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Red Alert Bush
by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
George Bush does not need to base any such decision on the truth because he acts upon hype and lies, cajoling, disinformation and protectionism of the corporate elite which gravitates around the White House, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. But hey! Who cares?
The rest of the world cares. Although it is not the business of foreigners or outsiders to tell the people of the United States of America what to do, it is the business of (…)

Kirkuk
A major attack on the main pipeline connecting the oilfields of Kirkuk with the Turkish port of Jihan has halted limited exports from northern Iraq, a Northern Oil Company official said.
"An improvised explosive device was placed close to a network of pipelines at the level of al-Fatiha, west of Kirkuk, causing a big explosion and huge fires that damaged the main pipeline running to Jihan and stopped exports," said Nasir Qasim, a logistics and security official with the (…)

By Peter Mitchell
US President George W Bush today signed a free trade agreement with Australia during a ceremony at the White House, in Washington DC.
Mr Bush said the agreement was vital to the US economy and every American.
"Our trade with Australia is important to every American. It is vital to our economy," Mr Bush said in his speech.
"The US-Australia FTA is a recognition of that importance and a commitment by both our nations to work in partnership for common prosperity." (…)

by Jim Loney
Fort Bragg - U.S. troops who abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison did it "just for fun," a military investigator testified on Tuesday at a hearing for a female soldier photographed holding a naked Iraqi on a leash.
A military court at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, began the hearing to decide whether Pfc. Lynndie England will be tried for the prisoner abuse that outraged the Arab world and embarrassed the Bush administration as it sought to stabilize Iraq. (…)

Kurds Who Were Forcibly Displaced Await Justice, Arab Settlers also at Risk
(New York) — In northern Iraq, the authorities’ failure to resolve property disputes between returning Kurds and Arab settlers threatens to undermine security in the region, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. Iraq’s interim government urgently needs to implement the judicial means to resolve these disputes, which stem from decades of Arabization policies that uprooted hundreds of thousands of Kurds and (…)

By Greg Mitchell
This week, leading up to the 59th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, I am writing a special daily column to mark the event. In part II today: a look at the most influential "embedded reporter" ever. All of these columns are adapted from my book "Hiroshima in America," co-authored by Robert Jay Lifton.
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On the morning of Aug. 7, 1945, with reports of death and destruction in Hiroshima still thin, newspapers around the country carried, (…)

A few months from now, Peter Anthony Schlesinger hopes to zap a laser beam at a couple of chickens or other animals in a cage a few dozen yards away. If all goes as planned, the chickens will be frozen in mid-cluck, their leg and wing muscles paralyzed by an electrical charge created by the beam, even as their heart and lungs function normally.
Among those most interested in the outcome will be officials at the Pentagon, who helped fund Schlesinger’s work and are looking at this type of (…)

’Preemptive Action’ Necessary Even if Casing Done Prior to 9/11, Secretary Says
By Dan Eggen, Dana Priest and John Mintz
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said today that the government needed to take "preemptive action" to warn the public that al Qaeda had been casing five U.S. financial institutions, even if the alleged surveillance was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
At a news conference in New York, Ridge said several times that some computerized files from 2000 (…)

By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.
But the officials continued to regard the information as (…)

By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Rumsfeld may be rebuked by his own commission investigating prison abuse.
James Schlesinger has always been a hawk. But in four decades of public life, the square-jawed former professor has also been known as mulishly independent, whether as Defense and Energy secretary or CIA director. (President Gerald Ford, annoyed by Schlesinger’s arrogance, fired him.) All of which could add up to an unpleasant surprise for another old Washington lion who is not (…)