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Third Quarter of 2002 July 2002 ... August 2002 ... September 2002 |
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7/04/02 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0704-01.htm (070402a) Published on Thursday, July 4, 2002 in the San Francisco Chronicle Story Changes on Bush Stock Sale Past business deal haunts president as he plans Wall Street speech by Zachary Coile WASHINGTON -- The White House said a "clerical mistake" by lawyers was to blame for President Bush's failure to disclose an $848,560 stock sale in a timely fashion, as required by federal law, when he was on the board of directors of a Texas oil company in 1990. But the statement by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer Wednesday raised new questions about the lucrative stock sale because Bush had previously given a different explanation: that he had filed the required disclosure forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but government regulators lost the paperwork. The new focus on the decade-old stock transaction -- which White House aides contended was orchestrated by Bush's opponents -- comes as the president prepares to give a major speech Tuesday on Wall Street on corporate accountability.
7/07/02a http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0207/S00033.htm (070702a) Investigator Who Cleared Bush Gets WorldCom Job Thursday, 4 July 2002, 3:07 p.m. Article: Alastair Thompson A former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman appointed court monitor of WorldCom Inc. on Wednesday was previously responsible for clearing U.S. President George W. Bush of insider trading concerning his involvement in Harken Energy during the lead up to the 1991 Gulf War And now it seems more than ironic that a man appointed by George Bush Senior as the SEC chairman, and who cleared George Bush of any impropriety over Harken (in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary) has now been appointed to oversee the largest corporate fraud in US history. 7/07/02 http://www.debka.com (new link: http://www.chabad.nu/images/hadayat.pdf (070702b)) July 6, 2002 DEBKAfile Counter-Terror Sources: Hadayat Belonged to Egyptian Jihad, al Qaeda‚s Operational Arm 5 July: Hashem Mohamed Hadayat, 41, who gunned down Yakov Aminov, 46, and Vicky Hen, 25 both from Los Angeles - on the 4th of July at the El Al terminal of Los Angeles, and wounded 7 others, is revealed DEBKAfile‚s intelligence and counter-terror sources as a Muslim extremist. During his ten years in the United States, he was a secret operative of the Egyptian Jihad who maintained undercover links to the same Jihad cell in Brooklyn, New York, as the "blind sheik" Abdul Rahim Rahman and Ramzi Yousef. Both are doing time for perpetrating the first attack on the New York World Trade Center in 1993. Hadayat is also believed to have abetted a previous, contrived airline disaster: On October 31,1999, an Egyptair Boeing 767 Flight 990, which also took off from Los Angeles airport for Kennedy, New York. After Kennedy, the plane bound for Cairo plunged into the Atlantic off the Nantucket Island, Mass. coast, killing all 217 passengers and crew. In a special probe, the US National Transportation Safety Board found that the copilot Gameel el-Batouty was at the controls when the plane went into its dive. His voice was recorded shouting, "I put my faith in Allah" The report held back from referring more directly to the Egyptian copilot‚s responsibility for the crash. Our sources affirm that Hadayat, who lived in Irvine, California, 70 km south of Los Angeles, knew Batouty well. There are also indications that, in the years 1998 and 1999, Hadayat was in touch with a group of high Egyptian air force officers and helicopter pilots posted at the time at Edwards Base north of Los Angeles. They were there to learn how to install command and control centers in Egypt's air defense systems, operate anti-air missile batteries and fly Apache gun ships. Most of those officers were on the doomed Egyptian airliner after completing their courses. Although the long-delayed US Transportation Board report never referred to the presence of this high-ranking Egyptian air force delegation on the flight, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak exerted all his influence on President Clinton to keep the federal board's findings out of its published report and, above all, the fact that a group of Egyptian air force officers was on the plane. He warned that citing he Egyptian copilot as deliberately causing the crash would have a negative effect on Egyptian-US relations.
7/08/02a http://www.thedailyenron.com/documents/20020708112729-14599.asp (new lin: http://think.100acrewood.net/DubyaFiles/family.asp (070802a)) SEC Harken Investigation Under Fire Time to Exhume the Body? SEC Harken Investigation Questioned Long believed safely buried a decade ago, President Bush's Harken Energy stock deals now threaten to implicate the President in the very corporate misbehavior he was planning to criticize in a major policy address tomorrow.
7/11/02 Just in case you thought we'd ignored poor Mr. Cheney... http://www.eastasiacenter.net/stevenmendoza/2004/04/17 (071102a) During his five years as CEO, Cheney nearly doubled the size of Halliburton's government contracts, totaling a whopping $2.3 billion. He convinced the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. to lend Halliburton and oil companies another $1.5 billion, backed by U.S. taxpayers. As exposed in the article below, some of these loans went to a Russian company with ties to drug dealing and organized crime. http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm * Libyan dictator and suspected anti-U.S. terrorist Moammar Gadhafi engaged a foreign subsidiary of Halliburton company Brown & Root to perform millions of dollars worth of work. According to the Baltimore Sun, Brown & Root was fined $3.8 million for violating Libyan sanctions. (Although Cheney wasn't leading Halliburton when these sales started, subsidiaries' sales to Libya continued throughout his tenure.) * Cheney claimed that he supported the U.S. sanctions on Iraq, but the Financial Times of London reported that through foreign subsidiaries and affiliates, Halliburton became the biggest oil contractor for Iraq, selling more than $73 million in goods and services to Saddam Hussein's regime. (See http://gwbush.com/spots/postpage.html (071102b)for a Washington Post article on the matter.) * In Burma, Halliburton joined oil companies in working on two notorious gas pipelines, the Yadana and Yetagun. According to an Earth Rights report, "From 1992 until the present, thousands of villagers in Burma were forced to work in support of these pipelines and related infrastructure, lost their homes due to forced relocation, and were raped, tortured and killed by soldiers hired by the companies as security guards for the pipelines. One of Halliburton‚s projects was undertaken during Dick Cheney's tenure as CEO." (The full report is linked to below.) Halliburton is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for Enron-style accounting practices that took place while Cheney was CEO. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/business/30HALL.html (new link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/business/30HALL.html?ex=1123732800&en=f9ddf3a1b844d49c&ei=5070 (071102c)) For an extensive briefing on Halliburton and Cheney's foreign policy impact, check out this well-written and thorough report: http://www.earthrights.org/halliburton/report.pdf (071102d) http://www.observer.com/pages/conason.asp Corporate Rogues Count on the G.O.P. by Joe Conason The myth of the moment is a recycled Naderite cliché, clung to by Republicans as they are inundated by the corporate crime wave.
7/15/02 http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines02/0715-01.htm ( 071502a) Miami Herald Posted on Sun, Jul. 14, 2002 Bush recount troops land plum D.C. jobs Many of president's appointees fought Gore's bid to take Florida, White House BY CAROL ROSENBERG crosenberg@herald.com POST-ELECTION SPOILS: Mark Wallace and Kevin Murphy, now at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Commerce, respectively, as ballot observers in Palm Beach County. John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, caused a stir in May by accusing the Cuban government of transferring bioweapons technology to rogue nations. Nineteen months ago, he caused a different stir -- bursting into a Tallahassee library on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign to stop a recount of Miami-Dade County ballots. Three members of the window-pounding crowd that on Thanksgiving Eve helped persuade the Miami-Dade County canvassing board to abandon the recount are now members of the White House staff: Matt Schlapp, now a special assistant to the president; Garry Malphrus, deputy director of the president's Domestic Policy Council; and Joel Kaplan, also a special assistant to the president. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0716-04.htm (071502b) Published on Tuesday, July 16, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times Cheney's Grimy Trail in Business His career offers a textbook example of shady doings. by Robert Scheer Vice President Dick Cheney has spent most of the past year in hiding, ostensibly from terrorists, but increasingly it seems obvious that it is Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the media and the public he fears. And for good reason: Cheney's business behavior could serve as a textbook case of much of what's wrong with the way corporate CEOs have come to play the game of business. The game involves more than playing loose with accounting rules, as Halliburton Co. is accused of doing while Cheney was the Texas-based energy company's chief executive. On Sunday, SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, whom Cheney pushed for the job, reluctantly turned on his sponsor and announced a vigorous investigation of Halliburton's accounting violations.
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020722&s=diarist072202 (new link: http://home1.gte.net/vze7rlxx/id12.html (071702a)) by Martin Peretz In 1986 George W. Bush received one of the lucky breaks that would characterize his business career, when Harken Energy bought his otherwise near-worthless oil company, Spectrum 7, for more than $2 million in stock. As part of the deal, Bush was named to Harken's board of directors and was designated a member of the board's audit committee. An ordinary director of a public company has rather vague responsibilities, and many directors simply doze through their periodic meetings and collect their annual fees. But a member of the audit committee has specific obligations. Among them is the obligation to ensure that the company's books are honest. In fact, members of the audit committee are the guarantors of the company's probity.
7/18/02a http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/2002/07/18_Pitt.html (071802a) July 18, 2002 So Let's Get This Straight: The Fix is in So let's get this straight, yesterday Harvey "Corporate Corruption Consiglieri," the fox Bush appointed to watch over the chicken coop, announced that after one year of required recusal from cases involving former clients, he will now rule on cases involving former clients. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/18/business/18PITT.html (071802b) Okay, one of Pitt's clients he has, until now, recused himself from judging is Arthur Andersen and its involvement with Enron. So let's get this straight, on Wednesday, Bush predicted that the S.E.C. would clear Cheney, indicating that Mr. Pitt had already gotten his wink and nod to find a way to apply tar remover from Cheney's slimy corporate record and make him look like an upstanding member of the Rotary club; in short, "exonerate" Cheney or the Bush enforcers will make your life miserable, Mr. Pitt. So let's get this straight. The accounting firm retained by Halliburton was, you got it, Arthur Andersen. Cheney is being accused of cooking the books and Andersen, once again, looking the other way. In fact in 1996, Cheney appeared on a promotional video praising Andersen (see
"Civil Liberties in a Time of Crisis," go to: http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/winter02/dempsey.html (new link: http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin2.html (071802c)) James Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, writes: "[M]any civil liberties, far from being at odds with security, actually enhance the ability of the government to defend the common good. We guarantee the right to confront one's accusers, for example, not only as an element of human dignity but also because cross-examination exposes lies and forces the government to continue looking until the truly guilty party is found. Similarly, we subject government decisions to public scrutiny and judicial review not only to give voice to individuals but also because openness and accountability can produce a fuller factual record, expose faulty assumptions, and slow the rash decision making of elected officials acting under pressure. We protect freedom of speech not only because it allows room for personal self-expression, but also because it promotes the stability that comes from the availability of channels for dissent and peaceful change." For Dempsey's full piece,
7/19/02a http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/19/opinion/19KRIS.html (new link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/19/opinion/19KRIS.html?ex=1123819200&en=8dedca896260e4ac&ei=5070 (071905a)) NY Times July 19, 2002 Case of the Missing Anthrax By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF It's bad enough that we can't find Iraqi anthrax hidden in the desert. But it turns out that we also misplaced anthrax and Ebola kept in a lab outside Washington D.C. Internal Army documents about the U.S. biodefense program describe missing Ebola and other pathogens, vicious feuds, lax security, cover-ups and a "cowboy culture" beyond anyone's scrutiny. Moreover, germ warriors in the C.I.A. and the Defense Department decided ˜ without bothering to consult the White House ˜ to produce anthrax secretly and tinker with it in ways that arguably put the U.S. in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention. It's time for Congress or an outside commission to investigate our nation's biodefense program and establish oversight. 7/19/02b http://www.fortune.com/indext.jhtml?channel=print_article.jhtml&doc_id=208814 (new link: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/streetlife/0,15704,372991,00.html (071702b)) FORTUNE.COM Thursday, July 18, 2002 By Andrew Serwer STREET LIFE SPECIAL What Happened to Harken? The gas and oil company W. walked away from in the '90s lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the past 5 years, and is now trading for pennies.
7/24/02a http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0723-02.htm (072402a) Published on Tuesday, July 23, 2002 in the Boston Globe Bush's Role in Corporate Fraud by Bill Black and James Galbraith PRESIDENT George W. Bush has reassured us that ''From the antitrust laws of the 19th century to the S&L reforms of recent times, America has tackled financial problems when they appeared.'' But the savings & loan reforms came seven years and 150 billion taxpayer dollars late. Nor did that problem merely ''appear.'' It was created by a deregulation bill in 1982 overseen at that time by Vice President George Bush. From 1981 to 1988, the Reagan-Bush administration covered up the S&L debacle. It forced reductions in S&L examiners and fought against the top federal regulator, Ed Gray, who sounded the alarm. Charles Keating, the felon who drove Lincoln Savings into the most expensive S&L failure in history ($3 billion) considered Vice President Bush an ally in his efforts to force Gray from office.
7/25/02a http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/072202a.html (072502a) Twice as Bad as Hoover July 23, 2002 George W. Bush is shattering records for the worst first 18 months in office for a U.S. president as measured by the benchmark Standard & Poor‚\'s 500. In his first year-and-a-half in the White House, Bush presided over a 36.9 percent decline, almost twice the percentage drop of Herbert Hoover, the president who led the nation into the Depression. Hoover recorded an 18.6 percent decline and now ranks third from the worst, with Richard Nixon in second place with a 23.6 percent fall in his first 18 months. In other words, in the 75-year existence of the S&P 500, no president has seen the stock market index fall as much as one-quarter, before Bush‚s decline of more than one-third. Ironically, given the Republicans business-friendly reputation, the four worst performing stock-market presidents in the first 18 months are all Republicans. Ronald Reagan's 15.3 percent decline joins Hoover, Nixon and Bush at the bottom. The top two performing presidents, as measured by the S&P in their first 18 months, are Democrats, Lyndon Johnson at a plus 27.5 percent and Franklin Roosevelt at 55.1 percent.
7/30/02a http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/international/30COST.html?pagewanted=print&position=top (073002a) Profound Effect on U.S. Economy Seen in a War on Iraq By PATRICK E. TYLER and RICHARD W. STEVENSON WASHINGTON, July 29 ˜ An American attack on Iraq could profoundly affect the American economy, because the United States would have to pay most of the cost and bear the brunt of any oil price shock or other market disruptions, government officials, diplomats and economists say.
7/31/02a http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/7310p-6742c.html (073102a) New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com Bush co. went offshore Wednesday, July 31st, 2002 DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU By TIMOTHY J. BURGER WASHINGTON - Harken Energy Corp. set up an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands tax haven while President Bush sat on Harken's board of directors in 1989, the Daily News has learned. The revelation comes as Republican lawmakers are roundly criticizing the practice of U.S. companies setting up offshore subsidiaries, usually to skirt American disclosure laws or corporate income taxes on foreign income. 7/30/02b (new link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/01/business/01BUSH.html?ex=1123819200&en=9b98921c798a24c0&ei=5070&ex=1028779200&en=b22835a00c3e1848&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND (073002b)) Lawmakers Decry Bush on Corp. Fraud Wed Jul 31,10:52 AM ET By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers criticized White House action on a brand-new law cracking down on corporate fraud, saying President Bush ( news - web sites) appeared to be weakening the measure mere hours after signing it. |
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8/02/02a www.thedailyenron.com (new link: http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2002/07/31/186 (080202a)) Florida Recount Funded by Enron/Halliburton The Bush Family's Made Men Bush's Magical Mystery Tour JULY 30: If George W. Bush were cast as a TV sitcom character he would have to be modeled after ad man Darrin of Bewitched or Astronaut Roger of I Dream of Jeannie - a hapless fellow whose success hinges almost entirely on the extraordinary powers of others. And so it was when the presidency hung by a thread in Florida during the last election. A contentious recount was underway and the genies that had gotten Bush so far assembled en masse to assure his victory over Al Gore. Only now are those last-minute efforts fully becoming known. According to papers filed with the IRS on July 15, nearly $14 million magically poured into the Bush/Cheney Florida recount effort - four times the amount raised by the Gore/Lieberman camp. The money flowed in so fast, and in such enormous chunks, that Bush campaign officials - unaccustomed to Bush's perennial good fortune - were dumbfounded. "I think we were a little bit stunned by the amount we received," Benjamin Ginsberg, a Bush attorney for the recount, told USA Today. According to IRS documents, the Bush campaign took in $13.8 million, most in large contributions. Listed among those large contributors were Bush and Cheney's two most reliable genies - Enron and Halliburton. While the Gore/Lieberman campaign filed its IRS disclosures of their Florida recount expenditures months ago, the Bush's recount fund filed the required forms at the very last moment allowed by law. July 15 was the final day of an IRS amnesty program for groups that hadn't already complied with the law. "They obviously begrudgingly disclosed, and did it way after the fact," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. "It's better than nothing, but it would have been better to have disclosed it when the money was coming in." The filings show that as soon as a recount was announced, Bush forces moved quickly. Money was no object. They dispatched over 100 lawyers to Florida and Texas, booking hundreds of plane tickets, rental cars and hotel rooms. Among the expenditures listed was a payment of $13,000 to Enron Corp. and $2,400 to Halliburton Co. for the use of their corporate jets and other unspecified services.
8/4/02a http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,769362,00.html (080402a) Bush held up plan to hit Bin Laden Sunday August 04 2002 The Observer By Julian Borger in Washington The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities, it was reported yesterday. The plan, under which special forces troops would have been sent after Osama bin Laden, was drawn up in the last days of the Clinton administration but a decision was left to the incoming Bush team. However, a top-level discussion of the proposals took place only on September 4, a week before the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington. In the months in between, the plan was shuffled through the bureaucracy by an administration distrustful of anything to do with Bill Clinton and which appeared fixated on national missile defense and the war on drugs, rather than the struggle against terrorism.
8/06/02a http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,769398,00.html (080602a) Bush held up plan to hit Bin Laden Julian Borger in Washington Monday August 5, 2002 The Guardian The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities, it was reported yesterday. The plan, under which special forces troops would have been sent after Osama bin Laden, was drawn up in the last days of the Clinton administration but a decision was left to the incoming Bush team. However, a top-level discussion of the proposals took place only on September 4, a week before the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington. In the months in between, the plan was shuffled through the bureaucracy by an administration distrustful of anything to do with Bill Clinton and which appeared fixated on national missile defense and the war on drugs, rather than the struggle against terrorism.
8/07/02a http://www.consortiumnews.com (new link: http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/080502a.html (080702a)) Bush's Conspiracy to Riot By Robert Parry August 5, 2002 More than three decades apart, two political riots influenced the outcome of U.S. presidential elections. In 1968, protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago hurt Democrat Hubert Humphrey and helped Republican Richard Nixon eke out a victory. On Nov. 22, 2000, the so-called "Brooks Brothers Riot" of Republican activists helped stop a vote recount in Miami -- and showed how far George W. Bush‚s supporters were ready to go to put their man in the White House. But the government reaction to the two events was dramatically different. The clashes between police and Vietnam War protesters in 1968 led the Nixon administration to charge seven antiwar radicals with "conspiring to cross state lines with the intent to incite a riot." The defendants, who became known as the Chicago Seven, were later acquitted of conspiracy charges, in part, because the protests were loosely organized and because solid documentary evidence was lacking. After the Miami "Brooks Brothers Riot" ˆ named after the protesters' preppie clothing ˆ no government action was taken beyond the police rescuing several Democrats who were surrounded and roughed up by the rioters. While no legal charges were filed against the Republicans, newly released documents show that at least a half dozen of the publicly identified rioters were paid by Bush‚s recount committee. The payments to the Republican activists are documented in hundreds of pages of Bush committee records ˆ released grudgingly to the Internal Revenue Service last month, 19 months after the 36-day recount battle ended. Overall, the records provide a road map of how the Bush recount team brought its operatives across state lines to stop then-Vice President Al Gore's recount efforts.
8/8/02a http://www.sunspot.net/bal-te.hatfill08aug08.story (new link: http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/secuityclearancefaulty.html (080802a)) Security clearance with faulty resume Anthrax: Errors in his file suggest a researcher was hired and given access to deadly materials without effective scrutiny. By Scott Shane Sun Staff Originally published August 8, 2002 Contrary to claims he made on his resume, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, now under scrutiny in the FBI's anthrax investigation, did not earn a doctoral degree and never served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, according to academic and military officials and records. 8/8/02b http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=BFD195A7-FD8A-4C7D-9B9C0E51DA14AEAF (new link: http://www.rense.com/general28/lnked.htm (080802b)) Anthrax Probe Figure Linked with Zimbabwe Outbreak By Alex Belida Washington, 5 Aug, 2002 14:36 UTC A former U.S. Army bio-defense researcher who is a key figure in the investigation into last year's deadly anthrax attacks has connections to southern Africa, where another outbreak of the disease killed nearly 200 people in the late 1970s. American scientist Steven Hatfill has gained attention in the U.S. government's investigation into the anthrax mailings last year that killed five people. He is what officials term a person of interest, not a suspect. One of the factors that has apparently intrigued investigators is that Mr. Hatfill graduated from the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Zimbabwe in 1983. That was just a few years after the world's largest outbreak of human anthrax in what was then known as Southern Rhodesia. Between 1978 and 1980, nearly 200] people died and more than 10,000 cases were recorded.
8/9/02a http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V13/15/vest-j.html (080902a) Help from the Hill Military insiders want some to derail Bush's plans for Iraq. By Jason Vest As a rule, both the joint Chiefs of Staff and the Central Intelligence Agency's leadership prefer that Congress stay out of their affairs. Indeed, an ideal Congress for many denizens of this realm would be one that simply holds open the cash spigots while Langley and the Pentagon set their own agendas. That makes it particularly alarming to see that as the Bush administration lays its plans for Iraq, career military and intelligence officers are increasingly -- and desperately -- looking to Congress to help stave off what they fear will be a disaster.
8/15/02a http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0815-01.htm (081502a) Published on Thursday, August 15, 2002 in the Toronto Globe & Mail Rights Trampled in U.S., Report Says Washington Showed 'Stunning Disregard for democratic Principles' Since Sept. 11 by Paul Knox U.S. authorities deliberately trampled constitutional rights after Sept. 11 in a crackdown that saw immigrants jailed without cause, tried in secret and, in some cases, physically abused, a leading human-rights group has charged. In a report to be released today, Human Rights Watch accuses President George W. Bush's government of displaying "a stunning disregard for the democratic principles of public transparency and accountability" in its response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. 8/15/02b http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-turley14aug14.story (new link: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0814-05.htm (081502b)) Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision Attorney general shows himself as a menace to liberty. By JONATHAN TURLEY Jonathan Turley is a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University.August 14 2002 Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace. Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.
8/16/02a (new link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/international/middleeast/16IRAQ.html?ex=1123819200&en=d6d6f11d4e9015df&ei=5070&ex=1030494452&ei=1&en=5769a77d179308ec (081602a)) Top Republicans Break With Bush on Iraq Strategy By TODD S. PURDUM and PATRICK E. TYLER WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 ˜ Leading Republicans from Congress, the State Department and past administrations have begun to break ranks with President Bush over his administration's high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the administration has neither adequately prepared for military action nor made the case that it is needed.
8/20/02a http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=228&fcategory_desc=Under+Reported (082002b) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Rumsfeld key player in Iraq policy shift Cables, Natl. Security Council affidavit reveal depth of U.S. assistance to Saddam despite chemical arsenal By Robert Windrem NBC NEWS State Department cables and court records reveal a wealth of information on how U.S. foreign policy shifted in the 1980s to help Iraq. Virtually all of the information is in the words of key participants, including Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense. THE NEW INFORMATION on the policy shift toward Iraq, and Rumsfeld‚s role in it, comes as The New York Times reported Sunday that United States gave Iraq vital battle-planning help during its war with Iran as part of a secret program under President Reagan ˜ even though U.S. intelligence agencies knew the Iraqis would unleash chemical weapons. The covert program involved more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency who helped Iraq in its eight-year war with Iran by providing detailed information on Iranian military deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments, the Times said. The Times said it based its report on comments by senior U.S. military officers with direct knowledge of the program, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.
8/22/02a http://www.theadvocate.com/cgi-bin/printme.pl (new link: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/washtime.html (082202a)) Hatfill's work continued after firing State Department funded SAIC anti-terrorism contract WASHINGTON -- LSU scientist Dr. Steven J. Hatfill has accurately reported that he continued to work on a State Department-funded anti-terrorism project this year, after his difficulties with a CIA polygraph test and after his firing by a federal defense contractor.
8/25/02a http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55137-2002Aug23.html (new link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A55137-2002Aug23¬Found=true (082502a)) Probe of Hill Leaks On 9/11 Is Intensified FBI Seeks Records From 17 Senators By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 24, 2002; Page A01 The FBI has intensified its probe of a classified intelligence leak, asking 17 senators to turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules that would reveal their possible contact with reporters. In an Aug. 7 memo passed to the senators through the Senate general counsel's office, the FBI asked all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to collect and turn over records from June 18 and 19, 2002. Those dates are the day of and the day after a classified hearing in which the director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, spoke to lawmakers about two highly sensitive messages that hinted at an impending action that the agency intercepted on the eve of Sept. 11 but did not translate until Sept. 12. The request suggests that the FBI is now focusing on the handful of senior senators who are members of a Senate-House panel investigating Sept. 11 and attend most classified meetings and read all the most sensitive intelligence agency communications. A similar request did not go to House intelligence committee members. The request also represents a much more intrusive probe of lawmakers' activities, and comes at a time when some legal experts and members of Congress are already disgruntled that an executive branch agency, such as the FBI -- headed by a political appointee -- is probing the actions of legislators whose job it is to oversee FBI and intelligence agencies.
8/28/02a Bin Laden said to be back at helm of al Qaeda 28 August, 2002 02:47 GMT+08:00 By Michael Georgy LONDON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden is firmly back in command of al Qaeda and the group is digging in for guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, an Arab journalist with close ties to the militant's associates said on Tuesday.
8/29/02a http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/02.23D.Cheney.Circumvented.htm (082902a) A discreet way of doing business with Iraq FT.com site; Nov 3, 2000 BY CAROLA HOYOS, UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT Millions of dollars of US oil business with Iraq are being channelled discreetly through European and other companies, in a practice that has highlighted the double standards now dominating relations between Baghdad and Washington after a decade of crippling sanctions. Though legal, leading US oil service companies such as Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Flowserve, Fisher-Rosemount and others, have used subsidiaries and joint venture companies for this lucrative business, so as to avoid straining relations with Washington and jeopardizing their ties with President Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad. |
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9/27/02ahttp://members.shaw.ca/rbham/GeneLyons/september25.htm (new link: http://www.bartcop.com/092502lyons.htm (092702a)) Gene Lyons September 25, 2002 Now let me get this straight: Saddam Hussein is a deadly threat to American security, the worst since Hitler or Stalin. Why, it may take as long as two weeks to conquer Iraq. So now that President Junior's returned from a month-long vacation at his Texas ranch, which he apparently spent rounding up and branding golf carts, the sky is falling and there's not a moment to spare. A Democrat-Gazette headline last week actually quoted Bush stating "If you want peace, it's necessary to use force." War is Peace. Where have I heard that before? Regime change," the man calls it. Translation: assuming Junior doesn't get diplomatically outmaneuvered by the Iraqi strongman (and especially if he DOES), the administration is determined to invade a sovereign nation that hasn't attacked or threatened us, kill thousands of its citizens and install a dictator more to our liking. 9/27/02cwww.mediawhoresonline.com (new link: http://nths.newtrier.k12.il.us/academics/faculty/khall/IraqSitesArts/IraqNew802/CongressPresident.htm (092702b)) NEW YORK TIMES: BUSH'S SLURS "BORDER ON UN-AMERICAN" DEBATE "GUARANTEES THAT FORCE, IF IT IS USED WILL BE CARRIED OUT WITH THE FULL UNDERSTANDING OF THE PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT THEY'RE GETTING INTO" PRECISELY WHAT BUSH REGIME FEARS MOST NYT Editorial - 9/26 The Bush administration has to recognize the legitimate concerns of lawmakers who do not want to give the president a blank check to wage war wherever he wants in the region and without any initial steps being taken to try to avoid a conflict. Casting slurs on the patriotism of anyone who raises a question is unfair and borders on un-American. Chicago Tribune, March 3, 200 "Remarks Of The President [sic]"www.whitehouse.gov/ March 27, 2002 Baltimore Sun, March 31, 2002 Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2002 "Remarks of the President [sic]." www.whitehouse.gov/September 13, 2002 |