Haha Great headline: Intelligence Probe Would Be Risky for Bush

Ain't that the truth!

The article isn't a bad read either. It illustrates the schism between what should be done about the Iraqi weapons 'intelligence failure,' and what most likely will be done.

Am I the only the only person that snickers whenever "Bush" and "intelligence failure" are found within the same sentence? Probably.

Krugman

Where's the Apology?

By PAUL KRUGMAN

George Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Instead, he got rid of accountability.

Surely even supporters of the Iraq war must be dismayed by the administration's reaction to David Kay's recent statements. Iraq, he now admits, didn't have W.M.D., or even active programs to produce such weapons. Those much-ridiculed U.N. inspectors were right. (But Hans Blix appears to have gone down the memory hole. On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified — under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less — because Saddam "did not let us in.")

So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive W.M.D.-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush — and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.

True, Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup. (Yes, the Hutton report gave Tony Blair a clean bill of health, but many people — including a majority of the British public, according to polls — regard that report as a whitewash.)

In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.

Let's look at three examples. First is the Valerie Plame affair. When someone in the administration revealed that Ms. Plame was an undercover C.I.A. operative, one probable purpose was to intimidate intelligence professionals. And whatever becomes of the Justice Department investigation, the White House has been notably uninterested in finding the culprit. ("We have let the earthmovers roll in over this one," a senior White House official told The Financial Times.)

Then there's the stonewalling about 9/11. First the administration tried, in defiance of all historical precedents, to prevent any independent inquiry. Then it tried to appoint Henry Kissinger, of all people, to head the investigative panel. Then it obstructed the commission, denying it access to crucial documents and testimony. Now, thanks to all the delays and impediments, the panel's head says it can't deliver its report by the original May 11 deadline — and the administration is trying to prevent a time extension.

Finally, an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general's office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence.

And the independence of the Pentagon's own inspector general's office is also in question. Last September, in a move that should have caused shock waves, the administration appointed L. Jean Lewis as the office's chief of staff. Ms. Lewis played a central role in the Whitewater witch hunt (seven years, $70 million, no evidence of Clinton wrongdoing); nobody could call her nonpartisan. So when Mr. Bush's defenders demand hard proof of profiteering in Iraq — as opposed to extensive circumstantial evidence — bear in mind that the administration has systematically undermined the power and independence of institutions that might have provided that proof.

And there are many more examples. These people politicize everything, from military planning to scientific assessments. If you're with them, you pay no penalty for being wrong. If you don't tell them what they want to hear, you're an enemy, and being right is no excuse.

Still, the big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things? NYT link

Kay made the mistake of fooling himself. I have said many times over the last months that David Kay is "not a scientist." What I meant by that - I didn't feel the need to spell it out - is that Kay did what good scientists do not do. He relied on old, and unproven data to reach a conclusion.

A quote from the great American physicist, Dr. Richard Feynman sums up the thought process: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."

Belief in myths does not alter reality, it only changes an individual's and or groups behavior. Here we have a case of
shoddy science, and 'groupthink' conspiring to everturn the facts on the ground.

He claims that "nearly everyone got it wrong." Those that did so, did so because they failed to utilize the scientific method.

There are lots of people who got it right as well. I'm sure those voices will come to the fore in the coming days, weeks and months. I was a skeptic from the beginning. When Iraq declared that they had no forbidden weapons, the onus was on the U.S. and the International community to prove otherwise.

I'm sure I'll revisit this at another time, and at greater length.

I would like to believe that our elected officials have our best interests at heart. This is a myth. I cannot believe in myths.

It's a tad late for 'ten links,' so I'll leave you with this somber bit about the U.S. jobless:

Record Number of U.S. Jobless Seen Losing Benefits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A record number of unemployed American workers face losing all their income in the first half of 2004 because they are using up their state jobless benefits and Congress has stopped extending them, a private study found on Thursday.

The number of jobless workers exhausting their 26 weeks of benefits without qualifying for further aid will reach a record 2 million in the first six months of the year, including 375,000 in January, more than in any other month, a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said.

The liberal research group's report comes after the Republican-controlled Congress recessed last month without further extending an emergency program that gives jobless workers another 13 weeks of federal benefits after they use up their 26 weeks of state benefits.

Republican congressional leaders argue that a further extension of the emergency program, which began in March 2002, is not necessary because the economy is improving and the unemployment rate has trended downward in recent months, dropping to 5.7 percent in December.

But the author of the center's study, Isaac Shapiro, said Congress stopped the program prematurely.

"Rather than waiting to end the program at a point where the labor market is relatively healthy, they have ended it at a time when long-term unemployment is still relatively pervasive," Shapiro said in conference call with reporters.

The U.S. economy has lost 2.3 million jobs since President Bush took office in January 2001 and an eight-month recession began choking the economy in March of that year.

The pace of the labor market's recovery -- 278,000 jobs were added to payrolls since the summer, including a scant 1,000 last month -- has been anemic compared with the economy's robust rebound and is likely to be targeted by Bush's Democratic challenger in the November election.

"The (congressional) Republican leadership is opposing an unemployment extension because they believe they have solved America's economic problems," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "But the jobs problem in America has not been solved." More at link

I fail to see what use the term 'liberal' has to do with this article. Either the data is valid, or it is not. It doesn't matter if it was compiled by an exceptionally bright group of Bonobo Chimpanzees as long as it is valid data.

From News Wire Services

Bush reputation on environment mixed

Conservationists cite 'worst' record; others see 'progress'

By CHARLES SEABROOK

To environmentalists, George W. Bush is the archenemy.

After three years in office, the president has few saving graces, as far as environmentalists are concerned. He seems bent, they say, on rolling back the nation's most important environmental rules, reversing years of progress against dirty air and water.

"It's the worst environmental record in American history," says Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. "The administration consistently favors polluting industries over health and safety."

That's why his group and other leading environmental organizations are making the defeat of Bush in November a top priority.

One group, the League of Conservation Voters, is breaking with the past to focus much of its $10 million to $12 million budget on ousting Bush rather than on trying to influence a handful of key congressional campaigns.

The league recently gave Bush its first-ever "F" on its Presidential Environmental Report Card. The reason: "For the past three years, he has taken nearly every opportunity to roll back safeguards to protect our air, water and public lands," says league President Deb Callahan.

Others admire positions

But legions of others in business, government and everyday life say Bush deserves an "A." He has brought common sense back into environmental decision-making, and the nation's economy is better for it, they say.

"The president's approach to environmental progress is predicated on the notion that economic growth is the solution, not the problem," says James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "We have very good reason to be very optimistic about . . . our nation's future environmental progress."

Frank Maisano, spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group of power companies that includes the Atlanta-based Southern Co., says that when Bush's environmental policies are implemented, the nation will have cleaner air, cleaner water and healthier forests.

"Dramatic progress is being made," he said. "Yet, if you talk to environmentalists, you'll get a different story because they're so stuck in their position that the Bush administration can do no good."

Some of the issues fueling the polarization include:

• Clean air. The administration's proposed rules to roll back a cornerstone of the Clean Air Act -- known as "New Source Review" -- would allow old coal-fired power plants to upgrade equipment without having to install pollution controls. The proposals came after intense lobbying by the electric utility industry.

The changes would have taken place on Dec. 26, but a federal appeals court in Washington, ruling last month on a case brought by a coalition of 14 states, the District of Columbia and numerous local governments, temporarily blocked the rules. "The ruling will help stop the Bush administration's ongoing effort to eviscerate the Clean Air Act," said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, called the decision "a setback for energy efficiency and environmental protection."

• Mercury. The administration last month proposed the nation's first-ever rules to reduce mercury emissions -- by 70 percent, by 2018. The administration says that percentage can be achieved with technology currently under development.

But Jill Johnson of the Georgia Sierra Club echoes what a majority of environmentalists contend. "We prefer the best technology available be used to clean up mercury emissions," she said. "This technology is available."

• Public lands. New rules by the administration will soften existing restrictions on federal lands and open more areas to more mining, drilling and logging. The administration's Healthy Forests Initiative, for instance, permits everything from controlled burns to commercial logging to thinning national forests.

The administration contends that by making logging and thinning easier on public lands, the forests will be healthier and less susceptible to devastating fires and insect attacks. "True to its name, the Healthy Forest Initiative is one of the largest ecological restoration programs enacted in years," says Connaughton.

But environmentalists like David Carr of the Southern Environmental Law Institute based in Charlottesville, Va., see the Bush initiative as a backdoor way of "letting timber companies run rampant in our national forests."

Just as upsetting to the environmentalists was the White House's announcement just before Christmas that it was opening Alaska's Tongass National Forest -- at 16.8 million acres, the nation's largest public forest, slightly larger than the state of West Virginia -- to logging and mining interests, despite more than 2 million public comments opposing the decision. The administration contends that logging will only occur in 3 percent of the Tongass.

Environmentalists, though, are not the only ones unhappy with Bush's land-use policies. Last week, a group of former National Park Service executives and rangers scolded him for allegedly failing to care for America's natural treasures.

The group, called the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, sent Bush a letter saying the U.S. Department of Interior, headed by Bush appointee Gale Norton, ignored the president's 2000 campaign promises to improve the natural health of the national parks, which many experts say have been deteriorating for decades.

Interior and the National Park Service, the coalition says, continue to "manage our national parks as if they were arbitrary parcels of public land available to be exploited for any purposes favored by corporate interests."

• Global warming. The administration urged the Senate to reject the 1997 Kyoto Treaty, in which 38 countries agreed to limit green house gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, to control global warming.

The preponderance of scientific evidence shows that the planet faces dire consequences -- from rising sea levels to die-offs of hundreds of species -- because of climate change from global warming, most of which is due to man-made causes such as burning fossil fuels.

Former Vice President Al Gore last week called Bush a "moral coward" in part, he said, because Bush is caving in to industry on global warming.

"The problem is that our world is now confronting a five-alarm fire that calls for bold moral and political leadership from the United States," Gore said.

Connaughton, the White House Council on Environmental Quality chairman, explained last week why the Senate voted 95-0 against the Kyoto framework. The green house emission reduction targets set for the United States, he said, would have caused "significant economic harm and a loss of million of jobs. Second, the treaty did not require meaningful participation by the world's developing countries, a number of which will experience rapid growth in coming decades."

He said the Bush administration is implementing a climate change strategy based on sound "science and advancing technologies."

Grudging praise

Despite their castigation of Bush's environmental record, environmentalists faintly praise a handful of his decisions: for backing tougher standards for diesel engines, for a plan to clean up PCBs in the Hudson River in New York; and for killing a proposal that would have weakened protection for millions of acres of wetlands.

Still, when stacked against Bush's actions to weaken environmental laws, he still deserves an "F," says the League of Conservation Voters' Callahan.

The league has endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president, the earliest presidential endorsement in the organization's 34-year history.

Environmentalists also are vilifying Bush for what he didn't say last week. During his 5,200-word State of the Union address, the word "environment" never crossed his lips.

"The president's views [on the environment] were made plain by the conspicuous absence of this issue from his speech," said Peter Cannavo, a professor of government at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. "Perhaps he considers the use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional athletes, to which he devoted a good chunk of his time, to be a more important issue than the state of the planet we inhabit."

Some see another omen.

Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, pointed out that the leading Democratic presidential candidates have not mounted a sharp attack thus far on Bush's environmental record.

Says Pope: "Bush apparently felt no need to defend himself, and he gave not a word to the subject."

I don't have a great many 'absolutes.' The natural environment is one of them. I do not know enough about the environment - I'm a silicon gate-oxide process engineer, not an ecologist, climatologist, nor any manner of environmental scientist. Therefore, I like most others have to rely on the work of others to form opinions. I have read the literature extensively, but am strictly an amateur at best. I am far more widely read than most concerning environmental issues, but a layperson I shall always remain.

I look at the environment this way. I am looking for a grant. I go to the NAS, and propose an experiment. (I'll keep it simple for brevity) My experiment is this: I would like funding to add 7 billion tons of carbon, in the form of CO₂ into the atmosphere per year for a one hundred year period.

Now, I am quite certain that I would not receive my funding, and that my proposed research would be ridiculed as both foolhardy, and potentially life threatening to many, if not most species on this planet.

Yet, this is precisely what we are doing with every moment of every day. We are in fact conducting my thought experiment - or a very close approximation of it.

I would expect to be subject to ridicule and possibly ostracized by my peers for proposing such a crazed experiment.

I do not know how much CO₂ the Earth's carbon sinks can process over an annual period. Putting additional loads on a system that appears balanced is absurd.

It is for this reason alone that I shall always put the environment at the very head of issues which face humanity. Wars end, recessions wane, but the environment is the home for us all. It is therefore, the issue of and for the ages.

We need to stress to our elected officials that all other issues, no matter how seemingly vexing, are of a fleeting nature, and that it is nature, that is our most urgent issue. Now, and for the foreseeable future.

Just a day after announcing that the U.S intends on launching a spring offensive against Qaeda and Taliban fugitives along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border comes this:

Pakistan Bans Anti-al-Qaida Operations

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan will not allow American troops to use its soil for a planned "spring offensive" against Taliban or al-Qaida fugitives, officials said Thursday.

Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, the chief of the National Crisis Management Cell coordinating with U.S. officials in the war against terrorism, said Pakistani policies do not allow American troops to operate inside the country.

U.S. officials in Washington said Wednesday the Defense Department was planning a new offensive amid concern that operations in Afghanistan are not as effective in breaking up terrorist networks as they had hoped. One official hinted that troops might extend operations to the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.

Cheema said he had not heard of the plan. U.S. forces used Pakistani bases and airspace during the campaign that led to the late 2001 ouster of the hard-line Taliban from power in Afghanistan, but Pakistan insisted it only provided logistic support.

"As a matter of fact they (the United States) have not contacted us for this purpose," he told The Associated Press.

Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants are believed to be hiding in the rugged border regions - possibly inside Pakistan. Also, the U.S.-backed Afghan government complains that resurgent Taliban rebels are operating from Pakistani territory and launching cross-border assaults. Much more at link

Read the article. There is more about tribal groups being sympathetic to the Taliban, and no doubt to al-Qaeda. It is very odd that we in the West think we know so much about the world, when we don't know squat about many cultures and customs.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan,

Seven U.S. troops killed in Afghan explosion

(CNN) --A weapons cache exploded Thursday in southeastern Afghanistan, killing seven U.S. soldiers and wounding three others and an interpreter, U.S. Central Command said.

Another soldier was listed as missing after the explosion, which occurred west of Ghazni. (Map)

"The soldiers were working around a weapons cache when the explosion occurred," a Central Command statement said.

The cause of the blast is under investigation.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban, which had provided haven for al Qaeda before the September 11, 2001, attacks.

About 8,500 Americans are among the 11,500 international troops that remain in Afghanistan.

Separately, 5,000 troops under NATO command act as peacekeepers in the capital, Kabul.

A senior Defense Department official said this week that the U.S. military is planning a spring offensive against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. (Full story)

Authorities have ordered troops, supplies and logistics into place to carry out the operation, the official said, without detailing whether the new offensive would require more troops. Link

I've been saying right along that Afghanistan is in real trouble.

I read Alterman's piece at CAP yesterday, and with my reacclimating myself with television, I somehow missed posting it. I did mean to. Honest, I did.

Alterman's got the 9/11 issue pretty much framed in this piece. I have to wonder, with his excellent Altercation Weblog, his column at The Nation, and his work for CAP, does this guy sleep? Oh, in addition he's an adjunct professor of Journalism at Columbia.

Without further ado, an excerpt:

..........But anyone who studies the record with any care will know that there were any number of moments when it would have been possible for a more alert administration to intervene in such a fashion as to interfere and quite possibly thwart the hijackers' purposes. Here are just a few:

• What if Bush's National Security Agency had translated on Sept. 10, 2001 - instead of Sept. 12 - disturbing Arabic intercepts that referred to phrases "tomorrow is the zero hour" and "the match is about to begin"?



• What if the FBI had acted on the Phoenix memo and aggressively investigated, and arrested potential terrorists and illegal aliens who were taking flight lessons for the purpose of hijacking?



• What if the CIA had received and acted upon the Minneapolis memo, and combined with the FBI to apply its vast knowledge of al Qaeda operations to break up the U.S.-based network of fliers?



• What if the FBI and CIA had not mysteriously decided to drop their investigations of the whereabouts of hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar who, following their return from an al Qaeda planning meeting, continued live and work under their own names in San Diego?



• What if Bush and Cheney had seized upon the recommendations of the Hart/Rudman Commission rather ignoring - and pretending to review - them?



• What if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had agreed to the Senate and House Armed Services committee?s request to reprogram $800 million from missile defense to terrorism protection?



• What if Bush?s National Security Council had carefully studied the evolution of terrorist threats: to hide bombs on 12 U.S.-bound airliners and crash an explosive-laden airline into the CIA; to crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, CIA or the White House; and crash a plane into the Eiffel Tower or to the Genoan castle where Western leaders met in spring 2001?



• What if the same NSC had taken seriously the recommendations of Clinton counterterrorism chief Richard C. Clarke to institute an aggressive program in order to: attack the financial network that supported the terrorists, freezing its assets and exposing its phony charities, and arrest their personnel; offer help to such disparate nations as Uzbekistan, the Philippines and Yemen to combat al Qaeda forces; increase U.S. support for the Northern Alliance in their fight to overthrow the Taliban's repressive regime; and institute special operations inside Afghanistan and bombing strikes against terrorist training camps?



• What if the Bush Treasury Department had taken a less indulgent view of the kind of money-laundering operations that support terrorist networks and worked with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to try to curb it?



• What if Secretary Rumsfeld had green-lighted the use of the CIA's Predator surveillance plane over Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, armed with Hellfire missiles?



• What if Attorney General John Ashcroft had taken the initiative in speeding up the FBI request to add 149 field agents, 200 analysts and 54 translators to its counterterrorism effort, instead of vetoing it entirely to focus on his higher priorities?



• What if Attorney General Ashcroft, instead of simply deciding not to fly commercial like the rest of us, persuaded the administration to institute an emergency program to improve airport security to prevent hijackers from reaching their targeted weapons?

The administration and its allies rule all such questions out of order, going to extraordinary lengths to ensure they don't enjoy any political traction. When the issue was first raised, back in 2002, Vice President Cheney termed all suggestions "incendiary," and "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war," Even the usually apolitical Laura Bush got into the act by calling the questions about what the administration might have done as an attempt to "prey upon the emotions of people." But Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), former chairman of the Senate intelligence panel and co-chairman of the inquiry, had a different answer. "The attacks of Sept. 11 could have been prevented if the right combination of skill, cooperation, creativity and some good luck had been brought to task." Much more at link

Valid questions all, and we need to ensure that the 9/11 commission has the time and resources to fully investigate why none of the above were done.

pure bs addition to yesterday's Kay testimony: CNN has now posted the transcript.

Another thing. Last night, on Ted Koppel's show Nightline, he stated twice that, Saddam Hussein kicked the inspectors out of Iraq. I'd put quotation marks around that, but I was dozing off as he blathered this demonstrably false divel. We know that the inspectors were pulled by the UN on both occassions. In 1998, and again in 2003. Koppel is guilty of either not knowing the facts, and repeating a scripted RNC line, or he simply lied. We're here to set the record straight.

Ten Links of Interest Returns!

The first three are all related.

A riddle: What is/are the Nexus(Nexii?) beween Kofi Annan, China and France? I thought it was satire when I first read it. For the intriguing answer(s) see the following:

Straight outta the UN

The French Connection Redux

and finally,

Peter Lee's take on all this

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

The Routed Taliban take credit for two deadly car bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan, underscoring just how routed they are.

SCIENCE!

New Scientist reports Maternal diet linked to offspring's longevity A snip:

Minor manipulations of a mother's diet can hugely affect the lifespan of her children, suggests a new study of mice.

"At the two extremes we looked at, the dietary changes increased the difference in lifespan by more than 50 per cent," says Susan Ozanne, who performed the research with Nicholas Hales at Cambridge University, UK.

I'm glad that I'm not a mouse. Honest!

VOA reports that Spirit is on the hunt for Martian Water! Multimedia at link.

MyDoom Variant Appeared Today

Must read piece about Bush and the gutting of Environmental Standards

From a Major U.S. news outlet(CBS) comes Doing Business with the Enemy It's a small expose about U.S. corporations that do business with countries known to fund/harbor terrorists. I don't know that any countries supply anything to any terrorists. I'm at the mercy of the media to tell me the story. Pretty much like everyone else.

As reality closes in, Bush balks on WMD claims

*******************************************

Those are tonight's ten. :) I'm going to have a pizza.

In honor of David Kay sorta coming clean in the Senate today, I offer you this partial list compiled by Republicons.org

Republicons.org

1/2/2004

The Bush Trinity: Consumerism, Secrecy and Jesus Christ a compendium of the finest in alternative journalism more...
Following is a brief selection of just some of the "distortions" of the Bush administration preceding the invasion of Iraq.

George W Bush on March 19th

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

"[The regime of Saddam Hussein] has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al-Qaeda."

"The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other."

"Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed." (tecnically, today WE did ;) )

Bush March 6th

"Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents to avoid detection by inspectors. In some cases, these materials have been moved to different locations every 12 to 24 hours or placed in vehicles that are in residential neighborhoods."

Hans Blix March 7th

"[I]ntelligence authorities have claimed that weapons of mass destruction are moved around Iraq by trucks and, in particular, that there are mobile production units for biological weapons... Several inspections have taken place at declared and undeclared sites in relation to mobile production facilities. Food testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops have been seen, as well as large containers with seed processing equipment. No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found."

Bush March 6th

"In New York tomorrow, the United Nations Security Council will receive an update from the chief weapons inspector. The world needs him to answer a single question: Has the Iraqi regime fully and unconditionally disarmed as required by Resolution 1441 or has it not?"

Blix March 7th

"Against this background, the question is now asked whether Iraq has cooperated ‘immediately, unconditionally and actively’ with UNMOVIC, as required under paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002). The answers can be seen from the factual descriptions I have provided. However, if more direct answers are desired, I would say the following:

"The Iraqi side has tried on occasion to attach conditions, as it did regarding helicopters and U-2 planes. Iraq has not, however, so far persisted in these or other conditions for the exercise of any of our inspection rights. If it did, we would report it.

"It is obvious that, while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as ‘active’, or even ‘proactive’, these initiatives 3-4 months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute ‘immediate’ cooperation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance. They are nevertheless welcome and UNMOVIC is responding to them in the hope of solving presently unresolved disarmament issues."

Bush March 6th

"We will help that nation to build a just government after decades of brutal dictatorship. The form and leadership of that government is for the Iraqi people to choose."

Bush February 6th

"The Iraqi regime has actively and secretly attempted to obtain equipment needed to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

"Firsthand witnesses have informed us that Iraq has at least seven mobile factories for the production of biological agents, equipment mounted on trucks and rails to evade discovery. Using these factories, Iraq could produce within just months hundreds of pounds of biological poisons."

"The Iraqi regime has acquired and tested the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction."

Colin Powell February 5th

"Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed.

"Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher."

Naji Sabri, Former Iraqi Foreign Minister September 16, 2002

"The Government of the Republic of Iraq has based its decision concerning the return of inspectors on its desire to complete the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and to remove any doubts that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction. This decision is also based on your statement to the General Assembly on 12 September 2002 that the decision by the Government of the Republic of Iraq is the indispensable first step towards an assurance that Iraq no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction."

There is much more at Republicons.org Check 'em out.

Fear and loathing in Houston. MSNBC is reporting the obvious: Security will be tight for the Superbowl

If a terrorist was going to attack in a spetacular manner, ala 9/11, then the extra security might actually prove its mettle.

If a terrorist, or terrorists were to perform an insidious attack, then all this extra security would be for naught. This is all to calm any jittery fans, it would not hinder in the least a chem, bio, or even a common bombing - provided that the bomb casing(s) were made of a non-metallic material.

We are at the mercy of the terrorists. That is the message out government wishes to convey. With a background alert color of yellow(elevated), the government has condittioned much of the populcae to be fearful. This is the only explanation for GWB's apparent popularity. He's the dry drunk dad that'll beat those bad children should they act out.

If anyone can effectively move the dialogue away from a faux national security, towards what our TRUE threats are, Bush has nothing. NOTHING.

I'd say he has nothing at present. The attack occurred under his watch, and depending on what the 9/11 Commission is able to uncover, he may have a lot of explaining to do.

The NYT article Contains this nugget:

"The White House confirmed news reports last year that an Oval Office intelligence summary presented to Mr. Bush shortly before the attacks suggested that terrorists might be planning an attack using passenger planes."

Of course the GOP is accusing the Democrats of playing politics. This is not a political issue. It is one of responsibility and of getting to the truth about any and all items that have any bearing pre 9/11, or post for that matter.

The Commission must be allowed all the time it needs to do a thorough job. If the Bush administration has an issue with that, it should have released the materials when the Commission first requested them. Someone IS playing politics, but it is not the Democrats.

From KR Washington Bureau comes this:

Iraqi whispers mull repeat of 1920s revolt over Western occupation

A snippet:

..Whispers of "revolution" are growing louder in Baghdad this month at teahouses, public protests and tribal meetings as Iraqis point to the past as an omen for the future.

Iraqis remember 1920 as one of the most glorious moments in modern history, one followed by nearly eight decades of tumult. The bloody rebellion against British rule that year is memorialized in schoolbooks, monuments and mass-produced tapestries that hang in living rooms.

Ominous, no?

More:

"We are now under occupation, and the best treatment for a wound is sometimes fire," said Najah al Najafi, a Shiite cleric who joined thousands of marchers at a recent demonstration where construction workers, tribal leaders and religious scholars spoke of 1920.

The rebellion against the British marked the first time that Sunni and Shiite Muslims worked in solidarity, drawing power from tribesmen and city dwellers alike. Though Shiites, Sunnis and ethnic minorities are rivals in the new Iraq, many residents said the recent call for elections could draw disparate groups together. A smattering of Sunnis joined massive Shiite protests last week, demanding that U.S. administrators grant the wishes of the highest Shiite cleric for general elections.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani has been unbending in his demand for direct elections instead of U.S. plans to select a new government through caucuses. At the request of L. Paul Bremer, the American envoy to Iraq, and several members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, the United Nations is sending a team to Iraq to study the feasibility of holding elections in time for the transition of power this summer.

Sistani's representatives expect widespread civil disobedience and violence if elections are deemed impossible.

"They know what will happen if they do not listen to us," said Sabah al Khazali, a religious scholar who joined last week's demonstrations. "They know this is a warning."

The historic rebellion has broad resonance. A band of anti-American insurgents has named itself the "1920 Revolution Brigades," and Sistani himself, in a newspaper advertisement this month, asked Iraq's influential tribes to remember that year.

"We want you to be revolutionaries ... you should have a big role today, as you had in the revolution in 1920," the ad said.

Still more:

To many Iraqis, today's U.S. occupation reads like an old play with modern characters: America as the new Britain, grenade-lobbing insurgents as the new opposition, and Ahmad Chalabi and other former exiles on the Governing Council as the new kings.

"We've sacrificed many martyrs and we would do it again," said Sheik Khamis al Suhail, the secretary of the tribal council. "In 1920, we faced a struggle between Muslims and non-Muslims in Iraq. We are living under basically the same conditions now, and revolution is certainly possible."

Iraqi Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the country's population of 26 million, look to Sistani for leadership.

"If Sistani called for revolution, I would sacrifice my life for the good of my country," said Hamdiya al Niemi, a 27-year-old street vendor whose father raised her on stories of the 1920 uprising. "My father was so proud talking about that time, how we kicked out the British and how we should never allow foreigners to rule our land."

The al Hamdani tribe, with thousands of members across Iraq, provided key organizers of the 1920 revolt. These days, the family name is linked to the cream-filled confections sold at the popular al Hamdani pastry shops throughout Baghdad.

Yaser al Hamdani, a 28-year-old tribe member whose great-uncle fought in the revolution, said he'd give up his job in the steaming bakery for a rebellion.

"Of course I would join," Hamdani said. "There would be bloodshed along the way, but sacrifice is important for success." Much more at link

I've been writing about this for months. No people likes to be occupied. I have always been of the opinion that the Iraqi resistance is primarily made up of common Iraqis with a grudge. Sure they're happy Saddam is gone in many respects, but now they see that they have a new master, and their new master doesn't provide for them. Hell, you'd be pissed as well.

The NH primary was something of a warning sign for GW Bush. In the primary, amongst Republican voters, a full 13% voted for someone else. Obviously, we Granite Staters have issues with the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It is also noteworthy that NH Democrats turned out in record numbers. This may bode well for the November general election.

That AP has a bit of color:

Record number of Dems turn out for presidential primary

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A fiercely contested seven-way race lured a record number of voters to the polls in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary.

With 100 percent of precincts counted, 219,246 Democratic ballots had been cast, shattering the mark of 170,000 set in 1992, when Paul Tsongas beat Bill Clinton.

Overall turnout did not set a record because the Republican primary, in which 62,927 ballots were cast, essentially was uncontested.

Secretary of State William Gardner had predicted 184,000 votes in the Democratic primary, about one third of them independents. Independents may vote in either primary.

A combined 395,000 votes were cast in 2000 in the Democratic and Republican primaries, both of which were contested.

The combined vote total Tuesday was 282,173, with 100 percent of precincts counted on both sides.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Link at top of entry.

Full primary numbers here

More Kay.

Now that I'm back on as a television watcher..selectively, of course, I watched David Kay's testimony(?) before the Senate today.

In an almost painful to watch successful bid to remain neutral, Kay didn't lay blame on the Administration.

He suggested that an independent outside inquiry be formed to analyse intelligence failures.

From the segment I saw...the testimony was already in progress when I tuned in, no one on the Senate Armed Services Committee asked about Messrs. Powell and Rice. This is a glaring omission.

Secretary Powell on 24 February 2001 during a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister, Amre Moussa:

We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq...

What changed Powell's mind? Ambien? This question may never be answered. But it should, as thousands are now dead, and hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent over his flip-flop.

But Powell wasn't the only White House official that made a declaration that Iraq was weapons free.

On 29 July 2001, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made the following statements on CNN'S Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. In response to the question raised by guest host John King about the fact that Iraq had recently fired on US planes enforcing the "no-fly zones" in Iraq. Rice craftily responds:

Well, the president has made very clear that he considers Saddam Hussein to be a threat to his neighbors, a threat to security in the region, in fact a threat to international security more broadly.

It is noteworthy that she states that, "the president" considers Hussein a threat, not herself, not the U.S. intelligence community. Striking. King asks her about the UN sanctions, which, less face it, were really U.S. sanctions and she responds:

But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

These statements need to be examined. Why is it that Bush considers Hussein a threat, when neither his Secretary of State, nor his National Security Adviser consider Iraq to be a threat.

I do not believe that we'll ever get acceptable answers to these very basic, and vitally important questions. Even an independent investigation may never ask these questions.

I simply want to know what caused both Powell and Rice to alter their stated position concerning Iraq. I believe that I know the answers, but I'll leave speculation to other commentators.

On Edit: You can watch David Kay's appearance before the Senate here

Oh. This is going to hurt.

Kay Says Evidence Shows Iraq Disarmed
Action Done in '90s, Ex-Inspector Notes

By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers

U.S. weapons inspectors in Iraq found new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime quietly destroyed some stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons in the mid-1990s, former chief inspector David Kay said yesterday.

The discovery means that inspectors have not only failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but also have found exculpatory information -- contemporaneous documents and confirmations from interviews with Iraqis -- demonstrating that Saddam Hussein did make efforts to disarm well before President Bush began making the case for war.

The fact that Iraq disarmed at least partially before 1998 but did not turn over records to U.N. inspectors even when threatened with war has led Kay to conclude that Hussein was bluffing about his weapons capability to maintain an aura of power.

Kay, who will testify this morning before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview yesterday that inspectors recovered only partial records detailing the destruction of some of Iraq's forbidden weapons. But he said that while the full truth may not be known for years, if ever, that ambiguity should not be used to delay an examination of why the allegations about Hussein's weapons were wrong.

"If the weapons programs existed on the scale we anticipated," Kay said, "we would have found something that leads to that conclusion. Instead, we found other evidence that points to something else." Kay reiterated his view that 85 percent of the Iraq Survey Group's job has been completed and that "the major pieces of the puzzle" have been covered.

"We will be digging up smaller pieces for the next 15 years, but we should not wait for every piece and not be able to begin to reconstruct what happened," he said. Kay added that he is "afraid that ambiguity would be used as a delaying function by some people to delay trying to find out what went wrong."

Kay's revelation that Iraq had documented the destruction of its weapons is the most recent of several disclosures he has made, since his resignation Friday as special adviser to CIA Director George J. Tenet, that have put the White House on the defensive. Kay's statements have also enlivened the Democratic presidential race and caused a wave of recriminations from the CIA and on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are demanding a probe to determine whether the administration or the intelligence services are to blame for what has turned out to be false accusations about Iraq's weapons programs.

Bush, fielding numerous questions in the Oval Office based on Kay's earlier assertion that there are no weapons stockpiles in Iraq, said yesterday that it is premature to form judgments. "I think it's very important for us to let the Iraq Survey Group do its work so we can find out the facts and compare the facts to what was thought."

Though he did not repeat his earlier statements that forbidden weapons may yet be found in Iraq, Bush said: "I said in the run-up that Saddam was a grave and gathering danger -- that's what I said. And I believed it then, and I know it was true now. And as Mr. Kay said, that Iraq was a dangerous place."

In a private meeting between Bush and congressional leaders, Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) told Bush it is important to determine what went wrong to produce the flawed prewar weapons charges. Democratic sources said that prompted a testy exchange between Bush and Daschle.

In his interview with The Post, as in his other interviews, Kay put the blame for the flawed weapons charges on the intelligence community, not on the Bush administration. Both the CIA and opposition Democrats -- in Congress and on the campaign trail -- took issue with that position.

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean blamed the White House for the false accusations. "I think the biggest problem with David Kay's resignation is that the vice president evidently went to the CIA and influenced the writing of intelligence reports," he said in a radio interview. "In other words, the administration did cook the books."

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) said: "We were told by the administration 'they [the Iraqis] have a 45-minute capacity to deploy weapons of mass destruction.' They didn't. We were told that they had aerial devices that could spread these weapons over our troops. They didn't."

Kay's criticism of the quality of prewar intelligence has angered members of the intelligence community. He called U.S. intelligence "inaccurate" Monday on NBC, adding, "We need to understand why that was."

Yesterday, Kay broadened his statement: "Everyone was wrong. Outside experts like myself and other intelligence agencies . . . including the Germans and French believed he [Hussein] had weapons."

U.S. officials criticized Kay for saying that 85 percent of the work was done. One official noted that on November 2, in criticizing a story in The Washington Post, Kay said: "We have much work left to do before any conclusions can be reached on the state of possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program efforts." Another official familiar with the work of the Iraq Survey Group said that there are millions of pages of documents still to be translated from Arabic, that detainees and scientists need to be questioned, and that the review of weapons sites is ongoing.

In the interview yesterday, Kay said the ISG had found some "contemporary documents" that proved Iraq destroyed weapons in the mid-1990s -- steps that were not reported to U.N. inspectors.

Senior Iraqi scientists interviewed by Kay admitted hiding their chemical and biological weapons programs in the early 1990s. In 1995, however, Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamal, who directed the illegal weapons programs, defected. At about that time, the scientists said they tried unsuccessfully to convince U.N. inspectors that they had destroyed their weapons and agents. They tried to "come clean, but we wouldn't believe them," Kay said.

Kay said the Iraqi scientists did not have complete records to back up their claims because the destruction had taken place under pressure to keep it secret from U.N. inspectors. In addition to documents, Kay said, ISG members interviewed people who confirmed some of the destruction, but far from all of it. "That will be impossible, and there will always be some doubts," Kay said.

Kay said he believes Hussein may have been pursuing a course of "constructive ambiguity" before the war, bluffing about having weapons to give the illusion of power and to put up a deterrent. "Saddam wanted to enjoy the benefits of having chemical and biological weapons without having to pay the costs," Kay said.

The retired chief weapons inspector said he has been somewhat surprised by the reaction to his conclusions in recent days. "I thought I was not saying anything more than the obvious," he said.

In response to the Kay revelations, White House officials and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said yesterday that they never claimed that Hussein represented an "imminent" threat.

"I think some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent,' " White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "Those were not words we used. We used 'grave and gathering threat.' "

Though Bush did not use the word "imminent," he said in a major speech in October 2002 that waiting to confront Hussein was "the riskiest of all options." The United States, he said, "must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. . . . we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring."

More critical information about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons program is expected to emerge from a report to be released today in London by a senior British judge who investigated the suicide of a scientist who had leaked information about the Blair government's white paper on Iraq. The report is expected to examine the claim that Iraq could prepare to launch its chemical weapons within 45 minutes, a charge Bush had echoed. Link

Okay. One last O'Neill.

O'Neill says he regrets that "the vivid language has gotten a lot of attention." He said his goal in cooperating with Suskind on the book project was to paint a picture for young people of how government really operates.

"I hope this book will cause young people to aspire to improve our political process," he said. "For me, the reason for doing this book in the first place was to provide an opportunity for young people to have a deeper understanding of what goes on inside of government and to ask more of their political leaders."

link

I hope so too.

A good read.

Baghdad is Bush's blue dress

Robert Scheer - Creators Syndicate

01.27.04 - Now, can we talk of impeachment? The rueful admission by former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction or the means to create them at the time of the U.S. invasion confirms the fact that the Bush administration is complicit in arguably the greatest scandal in U.S. history. It's only because the Republicans control both houses of Congress that we hear no calls for a broad-ranging investigation of the type that led to the discovery of Monica Lewinsky's infamous blue dress.

In no previous instance of presidential malfeasance was so much at stake, both in preserving constitutional safeguards and national security. This egregious deception in leading us to war on phony intelligence overshadows those scandals based on greed, such as Teapot Dome during the Harding administration, or those aimed at political opponents, such as Watergate. And the White House continues to dig itself deeper into a hole by denying reality even as its lieutenants one by one find the courage to speak the truth.

A year after using his 2003 State of the Union address to paint Iraq's allegedly vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction as a grave threat to the U.S. and the world, Bush spent this month's State of the Union defending the war because "had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day." Bush said officials were still "seeking all the facts" about Iraq's weapons programs but noted that weapons searchers had already identified "dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

Vice President Dick Cheney, in interviews with USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, echoed this fudging -- last year's "weapons" are now called "programs" -- declaring that "the jury's still out" on whether Iraq had WMDs and, "I am a long way at this stage from concluding that somehow there was some fundamental flaw in our intelligence."

Yet three days after the State of the Union address, Kay quit and then began telling the world what the administration had denied since taking over the White House: That Hussein's regime was but a weak shadow of the military force it had been at the time of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, that he believed it had no significant chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs or stockpiles in place, and that the United Nations inspections and allied bombing in the '90s had been more effective at eroding the remnants of these programs than critics had thought.

"I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction," Kay told the New York Times. "We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on. I think they gradually reduced stockpiles throughout the 1990s. Somewhere in the mid-1990s the large chemical overhang of existing stockpiles was eliminated. ... The Iraqis say they believed that [the U.N. inspection program] was more effective [than U.S. analysts believed], and they didn't want to get caught."

The maddening aspect of all this is that we haven't needed Kay to set the record straight. The administration's systematic abuse of the facts, including the fraudulent link of Hussein to 9/11, has been obvious for two years. That's why 23 former U.S. intelligence experts -- including several who quit in disgust -- have been willing to speak out in Robert Greenwald's shocking documentary "Uncovered." The story they tell is one of an administration that went to war for reasons that smack of empire-building, then constructed a false reality to sell it to the American people. Is that not an impeachable offense?

After all, the president misled Congress into approving his preemptive war on the grounds that our very survival as a nation was threatened by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. We were told that if we hesitated, allowing the U.N. inspectors who were in Iraq to keep working, a mushroom cloud over New York, to use Condoleezza Rice's imagery, might well be our dark reward.

Now that Kay -- who, it should be remembered, once defended the war and dismissed the work of the U.N. inspectors -- has had $900 million and at least 1,200 weapons inspectors to discover what many in the CIA and elsewhere had been telling us all along, are there to be no real repercussions for such devastating official deceit?

(c) 2004 Creators Syndicate

There are a half-dozen blue dresses that would, in a working democracy, get these people unemployed. Quickly. The GOP is full of such hypocrites. Bush's lies rise to a level that is absurd. He is either delusional, and should be impeached, or is a serial liar, and should be impeached.

Damn Sad

I just actually watched television for the first time since May 2003. I guess I have ended my TV fast.

I watched a bit of CNN, and although I could not hear Mr. Bush speaking, he had that "deer in the headlights" look about him. It was quite illuminating. He was defendeing his indefensible invasion of Iraq. This man deserves to go down in history as an utter faliure as a president.

"Highlights"

11:54am 01/27/04 BUSH: U.S. HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO MOVE AGAINST SADDAM

11:51am 01/27/04 BUSH: NO DOUBT SADDAM WAS A "GATHERING THREAT"

11:52am 01/27/04 BUSH: WORLD IS SAFER WITHOUT SADDAM

11:50am 01/27/04 BUSH: HAS "GREAT CONFIDENCE" IN U.S. INTELLIGENCE

There you have it. Bush is delusional. If this wasn't so serious, it would be laughable. Lying to the American people is unacceptable. Repeating those lies ought to be grounds for impeachment.

I just got back from doing my civic duty. Vote early and vote often.

Here's a glaring difference between the U.S. and the UK. Bush is all worried about what his scientifically challenged base, and by all accounts, himself, are thinking about 'stem cell' research. I wonder what percentage of them even know what the potential of embryonic stem cell research is...I'm going with less than 5%. Meanwhile, the UK, as reported by BioMed Central is pledging EXTRA cash for pure research and development. The UK has no nonsensical limitations against the use of embryonic stem cell research.

It looks like Kay has come clean....mostly. this Reuter's piece has the color.

So, Bush lied. That's hardly news. What my cranium can't comprehend is this snippet in the above linked article:

Kay's conclusions come just as Bush begins his re-election year but some political analysts doubt he will suffer much politically since Saddam Hussein has been toppled and captured.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but did we go war to 'topple and capture' Saddam Hussein? No. We went to war because the Bush administration told us that Iraq had all these bad things.

How many thousand Iraqis dead? How many Western forces dead? In a functioning democracy Mr. Bush would certainly be frogmarched out of office, and into a courtroom.

This is a freakin' comedy.

Kind of a cool thing.

Justine has a brand new blog.....needs CSS work :) and she asked me if she could repost my rebuttal, rant, refutation? of Bush's SOTU Address. I don't think it's very good, but I'm no critic :P

Anyhow, a Huge Thank YOU to Justine at Bush's Brain

Once my macrocephalia dies out a bit I'll post stuff.

From the pure bs bureau of, 'Onerous Post 9/11 Policies', comes this:

Supreme Court reaffirms Miranda ruling

GINA HOLLAND
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday that police must tell indicted people of their rights before starting interrogations.

Justices ruled 9-0 in favor of a Nebraska man who claimed he was tricked into talking to officers who came to his house to arrest him on drug charges.

The decision relieved civil liberties groups, which worried that the court was poised to roll back some of the protections in its landmark 1966 Miranda ruling which led to the familiar refrain beginning "You have the right to remain silent."

The American Bar Association was among groups that urged the court to clarify that people facing charges must be told they have a right to see an attorney.

The ruling will discourage officers from trying to elicit confessions from off-guard suspects facing charges.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority, said that the officers violated John J. Fellers' constitutional rights by deliberately eliciting information during a 15-minute interview in his home, without telling him he could see an attorney.

Monday's decision was the first of four Miranda rulings expected from the Supreme Court this year. More at Link

YAY!! One for civil liberties. 9-0 a rout. This is very good news indeed.

Last entry of the evening.

The 9/11 commission meets tomorrow and Tuesday. Kean has already hinted that Bush and Clinton may be called as witnesses.

The Administration seems to have something very embarrassing to hide. After all, the attack took place under Bush's watch. That fact cannot be altered.

For those that lost family members, this group must be allowed all the time, and all the access it needs. Of course the commission members must ASK for more time, but Kean seemed to want to this correctly.."get history right' I believe he said.

Salon has a piece out and the Minneapolis Star Tribune has a decent editorial regarding the commission and some background on the White House's stonewalling. I'm seeking permission to reprint it. I should know by mid morning.

This is being politicized, but it should not be. The commission should be able to say, "I need X, Y and Z." and the White House should say, "you've got it." Of course, like everything having to do with this Administration, it hasn't worked out so tidily.

Colin "what weapons?" Powell backtracks on weapons claims. Technically, he's just restating his position prior to 9/11 as found here , with a bit of a twist.

The BBC:

Powell casts doubt on Iraq WMDs

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has conceded that Iraq may not have possessed any stocks of weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.

His comments came after the former head of the US weapons inspection team, David Kay, said he did not believe there were any weapons stockpiles.

Mr Powell was speaking on his way to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Less than a year ago, Mr Powell warned the United Nations Security Council about the danger from Iraq's weapons.


In the run-up to the US-led war against Iraq, he gave a presentation to the Security Council, in which he asserted that Saddam Hussein had amassed secret weapons of mass destruction.

He said then that he believed Iraq possessed, among other things, between 100 and 500 tonnes of chemical weapons agents.

But in his latest remarks, he told reporters travelling with him that it was an "open question" whether Iraq had any stocks of weapons of mass destruction at all.

"The answer to that question is, we don't know yet," Mr Powell said on his way to attend the inauguration on Sunday of the new Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili.

'No stockpiles'

On Friday, Mr Kay, who had led the US hunt for weapons in Iraq, resigned.

He told Reuters news agency he did not believe there had been large-scale production of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.

"I don't think they existed," Mr Kay said.

"What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production programme in the 90s."

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said he still believed the intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein's regime was developing weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify committing British troops to the war.

"I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation," he told the Observer newspaper in remarks published on Sunday but made before Mr Kay's statement.

"I have absolutely no doubt at all in my mind that the intelligence was genuine," Mr Blair added.

Responding to questions about Mr Kay's comments, Mr Powell said it was for the weapons inspectors still in Iraq to decide if there were any weapons stocks or not, where they had gone if they had existed, and, if there were ever any weapons, why that was not known before the war.

Mr Powell acknowledged that the US thought Saddam Hussein had illegal weapons, but added: "We had questions that needed to be answered.

"What was it?" he asked. "One hundred tonnes, 500 tonnes or zero tonnes? Was it so many litres of anthrax, 10 times that amount or nothing?"

Backtracking

The BBC's Jon Leyne, who is travelling with Mr Powell, says the secretary of state has made a significant concession on the weapons issue.

He says Mr Powell's language was very different from that of Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said just two days ago that it was too early to pass judgement on whether weapons of mass destruction existed.

Our correspondent says that with members of the Bush administration steadily backtracking from their earlier claims, the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction could have a very uncertain future once sovereignty is handed back to the Iraqis at the end of June.

Mr Kay has been replaced by Charles Duelfer, a 51-year-old former UN weapons inspector, who said he would not "pre-judge" the investigation despite previously saying that he did not believe banned weapons would be found. link

So, everybody's playing musical chairs over this one. Bush should really come clean on this one issue. Then I wouldn't be so hard on the guy. Well, yes I would. I'd just stick to all the other issues.

There may be hope for American democracy yet.

I am breaking my promise of 'No political entries until after the primary," which is Tuesday for us New Hampshirites. I think Kerry is going to sew this thing up if he continues to poll like the below versus Bush.

From Reuters, via Newsweek:

Newsweek National Poll Puts Kerry Over Bush

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new national poll by Newsweek magazine showed on Sunday the surging Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts topping President Bush in an election matchup.

The poll, conducted Jan. 22-23, showed Kerry commanding 30 percent of support from registered Democrats, up from 11 percent two weeks ago. And for first time in the poll's history a Democrat enjoyed a marginal advantage over Bush, with Kerry garnering a 3-point lead over the president, Newsweek said.

Forty-nine percent of registered voters chose Kerry, compared to 46 percent favoring Bush.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the Democratic front-runner until his dismal third-place showing in last week's Iowa caucuses, saw his support among registered and likely Democratic voters cut in half, to 12 percent.

That put Dean in a three-way tie for second place in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary with retired Gen. Wesley Clark, 12 percent, and U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, with 13 percent.

Bush saw his approval rating drop among registered voters to 50 percent versus 44 percent who disapprove, despite his having delivered a State of the Union address last Tuesday.

And more people said they were dissatisfied, 52 percent, than satisfied, 43 percent, with the way things were going in the United States, the poll said.

The Princeton Survey Research Associates poll interviewed 1,006 adults by telephone. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

L I N K

I'm not surprised at all by this. Kerry does have weaknesses, but compared to Bush they seem hardly worthy of note.

By the way, I won't be voting for Kerry on Tuesday. I do agree with his current stand on most issues, and one can hardly fault a non-scientist for their votes on the Iraq war issue. The administration laid out a pretty convincing case for the non-scientist.

I think he'll make a strong candidate.

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On edit: This is particularly interesting since Bush just delivered his SOTU address in the past week. This typically gives the resident of the oval office a short term bounce. I suppose that it may have, in which case the margin will grow larger in a very short time. I guess people aren't buying his particular brand of bs any longer.

OH YEAH!

Thanks to the almost 3000 visitors to the site over the past month, and thanks for all the words of encouragement. THANKS!!

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How many GIs have died in Iraq over the past few days? 10? 20? I'm really angry. It's not just American lives, it's Iraqis as well. All human life has equal value. We are over there for reasons we may never know.

All that we can be certain of at this point is that we, Congress, and the world, were lied to in order for GWB to have his little war.