there ya go

Actually, no, we don't know that at all. What we KNOW is what's in press accounts--that the Italians forged it, to curry favor with us, because they thought we would appreciate "proof", even forged proof, and then passed it to us directly, by way of the French, and by way of Mossad (who probably already knew it was a forgery when they passed it to us, but then, as the Israelis say, the US is a friend to Israel, but that does not mean that Israel is our friend).

QUOTE(Mizilus @ Nov 1 2005, 11:30 AM)

so they found how many vats (yellowcake does come in vats doesnt it? Or is it urns?) of yellowcake in that hideout where they gunned down ooday and koosay?
[right][snapback]145393[/snapback][/right]

QUOTE(RoccoR @ Nov 1 2005, 04:33 PM)

Thank you for clearing that up, Rocco. As I recall from my chemistry and physics, possibly incorrectly, when you concentrate U-306 to extract U-232 or 236, you get about a 2% yield.

So, any refining facility is going to have a very large power station, half the size of Bagdad's, a very long line of trucks bringing in yellowcake or carrying off the discard (or a mountain of tailings). IOW, that a centrifuging operation would be real, real hard to miss on satellite photos.

satellite photo

Anyone keeping a scorecard? How about a running total of these morals and values guys who are under investigation or indictment? It would be a hoot if this idiot were arrested too. Maybe Bill Moyers can do a special on him.

Spending Inquiry for Top Official on Broadcasting


By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: November 5, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved in that examination said on Friday.

Mr. Tomlinson was ousted from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Thursday after its inspector general concluded an investigation that was critical of him. That examination looked at his efforts as chairman of the corporation to seek more conservative programs on public radio and television.

But Mr. Tomlinson remains an important official as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The board, whose members include the secretary of state, plays a central role in public diplomacy. It supervises the government's foreign broadcasting operations, including Radio Martí, Radio Sawa and al-Hurra; transmits programs in 61 languages; and says it has more than 100 million listeners each week.

The board has been troubled lately over deep internal divisions and criticism of its Middle East broadcasts. Members of the Arab news media have said its broadcasts are American propaganda.

People involved in the inquiry said that investigators had already interviewed a significant number of officials at the agency and that, if the accusations were substantiated, they could involve criminal violations.

Last July, the inspector general at the State Department opened an inquiry into Mr. Tomlinson's work at the board of governors after Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, forwarded accusations of misuse of money.

The lawmakers requested the inquiry after Mr. Berman received complaints about Mr. Tomlinson from at least one employee at the board, officials said. People involved in the inquiry said it involved accusations that Mr. Tomlinson was spending federal money for personal purposes, using board money for corporation activities, using board employees to do corporation work and hiring ghost employees or improperly qualified employees.

Through an aide at the broadcasting board, Mr. Tomlinson declined to comment Friday about the State Department inquiry.

In recent weeks, State Department investigators have seized records and e-mail from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, officials said. They have shared some material with the inspector general at the corporation, including e-mail traffic between Mr. Tomlinson and White House officials including Karl Rove, a senior adviser to President Bush and a close friend of Mr. Tomlinson.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Tomlinson became friends in the 1990's when they served on the Board for International Broadcasting, the predecessor agency to the board of governors. Mr. Rove played an important role in Mr. Tomlinson's appointment as chairman of the broadcasting board.

The content of the e-mail between the two officials has not been made public but could become available when the corporation's inspector general sends his report to members of Congress this month.

That inspector general examined several contracts that were approved by Mr. Tomlinson but not disclosed to board members. The contracts provided for payments to a researcher who monitored the political content of several shows, including "Now" with Bill Moyers, and payments to two Republican lobbyists who were retained to help defeat a proposal in Congress that would have required greater representation of broadcasters on the corporation's board.

The inspector general also examined the role of a White House official, Mary C. Andrews, in Mr. Tomlinson's creation of an ombudsman's office to monitor the political balance of programs.

Mr. Tomlinson has said he took those steps to counter what he called a clear liberal tilt of public broadcasting. But broadcasting executives and critics of the corporation say the steps violated the corporation's obligations to insulate broadcasting from politics.

On Thursday Mr. Tomlinson was forced to step down from the corporation, which directs nearly $400 million in federal money to public radio and television, after the board was briefed about the conclusions by its inspector general. In that inquiry, examiners looked at accusations that Mr. Tomlinson improperly used corporation money to promote more conservative programming.

State Department officials said on Friday that al-Hurra, the Arabic language satellite television network set up by the board of governors, was also being examined by the inspector general for possibly problematic procurement practices. That audit was first disclosed on Friday by The Financial Times.

The audit began at the request of al-Hurra, the officials said. A statement by the broadcasting board said that the agency had "no indication of any wrongdoing."

The network, which receives nearly $50 million in federal financing and is broadcast in 22 countries, was set up to compete with al-Jazeera and other Arab news media. One State Department official said Karen P. Hughes, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, had been briefed on the subject and "awaits the findings of the inspector general's audit."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/politics...artner=homepage

Maybe somebody can do a special on Moyers and his drunkeness.

Seriously artie, don't you find it odd all these arbitors of values are getting in trouble?

Every day a new indictment.

I love every minute of it. I hope they get burnt to a crackly crunch.

Eventually justice may even be served.

Good to the last drop.

Since the airwaves are free I guess they're gonna come in.

OK coppers, but I'm taking Bee with me.

And another thing...
Oh shit, there goes the phone vibrating in my pocket.

Sure, I wish both parties were full of people I agreed with AND rich enough not to need to raise money. I wish a lot of things. I wish Soros didn't hide his money in Fiji, Michael Moore admitted he bought Halliburton stock, Vince Foster wasn't dead, Hillary had turned 1k into 100k honestly, Bill hadn't had sex with "that woman" and Babs wasn't preaching to me about my gas guzzling Oldsmobile from the bathroom of her Winnebago.

But you can't have everything.

Calling yourself repeatedly?

Monthly test I guess. Mom asking where I am. I'm call forwarding all such tones to you. Peace.

I have tracfone, so I screen my calls.

Lawmaker Subpoenaed in Abramoff Lobby Case
From Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) has been subpoenaed to provide documents and testimony in the government's investigation of indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Ney spokesman said Friday.

Spokesman Brian Walsh said the Justice Department had requested documents. It was later announced in the House that Ney had been served with a grand jury subpoena, issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.


Abramoff is under investigation for his lobbying activities on behalf of Indian tribes and his role in paying for overseas trips for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). DeLay denied knowing that Abramoff paid the expenses.

The Congressional Record shows that Ney is the first lawmaker subpoenaed in the Abramoff case.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee has also been investigating Abramoff, and Chairman John McCain has said that Abramoff and an associate bilked millions of dollars from tribal clients. The Interior Department is investigating Abramoff too.

"I voluntarily provided information to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee last year, and I have offered to make myself available to meet with the House Ethics Committee," Ney said in a statement. "I believe, however, that although the government's investigation of Mr. Abramoff has been well-publicized through other sources, it is inappropriate for my office to comment in any detail" on an open investigation.

Separately, Abramoff has pleaded not guilty to a six-count federal fraud and conspiracy indictment stemming from his role in the 2000 purchase of a fleet of gambling boats in Florida.

Ney took an Abramoff-sponsored golf trip to Scotland in 2002. Indian Affairs Committee investigators, meanwhile, found an e-mail from Abramoff claiming Ney had promised to help an Indian tribe in Texas to reopen a closed casino and subsequent e-mails directing the tribe to pay Ney $32,000.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...eadlines-nation

Bush Orders Staff to Attend Ethics Briefings
White House Counsel to Give 'Refresher' Course

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 5, 2005; Page A02

President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe.

According to a memo sent to aides yesterday, Bush expects all White House staff to adhere to the "spirit as well as the letter" of all ethics laws and rules. As a result, "the White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations next week that will provide refresher lectures on general ethics rules, including the rules of governing the protection of classified information," according to the memo, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post by a senior White House aide.

The mandatory ethics primer is the first step Bush plans to take in coming weeks in response to the CIA leak probe that led to the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, and which still threatens Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff. Libby was indicted last week in connection with the two-year investigation. He resigned when the indictment was announced and on Thursday pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to federal investigators and a grand jury about his conversations with reporters.

A senior aide said Bush decided to mandate the ethics course during private meetings last weekend with Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and counsel Harriet Miers. Miers's office will conduct the ethics briefings.

The meetings come as Bush faces increasing pressure from Democrats to revoke a security clearance for Rove as punishment for Rove's role in unmasking to reporters a CIA operative whose husband was critical of the White House's prewar assessment of Iraq's weapons capabilities. The five-count indictment against Libby maintains that other government officials were aware of, if not involved in, leaking the identity of Valerie Plame to the media.

Bush's domestic woes followed him to a meeting of Western Hemisphere leaders in Argentina yesterday, where he sidestepped questions on whether Rove will keep his job.

Speaking to reporters before the official opening of the two-day Summit of the Americas, Bush refused to discuss Rove's future while the probe is ongoing.

"We're going through a very serious investigation," Bush said. "And I . . . have told you before that I'm not going to discuss the investigation until it's completed."

Bush also refused to address a question about whether he owes the American people an apology for his administration's assertions that Rove and Libby were not involved in leaking Plame's name, when it later became clear that they were.

Plame is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who became a vocal critic of the administration's rationale for invading Iraq.

"It's a serious investigation, and it's an important investigation. But it's not over yet," Bush said. "I think it's important for the American people to know that I understand my job is to set clear goals and deal with the problems we face."

The case has apparently helped erode public confidence in Bush's integrity. Among those responding to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 40 percent said they viewed the president as honest and trustworthy -- a drop of 13 percentage points in the past 18 months.

Half of those surveyed said they believed Rove did something wrong in the case, and about 6 in 10 said Rove should resign. But Bush attempted to wave away those findings yesterday.

"I understand that there is a preoccupation by polls by some," the president said. "The way you earn credibility with the American people is to declare an agenda that everybody can understand, an agenda that relates to their lives, and get the job done."

Some senior aides have privately discussed whether it is politically tenable for Rove to remain in the White House even if he is not charged. Others raised the possibility of Rove apologizing for his role, especially for telling White House spokesman Scott McClellan and Bush that he was not involved in the leak. McClellan relayed Rove's denial to the public.

A senior Bush aide said the "mandatory sessions on classified material is a result of a directive by the president in light of the [CIA] investigation."

Next week's meeting is for West Wing aides with security clearance, which allows them to view and discuss sensitive or classified material. Information about Plame was classified. Rove is among those aides who must attend.

"There will be no exceptions," the memo states.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5110402040.html

Too little, too late.

Good for Bush.

He sounds quite peevish, doesn't he?

Image control. No more.

Of course you knew that.

The REAL meeting will happen behind closed doors and will NOT promote ethics at all, it WILL show how to circumvent the law and manage the media image of the administration. Lawyers.

Like the investiagtion into the intelligence that led up to the war, it will be phony and a complete waste of time. The speakers will all have their fingers crossed and a wink and a nod at the ready.

bush in the bunker

Larry Wilkerson, Powell's aide is really coming out strong against this administration. With proof.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former State Department Chief of Staff, has been cooperating with the media to deepen and broaden his commentary on the breakdown of the national security decision making process in the White House.

Wilkerson's comments have continued to help keep the White House off balance and unable to distract the nation from the subject of the Libby indictments, the hyping of Iraq WMD intelligence, and prisoner detention abuse.

This morning on National Public Radio, Lawrence Wilkerson made the statement that Vice President Cheney is the individual most responsible for the pervasive and disturbing prisoner abuse scandal.

Here is an excerpt from Editor & Publisher:

His initial blast, on Oct. 19, at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. drew wide press attention. Now Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, is at it again. In an interview for National Public Radio he charged that Vice President Cheney's office--and new chief aide David Addingtoon--was responsible for directives which led to U.S soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wilkerson said he had some hard evidence: a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff. The directives, he said, contradicted a 2002 order by President Bush for the military to abide by the Geneva Convention rules against torture.

The former Powell aide, in his October statements, declared that Cheney and Rumsfeld operated a "cabal" that had hijacked U.S. foreign and military policy.

President Bush tried in a Monday morning news blitz to turn the attention of the nation towards debates about the Supreme Court by nominating the controversial Appellate Court Judge Samuel Alito, Jr. and away from the Friday afternoon indictments of Vice President Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Just as fast, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid stole the focus of national attention back by shutting down public access to the Senate and invoking Rule 21, a "Closed Door Session", to focus on the failure of Senator Pat Roberts as Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to produce a long-promised report on the use and abuse of intelligence by the Bush administration in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. Reid's move was planned, purposeful, and brilliant in shutting down the White House's Alito-focused media machine.



http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/

OH, GOODNESS GRACIOUS, TORTURE? IT'S UNKNOWABLE. except there is now proof.

You have a highly developed sense of solidarity with the barbarian terrorists, don't you?

No, I agree with Sen. McCain that torture makes us the same as the barbarians. We want to rise above their level and be a humane nation.

Torture doesn't work. A person will say anything you want them to say if you hurt them enough, anything, just to get you to stop.

Ask Sen. McCain, e-mail him. he knows from personal experience. Do you?

I don't think she does... OTOH, you seem to have a deep affinity for liars, blasphemers and traitors(as long as they're Repuslickans anyway:~)...

Do you have any idea what constitutes torture for the Muslims terrorists? I do, I had friends who were POWs and were tortured while John Kerry lied. John McCain admits to signing a confession after 4 days of torture. Who's side are you on, anyhow?

Joni... do you condone torture?

I am committed to WINNING when we fight a war. I find it immoral to aid and abet the enemy.

Classic non-answer. Trait of a liar.

That's not a non-answer. You obviously are in denial of your lies.

Deflect and deceive. Liar.

Indeed. Either you believe in American principles, or you don't. Advocating torture is aiding and abetting the enemy.

The former president of Ireland was on Bill Mahr last night, she is now the head of the human rights commission at the UN. She said Americans need to understand that they are harming not just our own reputation, but the whole argument for human rights--which we used to be the shining example of.

Torture isn't an American value. That is why an overwhelming majority of the people in this Country, Democrat and Republican, are firmly against it and support Senator McCain. Only the freak fringes argue for it, and that is about all it's worth.

You can have your own pissing contest. I'm out!

Since you are adamant concerning the subject of torture, I'm sure you display the same fervor towards partial birth abortion. Do you consider that torture?

Who are we fighting... and what constitutes WINNING?...

Pray tell, if a Muslim took a wounded GI in and gave him/her aid and comfort... would they be "immoral"?...

Hmmmn?

No, he would probably be a Christian.

Your thinking is so muddled you don't even make sense. Take a deep breath and reread the question.

So if a Christian gives aid and comfort to an enemy... they are immoral?...

And if a Muslim does the same... they mUSt be a Christian?...

You sound confused... perhaps I can help.

From the looks of it, she's having a complete mental meltdown. Poor thing.

What is "partial birth abortion?" If you are talking about a procedure that is very rare and usually invoked to save a womans life, then no. I'm not against saving a womans life.

What has that to do with your anti-American ranting about this ridiculous premise that the United States of America should condone torture? Speaking for the overwhelming majority, I can tell you quite authoritatively that We the People do not condone torture in any way, shape, or form. The United States of America was built on the idea of basic Human Rights, despite the efforts of one twisted and inept administration to undermine that.

It may be different in your Country, whatever that is.

What about abortion? What about abortion? What about abortion? waaaaaaaaaa!!!! These sons of bitches would gladly shove a red hot poker in a Muslims eye but if you dare to question it the SOBs bring up ABORTION.


What about abortion?


A culture of life? Republicans?

I was watching C-Span this morning and the Oil for Food investigation thing was on.

Wonder why none of the big mouth right wing zealots like Rush, Hannity, etc. haven't been screeching about it??

Well, come to find out, Bush's family, Carlisle Group, Halliburton, and lots of republican led companies are asshole deep in the Oil for Food scandal.

It will be very quietly pushed aside. UNLESS the DEMOCRATS BRING IT TO THE ATTENTION OF THE PRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




"We aren't going to hear much about the corporations that paid bribes in the Oil-for-Food scandal because Bush's family, friends and closest advisors are in it knee-deep, along with some Democrats.
Last week, the Independent Committee investigating the Oil-for-Food program (OFF) released its final report detailing how Saddam Hussein's regime skimmed just under two percent from the otherwise successful relief effort by charging kickbacks and "inland transportation" fees to companies doing business with Iraq.

The small group of conservative writers who I've dubbed the "Scandal Pimps" have been less enthusiastic about the release of this report than they've been about those that preceded it. The day after the release, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that the report didn't really add anything new, it just filled in some details.

What they characterized as "details" were actually the names of over 2,000 companies that paid bribes to the Hussein regime for a shot at buying Iraq's oil, selling spare parts for its oil infrastructure or providing humanitarian goods for a population starving under the U.S./ U.K.-led sanctions regime.

The Scandal Pimps have been low-key because the final report of the Committee -- known as the Volcker Committee for its chair, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker -- offers further evidence that what they've worked so hard -- and so successfully -- to portray as a massive UN scandal has always been a relatively modest corporate scandal, interesting more for the players involved than because of its scale.

The details the Journal editors referred to include the process by which Saddam and his cronies squeezed what were effectively bribes out of multinational corporations, great and small. Contracts were submitted to the United Nations where they were reviewed by the Security Council states (the U.S. and Britain were the only ones that reviewed every contract). Revenues from approved sales were deposited into UN-administered trusts from which goods could be purchased. But before companies could "lift," or load, oil, they had to come up with some cash for the Iraqi government. Those fees and surcharges were paid directly by the companies either into Iraqi-controlled accounts (mostly in Jordan) or as bags full of cash dropped off at Iraqi embassies around the world. The illicit funds -- widely reported by the media at the time -- never touched UN hands.

More to the point, the Scandal Pimps are unlikely to delve too deeply into the final report because it reveals that some of our leading corporations, and the vaunted "entrepenuers" that outlets like the Washington Times always crow about, weren't in the least bit reticent to pay off a brutal dictator accused of mass murder in order to pump up their bottom lines.

Even more damning to the conservative worldview is that the United States' "strategic class" was deeply involved. In fact, profits from sales under OFF program that were lubricated with illicit payments to Saddam Hussein found their way into both the Bush and Kerry presidential campaigns of 2004.

You wouldn't know that from the modest coverage of this most interesting report. Most of the reporting has focused on the fact that many of the contracts went to French and Russian companies. The Washington Post's take was typical: "most of those allegedly receiving rewards were not Americans. The preponderance of lucrative contracts went to French and Russian companies, on the grounds that their governments opposed the sanctions regime and favored Iraq in the U.N. Security Council."

That's technically accurate but substantially false. In a global economy, distinctions between "American" or "French" companies are essentially a joke. The Volcker report paints a picture of layer upon layer of front companies and cut-outs, off-shore subsidiaries and hastily slapped together strategic partnerships: "Iraq's preference for French companies and the limited number of recipients in France for Iraqi crude oil led certain companies to pass themselves off ... as being French-based." The report cites a 1998 letter from a French official to an Iraqi official based in Paris, in which he expressed "his concerns and his government's concerns ... regarding the increase in British and American companies as well as others who exploit the decision of the Iraqi leadership in providing priority to conducting business with French companies by signing contracts with Iraq through their offices in France."

The Associated Press reported that "the difficulty of finding out who paid kickbacks in the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is illustrated by two Liechtenstein-based firms, Alcon Petroleum and Fenar Petroleum."


Both were set up late in the program -- Alcon in 2000, Fenar in 1999 -- and almost immediately landed huge contracts to buy oil from Iraq. Both companies are registered only under the names of trustee firms, meaning their owners' names and nationalities were undisclosed.

After a Reston, Virginia-based firm, Midway Trading, plead guilty to OFF related charges last month, the Washington Times tried to figure out who owned the company. "So far," the Times editors wrote, "the only answer is a shadowy one. There is no directory listing for a Midway Trading in the Reston area and in the past 10 years there is no mention of the company in any major Virginia or Washington newspaper." The Times editors called "the only listed company in Reston called "Midway" for comment -- Midway Oil Holdings, Inc., an offshore holding company with offices in Switzerland and Greece -- but the calls went unanswered, as did an email."

The fact is the United States, which consumes about a quarter of the global energy supply, received 36 percent of all oil exports from Iraq -- mostly through middle-men and cut-outs -- and American companies and individuals profited from those sales.

The Bushies, Saddam and why we'll never get to the bottom of the OFF story

In a widely-reported interview a year ago, Paul Volcker said, "Look, we have problems with the American government ... I can't say that the American government has been eager, or officials of the American government have been particularly eager in some cases." He added: "I'm talking about the executive branch."

That was nothing new. In April, 2004, news reports claimed "the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, deliberately put the brakes on an investigation by the Iraqi Governing Council into ... bribes, kickbacks and smuggling at the U.N. Oil-for-Food program."

At around the same time, Bremer's replacement, John Negroponte, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Bush administration "can identify the private business firms that cut kickback deals with Saddam Hussein, but intends to keep the names secret," according to reporter Lawrence O'Rourke.

A month later, U.S. troops and their Iraqi trainees raided the home of former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi. According to Forbes, "The raid on Chalabi's home -- characterized by the White House as resulting from an Iraqi-led investigation -- may frustrate the ability of private accounting firm KPMG to complete a comprehensive audit into the Oil-for-Food program."

One reason for the administration's obstructionism is apparent in the way Forbes described the scandal -- before the Scandal Pimps framed it to their liking -- as one "involving top U.S. accounting firms, powerful K Street lobbying firms and international oil companies widely held by institutional and individual investors."

But it's more than that. Oil-for-food is a scandal that hits close to this administration.

The Committee found that at least two companies in the Carlyle Group had contracts -- and paid surcharges -- under the program. Petroplus, through its Dutch subsidiary, had two contracts to purchase oil worth almost $80 million dollars. It's listed as an underlying financier of contracts worth $44 million. Petroplus had $150,0000 in "surcharges" levied for the sales, but apparently never actually paid the bribes, which are listed as "outstanding."

Another firm in the Carlyle Group, Rexnord Industries, sold Iraq a half-million dollars worth of spare parts, for which it paid the regime bribes of around $50,000 dollars. Rexnord is based in Milwaukee, but the transactions were channeled through its Belgian subsidiary.

George W. Bush left the Board of Carlyle years ago, but his father George H. W. Bush was on it until 2003, after the OFF program ended. The family's "fixer," James Baker, still serves on the company's board, as do Colin Powell and a veritable who's who of former officials from several administrations. A number of Clinton-era officials, as well as one of John Kerry's top foreign policy advisors, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, also sit on Carlyle's board.

James Baker's lawfirm, Baker Botts, represents Halliburton, the firm headed by Dick Cheney during the Clinton years. At least one Halliburton firm, Oil Tools International, is listed in the latest report as having made sales of spare parts under the program and paying kickbacks to the regime.

That's in addition to the $73 million in business Halliburton did with Iraq during the sanctions regime under Cheney's leadership, as previously reported by the Washington Post.
Dick Cheney has a history of lobbying to lift sanctions in countries where Halliburton was doing, or hoped to do, business. Those countries include Burma (he signed an amicus brief against the Massachusetts Burma Law), Libya, Iran and Azerbaijan. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he acknowledged that Halliburton -- through off-shore subsidiaries -- did business in those countries but insisted "Iraq's different."

Jack Kemp, former Republican Vice Presidential candidate and former head of the anti-tax group Freedomworks -- which coordinated artificial folksy townhalls for President Bush's Social Security tour last year -- also lobbied to have the sanctions regime against Iraq lifted. According to MSNBC, Kemp has been questioned by the FBI about his dealings with Samir Vincent, a major player in the OFF scandal who was indicted for lobbying on behalf of Iraq in exchange for millions of dollars in illicit funds.

Kemp, James Baker, Samir Vincent and former Reagan Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci -- now Chairman of the Carlyle Group -- all sat on a committee to promote "economic development" in the Middle East organized by Kemp in 2003. According to MSNBC, "Carlucci told Kemp that Vincent was a 'good guy,' said Kemp, who added that Carlucci and Vincent were tennis partners."

And then there are the contributors. Among the biggest American players in the Iraqi markets were Bayoil (registered in the U.S. and the Bahamas), the Valero Energy Group and Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt (working through several different corporations he owned, and as an individual).

Bayoil, which was indicted in April, was among the biggest financiers of Iraqi oil deals. The firm financed more than $7 billion dollars in sales to Russia, China, Europe and the U.S., including to Oscar Wyatt's firms, Nafta Petroleum and the Mednafta Trading Company. The company itself lifted 403 million barrels of crude under the program. Bayoil's president, David Chalmers Jr. later used an Italian front company, Italtech -- formed with a former associate, Augusto Giangrandi, to solicit additional contracts from Iraq.

Giangrandi had made friends among high Ba'ath Party officials during the 1980s, when he "arranged the sale of almost $200m of cluster bombs and other armaments to Mr Hussein's regime" in violation of a weapons ban then in effect, according to the Financial Times.

According to his FEC disclosures, the overwhelming majority of David Chalmers' contributions have gone to Republican candidates, PACs and the RNC.

Oscar Wyatt was also indicted for his role in bribing the Iraqi government. His companies lifted a half billion dollars worth of Iraqi oil. He paid the regime over $7 million in surcharges. Wyatt is a major political contributor, having given about $700,000 dollars since 1989, according to the Houston Chronicle. The majority, a half-million, went to Democrats, although he has been generous with Republicans as well. More than party affiliation, though, Wyatt is an integral part of the same Texas oil circles as the Bush family.

According to the Volcker Report, Valero was the underlying financier of $186 million in sales to Wyatt's companies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Valero spent $830,000 lobbying in 2003 and donated over a half million to campaigns in 2004, 70 percent to Republicans.

Koch Industries financed two contracts worth over $185 million dollars to South Africa's Mocoh Services. A half-million in bribes were paid on the contracts. Koch is not only a heavy donor to Republican campaigns and a firm that lobbies extensively, it's also a pivotal funder of the new conservative movement, with family foundations that gave away over $9 million dollars in 2001 to right wing causes (among their major recipients is Jack Kemp's Freedomworks, which received over $12 million dollars in Koch Foundation cash between 1985-2002, according to the Center for Media and Democracy).

And then there's Marc Rich. Rich, a whipping boy of the right known for his last-minute pardon by Bill Clinton is actually close to influential figures on both sides of the aisle. Rich's lawyer, dating back to the 1980s was none other than recently indicted Cheney aide Irving "Scooter" Libby, who received over $2 million dollars in legal fees from Rich over the course of their relationship.

Rich -- through various French front-companies he established for the purpose -- not only lifted over eight million barrels of oil (paying around $1.5 million in bribes), but his companies financed over $430 million dollars in oil sales.

It's because of the bipartisan nature of the top of the heap -- all those companies that donated tons of cash to the Republicans also gave some to the Democrats in case they ever regain power -- that means we'll never get to the bottom of what is a revealing corporate scandal.

While the Volcker report will result in major investigations into companies from Russia, Jordan and notably India -- where the report is causing shock waves that have rattled the ruling coalition government - here in the U.S., no investigation will go beyond the U.N. itself. We'll get investigations run by political hacks like Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), whose committees will limit themselves to supposed perfidy within the UN and show no taste at all for uncovering the web of oil traders and bankers that descended, vulture-like, on Oil-for-Food.

For more on how U.S. companies side-step sanctions, see this 2003 Mother Jones article.

This article has been corrected. The article did not clearly state that Jack Kemp is no longer chairman of FreedomWorks.

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.



http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/27792/

Yep. I remember when it first came up I looked into it and found out that some wealthy Americans profited from it handsomely. I dismissed it then, as now. Most of the UNs work is humanitarian, and they have been quite good at it for a long time.

We pretty much wrote the rules. Perhaps that generation had a tad more honor and integrity then does the current one.

No, Charlie Ray, the 'detainees' are given new Korans, prayer rugs, 3 warm Muslim apporoved meals a day, showers, clean clothes, medical treatment, medicine, exercise facilities, accommodations on a tropical island.

That is aiding and comforting the enemy. Do you know how muslims treat Americans... or even their own?

Is English your primary language or are you challenged in comprehension?

and a broomstick shoved up their ass.

Detainees Eat Well, Gain Weight on Camp Delta's Muslim MenuBy Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba,
"The hotter the food, the better they like it." But Navy mess specialist Chief Petty Officer Colleen M. Schonhoff said preparing tasty, nutritious, spicy hot food for the Muslim detainees here at Camp Delta isn't her major concern.

"We have to make sure that the food is halal approved," said Schonhoff, overseer of the galleys at Guantanamo Bay that feed the detainees and U.S. service members. "Meats for the detainees have to be handled a certain way under Muslim requirements. When I order meat for military people, I just say I want 50 pounds of chicken, and it doesn't matter how that chicken has been handled as long as it's USDA approved. For the Muslims, I have to have a certificate from the company that says it's halal approved. I'm required to keep the certificate on file in case I'm ever questioned."

For instance, a certificate of Islamic slaughter must accompany every shipment of meat for the detainees. The Islamic Services of America must certify that the meat is halal beef that was handled according to all Islamic slaughter procedures and guidelines.

The 564 detainees at Camp Delta represent 39 countries, mostly where Islam is the main religion. Joint Task Force 160 is responsible for their security and care at the camp.

Muslims use two terms to describe food - halal and haram. Halal is an Arabic word, which means lawful or allowed, but it is sometimes translated as acceptable or not forbidden. Haram means the opposite - unlawful or prohibited. Halal foods are foods that are permitted for consumption under Islamic law. It is sinful for a Muslim to consume haram foods.

Haram foods include pig, dog, donkey, and animals having fangs, such as monkeys, cats and lions. It also includes amphibians such as frogs, crocodiles and turtles. Alcohol, harmful substances, poisonous and intoxicating plants or drinks are also haram.

"You have to have halal certificates on chicken and beef, but there are no strict requirements on fish," she noted.

"My galley prepares two meals a day for the detainees -- breakfast and the evening meal," she noted. "They eat a vegetarian meal ready to eat, or MRE, for lunch. The menu that the dietitian prepared for us is about 2,300 calories. Add the MRE and they get about 2,600 calories per day. I like to believe they're eating a lot better here than they were wherever they were before they got here. We take pretty good care of them."

Bob Barkley, the building manager of the Seaside Galley, where food is prepared for the detainees, said naval hospital dietitian Lt. Donna M. Sporrer created the menu.

"We were furnished with basic recipes that give general guidelines as to how to season the food," Barkley said. "We just follow those and they seem to be happy.

"My main goal was to make sure they got all the nutrition requirements they need -- proteins, vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates," Sporrer said. "I had to look at the budget, too, so it's primarily a vegetarian diet, rice, beans, fruit and vegetables. They're getting almost everything they need from two meals a day."

A typical breakfast consists of pita bread, rice, curried eggs and peas, milk and fresh fruit, or hash browns, pita bread, a boiled egg, milk and fresh fruit. A typical dinner consists of rice, pita bread, meat and vegetable curry, milk, fresh fruit and margarine. A variant is rice, baked fish, stew sauce, spinach, orange or orange juice, milk and bread and margarine. JTF 160 provides the lunch vegetarian MREs.

"We serve them two special meals per year," Schonhoff noted. "For example, we served them lamb stew, rice, loaf bread, baklava and tea at the end of Ramadan in April. The Joint Task Force tells us when to serve the special meals."

Sporrer said before the detainees started arriving last January, she gave Schonhoff guidelines about acceptable ingredients for Muslim diets. She also provided recipes that follow halal guidelines. The previous Muslim chaplain helped by giving Sporrer a Muslim cookbook.

She said purchasing meat for the detainees is much like buying kosher meat, "except you're buying halal-approved meat that's blessed by a Muslim chaplain before it's slaughtered."

Schonhoff said the cooks didn't have to have any special training to prepare food for the detainees. They just follow the recipes and use different spices to season the food.

"In their culture, they like food a little more spicy than we traditionally cook for our troops," Schonhoff said about the detainees. "We usually put hot sauce on the table and let the troops add their own. For the detainee meals, we use curries and a couple of other spices we bought for them."

Schonhoff said when she arrived at Gitmo about three years ago, it was a quiet little duty station with one galley. That ended with the detainees' arrival.

Before the enclosed Seaside Galley opened on June 14, the only galley, other than the one in the hospital facility, was the Quick Hall Galley in the Marine section of the base.

"Before the big influx of detainees and troops, we fed about 300 meals a day," she noted. "Then we went to more than 3,800 meals a day and were still doing it out of Quick Hall. We shipped containers of food all around the base."



Navy mess specialist Chief Petty Officer Colleen M. Schonhoff said the detainees at the Camp Delta detention center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "are getting a nice variety of food." Photo by Rudi Williams. ( Jermaine Turner, a contract cook, at the Guantanamo Bay Seaside Galley prepares a container of string beans for detainees at the Camp Delta detention center. Joint Task Force 160 Photo by Pfc. Jean-Carl Bertin, USA.
A large vat of curry rice is one of the dishes contract cooks at the Guantanamo Bay Seaside Galley prepares for detainees at the Camp Delta detention center. The detainees' diet is mostly vegetarian. Joint Task Force 160 Photo by Pfc. Jean-Carl Bertin, USA. Article

And a broomstick shoved up their ass.

Torture: It's the new American way


ROSA BROOKS


'WE WILL bury you," Nikita Khrushchev told U.S. diplomats in 1956. The conventional wisdom is that Khrushchev got it wrong: The repressive Soviet state collapsed under the weight of its own cruelties and lies while democratic America went from strength to strength, buoyed by its national commitment to liberty and justice for all.

But with this week's blockbuster report of secret CIA detention facilities in Eastern Europe, cynics may be pardoned for wondering who really won the Cold War.


According to Dana Priest, the Washington Post investigative reporter who broke the story Wednesday, it all started on Sept. 17, 2001, when President Bush signed a secret executive order authorizing the CIA to kill, capture or detain Al Qaeda operatives.

There was only one problem: The CIA didn't know where to put the people it detained. Those detainees thought to be of "high value" needed to be kept somewhere … special. Somewhere impregnable, like Alcatraz. And somewhere secret, far from the prying eyes of reporters or Red Cross officials. Because these high-value prisoners — so-called ghost detainees — were going to be subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques."

That's Orwell-speak for what's known in English as torture. The list of enhanced techniques is classified but reportedly includes such old favorites as "waterboarding" (feigned drowning) and feigned suffocation. Authorized techniques also may have included the "Palestinian hanging," a "stress position" in which a detainee is suspended from the ceiling or wall by his wrists, which are handcuffed behind his back.

It was this enhancement that preceded the death of Manadel Jamadi, an Iraqi who died in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib in November 2003, according to government investigative reports. When Jamadi was lowered to the ground, blood gushed from his mouth as if "a faucet had turned on," said Tony Diaz, an MP who witnessed his torture. Later, other guards posed with Jamadi's battered corpse, and the leaked photos shocked the world.

That's not the kind of publicity a freedom-loving democracy needs, so the CIA reportedly opted for secret "black sites." It's not as easy as you might think to find a spot where you can torture people in peace. Abu Ghraib is full of camera-clicking reservists, and the Marquis de Sade's castle lies in ruins. The Tower of London's dungeons still boast an excellent range of enhanced interrogation equipment, but they attract too many giggling children.

CIA operatives apparently considered uninhabited islands near Zambia's Lake Kariba, but interrogators didn't much like the idea of catching one of those nasty local diseases so prevalent in Central Africa. Marburg hemorrhagic fever? No thanks.

Thailand worked for a while, but the Thai government got cold feet when press reports outed the existence of a local CIA site. And Guantanamo's CIA interrogation facility had to be closed when the Supreme Court pointed out that Guantanamo is not a law-free zone.

Remember the flap last spring when Amnesty International called Guantanamo an American "gulag"? Maybe that's what gave the CIA the idea of locating some black sites in Eastern Europe. ("Hmm, gulag, gulag … that reminds me of something…. Hey! Maybe there are some leftover Soviet-era detention facilities we can use for our enhanced interrogations!")

At the request of "senior U.S. officials," the Washington Post declined to identify the locations of the Eastern European black sites. But Marc Garlasco, a military analyst at Human Rights Watch, says that host countries may include Poland and Romania.

Human Rights Watch examined flight records showing that on Sept. 22, 2003, for instance, around the same time several high-value Al Qaeda detainees were transferred out of CIA facilities in Afghanistan, a CIA-linked Boeing 737 with the tail number N313P flew from Kabul to Szymany Airport in Poland. The next day, it landed at Mihail Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania. Released Guantanamo detainees have corroborated the use of this plane as a prisoner transport, and rights groups and journalists say witnesses also have reported seeing hooded prisoners being loaded and unloaded from the same plane at various other locations.

During the Cold War, we thought we knew what distinguished us from our Soviet bloc enemies. We did not have a gulag; we did not imprison and torture our enemies. But the war on terror has distorted our national values. We have used some of the same tactics we once decried. The Soviet Union's legacy of terror lives on, its tactics embraced by some of our leaders. Vice President Dick Cheney continues to insist that the McCain amendment, which prohibits U.S. personnel from cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners, should not be applicable to the CIA.

Somewhere in Moscow's Novodevichyi cemetery, Khrushchev is probably laughing inside his grave.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

Cathleen Falsani
Bush administration's moral compass is lost

November 4, 2005

BY CATHLEEN FALSANI RELIGION WRITER



The morning after George W. Bush won his second term in office and many of his Republican colleagues also claimed victory last year, I received an e-mail from one of my dearest friends, Amanda.



It's a note that has haunted me since, a niggling at the back of my mind like an overdue library book or an insult hurled in anger that can't ever be taken back properly.

Amanda is one of the most moral, ethical, intelligent and kind people I know. She also happens to be a Jewish atheist, more or less.

We've known each other since we were teenagers, and the subject of faith -- the peculiarity of my born-again-ness and the absence of her faith in any religious way -- had been a perennial topic of discussion. I respect her deeply and care about what she thinks, particularly about spiritual matters.

"Help!" was the title of Amanda's e-mail. "I'm sad and angry today," she began. "Given your profession and your personal belief system, I am genuinely hoping you have something to say on this: How can people who claim to be voting on religious and moral values vote for a man who . . ."

Then she listed what she believed were President Bush's offenses:

*He supports the death penalty. He claims to be humble and ask for God's guidance, yet seemingly refuses to admit his infallibility or take advice from those who might have helped him avoid dragging us into an unjust war.

*He reversed the civilized world's abhorrence of preemptive war. He sold Americans a war based on lies. He willingly started an unnecessary war that has resulted in the deaths of (now more than 2,000) American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

*He, at least tacitly, condones torture. (Guantanamo Bay. Abu Ghraib. And, we learned earlier this week, perhaps a number of secret CIA-run locations in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere.) He ignores the human race's responsibility for preserving the Earth and its creatures.

*He is against stem cell research. He accuses dissenters of degrading the U.S. troops but does not push to fully fund Veterans Administration hospitals or health insurance for veterans. And he allowed the automatic assault weapons ban to lapse.

"How are these things reflective of a man with strong 'morals?' " Amanda asked. "How does 'morals' get to be defined as the things the right wants it to be? . . . Why isn't being anti-death penalty a moral issue? Why isn't being anti-war a moral issue? Why isn't being supportive of civil unions so that gay couples can, for example, obtain health insurance for each other and their children a moral issue?

"Please help me understand!" she pleaded.

For a year, I've not been able to bring myself to respond in any substantive way.

I'm reluctant to appear unduly partisan, at least not in print.

I don't want to paint one political ideology or another with a broad brush, and I am reticent always to judge the quality of anyone's faith (or heart), that of a president or anyone else.

But there comes a time when silence is immoral. Now, I believe, is that time.


Lost voice



While surely it is not solely Bush's doing, the moral morass facing (and, arguably, created by) his administration is as profound as any in our history.

Mired in political corruption of one variety or another, hamstrung (economically and spiritually) by an unjust war, and publicly shamed by the most despicable display of institutionalized racism since the slave era, as demonstrated in the unforgivably inept early response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has lost whatever moral voice it might have had.

And this week, as Republican leaders try to force a monstrous $50 billion budget cut designed allegedly to offset the mounting costs (currently in excess of $62 billion) of hurricane-related aid through Congress, it is clear that its moral compass also has been lost.

The proposed budget cuts, part of the so-called "budget reconciliation," would have devastating effects on the poorest, most vulnerable Americans, while allowing tax relief for the rich.'Moral values'



The massive budget reductions would include billions of dollars from pension protection and student loan programs, Medicaid and child support enforcement, as well as millions from the food stamp program, Supplemental Security Income (read: senior citizens and the disabled) and foster care. Also attached to the "reconciliation" proposal is a plan that would allow oil drilling in Alaska's pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Nice.

Maybe Republican leaders should consider proposing an open season on the homeless or the resurrection of debtors' prisons while they're at it?

Is this the kind of leadership the majority of voters who, according to pollsters at the time, cast their ballots in 2004 based on "moral values," had in mind?

Is this what faith-based "compassionate conservatism" looks like? Is our nation more moral, more secure or spiritually healthier than it was a year ago?

And, to address my fellow Christian voters specifically, has the Good News been advanced in any way?

No. Absolutely not.

And it's not just a few left-leaning, ink-stained wretches such as myself who think so.

A travesty



For example, all 65 synod bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have signed a letter to members of Congress vehemently opposing the proposed budget cuts, saying in part, "The Biblical record is clear. The scriptural witness on which our faith tradition stands speaks dramatically to God's concern for and solidarity with the poor and oppressed communities while speaking firmly in opposition to governments whose policies place narrow economic interests driven by greed above the common good."

Evangelical Christian theologian and leader Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, a national network of "progressive Christian" peace-and-justice activists, led an ecumenical gathering of religious leaders in a protest at the Capitol building Thursday, calling the proposed cuts "a moral travesty."

"Instead of wearing bracelets that ask, 'What would Jesus do?' perhaps some Republicans should ponder, 'What would Jesus cut?' " Wallis said.
The immorality (by any religious tradition's measure) of the proposed $50 billion budget reconciliation package is brazen.

If enacted, it would prove only to increase the suffering of the already-struggling poor, including tens of thousands who lost everything along the Gulf Coast.

Maybe immoral isn't the appropriate word.
Downright evil is a better description.

be nice to the evil

give it all your money, property, children...

thats what it wants

be nice to the evil

it will eat you quickly, compassionately....