The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 06/25/2006 - 07/02/2006

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Al Qaeda cell had planned a 2003 cyanide attack on the New York subway system

U.S. authorities had intelligence that a team of Al Qaeda-linked terrorists had infiltrated the United States and planned a 2003 attack on the New York City subway system with homemade cyanide bombs, federal and local counterterrorism officials have acknowledged to NEWSWEEK. But the officials say the plot was called off at the last minute by Al Qaeda�s Ayman al-Zawahiri�for reasons that remain unclear.

Details of the purported cyanide plot are revealed by author Ron Suskind in his book, �The One Percent Doctrine,� to be published on June 20. According to a source familiar with the book�s content, Suskind reports that American authorities first learned about the cyanide plot from an informant inside Al Qaeda known as Ali. According to the book, Ali fed Washington critical information about Al Qaeda between late 2002 and early 2005, until U.S. officials decided that it was too dangerous to the informant to continue to use his reporting.

Suskind reports that in the spring of 2003, officials learned, apparently via Ali, that the Al Qaeda team was 45 days away from launching the subway attack. A few weeks earlier, U.S. intelligence had discovered that Al Qaeda had invented an improvised cyanide delivery system that the terrorists had dubbed mubtakkar, which Suskind says is an Arabic word for �inventive.�

The attack was never launched, Suskind reports, because Zawahiri, the principal deputy to Osama bin Laden, decided to call it off. Zawahiri remains at large and is believed to be with bin Laden. Suskind�s book claims that the terror cell responsible for the aborted attack remains at large inside the United States.

One former and two current U.S. counterterrorism officials (who all spoke to NEWSWEEK on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject) confirmed the existence of intelligence information about the alleged cyanide plot and the existence of mubtakkar, the makeshift cyanide bomb. Two of the officials said that the device was actually quite primitive�put together with beer cans and soda bottles. Still, the officials say, models of the device built from Al Qaeda designs by U.S. authorities appeared to work.

The weapon was not regarded as the type of device that could cause large-scale, 9/11-style carnage, the officials said, but if set off in a crowded theater or arena was capable of killing hundreds of people.

The counterterrorism officials also confirmed Suskind�s reporting that U.S. intelligence indicated that the subway attack was called off personally by Zawahiri. Though the officials said U.S. intelligence was still not certain why the attack had been cancelled, one former official said some feared that Zawahiri had cancelled the subway attack because Al Qaeda was planning something even more deadly and spectacular inside the United States�an event that, if planned, so far has not materialized.

President Bush Pays Tribute to Armed Forces

President Bush paid tribute to America's armed forces Saturday, calling Independence Day a time to thank the men and women who defend freedom.

"For more than two centuries, from the camps of Valley Forge to the mountains of Afghanistan, Americans have served and sacrificed for the principles of our founding," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Today, a new generation of American patriots is defending our freedom against determined and ruthless enemies."


On the holiday, Americans should recall the ideals that the nation's founders outlined in the Declaration of Independence, Bush said. He also encouraged every American to find a way to thank those who defend freedom.

He urged people to help America Supports You, a nationwide program set up by the Defense Department to communicate citizen support to military men and women at home and abroad.

"At this hour, the men and women of our armed forces are facing danger in distant places, carrying out their missions with all the skill and honor we expect of them," Bush said. "And their families are enduring long separations from their loved ones with great courage and dignity."

Iranian Troops Fighting in Iraq

Iraqi and U.S. troops battled Shi'ite militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, and witnesses and police said U.S. helicopters bombed orchards to flush out gunmen hiding there.

Iraqi security officials said Iranian fighters had been captured in the fighting, in which a sniper shot dead the commander of an Iraqi quick reaction force and two of his men. They did not say how the Iranians had been identified.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

The captain and other Interior Ministry sources said the commander of the quick reaction force, Colonel Sami Hussein, and two of his men were killed by a sniper.

No other casualties were reported from the clashes and police said it was not clear how many civilians had been killed or wounded in the initial shooting at the convoy. The wounded were taken to a hospital in Baquba.

"We captured a number of militants and were surprised to see that some of them were Iranian fighters," the police intelligence captain said.

An Interior Ministry official, who did not want to be named, also said Iranian gunmen had been captured. Baquba lies 90 km (60 miles) from the Iranian border.

The United States and Britain have accused Shi'ite Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs and providing military assistance to Iraq's pro-government Shi'ite militias. However, there have been few instances of Iranians actually being captured inside Iraq.

Osama addresses militants in Iraq, Somalia

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden urged Iraqi militants in an Internet message Saturday to continue fighting the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad, or else "all the capitals in the region will fall to the crusaders."

The message from bin Laden also endorsed Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as the new leader for his terror network al-Qaida in Iraq, succeeding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in a U.S. airstrike.

It urged al-Muhajer to step up "the struggle" to transform Iraq into the center of an Islamic Caliphate.

"I pray to God to make him the best successor to the best predecessor."

On Friday, bin Laden paid tribute to al-Zarqawi, and he denied that the terror organization was involved in sectarian strife in Iraq.

Saturday's 19-minute audio recording � his fifth statement this year and his second in two days � was accompanied by a photo of bin Laden above the logo and name Al-Sahab, al-Qaida's media production wing.

The authenticity could not be immediately authenticated. The U.S. government was working to determine if the voice heard is actually bin Laden's.

The message urged militants in Iraq to continue their fight.

"Stay steadfast and don't leave Baghdad, otherwise all the capitals in the region will fall to the crusaders," said the message.

"Your Muslim nation is looking for you and praying for your victory. You are their hope after God. You are God's trusted soldiers who will liberate the ummah (the nation) from the serfdom of the crusaders in our countries," bin Laden said in the posting.

He also addressed Islamic militants in Somalia, urging the people there to support the Islamic Courts, a group that he said was building an Islamic state in the Horn of Africa.

"You have no other means for salvation unless you commit to Islam, put your hands in the hands of the Islamic Courts to build an Islamic state in Somalia," he said.

The Islamic Courts group took over most of Somalia in June.

He also warned leaders of Islamic countries against sending troops to Somalia.

"We pledge that we will fight your soldiers on the land of Somalia and we will fight you on your own land if you dispatch troops to Somalia."

Bin Laden lashed out at the president of Somalia's secular interim government, Abdullahi Yusuf, calling him a "traitor" and a "renegade."

Friday, June 30, 2006

GOP Senators Push for Military Tribunals

The Supreme Court's rebuff of the Bush administration's Guantanamo military tribunals knocks the issue into the halls of Congress, where GOP leaders are already trying to figure out how to give the president the options he wants for dealing with suspected terror detainees.

That way forward could be long and difficult. Congress will negotiate a highly technical legal road - one fraught with political implications in an election year - under the scrutiny of the international community that has condemned the continued use of the Guantanamo prison.

Congress' options include everything from legalizing the administration's proposed military tribunals to using the U.S. court system or enacting laws that, as Justice John Paul Stevens recommended, use military courts-martial as a template.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he would introduce legislation after the July 4 recess that would authorize military commissions and appropriate due process procedures. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., introduced a bill Thursday that did essentially that.

"To keep America safe in the war on terror, I believe we should try terrorists only before military commissions, not in our civilian courts," Frist said.

Human rights groups endorsed proposals to use the courts-martial proceedings, saying it is a fairer proceeding. But military officials say changing the procedures to mimic courts-martial - which are largely similar to U.S. court proceedings - would bring problems.

Katherine Newell Bierman, counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said courts-martial provide the basic fair trial guarantees that are lacking in the proposed military tribunals.

In the tribunals, she said, the accused have less access to the evidence against them, particularly if it is considered classified. Courts-martial, she said, have rules about how to deal with classified evidence, and they also have more stringent rules about prohibiting evidence that was acquired unlawfully, such as through duress or forced confessions.

Military officials, however, have said that using courts-martial could handcuff their ability to prosecute suspected terrorists because of the need to protect classified information.

Bin Laden Planning Message

Terror leader Osama bin Laden will release a new Internet message dealing with Somalia and Iraq, according to a Web posting Friday.

An advertisement on an Islamic militant Web forum announced the upcoming message saying, "Good news, soon: To the Islamic nation, and the mujahedeen in Iraq and Somalia in particular, from Sheik Osama bin Laden," according to two groups that monitor terror messages.

The banner was signed by As-Sahab, the production branch that releases al-Qaida videos, and had an old picture of bin Laden. The teaser was first reported by the SITE Institute and the IntelCenter, two independent groups that provide counter-terrorism information to the U.S. government.

A similar advertisement was posted about 24 hours before bin Laden's latest message was posted on the Web early Friday.

Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria, Official Says

The 500 munitions discovered throughout
Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center
report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's
commander said here today.

"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons
Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction,"
Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.

The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which
outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was
signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.

The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen.
Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. Sarin
attacks the neurological system and is potentially lethal.

"Mustard is a blister agent (that) actually produces burning of any
area (where) an individual may come in contact with the agent," he said.
It also is potentially fatal if it gets into a person's lungs.

The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s,
Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally
intended, Chu added.

While that's reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be
very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. "We're talking
chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and
have a great effect," he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a
Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.

This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents
that may have occurred, Chu said. It's not known exactly how sarin breaks
down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it's still toxic.

"Regardless of (how much material in the weapon is actually chemical
agent), any remaining agent is toxic," he said. "Anything above zero
(percent agent) would prove to be toxic, and if you were exposed to it long
enough, lethal."

Though about 500 chemical weapons - the exact number has not been
released publicly - have been found, Maples said he doesn't believe Iraq is
a "WMD-free zone."

"I do believe the former regime did a very poor job of accountability
of munitions, and certainly did not document the destruction of
munitions," he said. "The recovery program goes on, and I do not believe we
have found all the weapons."

The Defense Intelligence Agency director said locating and disposing of
chemical weapons in Iraq is one of the most important tasks
servicemembers in the country perform.

Maples added searches are ongoing for chemical weapons beyond those
being conducted solely for force protection.

There has been a call for a complete declassification of the National
Ground Intelligence Center's report on WMD in Iraq. Maples said he
believes the director of national intelligence is still considering this
option, and has asked Maples to look into producing an unclassified paper
addressing the subject matter in the center's report.

Much of the classified matter was slated for discussion in a closed
forum after the open hearings this morning.

Court Ruling to Have Little Impact on Gitmo Detainees

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on war crimes tribunals being held at Guantanamo navy base will have little effect on the detention camp that holds 450 foreign captives, the camp commander said.

"I don't think there's any direct outcome on our detention operation," Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the prison commander, said in an interview this week.

The high court upheld Thursday a Guantanamo defendant's challenge to President Bush's power to create the military tribunals to try suspected al Qaeda conspirators and Taliban supporters after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Harris said he would build a second courtroom if the tribunals are allowed to proceed but little else would change because the court was not asked to rule on Guantanamo itself, a prison camp that human rights groups, the United Nations and foreign governments have sharply criticized.

Ten detainees at Guantanamo have been charged before the tribunals, and prosecutors have said they will charge as many as 25 more if the court rules in favor of the commissions.

"If they rule against the government I don't see how that's going to affect us. From my perspective I think the impact will be negligible," Harris told Reuters.

About 120 other prisoners at the base in have been cleared for release, or transfer to their homelands where Washington expects them to remain in detention.

But the director of interrogations at Guantanamo said many of the rest could be held a very long time because U.S. officials will not release those whom they are convinced have the connections, training and means to carry out attacks.

"Nobody wants to be the first person to allow the next 9/11 to happen," said interrogations chief Paul Rester. "Emptying this place is not my goal."

Supreme Court Blocks Bush, Gitmo War Trials

Bush Vows to Pursue Detainee War Trials

Document: Ruling on Hamden v. Rumsfeld

U.S. Still Finding WMD in Iraq

The U.S. military has found more Iraqi weapons in recent months, in addition to the 500 chemical munitions recently reported by the Pentagon, a top defense intelligence official said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, did not specify if the newly found weapons were also chemical munitions. But he said he expected more.

"I do not believe we have found all the weapons," he told the House Armed Services Committee, offering few details in an open session that preceded a classified briefing to lawmakers.

Responding to questions from lawmakers anxious to make political points ahead of the November congressional elections, U.S. defense officials said the 500 chemical weapons discovered in Iraq were "weapons of mass destruction." However their degraded state may make them more dangerous to those who find them than anyone else.

Maples said the pre-Gulf War rockets and artillery rounds recently reported by the Pentagon were produced in the 1980s and could not be used as intended.

If the chemical agent, sarin, was removed from the munitions and repackaged, it could be lethal. Its release in a U.S. city, in certain circumstances, would be devastating, Maples said.

But despite statements of concern by Republicans about the risk of terrorists releasing the chemical in the United States, defense officials said the munitions pose as much a threat to people who try to handle them as potential victims.

When asked by a Democrat to confirm the weapons pose a risk to troops in Iraq, not Americans at home, Maples said, "Yes."

Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania suggested the munitions were in fact the weapons of mass destruction that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lied about, leading the United States to war.

"For those who claim that these weapons are not the weapons of mass destruction that the United States went to war over, I would refer them to 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions that Saddam Hussein violated," Weldon said. "It didn't say pre-'91 chemical weapons. It didn't say post-'91 chemical weapons. It said chemical weapons."

But Democrats dismissed such arguments and said the weapons were not the "imminent threat" used to justify the war.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Bin Laden Hails Slain Zarqawi As 'Lion'


Osama bin Laden praised slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the "lion of holy war" in a new videotape posted on the Internet on Friday.

The 19-minute message shows an old still photo of bin Laden in a split-screen next to images of al-Zarqawi taken from a previous video. A voice resembling bin Laden's narrates a tribute to the Jordanian-born militant, who was killed in a June 7, airstrike northeast of Baghdad.

"Our Islamic nation was surprised to find its knight, the lion of jihad (holy war), the man of determination and will, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a shameful American raid," bin Laden said.

It was the fourth message put out this year by al-Qaida leader bin Laden. All have featured his voice in audiotapes. New video images of him have not appeared since October 2004.

The authenticity of the video could not be immediately confirmed. It bore the logo of As-Sahab, the al-Qaida production branch that releases all its messages, and was posted on an Islamic Web forum where militants often post messages. Typically, the CIA does a technical analysis to determine whether the speaker is who the tape claims and the National Counterterrorism Center analyzes the message's contents.

In the tape, bin Laden's voice sounded breathy and fatigued at times.

"Even if we lost one of our greatest knights and and princes, we are happy that we have found a symbol for our great Islamic nations, one that the mujahedeen will remember and praise in poetry and in stories secretly and aloud," bin Laden said.

A similar video tribute was released a week ago by bin Laden's deputy, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri, who did appear personally in the video, shown speaking to the camera.

The videos appear to be part of an attempt by al-Qaida's central leadership to tout their connection to al-Zarqawi, who emerged as a hero among Islamic extremists with his dramatic attacks against Shiites and Westerners in Iraq.

Military Claims Gains on Iraqi Terrorists

The U.S. military claimed an advantage in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq on Thursday, saying raids since the death of its leader have forced many of its foreign fighters out into the open to be captured or killed.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraqi, acknowledged Iraqi civilians were suffering most from the insurgency, accounting for 70 percent of all deaths and injuries, while he said the number of U.S. casualties did not appear to be on the rise.

But he said the Americans gained momentum in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq after killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and have devoted a lot of resources to targeting his successor as leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

"There is no question, if we can take him down, that will just disrupt the organization ... to the point where it would be ineffective for a long period of time," Caldwell said. "It is very disorganized right now. And it is very disrupted right now."

He said coalition and Iraqi security forces had captured or killed 57 foreign fighters this month.

"The reason we were able to pick up and track some of these mid-level people ... in the last few weeks is because they've been forced to conduct meetings, to get out and be more visible, because their system has been so disrupted," he said. "And that has given us the opportunities to find them, track them and go get them."

On Wednesday, Iraqi authorities said they had captured an al-Qaida suspect from Tunisia who allegedly bombed a Shiite shrine earlier this year, setting off a spasm of violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Caldwell said Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, also known as Abu Qudama, was captured May 20 after he was seriously wounded in a clash with security forces north of Baghdad. Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri, the alleged Iraqi mastermind of the Feb. 22 attack on the shrine in Samarra, remains at large.

Iraqi Forces Capture Key Al Qaeda Suspect

Iraqi forces captured a key al-Qaida suspect wanted in the bombing of a Shiite shrine, but the mastermind of the attack that brought the country to the brink of civil war was still at large, a top security official said Wednesday.


Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, a Tunisian also known as Abu Qudama, was captured after being seriously wounded in a clash with security forces north of Baghdad a few days ago in which 15 other foreign fighters were killed, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said.


He also identified the fugitive ringleader in the operation as an Iraqi named Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri, the head of a gang that included two other Iraqis, four Saudis and Abu Qudama. He said the gang planted bombs in the 1,200-year-old Askariya mosque that exploded on Feb. 22 and obliterated its glistening golden dome, an addition completed in 1905.


A spasm of sectarian killing and revenge attacks on Sunni and Shiite mosques after the bombing of the revered shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, took the country to the brink of civil war.

The mosque attack was staged "in order to ignite sectarian strife among the Iraqi people," al-Rubaie said.

Sunnis: We'll Stop Attacks if U.S. Out in 2 Years

Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered to halt attacks on the U.S.-led military if the Iraqi government and President Bush set a two-year timetable for withdrawing all foreign troops from the country, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The demand is part of a broad offer from the groups, who operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces have become increasingly violent and the attacks there have regularly crippled oil and commerce routes.

The groups do not include the powerful Islamic Army in Iraq, Muhammad Army and the Mujahedeen Shura Council, the umbrella label for eight militant groups including al-Qaida in Iraq. But the new offer comes at a time when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government is reaching out to militant Sunnis, including a new amnesty plan for insurgent fighters.

Al-Maliki, in remarks broadcast on national television Wednesday, did not issue an outright rejection of the timetable demand but said it was unrealistic because he could not be certain when the Iraqi army and police would be strong enough to assume full responsibility for the country's security.

Eight of the 11 insurgent groups banded together to approach al-Maliki's government under the name of The 1920 Revolution Brigade. All 11, however, have issued identical demands, said the insurgent representatives and government officials.

The officials spoke on condition of anomymity because of the sensitivity of the information and for fear of retribution.

Chem warfare claimed in showdown at Gaza

Palestinian terrorists say they fired rocket tipped with WMD at Israel

Has chemical warfare erupted in the Middle East?

A spokesman for Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip say they fired a rocket tipped with a chemical warhead at Israel.

"The Al Aqsa Brigades have fired one rocket with a chemical warhead" at southern Israel, Abu Qusai said, according to Reuters.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

There was no immediate comment on the claim from the Israeli army, except a military spokeswoman saying there was no detection that any such rocket was fired, nor any report of it striking territory in Israel.

Meanwhile, another Brigades member, Abu Ahmed, told Ynet News that Palestinian gunmen were seriously preparing for the incursion into Gaza by Israeli forces.

But sources in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, speaking on condition of anonymity, said while the group is attempting to acquire biological and chemical agents, their current capabilities in the field still are mostly primitive.

"With the help of Allah, we are pleased to say that we succeeded in developing over 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons, this after a three-year effort," said the Al Aqsa statement, which was released yesterday and made national headlines here today.

"We say to (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert and (Defense Minister Amir) Peretz: Your threats of invasion do not frighten us. We will surprise you with new weapons you have not faced until now. As soon as an IDF soldier sets foot on Gazan land, we will respond with a new weapon."

The group claimed it was working to add chemical and biological agents to missiles that are regularly launched from the Gaza Strip aimed at nearby Jewish communities.

The Al Aqsa Brigades, the declared "resistance wing" of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shooting attacks and rockets launched from Gaza.

Israeli security officials told WND Al Aqsa's claim of developing more than 20 kinds of chemical and biological agents is "rhetoric." They said Israel has information the group in the past has conducted low-level experiments adding some kinds of chemicals, including cyanide, to suicide belts, but that Palestinian groups currently don't have "serious" chemical or biological capabilities.

They also said Palestinian terror groups currently do not have capabilities to add chemical or biological agents to missiles but that there was a fear some countries, particularly Iran, may be assisting in such efforts.

Sources in the Al Aqsa Brigades told WND the group was experimenting with chemical agents. They claimed they currently have in their weapons arsenal certain agents that can be thrown or shot at civilians in canisters, but they declined to name the specific agents.

One Al Aqsa source said the group's work in Gaza so far has been limited mostly to Al Aqsa members who are studying chemistry at local universities where biological agents are not available and chemical agents are limited.

They said "outside parties" were helping the group add agents to missiles, but would not comment on the current status of the program or name the outside parties.

Economy Zips Ahead at a 5.6 Percent Pace

The economy sprang out of a year-end rut and zipped ahead in the opening quarter of this year at a 5.6 percent pace, the fastest in 2 1/2 years and even stronger than previously thought.

The new snapshot of gross domestic product for the January-to-March period exceeded the 5.3 percent growth rate estimated a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The upgraded reading - based on more complete information - matched economists' forecasts.

The stronger GDP figure mostly reflected an improvement in the country's trade deficit, which was much less of a drag than previously estimated.

Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is considered the best barometer of the country's economic fitness.

Consumers boosted spending in the first quarter at a 5.1 percent pace, compared to a meager 0.9 percent growth rate in the fourth quarter.

Businesses ramped up spending on equipment and software at a brisk 14.8 percent pace, up from a 5 percent growth rate in the prior quarter.

And, companies' profits continued to grow briskly. One measure of after-tax profits in the GDP report showed profits rose 13.8 percent in the first quarter. It was the second consecutive quarter of such strong growth.

The trade picture improved as imports didn't grow as much as previously estimated. That meant the trade deficit shaved only 0.24 percentage point from GDP, compared with a 0.55 percentage-point reduction calculated a month ago.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

President Bush jogs with wounded soldier as promised


Despite a slight drizzle, Bush and Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge took a slow jog around a spongy track that circles the White House's South Lawn. About halfway through their approximately half-mile run, Bush and Bagge paused briefly for reporters.

"He ran the president into the ground, I might add," Bush said, as the two gripped hands in an emotional, lengthy shake. "But I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your strength, proud of your character."

The president met the soldier on a New Year's Day visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where Bagge had been recuperating from his injuries for months. Bagge, now 23 and a native of Eugene, Ore., was in a convoy hit by roadside bombs a year ago in the remote Iraq desert south of Kirkuk.

Bagge's left leg was amputated just above the ankle, and his right leg ends just above the knee.

He told Bush during their January visit that he wanted to run with him. Bush was an avid runner who had mostly traded the activity for mountain biking in the last couple of years because of knee problems.

"I looked at him, like, you know, there's an optimistic person," Bush said. "It's an amazing sight for me to be running with a guy who, last time I saw him, was in bed wondering whether or not � I was wondering whether or not he'd ever get out of bed."

But, the president added, in tribute to the hard work Bagge did to realize this goal, "There was no doubt in his mind that he would."

"It's a privilege," commented Bagge, who had changed in the Oval Office into a special set of prosthetic legs that he uses to jog.

And then the pair took off for the remainder of their run.

Tennessee mayor targeted soldiers for traffic citations

Tennessee politician used slurs, targeted soldiers in ticket blitz

A Tennessee mayor spewed racial slurs, attempted to set up foes for arrest, and tried to boost his town's traffic ticket revenue by specifically profiling soldiers and Hispanics, according to a lawsuit seeking the politician's ouster from office.

In a complaint filed yesterday in Robertson County Chancery Court, the State of Tennessee portrays Coopertown Mayor Danny Crosby as a boorish nutcase who has soiled the reputation of the 3176-resident city, which is located about 25 miles north of Nashville. The state lawsuit, an excerpt of which you'll find below, includes an array of shocking charges, including the claim that, after swearing in a new police officer on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the mayor congratulated the cop by saying, "Happy James Earl Ray Day." Crosby, also allegedly sought to boost his city's revenue by setting up speed traps and directing police to "engage in profiling soldiers of the United States Armed Services" since he believed that enlisted persons "would tend to mail in their fines rather to come to Court to contest the Citations." Crosby also thought Hispanics, who were "mostly illegal anyway," would also avoid court, the complaint charges. As such, Crosby encouraged giving multiple citations to Hispanics, remarking, "We can give them all the tickets we want."

Crosby was elected mayor in November 2004.

Senate Rejects Flag Desecration Amendment

A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a Senate cliffhanger Tuesday, a single vote short of the support needed to send it to the states for ratification and four months before voters elect a new Congress.

The 66-34 tally in favor of the amendment was one less than the two-thirds required. The House surpassed that threshold last year, 286-130.

President Bush, who supports the amendment, called the failed vote unfortunate and commended Republicans and Democrats who voted to move the ratification process forward. In a statement, Bush said he continued to believe that "the American people deserve the opportunity to express their views on this important issue."

The proposed amendment, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, read: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

It represented Congress' response to Supreme Court rulings in 1989 and 1990 that burning and other desecrations of the flag are protected as free speech by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Senate supporters said the flag amounts to a national monument in cloth that represents freedom and the sacrifice of American troops.

"Countless men and women have died defending that flag," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., closing two days of debate. "It is but a small humble act for us to defend it."

Opponents said the amendment would violate the First Amendment right to free speech. And some Democrats complained that majority Republicans were exploiting people's patriotism for political advantage in the midterm elections.

"Our country's unique because our dissidents have a voice," said Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, a World War II veteran who lost an arm in the war and was decorated with the Medal of Honor.

"While I take offense at disrespect to the flag," he said, "I nonetheless believe it is my continued duty as a veteran, as an American citizen, and as a United States senator to defend the constitutional right of protesters to use the flag in nonviolent speech."

Among possible presidential contenders in 2008, six voted yes: Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana and Republicans George Allen of Virginia, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Frist, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and John McCain of Arizona. Five, all Democrats, voted no: Joseph Biden of Delaware, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Americans Top Patriotic Nation Survey

When it comes to national pride, Americans are No. 1, according to a survey of 34 countries' patriotism.

Venezuela came in a close second in the survey, released Tuesday by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

People rated how proud they were of their countries in 10 areas: political influence, social security, the way their democracy works, economic success, science and technology, sports, arts and literature, military, history, and fair treatment of all groups in society.

In the U.S., "the two things we rank high on are what we think of as the political or power dimension," said Tom W. Smith, a researcher at the university. "Given that we're the one world superpower, it's not that surprising."

Patriotism is mostly a New World concept, the researchers said. Former colonies and newer nations were more likely to rank high on the list, while Western European, East Asian and former socialist countries usually ranked near the middle or bottom.

The U.S. ranked highest overall and in five categories: pride in its democracy, political influence, economy, science and military. Venezuela ranked highest in four categories: sports, arts and literature, history, and fair treatment of all groups in society.

Eric Wingerter, a Washington spokesman for the Venezuelan government, said many Venezuelans believe President Hugo Chavez has helped create a new sense of national pride. "There's been a real emphasis on rediscovering what it means to be Venezuelan," he said.

Chavez rails against the U.S. government and the Bush administration in particular.

Ireland came in at No. 3, followed by South Africa and Australia.

Cultural differences might explain the lower rankings for the three Asian countries on the list - Japan (18th), Taiwan (29th), and Korea (31), Smith said.

"It is both bad luck and poor manners to be boastful about things there," Smith said.

Countries that were part of the former Soviet Union or in the former Eastern Bloc ranked lower because they are still struggling to find new national identities, Smith said. Hungary was the highest Eastern European country on the list at 21.

Islam Outlaws Weapons of Mass Destruction

An Iranian minister told Indonesia's vice president Tuesday that his country has no plans to develop nuclear weapons because Islamic law outlaws the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, Iran's minister of science, research and technology said that based on the Islamic principle, Iran must take advantage of all its potential resources including nuclear technology for the prosperity of its people.

Zahedi called on Western countries not to try and prevent developing nations from producing their own nuclear power when it is designed for peaceful purposes.

"Islamic doctrine does not allow us to produce mass destruction weapons or nuclear ones and the Iranian state is based on that principle," Zahedi told a news conference after meeting with Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

He questioned why countries that have developed or used nuclear weapons continue to oppose Iran's nuclear research and development.

He called on developing countries to fight hand in hand against what he called "scientific apartheid."

"I would like to say that the usage of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is the right of every nation. And we, as a sovereign nation, do not allow other nations to interfere our domestic affairs," he said.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

86 % Support Job US Military is doing in Iraq, President up 5 %

President Bush's approval rating has gone from 33% to 38% this month in the latest ABC/Washington post poll.

And while he's still not over 40%, the survey finds that Republicans seem to be more supportive of Bush now, with 82 percent of all Republicans saying the president is doing a good job, as well as 78% of moderate Republicans, who had supported Bush at only a 57 percent rate in May.

By contrast, the Democrats have lost a lot of ground this month, with the death of terrorist Abu musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. The poll found that the Democrats' lead on "trust to handle Iraq" was cut in half, and that the GOP has regained the public's trust on protecting the U.S. from terrorism by a 7 percentage point margin.

56 percent or respondents see the war in Iraq as part of the war on terrorism, and 57 percent think the war on terrorism is going well overall.

"86 percent approve of the way U.S. forces are handling their jobs in Iraq; 61 percent approve strongly," wrote ABC News.


Also with regard to Iraq, 64 percent of those polled said Bush lacks a clear plan of what to do in Iraq. But 71 percent, say the Democrats also lack a clear plan.

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone June 22-25, 2006, among a random national sample of 1,000 adults. The results have a three-point error margin.

Some Insurgents Are Asking Iraq for Negotiations

Several Sunni-led insurgent groups have approached the Iraqi government to try to start negotiations after the Iraqi prime minister's presentation on Sunday of a limited plan for reconciliation, a senior legislator from the prime minister's party said Monday.

The groups have made no demands yet, but wanted to express their views to top government officials, said the legislator, Hassan al-Suneid. "There are signals" from "some armed groups to sit at the negotiating table," said Mr. Suneid, who, like the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, belongs to the Islamic Dawa Party, a conservative Shiite group.

The groups, made up of Iraqi nationalist fighters, have floated their proposal through Sunni Arab negotiators, Mr. Suneid said in a telephone interview. Although he described the groups as armed, he said they "are not implicated in the bloodletting of Iraqis."

Mr. Suneid declined to say how many groups wanted to open talks, who they were and how big or influential they were. There are indications that seven insurgent factions are involved.

The development was welcomed by a prominent Sunni politician. "This is a good and affirmative step from the armed groups," said Ayad al-Samarraie of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which holds some of the top posts in the government. Referring to Shiite militias, many of them backed by political parties, he added, "We are now looking for other armed groups and militias joined to parties to see how they will work with this project."

Mr. Maliki's reconciliation plan is vague, perhaps purposefully so, about which insurgent groups the government considers suitable to negotiate with. Mr. Maliki said in Parliament on Sunday, "For he who wants to build, we offer a hand with an olive branch." The only firm line, American and Iraqi officials said, was that no amnesty would be granted to members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia or guerrillas intent on restoring Saddam Hussein's rule.

American and Iraqi officials say Mr. Maliki has a small window in which to bring Sunni-led guerrillas to the negotiating table and persuade them to lay down their arms. That opportunity was widened by the killing this month of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who had been stoking sectarian clashes between the majority Shiites and Sunni Arabs, who had governed Iraq for generations before the American invasion.

American officials have long accused foreign fighters like Mr. Zarqawi of pushing the insurgency to more extreme measures than those preferred by Iraqi nationalist guerrillas. Many of the Iraqi fighters are disenfranchised Sunni Arabs bitter at their ouster from power and fearful of the rise of Shiite fundamentalism backed by Iran. American officials say that it could be easier to negotiate with the nationalists, many of them from the formerly ruling Baath Party, now that Mr. Zarqawi is out of the picture and his group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, is thought to be in some disarray.

A dad's order to soldier son

I TALKED to my son in Iraq recently, and he told me they were being fired at while on convoy on a regular basis. When I asked him if they shot back, he said, "No." I asked why, and he said all the ruckus about Americans supposedly committing atrocities and murders has caused military leadership to require soldiers to write an exhaustive report when they fire their weapons before they can call it a day.

He said many times they run for 10-12 hours in full battle gear, in the intense heat with bullets bouncing off their vehicles and everyone "just hunkers down" and sweats it out. When they finally get to the new U.S. compound, no one wants to write reports. He said morale is very low because of this and everyone still wants to believe they are supported back in the States.

As a Vietnam veteran, the loss of every soldier hurts my heart and puts a shadow over my day, but we just cannot, as a country, pull the rug out from under our guys and gals in harm's way and strap them with so many rules of engagement that they can't even fight back. And I don't think the answer is to nuke the country or anything like that, either. We have got to quit playing arm-chair quarterback on everything that happens. We have military officers for that, and we need to let them do their job.

We as Americans have to keep it before us that we are at war and there will be collateral damage in the way of women, children and noncombatants. I told my son before he left on his third overseas tour to not allow himself to be captured, knowing full well what I was saying. He's an advanced martial artist and a real scrapper, but allowing those terrorists to capture a soldier is only prolonging a very personal violent, heinous death sentence. A soldier might as well go down fighting and take as many as he can with him.

BERT MARSHALL Baytown

Monday, June 26, 2006

Soldiers sign up to battle terrorism

Sgt. Matthew Rollston, 34, said he signed on as infantryman so he could make a difference in the fight against terrorism. The team leader for 1st platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment said he joined the Army three years ago for the same reason most of his fellow soldiers did: The 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"Everyone in my unit specifically joined to fight, and we are getting a chance to do that," said Rollston, a native of Richmond, Va. "That's what the infantry does. I like the fact that they're using us for what we've trained for."



Rollston said his missions are three-fold. On any given day he can be knocking on doors on a "meet and greet" with local Iraqis or knocking down doors looking for armed insurgents with a "cordon and search." He and his team also conduct security patrols for the Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad as they look for and destroy roadside bombs.

Rollston said his unit recently moved from Hawija, Iraq, at Forward Operating Base McHenry and are now at FOB Warrior in Kirkuk.
Rollston said he enjoys being a mentor to his soldiers as a team leader. An infantry team consists of a Squad Automatic Weapon gunner, rifleman and a rifleman with an M203 grenade launcher attached to his weapon.

While on patrols, Rollston said the local people are not angry with the soldiers and they try to be compliant. "They're really more friendly than anything", he said.

But often times the job can be dangerous because he and his team never know what's around the corner, and if the people they meet are friend or foe.

"We only use the amount of force that is necessary and knowing the rules of engagement," Rollston said about deciding when to shoot. "It is difficult because you never know. They (the enemy) don't wear uniforms. We usually have to wait for them to attack. But by following the Rules of Engagement and Escalation of Force (not using more firepower than needed), you can't go wrong."


Rollston said his job as team leader is easy because everyone in his unit is motivated.

"We all try to do the best that we can all the time. Everyone is ready to go when it's time to go," he said.


When he's not hitting the streets in Iraq, Rollston said most of the time you can find him and his buddies working out at the base gym.

The main message Rollston has for the citizens back home is to keep supporting the soldiers.

"Whether or not you believe the war was a mistake, we're fighting it and we have to win," Rollston said. "I think it's clear that the insurgents are coming here from other countries. They've made this their battleground. It's better that we fight here instead of the U.S. It's a slippery slope if we don't win. We have to win here and we need America's support for that. You can't support the soldier and not the mission. It's counter productive."

Haditha Deaths from Firefight, Not Murder !

New evidence continues to emerge that U.S. Marines did not wantonly kill Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November - and the soldiers' accounts of what happened are backed up by videotape shot by an ultralight vehicle, NewsMax has learned.

According to media reports, last Nov. 19 members of a Marine Corps company killed some 24 innocent civilian Iraqis in Haditha, a town 140 miles northwest of Baghdad and near the Syrian border.

In the ensuing media firestorm that broke out after the story was revealed, many news reports here and abroad compared the Haditha deaths to the infamous My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

Michael Sallah, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his My Lai reporting, has said: "You would have difficulties finding a single newspaper in Germany or elsewhere in Europe which does not deal with My Lai."

But the facts and accounts from Marines and others on the ground tell another story.

What is not in dispute is that the Marines' engagement in Haditha began when an IED (improvised explosive device) detonated, killing a Marine from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

In the aftermath of the action two investigations were launched, one by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, who was charged with investigating how the incident was reported through the chain of command. A second investigation, headed by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), is looking into any possible criminal aspects of the incident.

The Bargewell report has not been released and is still being reviewed by Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, a top U.S. commander in Iraq. But military officials told the Los Angeles Times that although it concludes there was no deliberate cover-up by senior Marine officers, the Corps failed to follow up and ask questions that the known details should have provoked them to ask.

The NCIS investigation is still ongoing.

In May, when Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, appeared on "Good Morning America," he accused the Marines of K Company of killing innocent civilians "in cold blood" and said that the killings had been covered up by higher officers.

The Bargewell report has disproved that allegation, and with the NCIS investigation so far incomplete and no soldier charged with a crime, how would Murtha know?

Intelligence sources tell NewsMax the facts of the Haditha incident paint an entirely different picture from the one Murtha and others are propagating.

Military sources familiar with the incident have told NewsMax:

Within minutes of the early morning IED explosion, a firefight erupted between insurgents and Marines. Civilians were caught in the middle of the firefight. Also, although civilians did die, their deaths were the result of door-to-door combat as the Marines sought to clear houses and stop the insurgent gunfire.

Ample evidence proves that a firefight took place. For example, every second of the ensuing firefight was monitored by numerous people at company, battalion, and regimental HQs via radio communications.

Video evidence supports the Marines' claims. Within a very few minutes, battalion, regimental, and division headquarters were able to watch the action thanks to an overhead ultralight aircraft that remained aloft all day. Photos of some of the action were downloaded and in the hands of Marines and the NCIS.

Some of the insurgents involved in planning the attack and firing at Marines during a daylong engagement have been apprehended and are in custody.

Much of the story claiming what really happened in the aftermath of the IED explosion was reported by the Washington Post on June 11. NewsMax can now reveal the rest of the story about what really happened at Haditha.

In order to fully understand what happened last Nov. 19, it is important to know what kind of city Haditha is.

"We require more manpower to cover this area the way we need to," one military official told the Los Angeles Times. One Knight Ridder reporter called Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people, "an insurgent bastion," reporting that "insurgents blend in with the residents, setting up cells in their homes next to those belonging to everyday citizens, some of them supportive."

Knight Ridder said that around the time of an August attack, when a total of 20 U.S. Marines were killed in two days, "several storefronts were lined with posters and pictures supporting al-Qaida. ... "There is no functioning police station and the government offices are largely vacant. The last man to call himself mayor relinquished the title earlier this year after scores of death threats from insurgents."

According to an August 2005 story in Britain's Guardian newspaper, Haditha, under the nose of an American base, "is a miniature Taliban-like state. Insurgents decide who lives and dies, which salaries get paid, what people wear, what they watch and listen to."

When the Marines first went into the city, they were aware of the tight control insurgents exercised over Haditha. They discovered that the insurgents had freshly paved over dirt roads leading into town under the auspices of civic works projects.

They were, according to a NewsMax source, "beautiful asphalt-surfaced roads" that even included painted lines. The only problem, the source recalled, was that insurgents had laid more than 100 mega-IEDs under that asphalt. And, in order to avoid having to change batteries in the triggering devices, they had wired them into the city power lines lining the road.

It is important to remember that the so-called details of the alleged massacre came from Iraqis and residents of Haditha, a city run by insurgents who have those residents not allied with them under their bloody thumbs.

In the Post story, an attorney for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, said that his client told him that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house. He insisted there was no vengeful massacre, but he described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

"It will forever be his position that everything they did that day was following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of Marines," Neal A. Puckett, who represents Wuterich in the ongoing investigations into the incident, told the Post. "He's really upset that people believe that he and his Marines are even capable of intentionally killing innocent civilians."

According to the Post, Wuterich told his attorney in initial interviews over nearly 12 hours that the shootings were the unfortunate result of a methodical sweep for enemies in a firefight. Two attorneys for other Marines involved in the incident said Wuterich's account is consistent with those they had heard from their clients.

Wrote the Post: "On Nov. 19, Wuterich's squad left its headquarters at Firm Base Sparta in Haditha at 7 a.m. on a daily mission to drop off Iraqi army troops at a nearby checkpoint. "It was like any other day, we just had to watch out for any other activity that looked suspicious," said Marine Cpl. James Crossan, 21, in an interview from his home in North Bend, Wash. He was riding in the four-Humvee convoy as it turned left onto Chestnut Road, heading west at 7:15 a.m.

"Shortly after the turn, a bomb buried in the road ripped through the last Humvee. The blast instantly killed the driver, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20. Wuterich, who was driving the third Humvee in the line, immediately stopped the convoy and got out, Puckett told the Post, adding that while Wuterich was evaluating the scene, Marines noticed a white unmarked car full of "military-aged men" lingering near the bomb site. When Marines ordered the men to stop, they ran; Puckett said it was standard procedure at the time for the Marines to shoot suspicious people fleeing a bombing, and the Marines opened fire, killing four or five men.

"The first thing he thought was it could be a vehicle-borne bomb or these guys could be ready to do a drive-by shooting," Puckett said, explaining that the Marines were on alert for such coordinated, multistage attacks.

According to Puckett, as Wuterich began briefing the platoon leader, AK-47 shots rang out from residences on the south side of the road, and the Marines ducked.

A corporal with the unit leaned over to Wuterich and said he saw the shots coming from a specific house. After a discussion with the platoon leader, they decided to clear the house, according to Wuterich's account.

"There was a threat, and they went to eliminate the threat," Puckett said.

A four-man team of Marines, including Wuterich, kicked in the door and found a series of empty rooms, noticing quickly that there was one room with a closed door and people rustling behind it, Puckett said. They then kicked in that door, tossed a fragmentation grenade into the room, and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and smoke, killing several people, Puckett said.

The Marine who fired the rounds - Puckett said it was not Wuterich - had experience clearing numerous houses on a deployment in Fallujah, where Marines had aggressive rules of engagement.

Although it was almost immediately apparent to the Marines that the people dead in the room were men, women, and children � most likely civilians � they also noticed a back door ajar and believed that insurgents had slipped through to a house nearby, Puckett said. The Marines stealthily moved to the second house, kicking in the door, killing one man inside and then using a fragmentation grenade and more gunfire to clear another room full of people, he said.

Wuterich, not having found the insurgents, told the team to stop and headed back to the platoon leader to reassess the situation, Puckett said, adding that his client knew a number of civilians had just been killed.

As already stated, the Haditha massacre story reported by Time magazine was based entirely on accounts from Iraqis with an ax to grind. The facts of what happened tell a different story. The real story, it will eventually be revealed, is backed up by evidence Time didn't know existed. It gives the lie to the idea that there was anything like a massacre in Haditha on Nov. 19. Here, for the first time, is the truth about what happened.

NewsMax can verify Wuterich's account. The site of the IED explosion was in an area well known as an insurgent stronghold, where as many as 50 IEDs were found previously, and from where, on two previous occasions, insurgents launched small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar attacks on K Company.

Within five minutes of the blast, Marines on the scene reported they were receiving small-arms fire. Within 30 minutes of the blast, and while the house-clearing was still under way, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team en route to the site came under small-arms fire in a known insurgent tactic to ambush first responders.

At the same time, just 30 minutes after the house-clearing, an intelligence unit arrived to question the Marines involved in the house-clearing operation. NewsMax sources say the behavior of the Marines involved gave them no reason to believe anything but what they had been told.

At about the same time a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) arrived over the blast area and from that moment on, for the entire day , the UAV transmitted views of the engagement to the company command site, battalion headquarters, the regimental HQ, and the division HQ. What the UAV captured was a view of Marines in their perimeter, as they went about doing house-clearing. It was then vectored to the surrounding area to catch any fleeing insurgents. It showed four insurgents fleeing the neighborhood, loading weapons into their car, and linking up with their partners (the ones that had conducted the ambush on the EOD team).

Knowing what we now know about Wuterich's account, these fleeing insurgents were most likely the same ones who left through the back door of the house he was clearing.

There are photos of this, and they show the insurgents getting back into their car after loading the weapons The UAV then followed them south to their safe house. From that point forward, until about 6 p.m., the safe house was hit by bombs and an assault by a K Company squad. The UAV followed the insurgents who had been inside through town.

The final tally for these engagements was two insurgents killed by direct fire, one killed by GBU bombs, and one detained. The entire action was followed by the UAV overhead.

Keep in mind, the entire action was followed by keeping the UAV overhead all day.

The Haditha "massacre" being referred to is the 30 minutes to one hour that took place first thing in the morning. The rest of the day's activities, in fact, confirmed the nature of the morning's attack.

It is clear that the entire incident was planned and carried out by insurgents who detonated the IED, and then, in a familiar tactic, attacked the Marines responding to the blast � deliberately putting civilians at risk.

This is what happened in Haditha that day. It was a daylong engagement with armed insurgents that involved civilian casualties who died as a result of being caught in the middle of a firefight. It had been reported as a blast followed by a TIC � Marine Corps terminology for "Troops in Contact." In other words, gunfire directed at the Marines.

As the battalion went about compiling information on the insurgents' identities and determining who had been involved in the attack, its actions in the ensuing weeks resulted in the detention of several insurgents who masterminded the attack, and who remain incarcerated in Abu Ghraib prison today.

Sales of New Homes Increase Unexpectedly

Sales of new homes rose in May, surprising economists who had been forecasting that housing would slow down because of rising mortgage rates.

The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes increased by 4.6 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.234 million units. The median price of homes sold did decline to $235,300, a drop of 4.3 percent from the April sales price.

The 4.6 percent increase in sales pushed the sales rate to the highest level since last December and followed increases of 5.9 percent in April and 7.3 percent in March. The previous months' increases had been helped by unusually mild weather.

For May, sales were up in all parts of the country except the Northeast, which posed a 7.9 percent decline to an annual rate of 58,000 units.

Sales were up 6 percent in the South to an annual rate of 669,000. Sales rose by 5.3 percent in the West to an annual rate of 317,000 units and were up 2.7 percent in the Midwest to an annual rate of 190,000 units.

The increase in sales in May pushed the number of unsold new homes left on the market at the end of the month down slightly to 556,000 units, down slightly from the all-time high of 560,000 homes for sale at the end of May. It would take 5.5 months to exhaust the current inventory of homes at the May sales pace.

Iran faces gasoline rationing

Iran plans to ration gasoline.



Officials said Iran, hampered by a shortfall in funding, would halt the import of 200,000 barrels per day of gasoline on Sept. 23, 2006. They said no decision has been made on when to begin gasoline rationing.
Despite its status as the fourth largest oil producer in the world, Iran lacks refining capacity to meet the nation's fuel needs.

The announcement to end gasoline imports � most of it from Western Europe � stemmed from a decision by parliament to reduce the budget for gasoline imports to $2.5 billion from $4 billion, Middle East Newsline reported.

A key parliamentarian has already dismissed the prospect of rationing in the near term.

"Next week will be time to decide when we start rationing," Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said on June 23.

"Because there is no budget for importing gasoline in the second half of the year, naturally imports will be stopped and gasoline will be supplied by rationing."

Did the New York Times Cross the Line Between a Free Press and Treason?

by Jim Kouri, CPP

Liberal columnist Mort Kondracke echoed the sentiments of many Americans: The New York Times leaked information about a top secret banking operation, which was aimed at stopping terrorist financing and money transfers, because of their hatred for President George W. Bush.

President Bush implored the Times not to run their story, but the editors decided to disregard the presidential request. (One cannot help but wonder: If President Bill Clinton were our Commander-in-Chief today, would the editors at the New York Times comply with his request to kill the story? Most probably.)

Americans following the aftermath of the Times leak knew that part of the news story.
However, what most didn't know was that the co-chairmen of the 9-11 Commission -- Tom Keane and Lee Thompson -- also contacted the New York Times and told them disclosure of the Treasury Department's counterterrorism operation would hurt national security. The editors at the Times couldn't care less and disregarded their plea, as well.

"In the past, I believe the New York Times got too close to the line separating honest journalism and betrayal. Now I think they crossed that line," said a former intelligence officer who now works as an undercover detective for a large city police department.

"I also don't believe someone from the [Treasury Department] leaked the information to the Times. I believe one of the lawmakers -- either in the House or Senate -- who opposes the war on terrorism leaked the information," he added.

As yet, there are no comments emanating from Washingtion, DC regarding a full investigation of the leak. One source says he hopes the Justice Department assigns a special prosecutor to look into the case.

"We wasted millions of dollars on the so-called CIA leak case; how about investigating a serious leak that actually does impact [upon] US national security?" he added.

So far, the most vocal member of the Bush Administration regarding the New York Times and Los Angeles Times stories is Vice President Dick Cheney. "These [were] good, solid, sound programs. They [were] conducted in accordance with the laws of the land," Cheney said.

"They are carried out in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional authority of the president," Mr. Cheney said. He also said that he found it "offensive" that newspapers would publicize the secret program.

"What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some in the media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people," Cheney said with obvious anger in his voice.

The New York Times stood by its coverage saying editors had judged after careful deliberations that releasing the information served the public's interest. They didn't explain in what way the disclosure of top secret information served the public interest, unless they include terrorists, our homegrown insurgents in congress, left-wing Stalinist groups, and your garden variety Bush-haters.

It's been said before: Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups don't need to spend money on intelligence gathering and analysis. Members of the US news media are de-facto intelligence agents for them.

NY Times Continues Terrorist Support

by Sher Zieve

It has become increasingly clear that multiple members, if not most, of the leftist mainstream media no longer care about either the fate of the American people at the hands of terrorists or the survival of the United States. The latest example is that of the New York Times publishing yet another article that stabs our country and its people in the back, by publishing classified information regarding the tracking of radical Islamic terrorists� international banking activities.



The Times� article (�Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror�), which was published Friday, was quickly picked up by all of the other usual media suspects�as well as the so-called primary terrorist news service Al Jazeera. This latest program to meet the fate of no-longer-fully-effective, due to a press hostile toward any attempts to stop terrorism, was legal. Subpoenas had been obtained. Even the unethical NY Times wrote that the program was legal. Under Secretary at the Treasury Department Stuart Levey said that the program �has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks and is, without doubt, a legal and proper use of our authorities."


Quite apparently, the NY Times cared nothing about a program that would identify the �operations of terrorist networks�. In fact, the Times seems to have viewed it as a �duty� to inform said terrorists of the program�s danger to their organizations. The US government asked the NY Times to hold off publishing the story, as it would hurt our efforts to stop terrorist funding. The Times, however, refused and used the old, weary and catch-me-if-you-can excuse that it was �in the public interest�. Virtually anything can be construed to be in the public interest. That doesn�t mean the public has the �right to know� everything; most specifically an agenda that allows the government to identify and stop terrorists before they can hit us again. It appears that the Times� �journalists� have either forgotten the attacks the country suffered on 11 September 2001 or simply choose to ignore them.


Is this just another example of anything for a buck or is it that the NY Times well-known hatred of President Bush is now clouding and influencing everything the paper prints? Irrespective of their ostensible �reasoning� (although I doubt any real reason was or is involved), this publication has again printed classified information about a program meant to help the US and other countries avoid another terrorist attack. This had nothing to do with the �rights� of US citizens. But, it did have everything to do with stopping terrorist funding.


So, in order to keep the terrorists informed of current US counter-terrorism activities, the NY Times printed a detailed account of another essential anti-terrorist program. This not only fully and unequivocally provides aid, comfort and support to those who long ago announced their plans to either take over or destroy our country but, continues to keep the �destruction game in play�. It�s a shame and has, once again, created another clear and present danger to the US�a US that no longer seems to have the internal fortitude to charge and prosecute the obvious perpetrators of criminal activities. In this case, prosecutions are not only highly warranted, they are necessary for our continued survival. The Constitutional protections afforded to a �free press� do not include treason.

Read the NY Times article here

Rep. Peter King: Prosecute New York Times

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Bush administration Sunday to seek criminal charges against The New York Times for reporting on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists.

Rep. Peter King blasted the newspaper's decision last week to report that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records.

"I am asking the Attorney General to begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times _ the reporters, the editors and the publisher," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. "We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous."

The conservative lawmaker called the paper "pompous, arrogant, and more concerned about a left-wing elitist agenda than it is about the security of the American people."

Conservatives have expressed outrage against the media ever since the Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times first reported on the money-monitoring program, but King's call for a criminal prosecution is the strongest denunciation to date.
King said he thought investigators should also examine the reports by the Journal and Los Angeles Times, but said the greater focus should be on The New York Times, because of their previous reporting on a secret domestic wiretapping program.

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment Sunday.

But when the Times chose to publish the story, it quoted executive editor Bill Keller as saying editors had listened closely to the government's arguments for withholding the information, but "remain convinced that the administrations extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."

Following Sept. 11, Treasury officials obtained access to a vast database called Swift _ the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.


The Belgium-based database handles financial message traffic from thousands of financial institutions in more than 200 countries.
After the revelations of Swift monitoring, Democrats and civil liberties questioned whether the program violated privacy rights.

The service, which routes more than 11 million messages each day, mostly captures information on wire transfers and other methods of moving money in and out of the United States, but it does not execute those transfers.

The service generally doesn't detect private, individual transactions in the United States, such as withdrawals from an ATM or bank deposits. It is aimed mostly at international transfers.

King said he would send a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez formally requesting a criminal investigation into the report.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday it was too early to talk about investigating the newspaper.

"On the basis of the newspaper article, I think it's premature to call for a prosecution of the New York Times, just like I think it's premature to say that the administration is entirely correct," Sen. Arlen Specter said on "Fox News Sunday."

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the paper acted responsibly, both in last week's story and in reporting last year about the wiretapping program.

"Its pretty clear to me that in this story and in the story last December that The New York Times did not act recklessly," Dalglish said. "I think in years to come that this is a story American citizens are going to be glad they had, however this plays out."

Murtha says U.S. poses top threat to world peace

American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to an audience of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon.
Murtha was the guest speaker at a town hall meeting organized by Rep. Kendrick B. Meek, D-Miami, at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay Campus. Meek's mother, former Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Miami, was also on the panel.

War veterans, local mayors, university students and faculty were in the Mary Ann Wolfe Theatre to listen to the three panelists discuss the war in Iraq for an hour.

A former Marine and a prominent critic of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq, Murtha reiterated his views that the war cannot be won militarily and needs political solutions. He said the more than 100,000 troops in Iraq should be pulled out immediately, and deployed to peripheral countries like Kuwait.

"We do not want permanent bases in Iraq," Murtha told the audience. "We want as many Americans out of there as possible."

Murtha also has publicly said that the shooting of 24 Iraqis in November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, was wrongfully covered up.

The killings, which sparked an investigation into the deadly encounter and another into whether they were the subject of a cover-up, could undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq more than the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in 2004, Murtha said.
"(The United States) became the target when Abu Ghraib came along," Murtha said.

Taliban Calls For Truce

The Taliban in Afghanistan has proposed a month-long truce in order to reach a permanent arrangement with the Pakistani government. The Waziristan region has seen fierce fighting involving Pakistani troops, and as the Americans and Canadians press an offensive in Afghanistan, the two-front war has taken its toll on the Taliban:

The militants, also known as local Taleban, have set the government four main conditions.

They want a withdrawal of army troops from the region within a month, and the removal of all new check posts from North Waziristan, their spokesman Abdullah Farhad told the BBC.

He also demanded the restoration of salaries and jobs and other incentives for local tribes and the release of tribesmen arrested during military operations against al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters in the region.

The governor of North Western Frontier Province, Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, said a decision on these conditions would be taken in talks with the militants.

He promised to reciprocate with a goodwill gesture but did not elaborate.

This follows a similar arrangement in South Waziristan, where a truce has held for the past month. The Taliban would like nothing more than to lick their wounds in the mountain regions while offering support for their allies in Afghanistan. It appears that the Musharraf government might also like to get out of Waziristan and focus their efforts elsewhere, a move that would likely cause some friction with Washington if it results in increased fighting in Afghanistan.

A truce with Islamists in this region sounds like a bad deal for the US, and it might impact our previous reluctance to conduct cross-border missions. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have long been rumored to hide in these regions, and an end to Pakistani military operations would at first blush mean greater security for the al-Qaeda masterminds and a renewed opportunity for them to rebuild some operational connections to their network.

We shall see what this means; perhaps the deal might require the betrayal of bin Laden and Zawahiri, who after all ordered two assassination attempts on Musharraf. We can only hope that the Pakistanis remain firm in their efforts to stop Islamofascist terror.

UPDATE: Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakly, the commander of the forces in Afghanistan, tells Fox News that this both impacts his fight in Afghanistan and is a result of their successes against the Taliban. He notes that the cease-fire only applies to Pakistan, and he has no intention of letting up on the enemy. He's not surprised that the Taliban has fought back recently. The Canadian additions allowed the Coalition to expand their pressure on the Taliban in areas that had not been touched before.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Pentagon Fears Old Iraq WMD May Be Used

The discovery of more than 500 chemical weapons shells in Iraq has heightened concerns at the Pentagon that terrorists in that country could use the old munitions against American soldiers.

"We have recovered enough chemical weapons munitions to make us sensitive to the possible force protection implications these dangerous items present to our forces in Iraq," a Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician, said yesterday in response to a query regarding the recent declassification of an Army National Ground Intelligence Center report that found a large cache of shells from the Iran-Iraq war containing toxic mustard and sarin gas.

Colonel Vician's statement was a departure from the Defense Department's initial response. Officials told reporters on Wednesday that the chemical weapons found in Iraq since the conclusion of the official search for weapons of mass destruction were different from what the military went into Iraq to find.

The National Directorate of Intelligence declassified parts of the report after Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania, and Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Republican of Michigan and the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, made formal requests this spring. Mr. Santorum said the report "proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq."

The details of where and when the loose ordnance was found have yet to be declassified. But two former intelligence community officials said the Iraqi military left numerous chemical weapons shells in the field of battle at the close of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.

Even before the American-led invasion of Iraq, the U.N. weapons inspection team led by Hans Blix raised concerns about the whereabouts of the chemical weapons that Iraq used against Iran. "A residue of uncertainty also remains with respect to chemical munitions that were lost, according to Iraq, after the 1991 Gulf war," a U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission report from May 30 says. "The Iraq Survey Group quoted conflicting statements of former Iraqi officials, one individual suggesting that some 500 155-mm munitions were retained by Iraq and other officials, insisting that they were actually destroyed."

That report, to be included in a forthcoming survey of Iraq's unconventional weapons program, also says some of the chemical shells were likely mixed in with conventional weapons: "Moreover, some chemical munitions filled with chemical warfare agents were marked as standard conventional weapons, which made their identification as chemical munitions problematic, not only for United Nations inspectors and later personnel of the Iraq Survey Group, but also for Iraq."

The potency of the shells varies, but according to the U.N. report, some of the 1980s-era chemical weapons would be lethal even after nearly 20 years.

No old chemical weapons have yet been rigged to improvised explosive devices used by Iraq's insurgents. "We have never had an IED utilizing anything but conventional munitions," a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, Major William Willhoite, said.