search for the soldiers.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles and dive teams had been deployed to find the two men. They went missing Friday during an attack on their checkpoint in the volatile Sunni area south of Baghdad that left one of their comrades dead.

"We have surged intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms and employed planes, boats, helicopters and UAVs to ensure the most thorough search possible on the ground, in the air and in the water," Caldwell said in a statement issued Monday.

Caldwell said more than 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops were participating in the search.

"While searching for our soldiers, we have engaged in a number of significant actions against the anti-Iraqi forces," he said, adding that three insurgents had been killed and 34 taken into custody.

He also said the military had received 63 tips and had launched 12 cordon and search operations, eight air assaults and 280 flight hours were logged.

"Approximately 12 villages have been cleared in the area, and we continue to engage local citizens for help and information leading to the whereabouts of our soldiers," he said, without elaborating.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

New conservative talk-radio programming

We�re excited to announce that Radio CIA is adding a new conservative talk program to the lineup! Talk Show America will air weekdays at 1pm Central time, starting this coming Monday.

Hosted by J.R., who describes himself as �a 26 year police veteran, patrol supervisor, communications supervisor, law enforcement instructor, Director of Emergency Management, former local politician and conservative talk show host in my spare time�. J.R. has previously had a talk show on WARE AM 1250 in Massachusetts and is no stranger to talk radio.

Tackling US politics from the Conservative viewpoint from the War on Terror to immigration, and everything in between, I think you�re really going to enjoy him! I�ve listened, and trust me, he pulls no punches! Check him out weekdays at 1pm Central time on Radio CIA, and visit his blog at Talk Show America.