contributions

CIA Corrects Itself On Arms A Report, The First Of Its Kind, Says Baghdad Ended Its Chemical Weapons Program In ’91 Greg Miller February 01, 2005 WASHINGTON - In what may be a formal acknowledgment of the obvious, the CIA has issued a classified report revising its prewar assessments on Iraq and concluding that Baghdad abandoned its chemical weapons programs in 1991, intelligence officials familiar with the document said.
The report marks the first time the CIA has officially disavowed (…)

Chertoff And Torture Dave Lindorff February 14, 2005 Issue Back on Friday, June 12, 2002, the Defense Department had a big problem: Its new policy on torture of captives in the "war on terror" was about to be exposed. John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and touted by John Ashcroft as an "American Taliban," was scheduled to take the stand the following Monday in an evidence suppression hearing regarding a confession he had signed. There he would (…)

Where The Missing $9 Billion Went Emad Mekay February 02, 2005 WASHINGTON - The US-run administration in Baghdad failed to keep track of nearly US$9 billion of money it transferred to various Iraqi ministries, according to an official audit released Sunday.
The report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says that the now defunct US-lead Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) did not exercise adequate managerial control over funds paid to Iraqi government (…)

First Saddam Hussein, Then George Bush, Now US Created Prime Minister Alyad Allawi Ordered Iraqi Prisoners Tortured. What Is The Difference Between Iraq And America? Marc Krug February 01, 2005 Over the years, Iraqi prisoners have found themselves ensnared in an inescapable trap. They have been subjected, without change or respite, to a seemingly unending succession of torture and abuse.
What has changed, however, has been the identity of those inflicting this torture. First, it was (…)

Venezuela Enlists Iran To Steer Oil To China Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas January 31 2005 Venezuela has enrolled Iran to help it accelerate a strategy to steer its oil exports to China and away from its traditional market of the US. A team of traders from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-owned oil company, is to be trained in London by Iranian advisers in how to best place oil in Asian markets, according to industry sources.
The action is part of efforts by Venezuela, the (…)

The Axis Of Oil Jehangir Pocha January 31, 2005
China and India are locked in an increasingly aggressive wrangle with the United States over the world’s most critical economic commodity: oil. More than any other issue, this tussle will shape the economic, environmental and geopolitical future of these three countries, and the world.
Ensuring a steady flow of cheap oil has always been one of the central goals of U.S. foreign and economic policy, and Washington’s preeminent position in the (…)

Synopsis
CCR filed new documents on January 31, 2005, with the German Federal Prosecutor looking into war crimes charges against high-ranking U.S. officials including Donald Rumsfeld: one includes new evidence that the Fay investigation into Abu Ghraib protected Administration officials - it is a comprehensive and shocking opinion by Scott Horton, an expert on international law and the Chair of the International Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
The (…)

Low level of Sunni participation tarnishes success of large poll turnout
By Robert Fisk
Baghdad - Even as the explosions thundered over Baghdad, they came in their hundreds, and then in their thousands. Entire families, crippled old men supported by their sons, children beside them, babies in the arms of their mothers.
The Shi’ite Muslims of Baghdad yesterday walked quietly to polling stations, to the Martyr Mohamed Bakr Hakim School in Jadriya, without talking, through the car-less (…)

Not Worth It
I was supposed to be on the Larry King Live show last night. I was asked to be on the show to offer my opinion on the election in Iraq from the perspective of a mom whose son was killed in the war prior to the elections. One of the questions I was going to be asked was: Do I think my son sacrifice was worth it? Well, I didn’t get a chance to be on the show last night, because I was bumped for something that is really important: The Michael Jackson Trial.
If I was allowed to (…)

World Social Forum has Bush in its sights
01/28/2005 11:49
Campaign to take Bush to justice for crimes against humanity
At the 5th World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a campaign was launched today, Thursday, to take George W. Bush to justice for crimes against humanity.
Cebrapaz, the Brazilian organization, together with 35 other entities from around the world, launched a petition which it hopes will be signed by millions of people until September, when it will be presented to (…)