FORWARD - the only valid direction:

In Letter, House Progressives Object To Blue Dog Public Option Compromise

By Brian Beutler - July 30, 2009, 2:28PM

In a letter to be delivered to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House health care leaders, Congressional progressives will reject a compromise Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) forged with Blue Dog Democrats to advance legislation. "We regard the agreement reached by Chairman Waxman and several Blue Dog members of the [Energy and Commerce] Committee as fundamentally unacceptable," it reads.

READ IT HERE.

PROGRESS RULES.

FORWARD, THE ONLY VALID DIRECTION.

THE FOX TEEVEE NETWORKS REALLY DO HATE OUR PRESIDENT. SIGN THE PETITION TO THE ADVERTISERS NOW:

THESE ASSHOLES NEED TO STOP THIS HATE MONGERING.
SIGN THE PETITION TO THE ADVERTISERS ON FOX NETWORKS.

Fear, Anger, Hope and Inspiration Will Decide Health Care Battle CLICK~N~READ

"...The Republicans and their allies in the private health insurance industry are cranking up the fear machine...Like it or not, most progressives in America have lost faith in the private health insurance industry and its ability to provide health care at reasonable prices for all Americans. Many Americans joined the Obama campaign because they believed he -- and they together -- could make change in general, and change in the health care system in particular..." GO.READ

Senate hits another snag on healthcare

Please use our handy CLICK~N~READ

Looks like the NO party has a plan that might insure 12 of the 46 million uninsured (aren't they just the nicest?), and they DO have a plan to block ANY bill passing at least until September! The Republicans and blue dog 'Democrats' need to be taken to the woodshed for a good thrashing! What a bunch of CHICKEN-SHIT!

Pledge now to show Congress the consequences of voting for Pentagon pork!

Pledge now to show Congress the consequences of voting for Pentagon pork!

Don't Let Republicans Kill Health Care - Tell Congress To Pass Health Care Legislation Now!

It looks like the republican-democrats, or "conservative" democrats are really going to screw the American public just as their owners have demanded...the Democrats need to just THROW THESE BUMS OUT of the party!

Watch Jon Stewart put the SMACKDOWN on dickhead (one of the architects of the Iraq lie-war) Bill Kristol about health care reform:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Kristol Extended Interview
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

America’s New Nightmare If you thought Mulla Omar, of the Taliban was bad, you should meet his no. 2.

If you really give a shit about these guys,
you should go read about this
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar motherfucker...

THE INDICTMENTS ARE COMING, THE INDICTMENTS ARE COMING!

The indictment and prosecution of those who committed crimes during the Bush era will soon become a reality. Nothing is more important to restore the Constitution.

The flood gates have been opened because of the massive grassroots intervention by you and hundreds of thousands of others who have petitioned, sent emails and letters, and made phone calls that deluged the White House, Justice Department, Congress and the mass media.

The Washington Post lead editorial today calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a prosecutor to "look at the facts and apply the law" for the "violent deaths of detainees" in U.S. custody.

This is a remarkable development. The pressure to appoint a prosecutor will not go away until justice is served.

Once the prosecution opens, it will lead inevitably to the doorsteps of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. It was they who ordered the torture, secret assassination teams, the breathtaking massive spying operation against the American people and, most importantly, launched a war of aggression in Iraq that led to the deaths of nearly 1 million people at the cost of nearly $2 trillion.

More HERE

What ABOUT that Canadian Health Care Plan?

"Circulatory disease deaths per 100,000:

• Canada: 219

• United States: 265

Child maltreatment deaths per 100,000:

• Canada: 0.7

• United States: 2.2

Digestive disease deaths per 100,000:

• Canada: 17.4

• United States: 20.5

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births

• Canada: 5.08

• United States: 6.3

Intestinal diseases death rate

• Canada: 0.3%

• United States: 7.3%

Proability of not reaching age 60:

• Canada: 9.5%

• United States: 12.8%

Respiratory disease child death rate per 100,000

• Canada: 0.62

• United States: 40.43

Heart disease deaths per 100,000:

• Canada: 94.9

• United States: 106.5

HIV deaths per million people:

• Canada: 47.423

• United States: 48.141

You get the point. If this is “socialized medicine,” sign me the hell up." via

OVER IN GERMANY, THEY HAVE A SIMILAR PLAN, BUT THE PRIVATE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS ALSO HEALTHY AND MAKING PROFIT.

WHY DO THE REPUBLICANS INSIST ON LYING ABOUT THESE THINGS OVER AND OVER. MY GUESS IS THEY SIMPLY DO NOT CARE IF YOU GET HEALTH CARE OR NOT.

On the last night of spring 2009, Russia stopped producing Plutonium-239, the fuel used in nuclear weapons.

I DID NOT KNOW. I am so pleased that the Russians and the US have agreed to stop producing this horrible thing used to produce nuclear weapons. GO.READ

see those assholes in that picture across the top?

Those assholes are from Wall Street. Obama has put THEM in charge of straightening out this "financial meltdown" for us. GUESS WHAT?

THEY ARE ROBBING US BLIND.

Senate leader Reid says healthcare bill in September

WTF HARRY? WHY NOT NOW?

via Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Thursday the full Senate will debate and vote on healthcare overhaul legislation after it returns in September from a monthlong recess.

Reid told reporters he expected the Senate Finance Committee would approve its version of the legislation before the Senate starts its recess August 7.

"We'll come back in the fall," and work in the full Senate on the bill, he said.

Harry, you and the rest of the fucking Congress work for US, the American voters. We sent you dipshits to WA-DEE-SEE to do a job - DO IT.

Back when I was working, I was sent out to do a job and didn't come back until the job was done and done right - the way my boss wanted it done. If I could NOT follow those simple rules, I would have been fired immediately.

GET YOUR SORRY ASSES BUSY AND GET THIS THING DONE FOR US. YOU NEED TO DO IT THE WAY WE WANT IT AND YOU NEED TO DO IT NOW. JEZUZ FUCKINGGODDAMNED CHRIST HARRY!

PRESIDENT OBAMA - ANOTHER LIAR IN THE WHITEHOUSE

DON'T GET ME WRONG HERE - I VOTED FOR HIM AND WILL ALWAYS VOTE DEMOCRATIC IF THE CHOICE IS BETWEEN DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS. THE THING IS, THIS GUY SAYS ONE THING AND DOES ANOTHER AND IT IS PISSING ME OFF BIG-TIME!

"As the battle over healthcare reform reaches a fever pitch, today came news that the Obama administration is refusing to release the names of health industry insiders who have met with Obama officials at the White House. From the LA Times:

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.

"As a candidate," the Times reminds us, "President Obama vowed that in devising a healthcare bill he would invite in TV cameras -- specifically C-SPAN -- so that Americans could have a window into negotiations that normally play out behind closed doors." Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the move "extremely disappointing" and "completely at odds with the president's commitment ... to bring a new level of transparency to his government."

Indeed, this pledge was one of the most welcome promises of Obama's administration. After eight long years of "the most secretive administration in U.S. history," such assurances by Obama were more than welcome.

Unfortunately, from keeping White House visitors a secret to the repeated use of State Secrets privilege to block torture and spying lawsuits, what we have seen since has been a major disappointment. This latest move is unjustified, Dick Cheney-style obstruction, a slap in the face of Americans who have a right to know who is visiting -- and influencing -- the president they voted into office."

Liliana Segura

Paying for the lack of principals

FROM NEWSHOGGERS

Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but is also a decent measure of the depth of a principle. Fiscal responsibility is a very shallow principle for some of the opponents of health-care reform.

Here is Steve Benen with a righteous rant (slightly re-arranged):

Ben Nelson and Max Baucus, for example, both voted for Bush's tax cuts, funding for both of the Bush-launched wars, and spending on Bush's Medicare Part D, without so much as a hint about how to pay for them....

The record is strikingly clear. When Bush/Cheney slashed taxes by well over $1 trillion, Republicans said there was no reason to worry about paying for it. When Bush/Cheney started the war in Afghanistan, Republicans said there was no reason to worry about paying for it. When Bush/Cheney started the war in Iraq, Republicans said there was no reason to worry about paying for it. When Bush/Cheney added Medicare Part D, Republicans said there was no reason to worry about paying for it.

It's not that their efforts at paying for it came up short, it's that they didn't even try. The notion of fiscal responsibility was simply deemed irrelevant -- an inconvenient detail for unnamed people in the future to worry about.

It is reasonably to conclude that Baucus and Nelson think using government as a money laundering operation to favored business is okay, but actually solving a major problem is not despite the fact that the most recent estimate has no net federal cost. That is good to know for an activist. So how do we buy out Baucus and Nelson before primarying at least one of them?

HEALTH INSURANCE FOR ALL - WE WANT THE PUBLIC OPTION

Add your name to this TV ad at http://WeWantThePublicOptio... The Progressive Change Campaign Committee & Democracy for America will air this in Washington DC on CNN, MSNBC, the Daily Show, and other places senators and their staffs will see.

I ran across this in a comment under the previous referenced article (The Great American Bubble Machine), and thought it important enough to post. So that we KNOW where and why this whole Unacountable Corporate America came from:

"...the blame can be put squarely on Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite's head in the 1886 Supreme Court case of San Diego County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad.

This is the case where Chief Justice Waite gave corporations the rights of a person. You can look it up in Findlaw.com, but this is certainly one case where dicta became the law of the land.

Corporations would never have the clout without such a proclamation without oral argument. Hence corporations have the opportunity to act in their own interests regardless of whether people are hurt by those actions. And they have the right to throw the totality of their corporate might against a single person, thus guaranting that court cases would simply become too expensive for the average person to continue.

One supposes that the rising corporate paramilitary services are just a precursor to extended use, first under governmental decree, such as putting Blackwater personnel in New Orleans with shoot to kill authority, to eliminating the need to call out our now devastated and homeless (i.e. the Rumsfeld authorized closing of hundreds of bases) National Guard units in cases of disaster.

Oh well, it appears the regime change has been pulled on America, and we just don't want to realize it yet. I'd like to think that President Obama doesn't realize it yet, but maybe I'm one of the guys these people depend upon to support the now defunct American..."

THE GREAT AMERICAN BUBBLE MACHINE - Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

OH YEA, THIS IS WORLD CLASS SNARK, AND A VERY GOOD READ.

Matt Taibbi at his best

HERE is a great (spoof) letter to Obama from Goldman-Sachs

Oregon’s Ancient Forests Win! Logging plans withdrawn at last

FORESTS WIN!
FOREST CREATURES WIN!
HUMANS WIN!
EARTH WINS!

On July 16, 2009, the U.S. Department of the Interior withdrew legally flawed plans for the management of Oregon’s western public forests under the Bureau of Land Management. This important decision will help preserve ancient forests that provide clean drinking water and outstanding recreational opportunities in Oregon.

With their towering trees and rushing rivers, these forests are home to some 1,000 wildlife species, including imperiled species like the marbled murrelet and the northern spotted owl. These spectacular forests also encompass some of the most productive salmon habitat in the lower 48 states.

HOORAY!

Feds suspend Alaska's in-home care programs

By Lisa Demer | The Anchorage Daily News

ANCHORAGE — State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life — taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom — are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements.

No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. GO.READ

TOO BAD NOBODY'S IN CHARGE!

PLEASE sign the HEALTH CARE petition from Senator Patty Murray of Washington state

We are facing an historic opportunity to fix our broken health care system in the next few months. As I go through this debate, there is nothing more important to me than making sure that all our families are safe and healthy.

But today, I hear from far too many people who can't get health care. And I know all too well that even families that have good health care are at risk today of losing it because of rising premiums and loss of access.

That's why it's absolutely critical that we pass legislation this year to ensure quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

And I need your help to get this done.

So today I'm launching an online petition, calling on Congress to pass meaningful health care reform that insures every American. Will you help?

Sign my petition for health care reform right now - and share your thoughts with me.

After years of being blocked and vetoed, Congress finally passed an extension and expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program and President Obama signed it into law, giving 4 million new children the ability to see a doctor when they get sick.

When a child gets hurt, sick, or develops a serious disease, they should be able to get health care. Period.

I'm proud of our progress -- but we're just getting started. Now we need to cover every single American.

Sign my health care petition now -- and let's work together to pass meaningful health care reform right now.

Some critics say we can't afford to tackle health care reform. I say we can't afford not to.

I'm committed to protecting health insurance where it's good, improving it where it's not, and ensuring quality care for the millions who don't have it at all -- while preserving your choice of doctor, treatments, and insurance plans throughout it all. And I'm working hard to include a public option to help ensure lower costs. I know we can do it.

Today, there are nearly 47 million uninsured Americans. The uninsured can't afford checkups when healthy, so they'll only go to the hospital when they're very sick. These costs get passed on to insured Americans as a "hidden tax" through increased premiums.

Getting health care reform passed this year is not just about compassion -- it's about economic common sense. Health care reform may be the best economic stimulus plan we could have.

I'm talking to my colleagues in Washington about health care every day, and I'd love to have your ideas and support behind me.

Join me in supporting health care reform by signing my petition right now.

Last month, President Obama said about health care, "If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done." I couldn't agree more.

So please sign my petition -- and let me know your thoughts. Together, we can make sure every American has access to health care.

Sincerely,

Patty Murray
U.S. Senator

Americans still confused about global warming

A recipe for climate disruption:

• Take the American public
• Add 10-plus years of slick global warming disinformation campaigns aimed at both pubilc and journalists
• Season with gaps in science education

Stir vigorously to blend.

The result: A populace that -- at the same time it's burning enormous quantities of oil and coal, which produces most of the excess heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere -- remains uncertain, doubtful, and sometimes significantly misinformed when it comes to both the science and the reality of global warming.

Serves one planet, badly.

There's apparently a huge gap between what scientists understand about human-propelled global warming, and what the public understands. According to the latest Pew Research Center science survey (done jointly with the American Association for the Advancement of Science), 35% of the public believes that "scientists do not generally agree" that the earth is getting warmer because of human activity. That is, just over a third of adult Americans believe there is still significant disagreement among scientists about the extent of human-propelled global warming. (This number is up from 29% in Pew's 2006 survey.)

However, Pew found that among scientists, 84% agree that human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, are primarily what's causing the Earth's surface temperature to rise. Put another way, with more than 8 in 10 scientists agreeing on both the reality and the causes of climate change, there is no longer "significant disagreement" in the field.

However, just 49% of the public agree that human activities are changing the climate.

These findings demonstrate just how big a challenge sits before political leaders, journalists, scientists, educators, and fellow citizens to educate the public, and get effective clean energy and climate policies enacted in the US.

Read the rest of this article at demotratz.org

You may also be interested to have a look at REAL CLIMATE ECONOMICS

Ford’s ECOnetic Fiesta Gets 65 MPG. You Can’t Have One.

The ECOnetic Fiesta that Ford sells in Europe is a sporty little five-passenger hatchback that gets 65 mpg and emits less CO2 than a Toyota Prius. It is the greenest family car sold in Britain and just the thing to boost Ford’s sales - and image - at home. But Ford has no plans to bring it to America for one simple, stupid, reason.

It’s a diesel. GO.READ

AYFSM?*

*Are You Fucking Shitting Me?

SUNDAY CHURCH MUSIC

BOTTOM OF THE SEA

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL: WENDELL POTTER BLOWS THE WHISTLE ON HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY

PART1


PART2


To watch the complete program, please go to
Bill Moyers Journal on PBS

More Than $600 Billion And Counting: Iraq War Lies Revisited: The lying CIA

Written by Jason Leopold

Thursday, 09 July 2009 06:00

By Jason Leopold Editor's Note: As the war in Iraq surpassed its sixth year, a common refrain from politicians who supported the invasion is "don't dwell on the past, think about the future." It is an argument that distracts Americans from the important lessons that this history can teach. The Iraq War, which was predicated on the existence of weapons of mass destruction and fear of another 9/11, has resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and has cost taxpayers more than $600 billion. (Estimates of Iraqi dead range into the hundreds of thousands.) Yet, the invasion of Iraq was conceived prior to 9/11, according to Paul O'Neill, President Bush's first Treasury Secretary. In the book, The Price of Loyalty, journalist Ron Suskind interviewed O'Neill who said that the Iraq War was planned just days after the president was sworn into office. "From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told Suskind, adding that going after Saddam Hussein was a priority 10 days after the Bush's inauguration and eight months before Sept. 11. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," Suskind wrote. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed." As Treasury Secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked. O'Neill was fired from his post for disagreeing with Bush's economic policies. In typical White House fashion, senior administration officials have labeled O'Neill a "disgruntled employee," whose latest remarks are "laughable" and have no basis in reality. But a little known article in the Jan. 11, 2001, edition of the New York Times entitled "Iraq Is Focal Point as Bush Meets with Joint Chiefs" confirms that the incoming Bush administration was working on a plan to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, even before Bush's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2001. "George W. Bush, the nation's commander in chief to be, went to the Pentagon today for a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review hot spots around the world where he might have to send American forces into harm's way," the Times story says. Bush was joined at the Pentagon meeting by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The Times reported that "half of the 75-minute meeting focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian Gulf, two participants said. Iraq was the first topic briefed because 'it's the most visible and most risky area Mr. Bush will confront after he takes office, one senior officer said.'" "Iraqi policy is very much on his mind," one senior Pentagon official told the Times. "Saddam was clearly a discussion point." WMDs Cited for "Bureaucratic Reasons" On Sept.13, 2001 - two days after the terror attacks - during a meeting at Camp David with President Bush, Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials, Wolfowitz said he discussed with President Bush the prospects of launching an attack against Iraq, for no apparent reason other than a "gut feeling" Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, and there was a debate "about what place if any Iraq should have in a counter terrorist strategy." "On the surface of the debate it at least appeared to be about not whether but when," Wolfowitz said during a May 9, 2003, interview with Vanity Fair. "There seemed to be a kind of agreement that yes it should be, but the disagreement was whether it should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first. ... "The decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons." When the United Nations chose Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, in January 2002 to lead a team of U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction Wolfowitz contacted the CIA to produce a report on why Blix, as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency during the 1980s and 1990s, failed to detect Iraqi nuclear activity, according to an April 15, 2002, report in the Washington Post. The CIA report said Blix "had conducted inspections of Iraq's declared nuclear power plants fully within the parameters he could operate as chief of the Vienna-based agency between 1981 and 1997," according to the Post. Wolfowitz "hit the ceiling" because the report failed to provide sufficient ammunition to undermine Blix and, by association, the new U.N. weapons inspection program," according to the Post, quoting a former State Department official familiar with the report. "The request for a CIA investigation underscored the degree of concern by Wolfowitz and his civilian colleagues in the Pentagon that new inspections - or protracted negotiations over them - could torpedo their plans for military action to remove Hussein from power," the Post reported. Blix accused the Bush administration of launching a smear campaign against him because he did not find evidence of WMD in Iraq. He said he refused to pump up his reports to the U.N. about Iraq's WMD programs. In an interview with the London Guardian newspaper, Blix said "U.S. officials pressured him to use more damning language when reporting on Iraq's alleged weapons programs." "By and large my relations with the U.S. were good,'' Blix told the Guardian. "But toward the end the (Bush) administration leaned on us.'" White House Iraq Group The Bush administration needed a vehicle to market a war with Iraq. So, in August 2002, Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card formed the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) to publicize the so-called threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The WHIG was not only responsible for selling the Iraq War, but it took great pains to discredit anyone who openly disagreed with the official Iraq War story. The group's members included Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Bush's former adviser Karen Hughes, then Senior Adviser to the Vice President Mary Matalin, former Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to the vice president and co-author of the administration's pre-emptive strike policy. Rove chaired the group's meetings. Moreover, Rove's "strategic communications" task force, operating inside the group, was instrumental in writing and coordinating speeches by senior Bush administration officials, highlighting in September 2002 that Iraq was a nuclear threat, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal in October 2005. Another member of WHIG, John Hannah, along with former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Wolfowitz, were interviewed by FBI officials in 2004, according to a report in the Washington Post, to determine if they were involved in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel, former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). A senior official who participated in the WHIG called it "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities," according to an Aug. 10, 2003, Washington Post investigative report on the group's inner workings. During its very first meetings, Card's Iraq group ordered a series of white papers showing Iraq's alleged arms violations. The first paper, "A Grave and Gathering Danger: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Nuclear Weapons," was never published. However, the paper was drafted with the assistance of experts from the National Security Council and Cheney's office. "In its later stages, the draft white paper coincided with production of a National Intelligence Estimate and its unclassified summary. But the WHIG, according to three officials who followed the white paper's progress, wanted gripping images and stories not available in the hedged and austere language of intelligence," according to the Washington Post. Judith Miller and the Mushroom Cloud The group relied heavily on New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who, after meeting with several of the organization's members in August 2002, wrote an explosive story that many critics of the war believe laid the groundwork for military action against Iraq. On Sept. 8, 2002, Miller wrote a front-page story for the Times, quoting anonymous officials who said aluminum tubes found in Iraq were to be used as centrifuges. Her report said the "diameter, thickness and other technical specifications" of the tubes - precisely the grounds for skepticism among nuclear enrichment experts - showed that they were "intended as components of centrifuges." She closed her piece by quoting then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who said the United States would not sit by and wait to find a smoking gun to prove its case, possibly in the form of a "a mushroom cloud." After Miller's piece was published, administration officials pressed their case on Sunday talk shows, using Miller's piece as evidence that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear bomb, even though those officials had helped supply Miller with the story. Rice's comments on CNN's "Late Edition" reaffirmed Miller's story. Rice said Saddam Hussein was "actively pursuing a nuclear weapon" and that the tubes - described repeatedly in U.S. intelligence reports as "dual-use" items - were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs ... centrifuge programs." Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also mentioned the aluminum tubes story in the Times and said "increasingly, we believe the United States will become the target" of an Iraqi atomic bomb. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on CBS's "Face the Nation," asked viewers to "imagine a September 11th with weapons of mass destruction." The Cincinnati Speech In October 2002, President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati and spoke about the imminent threat Iraq posed to the U.S. because of Iraq's alleged ties with al-Qaeda and its endless supply of chemical and biological weapons "Surveillance photos reveal that the (Iraqi) regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons," Bush said. "Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations -- in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work. "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. "And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it." Also in October 2002, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ordered the military's regional commanders to rewrite all their war plans to capitalize on precision weapons, better intelligence, and speedier deployment in the event the United States decided to invade Iraq. The goal, Rumsfeld said, was to use fewer ground troops, a move that caused dismay among some in the military who said concern for the troops requires overwhelming numerical superiority to assure victory. Rumsfeld refused to listen to his military commanders, saying that his plan would allow "the military to begin combat operations on less notice and with far fewer troops than thought possible - or thought wise - before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks," the New York Times reported on Oct. 13, 2002. "Looking at what was overwhelming force a decade or two decades ago, today you can have overwhelming force, conceivably, with lesser numbers because the lethality is equal to or greater than before," Rumsfeld told the Times. Rumsfeld said too many of the military plans on the shelves of the regional war-fighting commanders were freighted with outdated assumptions and military requirements, which have changed with the advent of new weapons and doctrines. It has been a mistake, he said, to measure the quantity of forces required for a mission and "fail to look at lethality, where you end up with precision-guided munitions, which can give you 10 times the lethality that a dumb weapon might, as an example," according to the Times report. Through a combination of pre-deployments, faster cargo ships and a larger fleet of transport aircraft, the military would be able to deliver "fewer troops but in a faster time that would allow you to have concentrated power that would have the same effect as waiting longer with what a bigger force might have," Rumsfeld said. Critics in the military said there were several reasons to deploy a force of overwhelming numbers before starting any offensive with Iraq. Large numbers illustrate U.S. resolve and can intimidate Iraqi forces into laying down their arms or even turning against Hussein's government. The new approach for how the U.S. might go to war, Rumsfeld said in a speech in 2002, reflects an assessment of the need after 9/11 to refresh war plans continuously and to respond faster to threats from terrorists and nations possessing biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. Silencing Experts One of the most vocal opponent of the administration's prewar Iraq intelligence was David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector and the president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington, D.C.-based group that gathers information for the public and the White House on nuclear weapons programs. In a March 10, 2003, report posted on the ISIS website, Albright accused the CIA of twisting the intelligence related to the aluminum tubes. "The CIA has concluded that these tubes were specifically manufactured for use in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium," Albright said. "Many in the expert community both inside and outside government, however, do not agree with this conclusion. "The vast majority of gas centrifuge experts in this country and abroad who are knowledgeable about this case reject the CIA's case and do not believe that the tubes are specifically designed for gas centrifuges. In addition, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://pubrecord.org/nationworld/1000-more-than-600-billion-and-counting-iraq-war-lies-revisited.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 294px; height: 294px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RU3AEuCB50s/SlbUW3KG7lI/AAAAAAAADpA/Fh3ggzDDcOY/s400/opiraqifreedom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356702296032341586" border="0" /></a> <table class="contentpaneopen"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top"><span class="small">Written by Jason Leopold </span> </td></tr> <tr> <td class="createdate" valign="top">Thursday, 09 July 2009 06:00 </td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top"> <div>By Jason Leopold <span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></div> <div> </div> <div><em>Editor's Note:</em> <em>As the war in Iraq surpassed its sixth year, a common refrain from politicians who supported the invasion is "don't dwell on the past, think about the future." It is an argument that distracts Americans from the important lessons that this history can teach. </em>The Iraq War, which was predicated on the existence of weapons of mass destruction and fear of another 9/11, has resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and has <a href="http://www.costofwar.com/">cost taxpayers</a> more than $600 billion. (Estimates of Iraqi dead range into the hundreds of thousands.) Yet, the invasion of Iraq was conceived prior to 9/11, according to Paul O'Neill, President Bush's first Treasury Secretary. In the book, The Price of Loyalty, journalist Ron Suskind interviewed O'Neill who said that the Iraq War was planned just days after the president was sworn into office. <table class="contentpaneopen"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top"> <div>"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told Suskind, adding that going after Saddam Hussein was a priority 10 days after the Bush's inauguration and eight months before Sept. 11. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," Suskind wrote. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed." </div> As Treasury Secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked. O'Neill was fired from his post for disagreeing with Bush's economic policies. In typical White House fashion, senior administration officials have labeled O'Neill a "disgruntled employee," whose latest remarks are "laughable" and have no basis in reality. But a little known article in the Jan. 11, 2001, edition of the New York Times entitled "Iraq Is Focal Point as Bush Meets with Joint Chiefs" confirms that the incoming Bush administration was working on a plan to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, even before Bush's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2001. "George W. Bush, the nation's commander in chief to be, went to the Pentagon today for a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review hot spots around the world where he might have to send American forces into harm's way," the Times story says. Bush was joined at the Pentagon meeting by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The Times reported that "half of the 75-minute meeting focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian Gulf, two participants said. Iraq was the first topic briefed because 'it's the most visible and most risky area Mr. Bush will confront after he takes office, one senior officer said.'" "Iraqi policy is very much on his mind," one senior Pentagon official told the Times. "Saddam was clearly a discussion point." <strong>WMDs Cited for "Bureaucratic Reasons"</strong> On Sept.13, 2001 - two days after the terror attacks - during a meeting at Camp David with President Bush, Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials, Wolfowitz said he discussed with President Bush the prospects of launching an attack against Iraq, for no apparent reason other than a "gut feeling" Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, and there was a debate "about what place if any Iraq should have in a counter terrorist strategy." "On the surface of the debate it at least appeared to be about not whether but when," Wolfowitz said during a May 9, 2003, interview with Vanity Fair. "There seemed to be a kind of agreement that yes it should be, but the disagreement was whether it should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first. ... "The decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons." When the United Nations chose Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, in January 2002 to lead a team of U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction Wolfowitz contacted the CIA to produce a report on why Blix, as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency during the 1980s and 1990s, failed to detect Iraqi nuclear activity, according to an April 15, 2002, report in the Washington Post. The CIA report said Blix "had conducted inspections of Iraq's declared nuclear power plants fully within the parameters he could operate as chief of the Vienna-based agency between 1981 and 1997," according to the Post. Wolfowitz "hit the ceiling" because the report failed to provide sufficient ammunition to undermine Blix and, by association, the new U.N. weapons inspection program," according to the Post, quoting a former State Department official familiar with the report. "The request for a CIA investigation underscored the degree of concern by Wolfowitz and his civilian colleagues in the Pentagon that new inspections - or protracted negotiations over them - could torpedo their plans for military action to remove Hussein from power," the Post reported. Blix accused the Bush administration of launching a smear campaign against him because he did not find evidence of WMD in Iraq. He said he refused to pump up his reports to the U.N. about Iraq's WMD programs. In an interview with the London Guardian newspaper, Blix said "U.S. officials pressured him to use more damning language when reporting on Iraq's alleged weapons programs." "By and large my relations with the U.S. were good,'' Blix told the Guardian. "But toward the end the (Bush) administration leaned on us.'" <strong>White House Iraq Group</strong> The Bush administration needed a vehicle to market a war with Iraq. So, in August 2002, Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card formed the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) to publicize the so-called threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The WHIG was not only responsible for selling the Iraq War, but it took great pains to discredit anyone who openly disagreed with the official Iraq War story. The group's members included Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Bush's former adviser Karen Hughes, then Senior Adviser to the Vice President Mary Matalin, former Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to the vice president and co-author of the administration's pre-emptive strike policy. Rove chaired the group's meetings. Moreover, Rove's "strategic communications" task force, operating inside the group, was instrumental in writing and coordinating speeches by senior Bush administration officials, highlighting in September 2002 that Iraq was a nuclear threat, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal in October 2005. Another member of WHIG, John Hannah, along with former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Wolfowitz, were interviewed by FBI officials in 2004, according to a report in the Washington Post, to determine if they were involved in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel, former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). A senior official who participated in the WHIG called it "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities," according to an Aug. 10, 2003, Washington Post investigative report on the group's inner workings. During its very first meetings, Card's Iraq group ordered a series of white papers showing Iraq's alleged arms violations. The first paper, "A Grave and Gathering Danger: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Nuclear Weapons," was never published. However, the paper was drafted with the assistance of experts from the National Security Council and Cheney's office. "In its later stages, the draft white paper coincided with production of a National Intelligence Estimate and its unclassified summary. But the WHIG, according to three officials who followed the white paper's progress, wanted gripping images and stories not available in the hedged and austere language of intelligence," according to the Washington Post. <strong> Judith Miller and the Mushroom Cloud</strong> The group relied heavily on New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who, after meeting with several of the organization's members in August 2002, wrote an explosive story that many critics of the war believe laid the groundwork for military action against Iraq. On Sept. 8, 2002, Miller wrote a front-page story for the Times, quoting anonymous officials who said aluminum tubes found in Iraq were to be used as centrifuges. Her report said the "diameter, thickness and other technical specifications" of the tubes - precisely the grounds for skepticism among nuclear enrichment experts - showed that they were "intended as components of centrifuges." She closed her piece by quoting then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who said the United States would not sit by and wait to find a smoking gun to prove its case, possibly in the form of a "a mushroom cloud." After Miller's piece was published, administration officials pressed their case on Sunday talk shows, using Miller's piece as evidence that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear bomb, even though those officials had helped supply Miller with the story. Rice's comments on CNN's "Late Edition" reaffirmed Miller's story. Rice said Saddam Hussein was "actively pursuing a nuclear weapon" and that the tubes - described repeatedly in U.S. intelligence reports as "dual-use" items - were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs ... centrifuge programs." Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also mentioned the aluminum tubes story in the Times and said "increasingly, we believe the United States will become the target" of an Iraqi atomic bomb. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on CBS's "Face the Nation," asked viewers to "imagine a September 11th with weapons of mass destruction." <strong>The Cincinnati Speech</strong> In October 2002, President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati and spoke about the imminent threat Iraq posed to the U.S. because of Iraq's alleged ties with al-Qaeda and its endless supply of chemical and biological weapons "Surveillance photos reveal that the (Iraqi) regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons," Bush said. "Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations -- in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work. "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. "And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it." Also in October 2002, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ordered the military's regional commanders to rewrite all their war plans to capitalize on precision weapons, better intelligence, and speedier deployment in the event the United States decided to invade Iraq. The goal, Rumsfeld said, was to use fewer ground troops, a move that caused dismay among some in the military who said concern for the troops requires overwhelming numerical superiority to assure victory. Rumsfeld refused to listen to his military commanders, saying that his plan would allow "the military to begin combat operations on less notice and with far fewer troops than thought possible - or thought wise - before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks," the New York Times reported on Oct. 13, 2002. "Looking at what was overwhelming force a decade or two decades ago, today you can have overwhelming force, conceivably, with lesser numbers because the lethality is equal to or greater than before," Rumsfeld told the Times. Rumsfeld said too many of the military plans on the shelves of the regional war-fighting commanders were freighted with outdated assumptions and military requirements, which have changed with the advent of new weapons and doctrines. It has been a mistake, he said, to measure the quantity of forces required for a mission and "fail to look at lethality, where you end up with precision-guided munitions, which can give you 10 times the lethality that a dumb weapon might, as an example," according to the Times report. Through a combination of pre-deployments, faster cargo ships and a larger fleet of transport aircraft, the military would be able to deliver "fewer troops but in a faster time that would allow you to have concentrated power that would have the same effect as waiting longer with what a bigger force might have," Rumsfeld said. Critics in the military said there were several reasons to deploy a force of overwhelming numbers before starting any offensive with Iraq. Large numbers illustrate U.S. resolve and can intimidate Iraqi forces into laying down their arms or even turning against Hussein's government. The new approach for how the U.S. might go to war, Rumsfeld said in a speech in 2002, reflects an assessment of the need after 9/11 to refresh war plans continuously and to respond faster to threats from terrorists and nations possessing biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. <strong>Silencing Experts</strong> One of the most vocal opponent of the administration's prewar Iraq intelligence was David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector and the president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington, D.C.-based group that gathers information for the public and the White House on nuclear weapons programs. In a March 10, 2003, report posted on the ISIS website, Albright accused the CIA of twisting the intelligence related to the aluminum tubes. "The CIA has concluded that these tubes were specifically manufactured for use in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium," Albright said. "Many in the expert community both inside and outside government, however, do not agree with this conclusion. "The vast majority of gas centrifuge experts in this country and abroad who are knowledgeable about this case reject the CIA's case and do not believe that the tubes are specifically designed for gas centrifuges. In addition, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have consistently expressed skepticism that the tubes are for centrifuges." "After months of investigation, the administration has failed to prove its claim that the tubes are intended for use in an Iraqi gas centrifuge program," Albright added. "Despite being presented with evidence countering this claim, the administration persists in making misleading comments about the significance of the tubes." Albright said he took his concerns about the intelligence information to White House officials, but was rebuffed and told to keep quiet. "I first learned of this case a year and a half ago when I was asked for information about past Iraqi procurements. My reaction at the time was that the disagreement reflected the typical in-fighting between U.S. experts that often afflicts the intelligence community. I was frankly surprised when the administration latched onto one side of this debate in September 2002. I was told that this dispute had not been mediated by a competent, impartial technical committee, as it should have been, according to accepted practice," Albright said. "I became dismayed when a knowledgeable government scientist told me that the administration could say anything it wanted about the tubes while government scientists who disagreed were expected to remain quiet," he said. Albright said the Department of Energy, which analyzed the intelligence information on the aluminum tubes and rejected the CIA's intelligence analysis, is the only government agency in the U.S. that can provide expert opinions on gas centrifuges (what the CIA alleged the tubes were being used for) and nuclear weapons programs. "For over a year and a half, an analyst at the CIA has been pushing the aluminum tube story, despite consistent disagreement by a wide range of experts in the United States and abroad," Albright said. "His opinion, however, obtained traction in the summer of 2002 with senior members of the Bush Administration, including the President. The administration was forced to admit publicly that dissenters exist, particularly at the Department of Energy and its national laboratories." But Albright said the White House launched an attack against experts who spoke critically of the intelligence. "Administration officials try to minimize the number and significance of the dissenters or unfairly attack them," Albright said. "For example, when Secretary Powell mentioned the dissent in his Security Council speech, he said: 'Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher.' Not surprisingly, an effort by those at the Energy Department to change Powell's comments before his appearance was rebuffed by the administration." <strong>The 16 Words Were False</strong> Eleven days before President Bush's Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he stated that the United States learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa, the State Department told the CIA that key intelligence behind the uranium claims may have been forgeries. The revelation of the warning was contained in a closely guarded State Department memo, which didn't surface until April 2006. On Jan. 12, 2003, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries," the memo dated July 7, 2003, says. Moreover, the memo said that the State Department's doubts about the veracity of the uranium claims may have been expressed to the intelligence community even earlier. Those concerns, according to the memo, are the reasons that former Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to cite the uranium claims when he appeared before the United Nations in Feb. 5, 2003, a week after Bush's State of the Union address. "After considerable back and forth between the CIA, the (State) Department, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association), and the British, Secretary Powell's briefing to the U.N. Security Council did not mention attempted Iraqi procurement of uranium due to CIA concerns raised during the coordination regarding the veracity of the information on the alleged Iraq-Niger agreement," the memo further states. Iraq's interest in the yellowcake uranium caught the attention of Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Association. ElBaradei had read a copy of the National Intelligence Estimate and had personally contacted the State Department and the National Security Council in hopes of obtaining evidence so his agency could look into it. Vice President Dick Cheney, who made the rounds on the cable news shows in March 2003, tried to discredit ElBaradei's conclusion that the documents were forged. "I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong," Cheney said. "[The IAEA] has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past." As it turns out, ElBaradei was correct, the declassified State Department showed. The declassified State Department memo was obtained by The New York Sun under a Freedom of Information Act request the newspaper filed in July 2005. The Sun's story, however, did not say anything about the State Department's warnings more than a week before Bush's State of the Union address about the bogus Niger documents. The memo was drafted by Carl Ford Jr., the former head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in response to questions posed in June 2003 by "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, about a February 2002 fact-finding trip to Niger that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson undertook to investigate the uranium claims on behalf of the CIA. <strong>The Ambassador Emerges</strong> A day after Bush's Jan.28, 2003, State of the Union address, Wilson said he reminded a friend at the State Department that he (Wilson) had traveled to Niger in February 2002 to investigate whether Iraq attempted to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger, according to Wilson's July 6, 2003, op-ed published in the New York Times. In his book, The Politics of Truth, Wilson's said his State Department friend replied that "perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case." But Wilson was certain that the administration was trying to sell a war that was based on phony intelligence. In March 2003, Wilson began to publicly question the administration's use of the Niger claims without disclosing his role in traveling to Niger in February 2002 to investigate it. Wilson's criticism of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence caught the attention of Cheney, Libby and Hadley. In an interview that took place two-and-a-half weeks before the start of the Iraq War, Wilson said the administration was more interested in redrawing the map of the Middle East to pursue its own foreign policy objectives than in dealing with the so-called terrorist threat. "The underlying objective, as I see it - the more I look at this - is less and less disarmament, and it really has little to do with terrorism, because everybody knows that a war to invade and conquer and occupy Iraq is going to spawn a new generation of terrorists," Wilson said in a March 2, 2003, interview with CNN. "So you look at what's underpinning this, and you go back and you take a look at who's been influencing the process. And it's been those who really believe that our objective must be far grander, and that is to redraw the political map of the Middle East," Wilson added. During the same CNN segment in which Wilson was interviewed, former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright made similar comments about the rationale for the Iraq War and added that he believed U.N. weapons inspectors should be given more time to search the country for weapons of mass destruction A week later, Wilson was interviewed on CNN again. This was the first time Wilson ridiculed the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. "Well, this particular case is outrageous. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by the U.S. - the U.S. government - is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early 1960s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers and sellers," Wilson said in the March 8, 2003, CNN interview. "For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq," Wilson said. Less than two weeks later, on March 19, 2003, the U.S. attacked Iraq.<!-- JOM COMMENT START --></td></tr></tbody></table> <div class="aol_ad_footer" id="MAILCIADA018-5bbb4a564af61e4"> </div> </div></td></tr></tbody></table>consistently expressed skepticism that the tubes are for centrifuges." "After months of investigation, the administration has failed to prove its claim that the tubes are intended for use in an Iraqi gas centrifuge program," Albright added. "Despite being presented with evidence countering this claim, the administration persists in making misleading comments about the significance of the tubes." Albright said he took his concerns about the intelligence information to White House officials, but was rebuffed and told to keep quiet. "I first learned of this case a year and a half ago when I was asked for information about past Iraqi procurements. My reaction at the time was that the disagreement reflected the typical in-fighting between U.S. experts that often afflicts the intelligence community. I was frankly surprised when the administration latched onto one side of this debate in September 2002. I was told that this dispute had not been mediated by a competent, impartial technical committee, as it should have been, according to accepted practice," Albright said. "I became dismayed when a knowledgeable government scientist told me that the administration could say anything it wanted about the tubes while government scientists who disagreed were expected to remain quiet," he said. Albright said the Department of Energy, which analyzed the intelligence information on the aluminum tubes and rejected the CIA's intelligence analysis, is the only government agency in the U.S. that can provide expert opinions on gas centrifuges (what the CIA alleged the tubes were being used for) and nuclear weapons programs. "For over a year and a half, an analyst at the CIA has been pushing the aluminum tube story, despite consistent disagreement by a wide range of experts in the United States and abroad," Albright said. "His opinion, however, obtained traction in the summer of 2002 with senior members of the Bush Administration, including the President. The administration was forced to admit publicly that dissenters exist, particularly at the Department of Energy and its national laboratories." But Albright said the White House launched an attack against experts who spoke critically of the intelligence. "Administration officials try to minimize the number and significance of the dissenters or unfairly attack them," Albright said. "For example, when Secretary Powell mentioned the dissent in his Security Council speech, he said: 'Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher.' Not surprisingly, an effort by those at the Energy Department to change Powell's comments before his appearance was rebuffed by the administration." The 16 Words Were False Eleven days before President Bush's Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he stated that the United States learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa, the State Department told the CIA that key intelligence behind the uranium claims may have been forgeries. The revelation of the warning was contained in a closely guarded State Department memo, which didn't surface until April 2006. On Jan. 12, 2003, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries," the memo dated July 7, 2003, says. Moreover, the memo said that the State Department's doubts about the veracity of the uranium claims may have been expressed to the intelligence community even earlier. Those concerns, according to the memo, are the reasons that former Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to cite the uranium claims when he appeared before the United Nations in Feb. 5, 2003, a week after Bush's State of the Union address. "After considerable back and forth between the CIA, the (State) Department, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association), and the British, Secretary Powell's briefing to the U.N. Security Council did not mention attempted Iraqi procurement of uranium due to CIA concerns raised during the coordination regarding the veracity of the information on the alleged Iraq-Niger agreement," the memo further states. Iraq's interest in the yellowcake uranium caught the attention of Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Association. ElBaradei had read a copy of the National Intelligence Estimate and had personally contacted the State Department and the National Security Council in hopes of obtaining evidence so his agency could look into it. Vice President Dick Cheney, who made the rounds on the cable news shows in March 2003, tried to discredit ElBaradei's conclusion that the documents were forged. "I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong," Cheney said. "[The IAEA] has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past." As it turns out, ElBaradei was correct, the declassified State Department showed. The declassified State Department memo was obtained by The New York Sun under a Freedom of Information Act request the newspaper filed in July 2005. The Sun's story, however, did not say anything about the State Department's warnings more than a week before Bush's State of the Union address about the bogus Niger documents. The memo was drafted by Carl Ford Jr., the former head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in response to questions posed in June 2003 by "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, about a February 2002 fact-finding trip to Niger that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson undertook to investigate the uranium claims on behalf of the CIA. The Ambassador Emerges A day after Bush's Jan.28, 2003, State of the Union address, Wilson said he reminded a friend at the State Department that he (Wilson) had traveled to Niger in February 2002 to investigate whether Iraq attempted to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger, according to Wilson's July 6, 2003, op-ed published in the New York Times. In his book, The Politics of Truth, Wilson's said his State Department friend replied that "perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case." But Wilson was certain that the administration was trying to sell a war that was based on phony intelligence. In March 2003, Wilson began to publicly question the administration's use of the Niger claims without disclosing his role in traveling to Niger in February 2002 to investigate it. Wilson's criticism of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence caught the attention of Cheney, Libby and Hadley. In an interview that took place two-and-a-half weeks before the start of the Iraq War, Wilson said the administration was more interested in redrawing the map of the Middle East to pursue its own foreign policy objectives than in dealing with the so-called terrorist threat. "The underlying objective, as I see it - the more I look at this - is less and less disarmament, and it really has little to do with terrorism, because everybody knows that a war to invade and conquer and occupy Iraq is going to spawn a new generation of terrorists," Wilson said in a March 2, 2003, interview with CNN. "So you look at what's underpinning this, and you go back and you take a look at who's been influencing the process. And it's been those who really believe that our objective must be far grander, and that is to redraw the political map of the Middle East," Wilson added. During the same CNN segment in which Wilson was interviewed, former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright made similar comments about the rationale for the Iraq War and added that he believed U.N. weapons inspectors should be given more time to search the country for weapons of mass destruction A week later, Wilson was interviewed on CNN again. This was the first time Wilson ridiculed the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. "Well, this particular case is outrageous. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by the U.S. - the U.S. government - is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early 1960s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers and sellers," Wilson said in the March 8, 2003, CNN interview. "For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq," Wilson said. Less than two weeks later, on March 19, 2003, the U.S. attacked Iraq.

G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change

Palin's Resignation Leaves Wake of Wildlife Devastation: Parnell Has Opportunity to Chart New Science-Based Path CLICK~N~READ

A.Y.F.K.M.??

Here's a charming summer story out of Philadelphia: A private swim club kicked out some 60 summer camp kids out of their pool on the grounds that they were Black.

NBC reports: "The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise."

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

One camper named Dymire Baylor told NBC: "I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child.'"

The most incredible part? The Valley Swim Club's defense: "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion ? and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

As if it needs saying, it is dumbfounding that in the Obama era such blatant bigotry continues to persist in this country. Sobering, outrageous, and sad.

Update: The public email and phone number for The Valley Swim Club is 215-947-0700 and info@thevalleyclub.com. The President of the club is John Duesler.

Are You Fucking Kidding Me??

LISSEN UP MR. PRESIDENT:

Mr. Obama, you got no balls if you don't fire that goddamned Rahm Emanuel for sticking his fat fucking insider Democratic Party First nose into the public option for health care struggle.

Out here in the REAL AMERICA, we need that health care, unlike all your insider goddamned fraternity/lobbyist pals!

It is so obvious to those of us who did or did not graduate from some slick fucking university that he is, and always HAS been a snoot-ball insider for corporate America.

You need to clean house, and you need to do it as soon as you get back from Russia, or you got no balls.

Your "change and hope" and all that other bullshit you sold us during the campaign is just about to go down the toilet!

Like you sports jocks like to say "JUST DO IT"

If you can't do the job, in 3 years we will elect somone who CAN.

Who cares about the rising cost of health care? You do. The money goes out of your pocket and into the pockets of big insurance, the drug companies, hospitals and eventually to the people who actually care for you.

Do the people getting your money really want less of it? No. They've already reneged on offers to cut costs voluntarily. Right now, they're spending $1.4 million per day on lobbyists to make sure your Senators hear exactly why they need more of your health care dollars.

This week is critical. Recess is over and your Senators have just returned to Washington to work on the health care legislation. Dozens of nonpartisan organizations have asked their volunteers to make a call today and tomorrow (July 7th and 8th) so Congress hears from thousands and thousands of people right before they make major decisions about what kind of reforms will get a vote.

You can counter the lobbyists who work for drug and insurance companies with a simple phone call. We're making it easy with a toll-free number.

If we are really going to reduce costs, we need to do a lot of things differently--create incentives for preventive care and early detection, make insurance companies compete on cost and service, reduce preventable infections and errors that bloat the cost of simple treatments.

You are the one who benefits the most if reforms designed to reduce costs and give you better options end up in the final bill, so you are your best advocate. A phone call makes a big difference, because your lawmaker knows you only pick up the phone if you really care.

We've provided a few talking points, or just tell your Senator about your own experience with the health care system we have now.

Take just a few minutes right now. Use our toll-free number and tell your Senator to vote YES for real reform.

Thank you so much for everything you do and for everything you will do to improve our health care system this year.

Sincerely,
DeAnn Friedholm
PrescriptionForChange.org
A project of Consumers Union
101 Truman Ave.
Yonkers, NY 10703

I recently blogged about KBR/Haliburton shareholders suing the company. There is SO MUCH that is rotten about this Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan/Central South America War, and OBAMA is NOT cleaning it up, he even has the same players in charge as the criminal Bush administration had (many recycled from the old criminal Reagan crew)! This video clip is over 2 years old, and there is every indication that the incompetence, waste and danger to our troops and others in Iraq and Afghanistan from contractors is really intense. SHAME!

US Troops in Iraq talk about Halliburton & KBR:

THIS could be the best article so far about Alaska's SARAH PALIN QUITTING her job CHECK IT OUT

Ever hear of an insurance company called AIG? How about AIG in Iraq? NOT FUNNY - TRUE AMERICAN INGENUITY - PLEASE READ THIS

Shareholders suing Haliburton KBR - 2009 may be a success after all!

Investors in Halliburton Company (Public, NYSE:HAL) and KBR, Inc. (Public, NYSE:KBR) have filed at least two separate lawsuits on behalf of current investors in Halliburton Company (Public, NYSE:HAL) in Texas state court on Thursday, May 14, 2009 against certain one-time Halliburton subsidiary KBR, Inc. executives and officers and others alleging that poor oversight and lack of internal controls enabled a pervasive environment of misdeed and corruption...I HOPE THE MOTHERFUCKING COMPANY CHOKES AND THE EXECUTIVES INVOLVED GO TO PRISON - INCLUCING GODDAMNED EX-VICE CHEENEY.

Time for President Obama to Throw Down Against the Corrupt and Spineless

Time for President Obama to Throw Down Against the Corrupt and Spineless

Enough prevaricating. The storm is perfect. Kick some ass, Mr. President.

A new energy future means a new Energy Department

Article Highlights

• Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu's most daunting challenge may be reforming the department.
• Energy's existing structure isn't well-suited to ushering in a new energy future for the country.
• Only by completely restructuring the department can real change in this area be made.
• 

DEAR CONETTYKUT:

YO CONNECTICUT - IS THIS GUY THE BEST YOU GOT? JEZUZFUKKINGKRISTONACRUTCH!
Get your guy the fuk out of here - he's stinking the place up!

Reasons To Believe: Alternative Energy