contributions

By Eric Margolis
WELCOME TO the "Italian Job."
In his 2003 State of the Union address, U.S. President George Bush cited British intelligence claims that Iraq had secretly imported uranium ore from Niger to make nuclear weapons.
Bush’s claims were based on crude forgeries, previously rejected by the CIA.
Now, new information from European intelligence sources is detailing how the forgeries made their way from the Niger embassy in Rome to the White House. An FBI investigation of this (…)

BY WILLIAM O’ROURKE
The first thing to notice about the elevated orange terror alert is that it is confined to Democratic stronghold cities and states. The next is to realize that no battleground states will be subjected to formal elevated alerts, lest the security interruptions sour the swing voters residing therein.
Terror alerts are mini-"October surprises" for this administration, ready to be employed anytime President Bush wants to move the Kerry-Edwards campaign off the front page (…)

Biographer claims tape shows Nixon prolonged war 1972 recording reveals president weighed election in policy talks
By CHRIS KAHN
ROANOKE, VA. - Three months before the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger huddled together in the Oval Office to discuss when and how to get out of Vietnam.
Despite a massive bombing campaign during the spring and summer in the north, the Republican president had concluded that U.S.-backed "South Vietnam probably can never even (…)

Al-Jazeera ’no more biased than other TV channels’
By David Usborne in New York
The lead story yesterday on the English-language website of al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based television news channel, was not about the closing of its office in Baghdad for 30 days by the interim government in Iraq. It focused instead on new Iraqi legislation to grant amnesty to minor criminals in the country.
What is telling, however, is how the story begins: "The US-installed interim Iraqi PM, Iyad Allawi ..." (…)

By SABAH JERGES
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Danish troops clashed with Shiite insurgents in southern Iraq on Sunday in fighting that left at least two militants dead and seven injured, police said.
The fighting broke out late Saturday in Qurnah, about 235 miles southeast of Baghdad, when a Danish patrol came under attack by militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Karim Sadkhan, a police colonel in the southern city of Basra.
Denmark has a 496-person contingent in the (…)

By Severin Carrell
British military police have opened investigations into the deaths of 48 Iraqis - a jump of nearly a third in the previously disclosed official figure, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
The Ministry of Defence also admitted on Friday that armed forces police have investigated, or are still looking into, a total of 94 cases of alleged deaths in custody, illegal shootings, injuries and suspected ill-treatment involving British troops.
The latest figures, which are (…)

by Antonia Juhasz
"Los Angeles Times" Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy.
These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping (…)

by Jerome
Bernard
WASHINGTON-Thirty years ago, Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal, which sparked a crisis in US government .../...
– http://www.manilatimes.net/national...

by MIKE FRANCIS
BAGHDAD - The national guardsman peering through the long-range scope of his rifle was startled by what he saw unfolding in the walled compound below.
From his post several stories above ground level, he watched as men in plainclothes beat blind folded and bound prisoners in the enclosed grounds of the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi (…)

By Michelle Grattan
A who’s who of Australia’s former military chiefs, departmental heads and top diplomats is set to launch a scathing attack on John Howard’s foreign policy and call for "truth in government" from whomever wins the election.
It is understood that a statement from more than 40 ex-military and diplomatic officers will condemn Australia’s commitment to the Iraq invasion as based on deception, and call for Australia to stop rubber-stamping American policies.
Gathering (…)