who was this "Osama E" guy in the infamous 'captured' video that bush said claimed credit for 9-11-01 the last time ? 

before... 

after... 

osama indicating in the last election how many votes he cast for his friend george w. 

i voted for bush in 2000 and i won't change horses in the middle of a victory 

Britain warned US about Osama aircraft attack 

Osama's latest hit... video debuts in the top ten...

The artist , or various artists commonly known as 'Osama bin Laden' have released their latest video just in time for the US elections . The collective artists responsible in the past for the 'Osama Project' have gotten the group back together after a long absence and debuted their latest work at number one among the top ten videos in the US market...

The long awaited Osama video did not disappoint fans and quickly knocked from the coveted number one spot , Abu Musab Zarqawi's long running video "Off Da Dome" from his CD " Zarqawi's Latest Beheadings" .

At the press conference kicking off the upcoming tour promoting his new CD , the old bearded one took to the mic and asserted that he will put upstarts like Zarqawi back in their place...

"I may live in a cave , but I'll tell you one thing ... when I get to spittin rhymes , yall know i'm tha king ...All tha suckas on tha mic that think they hot... can't nevah move me out tha number one spot ...They ain't sayin nothin , they jus spittin snot...To tha "O" , to tha "S" , to the "A-M-A" ...go an wipe yah nose suckas ...cause Osama don't play... "

Abu Musab Zawqawi was unavailable for comment but is rumored to be back in the studio working on a new release scheduled to drop soon believed to be titled , "I'll Cut a Muthaf--ka !"


Not to take all of these very serious events lightly , but from the start , this Bush administration TRAVELLING TERRORISM SHOW has had the stink of a huckster's aura to it as funky as the locker room of a World Wrestling Entertainment PERFORMANCE and a taste as bitter as the phoney snake oil sold at an old time travelling medicine show...

I'll deal with Zarqawi at a later date , but to sum up some of the reasons for my cynicism , doubts and suspicions, let me point out once again , the following on this Osama matter ...

1. The person playing the Osama character claimed only days after 9-11-01 that he had no part in the attacks

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_410936.html?menu=news.lates...



http://www.flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/DahArc/daharc20.html



http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html




http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osama_dead.html


2. The person playing the Mullah Omar character - head of the Taliban- repeated the story that Osama put his hand on the Quran and swore he had nothing to do with 9-11-01

3.This type of lying would put a fundamentalist like Osama in the camp of the unbeliever ...those believers with control of their tongue ( their words) and control of their private parts , are guaranteed paradise by prophet muhammad ...so lying is a most serious crime to a fundamentalist like Osama--serious enouh to cost him the jenna --the garden promised to the believers in paradise .

4. The former head of Pakistani ISI (interservice Intelligence -the group that served as go-betweens for CIA and the mujahids during the afghan-soviet war --and still work closely with CIA) wired Mohammed Atta the $100,000 used to cover his travel and other expenses before 9-11 ...the same man had breakfast with florida senator Bob Graham on the morning of 9-11-01...the same senator graham who helped head the investigations into 9-11

5. Mohammed Atta was under constant surveillance by Israeli Mossad everywhere he went including in the US...Mossad agents even rented a house on the same street as Atta in florida and were even taping his cell phone conversations .

6. Israeli intelligence , German intelligence -the BND and Russian Intelligence FSB all warned the US that a terrorist attack on the US involving hijacked airliners was imminent--the US did nothing... FBI agents investigating why Mohammed Atta and associates were all enrolled in pilot training schools were ordered to stand down and back off further investigation of the pre-9-11 hijackers

7. When the first plane hit the towers , the then CIA director George Tenent was having breakfast with a US senator who was a former member of senate foreign intelligence committee ---Tenent IMMEDIATELY according to the senator said that it was a terrorist attack and that Osama bin Laden was probably behind it--- How did he know it wasn't an accident when the second plane had not hit yet?

Why did he not call the president and warn him that America was under attack and to immediately get out of that elementary school ---when it had been in the media all week that Bush would be visiting that school--making Bush and those kids sitting ducks for hijacked aircraft? Is this Bin Laden's Doing ?

8. Why was vice president Cheney and not President Bush , IMMEDIATELY physically grabbed by secret service agents and carried to safety-- ( to the underground nuclear bomb proof command bunker especially created for such emergencies) --THE SECRET SERVICE's STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES FOR SUCH SITUATIONS... This was around 9:03 AM---Bin Laden's Doing ?

9. Bush on the otherhand is allowed by his secret service detail to linger ,and hang around at that school for another 30 to 45 minutes and Bush even gives a speech at the school AFTER his secret service agents watch on tv the second plane hit the towers---and did not DO AS THEY WERE TRAINED TO DO ...? ON WHO's orders did they violate their S.O.P. ---gross deriliction of duty yet no one punished no one investigated --no US media even bothers to ask the question...Is this Bin Laden's doing?

10. NORAD (North American Air Defense )notified before the first plane hit by FAA that 4 airliners have been hijacked--no fighter jets scrambled...no fighter jet escort sent to protect Airforce One-Bush's plane even after the second plane hit the WTC and Bush is on the ground in florida preparng for take-off...no fighter jet escort sent even after Bush--the 'commander in chief' (HAH! what a joke !) is in the air and flying aimlessly around the country not knowing what to do with himself...gross dereliction of duty---no one punished --no questions by US media about this---Is this Bin Laden's doing ?

11. The twin towers which have been built to withstand impact of an airliner or even hurricane winds , melt and collapse nice and neat instead of toppling over ---dropping straight down one floor neatly on top the other-- exactly the same way buildings collapse during a controlled detonation ---the only steel structures to EVER do so because of fire in history---Bin Laden's doing ?

12. The towers quickly collapse killing hundreds of firemen among the 3000 victims---indicating that the firemen who are trained to fight these type of fires and were in the towers for quite a while --long enough to evaluate the situation and damage done to the structures--- continued fighting the fires ---perhaps because they knew that no steel structure had ever collapsed from fire before or since three of them surprisingly did on 9-11 ---Bin Laden again ?

13. Airliners that crash are collected piece by piece down to the smallest bit of debris and meticulously reassembled by crash scene investigators --no matter how long it takes---in order to determine cause of the crash - determine if the airliner materials held up as expected -- and what can be done to prevent similar future disasters ---But in this case the debris from the WTC is not meticulously examined to determine why the towers collapsed so quickly ---the remnants of steel structure are sold over seas to India and China so they cannot be thoroughly examined to determine WHY they failed so miserably...Are we to believe that bin Laden strikes again ?

14. The previous bin Laden admissions of 9-11-01 guilt on video tape supposedly captured in Afghanistan turned out to be suspect because of translators opinions being ignored or deliberately twisted by US government ---Osama strikes again!


This whole 9-11 story we are being asked to swallow without any answers given for common sense questions --- a story we are being asked to swallow hook line and sinker ---would choke the largest of starving dinosaurs...The official story simply does not add up --US media all seem to have altzheimers and have woefully forgotten that their role is to INVESTIGATE and ASK THE DIFFICULT QUESTIONS...Questions that so far , only we much maligned and wrongly ridiculed so-called 'internet conspiracy theorists' seem to have the stones to ask... Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein --plain and simple-- are tools of the west ... a west that creates Osamas, Saddams , Zarqawis , Noreigas , Komeineis and Adolphs --a west that creates frankinsteins and boogey men in order to justify spending huge amounts of public funds with big ,corrupt corporate defense contractots like halliburton , lockheed , raytheon , merck, honeywell, litton bionetics, and bechtel in order to arm , go to war , destroy and then rebuild the nations of the very monsters that they have created...

"The soldiers were not ordered to secure the facility, ABC reported."

Report: Video Shows Explosives Went Missing After War
Thu Oct 28, 2004 08:20 PM ET


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ABC News on Thursday showed video appearing to confirm that explosives that went missing in Iraq did not disappear until after the United States had taken control of the facility where they were stored.

The disappearance of the hundreds of tons of explosives from the Al Qaqaa storage facility near Baghdad has become a hotly contested issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry has charged that President Bush's administration blundered by failing to safeguard the powerful conventional explosives.

Bush countered that Kerry was making wild accusations without knowing the facts. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday advanced the administration's argument that the explosives may have been gone by the time U.S. forces got there.

Without mentioning Kerry by name, Rumsfeld told a radio interviewer, "People who use hair-trigger judgment to come to conclusions about things that are fast-moving frequently make mistakes that are awkward and embarrassing."

Rumsfeld also said it was "very likely that, just as the United States would do, that Saddam Hussein moved munitions when he knew the war was coming" in order to protect the material from attack.

ABC said the video it broadcast was shot by an affiliate TV station embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when the troops passed through the storage facility on April 18, 2003, nine days after the fall of Baghdad.

ABC said experts who have studied the images say the barrels seen in the video contain the high explosive HMX, and U.N. markings on the sealed containers were clear.

"I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine. He confirms that, indeed, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers," David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq told the network.

ABC said the barrels seen in the video were found inside locked bunkers that had been sealed by inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency just before the war began.

"The seal's critical. The fact that there's a photo of what looks like an IAEA seal means that what's behind those doors is HMX," Albright said.

The soldiers were not ordered to secure the facility, ABC reported.

The Pentagon on Thursday released an aerial photograph taken two days before the Iraq war of two trucks at the site where 377 tons of high explosives went missing, but was unable to say they had anything to do with the disappearance.

The image of a small portion of the sprawling Al Qaqaa arms storage site, taken on March 17, 2003, showed a large tractor-trailer loaded with white containers with a smaller truck parked behind it, the Pentagon said.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita acknowledged that he could not say that the trucks were hauling away the explosives, or had anything to so with the disappearance of the material.

Al Qaqaa nuclear facility --754,000 lbs of high explosives stolen from under the Bush administration's noses 

US soldier looks at sealed explosives crates Al Qaqaa--what happened ? 

Al Qaqaa facility 

Al Qaqaa facility chained and sealed 

sealed explosives crate --AlQaqaa 

sealed explosives barrels --AlQaqaa 

Al Qaqaa barrels of explosives 

Al Qaqaa explosives barrel 

US soldier looks at Al-Qaqaa explosives 

the missing 754,000 pounds of high explosives...

So it appears that despite their protest claims to the contrary , the bush administration failed to take control of a huge supply dump of Iraqi explosives at Al Qaqaa nuclear site .

Despite having been warned in advance of the site's contents by UN weapons inspectors who chronicled and sealed the munitions while in Iraq before the American invasion ,the neo-cons and Pentagon apparently had other things on their minds .

Now that the news is out that the munitions are missing , including the fact that about three hundred seventy tons out of the three hundred seventy seven tons of explosives are powerful enough that they are the type often used to detonate the fissile material in nuclear warheads , of course Bush desperately tries to spin away the blame.

This is simply one more accusation of further Bush administration incompetence in a long train of ineptitudes since these fools presently in the Whitehouse have taken office.



At first Bush responded to the reports by saying to audiences while on the campaign stump circuit that Kerry's people didn't know what they were talking about , and that the weapons could have been moved by Saddam BEFORE the American invasion . Rumsfeld then loyally chimed in that that's probably what happened , Saddam moved the explosives , as we would have done here at home in time of war and imminent invasion .


When the Kerry camp continued it's attack on this latest public evidence of Bush administration failures then the pentagon released satellite photos that they claimed to be of Saddam's trucks parked near the facility in hopes that we would believe that the evil Saddam stashed the huge amount of bomb material before the "Goodguys" arrived , thus absolving themselves of blame .

It seem to be working , casting doubt among the American population wearied and alarmed at more of the negligence and bad judgement this administration has shown from the start , at home and in Iraq.

Now it seems that at least one part of the news media in the US , ABC's Minnesota affiliate , is finally earning its paycheck by digging up comments made by US soldiers to embedded journalists and photos of American soldiers inspecting the captured facility at Al Qaqaa early during the war.

Reuters ran a story supporting the ABC coverage...Looks like Bush screwed up again in not guarding the explosives and now they are gone , but assuredly not forgotten as the insurgency in Iraq grows larger , bolder more coordinated and with a rapidly increased sophistication ...i'm sure , that the US servicemen and women in Iraq will one way or another , see these exposives again . For this extra misfortune, they have the George W. Bush administration to thank .

EXCLUSIVE:
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq
Updated: 10/28/2004 08:24:30 PM


A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons.

The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."

In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."


On Wednesday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed still images of the footage taken at the site to experts in Washington to see if the items captured on tape are the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. Those experts could not make that determination.

The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question.



EXCLUSIVE: 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS RAISES NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT UNGUARDED EXPLOSIVES


5 EYEWITNESS NEWS exclusive footage brings to light new questions about unguarded explosives in Iraq.
VIDEO | FULL STORY

EXCLUSIVE: MORE BREAKING NEWS ABOUT EXPLOSIVES FOUND IN IRAQ

A 5 Eyewitness News crew in Iraq may have been just a door away from material that could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. The evidence is in videotape shot by Reporter Dean Staley and Photographer Joe Caffrey at or near the Al Qaqaa munitions facility.
FULL STORY

i guess i should have known that the Bushites would simply refuse to take blame for losing the 754,000 pounds of high explosives in Iraq by failing to secure them from insurgents and thieves ...but blaming the Russian Special forces for secretly spiriting the munitions into Syria ? ? ? C'mon Now ! Why not say leprechauns , bin Laden or, one-legged boogey man Abu Musad al Zarqawi hopped off with them... ?

October 28, 2004

The Dreyfus Report

Here’s what the Defense Department is now saying about the vanished super-explosives from the Al Qaqaa munitions dump, according to the Washington Times . Of course, it’s nonsense:

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

The Russians?

"No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil/No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain't loyal/If we don't serve our own country we're patronising a hero/Look in his eyes, it's all lies, the stars and stripes/They've been swiped, washed out and wiped, And replaced with his own face."..."In these closing statements, if they should argue, let us beg to differ, as we set aside our differences, and assemble our own army, to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president, for the present."

"We're responsible for this monster, this coward, that we have empowered,"... "How could we allow something like this, without pumping our fist?/Now this is our final hour."

 

eminem says bush sucks too...

http://www.gnn.tv/content/emosh_hi.html




hip hop is not the music of my generation and i have never been a fan of eminem , but i have to admit that he earned some respect from me for at least being an artist who is not afraid to call bush what he is , a liar and a weapon of mass destruction with a deep seated psychological urge to out do his daddy's war on iraq ...

Eminem song puts Bush in the dock

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Friday October 29, 2004
The Guardian

Eminem has become the latest music star to weigh in on this year's presidential election. In a video for his new single, Mosh, the singer takes George Bush to task for raising taxes and waging the war in Iraq.

"Strap him with AK-47, let him go/Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way," a cartoon version of the rapper sings of the president, as he mobilises a mob of young voters.

The video is Eminem's most directly political work. It comes as other stars, from Bruce Springsteen to Leonardo DiCaprio, take to the stump - almost exclusively for Mr Kerry.

The video was first aired on MTV on Wednesday and immediately went to the top of the channel's "hot video" charts.

In it, the rapper leads a crowd of hooded people, including a mother with an eviction notice and a soldier given orders to return to Iraq, in a march to storm a government building. Once inside, the mob remove their hoods and stand in an orderly queue to vote.

Eminem, now wearing a smart suit and red tie, declaims in a style reminiscent of Martin Luther King:

"In these closing statements, if they should argue, let us beg to differ, as we set aside our differences, and assemble our own army, to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president, for the present."

The video was made by the Guerrilla News Network, a small independent company that has produced other music videos as well as a documentary about the dangers of depleted uranium in Iraq after the US-led invasion.

"We're responsible for this monster, this coward, that we have empowered," Eminem sings over a monotonous, stirring beat. "How could we allow something like this, without pumping our fist?/Now this is our final hour."

The climax to the video comes as the crowd faces riot police. As images of Mr Bush and Osama bin Laden flicker on a giant screen, the rapper sings: "No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil/No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain't loyal/If we don't serve our own country we're patronising a hero/Look in his eyes, it's all lies, the stars and stripes/They've been swiped, washed out and wiped, And replaced with his own face."

The video ends with a black screen and the words "Vote November 2".

"Not There.."

http://69.31.93.156/NotThere.mov

Iraq Veterans Against the War -- A very sad commentary from a US soldier returning from the war in Iraq ...

--quicktime format

resistance to repression from illegal haiti regime grows

http://www.haitiprogres.com/eng10-06.html


Street Resistance to Occupation Regime Surges



Haitian police, backed by U.N. occupation forces, have gunned down dozens of pro-democracy demonstrators and shanty town residents in the Haitian capital over the past six days and arrested many people without warrants, including former parliamentarians.

Skirmishes, barricades and spontaneous demonstrations have sprung up daily in poor neighborhoods around the capital since the police and paramilitary gunmen tried to stop a massive demonstration on September 30.

As we go to press on Oct. 5, there is street fighting in downtown Port-au-Prince, as well as the popular neighborhoods of Martissant and Bel Air. The latter slum is surrounded by heavily-armed contingents of the Haitian National Police (PNH). A former Haitian soldier was captured and decapitated in the neighborhood on Oct. 5, Port-au-Prince radios reported. On Oct. 2 and Oct. 3, police units entered Bel Air but were twice forced to flee, the first time abandoning their vehicle and weapons.

The popular uprising began on September 30th during a march to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the 1991 coup d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It is the largest and most sustained resistance to the latest coup against Aristide on Feb. 29, when U.S. Marines kidnapped and flew him into exile.

On the morning of Sep. 30, men in trucks, stripped of their license plates, drove around the capital setting up burning tire barricades. The National Cell for Reflection of Popular Organizations of the Lavalas Family Base, which called the demonstration that day, charged that the barricades were the work of pro-coup forces – either official or paramilitary – intent on thwarting the Sep. 30 march.

But the barricades didn’t work. Stepping off from Bel Air at 10 a.m., thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of neighborhoods like Sans Fils, Tiremasse, Caravelle, Saint Martin, Delmas 4, Delmas 2, Monseigneur Guilloux, Front-Fort, Montalais, Geffrard, and Oswald Durand, demanding an end to foreign military occupation, the departure of the de facto government, the release of all political prisoners, and the return of the constitutional government, including President Aristide.

Near the Interior Ministry, not far from the National Palace, shooting started. “On September 30, the police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators provoking an attack against a unit of the Unité de Securité Présidentielle (U.S.P), a special security detail assigned to [de facto] Interim President Boniface Alexandre,” the Haitian Information Project (HIP) reported in an Oct. 4 dispatch. “Members of the special police unit were seen firing on demonstrators and collecting bodies before masked gunmen returned fire, killing three and wounding a fourth who later died in the hospital.”

The U.S. mainstream press, echoing the de facto government and Haitian bourgeoisie’s radio stations, has alleged that the policemen killed were decapitated by Lavalas “armed gangs.” However, Lavalas leaders deny the charge. Last Friday, a day after the supposed decapitations, there were no headless bodies at the capital’s morgue.

De facto Prime Minister admitted that the police fired on the demonstrators. “We fired on them, some of them went down, others were wounded, and others fled,” he announced with no words of regret on Friday. He claimed to have the situation under control and said that he would prohibit further Lavalas demonstrations.

Meanwhile, de facto Justice Minister Bernard Gousse went even further, calling the demonstrators “terrorists” and outlaws. “In consultation with the Prime Minister, we ordered the demonstration to be forbidden,” Gousse declared unabashed. “This is not a violation of human rights, this is not a violation of anything, because the population knows that when it comes to expressing its opinions, we have no problem.” (Under the 1987 Constitution, the Haitian government cannot outlaw a demonstration.)

But two leaders of the National Cell of Reflection, Jean Marie Samedi and Lesley Farreau, charged that the police had engineered the confrontation. “It was a well orchestrated plan to disperse the demonstrators and prevent the international community from seeing the dimensions of the Lavalas,” Farreau declared.

Gilvert Angervil, a Lavalas Family spokesman, made a similar charge. “The government in place recruited armed bandits to fire on the police and attack stores downtown to try to lay the blame on Lavalas partisans,” he said.

On Oct. 2, Haitian police, backed by occupation troops from the United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH), arrested former Senators Yvon Feuillé and Gérald Gilles and former Deputy Rudy Hériveaux, all of Aristide’s Lavalas Family party.

“Feuillé, Gilles and Hériveaux had gone to Radio Caraïbes to participate on the station’s 11AM ‘Ranmase’ program, along with Evans Paul and Himmler Rébu, both prominent critics of the Lavalas party,” the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) reported in an Oct. 2 press alert. “The program’s subject was violence accompanying recent anti-government demonstrations. Feuillé, Gilles and Hériveaux denounced the violence, and condemned the police for firing on unarmed demonstrators. Before the program ended, heavily armed police officers from the Port-au-Prince police headquarters and specialized units surrounded the station and announced their intention to arrest the three parliamentarians.”

“A stand-off ensued,” the IJDH report continues, “until just before 6 PM (the Constitution prohibits arrests, even with a warrant, after 6 PM). At that point Judge Gabriel Ambroise, a Justice of the Peace, instructed the police to cut the locks and make the arrests. The three Parliamentarians did not resist arrest, and were taken by the police from the Station Manager’s office to the Port-au-Prince police holding cells. Lawyer Axène Joseph, also a former Deputy, was arrested earlier in the day when he arrived to protest the other arrests.”

But authorities had trouble concocting a charge against the former parliamentarians. During the stand-off, “government and police sources made announcements purporting to link Feuillé, Gilles and Hériveaux to recent violence,” the IJDH said. “The police also claimed that a car belonging to one of the three contained automatic weapons, but dropped this claim when journalists and human rights observers on the scene insisted that the police, not the parliamentarians, had brought that car.”

Finally the government charged Hériveaux and Feuillé as the “intellectual authors” of the Sep. 30 march. They said they would release Gilles for lack of evidence, but at press time, he remains jailed.

The official death toll since Sep. 30 is now about 20, but residents of popular neighborhoods say that there have been many more killings. They claim that the police often snatch and dump the bodies of their victims.

On Oct. 5, gunfire and street confrontations rocked the capital’s Martissant neighborhood. “According to witnesses, heavily armed units of the PNH cordoned off the community at about 10:00 a.m. and began a sweep through the area,” the HIP reported. “Gunfire could be heard as they entered with force and residents reported at least two people were killed and several more wounded. At least fifteen young men were reportedly seen being handcuffed and placed in the back of a large covered truck. Family members on the scene stated police would not respond when questioned about where they were being taken and are worried for their safety.”

more violence in haiti ...gov arrests opposition---from counterpunch.com

October 22 / 24, 2004
I Held the Bullet in My Palm
Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest

By BILL QUIGLEY

Jeanine (not her real name for reasons you will shortly understand) is a quiet 14 year old girl who lives with her family of 18 off a rutted dirt road near the international airport in Port au Prince. Twice a week she walked the mile or so to eat a meal at St. Claire's church.

Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste is the pastor of St. Claire's. He has been in jail for more than a week after his church was surrounded by heavily armed masked men while feeding 600 children at his parish His arrest was violent. The police ripped metal bars out of their concrete surroundings and smashed the windows of the church house to enter. After beating and handcuffing Fr. Jean-Juste, they dragged him out though the smashed window, threw him into a car and raced off to jail.

After the arrest, the people of the parish publicly complained and said the masked police had even shot children. Haitian authorities flatly denied any children were shot and no police inquiry into the arrest has been made.

Government-friendly media and US Embassy personnel also scoffed at the reports of children being shot by police. They said the stories of the children were products of the Haiti rumor mill and propaganda from the opponents of Haiti's unelected government.

Now the wounded children have appeared in public. They have real bandages and real medical reports.

And then there is the bullet.

When I visit Jeanine, she sits on a wooden bench leaning far to her left. Her mother tenderly turns her around and modestly lifts her daughter's dark blue skirt to reveal a 4 inch jagged blue-stitched suture at the bottom of her right buttock.

Jeanine's older brother holds out a blood-stained gauze packet. Unfolding it, I find the brassy bullet the doctors removed from Jeanine's backside last week.

Jeanine was shot in the backside while running away from the Haitian police during the arrest of Fr. Jean-Juste after the feeding of the children at St. Claire's.

I held the bullet removed from Jeanine in my palm. It is a little less than an inch long, brass colored, and very hard. Jeanine is still in pain. Her family cannot afford to bring her back to the doctor.

Two other children, two young boys, were also shot by the police during the arrest of Fr. Jean-Juste One was shot in the head, one in the shoulder. I met them as well. They were also seen by medical authorities.

Fr. Jean-Juste sits in the national penitentiary along with numerous other political prisoners. He is officially charged with disturbing the peace, a crime punishable by a fine of 40 cents. Amnesty International condemned his arrest and also warns that his courageous Haitian lawyer Mario Joseph may be in danger because of his human rights work.

Meanwhile, the unelected authorities in Haiti are supported by the US government. Both condemn the opposition, saying they are only interested in violence.

Why would masked Haitian police shoot a little girl in the backside? Why would the police shoot the other two boys? Why deny they were shot? Why beat and indefinitely imprison a priest? Why threaten his lawyer?

Makes you ask the question, which side in Haiti is really interested in ruling by violence? Don't bother to ask Jeanine and the other children, they know the answer.

Mario Joseph and Reynolds Georges are the Haitian lawyers representing Fr. Jean-Juste. They can be reached at www.ijdh.org.

Bill Quigley is a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans School of Law. He writes from Port au Prince where he is one of the lawyers representing Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste. He can be reached at duprestars@msn.com.

"Can you hear me now ? ...Can you hear me NOW ? " 

did bush wear a wire to help him during debates , press conferences, his acceptance speech, for the 9-11 hearings, while taking a shower , etc etc?

*and what does this say about a guy who can't effectively think on his feet and has to cheat not only during elections but also during debates that help determine the outcomes of elections ?

Friday, October 22, 2004
The Questions That Aren't Being Answered...or Asked

by Dave Lindorff

The Bush campaign and the White House continue to stall and dissemble regarding the mysterious object that has been hiding under the president's jacket at debates, public speaking events and even at home on his Crawford ranch.

The latest dodge and obfuscation has been to cite an article in the pro-Bush Moonie paper, the Washington Times (long known for its penchant for misinformation) claiming on no evidence whatsever that, the Kerry camp was behind planted stories about Bush wearing a wire for the debates.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Neither I nor any of the alert people who first called attention to this story after seeing the rectangular bulge in the jacket during the first debate had any help or even contact from the Kerry camp. They hardly needed it! The bulge is as obvious as the failure of Bush's Iraq policies. In fact, when I tried to get a comment from or even assistance in locating other photos from the Kerry campaign, I couldn't even get a call-back (the Kerry campaign has one of the most inept public relations operations I have ever dealth with in many years of covering presidential elections).

Indeed, when offered the opportunity to comment on the bulge, Kerry backers from DNC head Terry McAlliffe to CNN "Crossfire" host and Kerry adviser Paul Begala have dismissed it, rather than make the point that something is clearly under there and that the public has a right to know.

Here then are the specific questions that the media should be asking, instead of wasting their time with White House diversions and right wing spin:

1. Did the president wear an earpiece during the debates?

2. Does he have a medical condition requiring the wearing of something on his back?

3. What is that thing that was so important to the president that even after it became a controversy following the first debate, he had to wear it for the other two debates, too?

4. Why is the president wearing it on his ranch while driving a pick-up in what was billed as his time off?

5. How long has the president been using an earpiece, such as the one clearly visible in his ear at the National Prayer Breakfast?

6. Did the president use an ear prompt for his convention acceptance speech?

7. Why has the president refused to release his medical records?

8. Doesn't the public have a right to know the president's health condition?

There is still a week and a half until the election. It is scandalous that the mainstream media have their staffs of reporters simply following the candidates around, publishing their canned statements like stenographers, instead of assigning the people who have (or should have by now) good White House and campaign contacts to root out the truth of this story (not to mention others, like the president's claim that he won't need to resort to a draft),

Someday the truth of this scandal will be known. It will be to the media’s lasting shame if this happens after the election, instead of before, when the voting public should have had it in hand.

Meanwhile, for those who are interested in keeping up with developments, check out

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

thus sayeth the 'lord'...unless there's too much static

"Some people don't believe me when i say that the Lord speaks through me...but they're probably liberals or terrorists , Frenchmen , or some other kind of evil-doers who hate America because we have freedom ...so what they think really don't mean diddly...my faith in the Lord is the most important thing in my life and i hope he will ALWAYS speak to me and through me and give me every word that i might say... " 

"At my ranch wearing that new ' presidential missile defense device' thingy under my tee-shirt that the pentagon boys stuck on my back ...or even during the recent debates with that funny looking democrat guy...umm...you know...mr. what's his name... i can always hear clearly the voice of the Lord" 

"Even with this li'l thingy in my ear...i still hear the voice of the Lord everywhere i go...just like the Rev Billy Graham said i would when my Daddy got him to save me and my brother Jebbie from our sinner's lives of wild womanizing , drinking and drugging..." 

"yes it's me George ...the Lord...Me and my angles ... oops ...i mean my angels...Now listen carefully , here's what we want you to say this time..." 

don't think of what this administration said about iraq as 'lying' ...this administration prefers to call it ...ummm... an 'artificial truth manufacture'...yeah ...that's what it is...  

iyad allawi...iraqi interim prime minister

"Yes, before the invasion , my friends and i did say that Iraqis will greet American soldiers as liberators and throw flowers at them... yeah we lied ...so what ?" 

"Saddam Hussein can launch wmd in 45 minutes ... Saddam smuggled in yellow cake uranium from Niger through Libya... Saddam was connected with Al Queda ...Saddam trained Mohammad Atta ...Saddam stashed $40 billion stolen dollars in banks around the world" ---Iyad Allawi 

from bad to worse?

a somewhat lengthy read (..."so what else is new" , you ask ? ) , but quite interesting article found while on a related web surf :


Ayad Allawi



Dr. Ayad Allawi (Iyad Allawi) was "unanimously nominated" to be Iraq's "interim prime minister" by "Iraq's U.S.-appointed" Iraqi Governing Council on Friday, May 28, 2004. Allawi is a Shiite Muslim politician and former exile "whose party was supported by the CIA". [1] [2]


Background

Ayad Alawi "was born in Baghdad in 1946 into a wealthy Shiite family of prominent business leaders." As a "young man", Allawi joined the Baath Party after it "gained control of Iraq" and "organized party meetings at his medical school. He left Baghdad for advanced medical studies in London in 1971, eventually becoming a neurologist." It is reported that "Dr. Alawi occasionally treated young Saddam Hussein for minor ailments." [3] [4]

Allawi, before his 1976 resignation from the Baath Party, "was in charge of all Baath Party organizations in Europe." Following his resignation, "Hussein tried to lure him back with threats and bribes. When he refused and subsequently struck up a relationship with the British intelligence service (MI6), he was reportedly placed on a liquidation list by Hussein." [5] [6]

"Iraqi secret police were sent to assassinate Allawi in London in 1978, bursting into his bedroom and hacking him with an ax. He suffered serious injuries and spent nearly a year in a hospital. He continues to walk with a limp because of injuries to his leg suffered in the attack." [7]

The attack on his life helped persuade Allawi in 1979 to begin "organizing former Baathists in exile, like himself. ... And after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, suddenly Mr. Alawi and his organization were in great demand. Financial support flowed in from Britain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and, eventually, the CIA. That year he founded the Iraqi National Accord." [8]

"After shuttling between Kurdish areas, Syria and Jordan, Allawi, who has good ties with Washington, settled in London. INA is made up mostly of defectors from the military and intelligence services, and belongs to the Group of Four." [9] [10]

"As leader of the INA, [Allawi] was embraced by Britain and the United States. In 1996, he worked with the CIA to plot a coup that was to involve Iraqi army generals toppling Hussein. But the Iraqi leader penetrated the plot and arrested and executed many of its operatives." [11] [12]

"Allawi returned to Baghdad shortly after Hussein's government fell in April 2003, running his party from an abandoned Baath Party office. Many members of his party are former military officers, and he has advocated a greater role for former soldiers in the country's new security services." [13]

A "qualified medical doctor," Dr. Allawi has "no army or intelligence background." Allawi claims the "support of hundreds of activists abroad and thousands of disillusioned government and party officials inside Iraq." [14] [15]

Setting the Stage for Rule

According to the February 14, 2004, edition of The Economist:

"The chairman of the council's security committee, Ayad Allawi, has begun creating a new version of the feared secret police. Iraq may well need a counter-insurgency force, but Mr Allawi's rivals accuse him of recruiting former torturers to man a new apparatus of oppression."

The Boston Globe reported on May 14, 2004, that

"Ali Allawi ... Iraq's new interim defense minister ... a technocrat who is related to pro-American exile leaders Ayad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord and Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, has won a measure of respect from Iraqis in his former job as trade minister.

"Now that he is minister of defense, however, and in charge of security, the issue most important to Iraqis, he'll have to walk a fine line between working with the occupying authority and advocating for autonomous Iraqi interests."

Allawi "Intelligence" Reports

Saddam "Connected" to Al Qaeda

"Saddam had ordered Atta training," according to Allawi, identified as "a member of Iraq's seven-man presidential committee" in the December 15, 2003, The Indian Express.

A handwritten memo dated July 1, 2001, that was published "exclusively" in the December 14, 2003, London Daily Telegraph "provides a short resume of a three-day 'work programme'" which alleged September 11, 2001 "mastermind" Mohammad Atta "had undertaken at [Palestinian terrorist] Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad."

"The details of Atta’s visit are contained in [the] secret memo, written to Hussein by the former head of Iraqi intelligence service Tahir Jalil Habbush Al-Tikriti, it said." A media report stated that Atta's training had been "at the insistance of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein."

"Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq’s ruling seven-man presidential committee, said the document was genuine.

'We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam’s involvement with Al Qaeda,' Allawi said. 'But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with Al Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks.'"

However, Joe Conason wrote in Salon on December 18, 2003: [16]

"Among those currently cooperating in this political jihad are members of the Iraqi Governing Council, journalists at London's right-wing Daily Telegraph, and the eminently respectable William Safire of the New York Times. Last Sunday, the Telegraph blared a front-page story claiming that a newly discovered document memo proves Iraqi intelligence assisted 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta, in Baghdad, during the summer of 2001. The Telegraph identified the source who provided the memo as Dr. Ayad Allawi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council.

"The very next day, Safire promoted the Telegraph's 'scoop' in an Op-Ed column on the capture of Saddam. As a fervent believer in the covert connection between Saddam and Osama bin Laden, he must have been elated by this fresh documentation of his theory. The Times columnist lent further plausibility to the story by identifying Allawi as 'an Iraqi leader long considered reliable by intelligence agencies.'"

"Someday, plausible proof may emerge that implicates Saddam in al-Qaida's crimes, but this memo won't quite do. Newsweek's Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff report that the document provided by Allawi is almost certainly fraudulent (like those papers concerning Iraq's purchases of uranium yellowcake from Niger). As Hosenball and Isikoff explain:

"'The new document, supposedly written by the chief of the Iraqi intelligence service ... doesn't say exactly when Atta was supposed to have actually flown to Baghdad. But the memo is dated July 1, 2001, and [Telegraph reporter Con] Coughlin himself places the trip as the summer of 2001.

"'The problem with this, say U.S. law enforcement officials, is that the FBI has compiled a highly detailed time line for Atta's movements throughout the spring and summer of 2001 based on a mountain of documentary evidence, including airline records, ATM withdrawals and hotel receipts. Those records show Atta crisscrossing the United States during this period -- making only one overseas trip, an 11-day visit to Spain that didn't begin until six days after the date of the Iraqi memo.'"

Niger Uranium

"The second part of the memo, which is headed 'Niger Shipment', contains a report about an unspecified shipment — believed to be uranium — that it says has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria." [17]

"WMD in "45 Minutes"

Allawi "is the person through whom the controversial claim was channelled that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be operational in 45 minutes." [18]

Saddam Stashed Billions

The International Herald Tribune reported on December 30, 2003, that Allawi told "two London-based Arab newspapers he had information that Saddam Hussein had informed his interrogators of stashing billions of dollars in banks around the world and that Saddam was providing interrogators with the names of those who control the funds."

Allawi "told the newspapers Al Hayat and Asharq Al Awsat that the Governing Council estimated that Saddam had siphoned off $40 billion during his years in power and that it was searching banks in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and other countries for the money.

"But a U.S. official dismissed as 'completely wrong' the idea that Saddam had secreted away so much money or had provided information about it to his interrogators."

Allawi becomes Iraq’s interim Prime Minister

The outgoing Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) – a creation of the U.S. – announced Allawi’s appointment as interim Prime Minister on May 29, 2004. Allawi’s appointment was viewed as a move to pre-empt moves by the U.N and U.S. to draft someone seen as independent of the occupation forces. writes [19] [20]

According to the Washington Post, Allawi was regarded by some U.S. officials as a compromise candidate. “Although he is secular, he reportedly has the support of the country's top Shiite cleric (Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani) [which is key because Shiites make up a majority of the population], and he has served as the Governing Council's point man on security issues. He also has welcomed Sunni Muslims and ethnic Kurds into his political organization and promoted reconciliation with former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, a group he supported more than 30 years ago," according to Rajiv Chandrasekaran in the May 29, 2004, Washington Post. [21]

Since the handover of power to Allawi in late June, he has announced that a new internal intelligence agency would be created to undermine those behind the string of attacks on U.S and Iraqi forces. "We are determined to bring down all the hurdles that stand in the way of our democracy," Allawi told journalists announcing the new agency. [22]

In mid-July, the Bagdad correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul McGeogh, reported that two eye-witnesses stated that the week prior to the handover of power that Allawi had drawn a pistol and executed up to six people detained for suspected attacks on Iraqi and U.S forces. Allawi's office has denied that he had visited the Al-Amariyah security centre in Bagdad's suburbs or that he carried a gun. U.S Ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, dismissed the claims without investigating them. [23]

After the statements by the witnesses, McGeogh wrote of Allawi that his "every response to the Iraq mess is that of a hard man: he threatens martial law; he warns he might shut down sections of the media; he suggests he might delay elections. His Justice Minister is bringing back the death penalty; his Defence Minister warns he'll chop off insurgents' hands and heads." [24]

"He tells people he's a 'tough guy'. And friends and enemies alike resort to the same page of the thesaurus when they talk about him: 'willing to be ruthless,' says one; 'potential for brutality,' says another; 'muscular law enforcement comes naturally to him,' concludes a third Iraqi voice," McGeogh wrote.


External Links

* Stanley Reed, "After Saddam: A Power Vacuum May Give Washington Pause," BusinessWeek, August 12, 2002: "Indeed, intramural rivalry is running strong. There is friction, for instance, between Chalabi and Ayad Allawi, a former senior member of Saddam's Baath Party who left Iraq in the 1970s and heads the Iraqi National Accord, a longstanding dissident group. Chalabi, a political liberal, has admirers in Washington, but Allawi's group is believed to have better connections to the Baath Party and the Iraqi military."

* Adam Daifallah, "Interim Leaders are a Mixed Bag," New York Sun, February 28, 2003: "Mr. Allawi's group, comprised mainly of former Baathist associates of Saddam, has received funding from the CIA and has unsuccessfully worked with American intelligence for years to oust Saddam through coup attempts."

* Nicolas Pelham, "Rival former exile groups clash over security in Iraq," The Financial Times, December 11, 2003.

* Michael T. Klare, "Fighting For Oil — Still," agence global, April 1, 2004: "The Erinys contract first aroused controversy last fall, when it was disclosed that its major investors included figures close to Ahmad Chalabi, founder of the Iraqi National Congress and member of the Iraq Governing Council. Other council members, including Ayad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord, charged that Chalabi was using his position on the IGC to funnel lucrative contracts to his cronies in the INC at the expense of national unity."

* "British-educated Surgeon is New Iraqi Prime Minister. A British-educated neurosurgeon who spent 30 years in exile in Britain, and who has close links with both the CIA and MI6, was named as Iraq's new interim prime minister last night," Guardian/UK, May 28, 2004.

* Irwin Arieff, "UN's Brahimi 'Respects' Choice of Iraqi Leader," Reuters, May 28, 2004.

* Charles Wolfson, "The Politics Behind Iraq's New PM," CBS News, May 28, 2004.

* Michael Georgy, "Iraqis Have Doubts Over Choice of Interim Premier," Reuters, May 28, 2004.
* Barry Schweid, "White House praises selection of Iraqi exile as prime minister," AP, May 28, 2004.
* Warren Hoge and Steven R. Weisman, "Surprising Choice for Premier of Iraq Reflects U.S. Influence," New York Times, May 29, 2004.
* Rajiv Chandrasekaran, "Former Exile Is Selected As Interim Iraqi Leader. Bremer, Brahimi Endorse Governing Council's Choice," Washington Post, May 29, 2004.
* Justin Huggler, "Iraqi with MI6 links is new prime minister," Independent/UK, May 29, 2004.
* Alissa J. Rubin and Maggie Farley, "Iraqi Council Nominates a Prime Minister," Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2004.
* "Former exile starts work on post-transition cabinet, Najaf truce wobbles," AFP, May 29, 2004.
* Joel Brinkley, "A Guide for Hard Times: Iyad Alawi," New York Times, May 29, 2004.
* "UN Sidelined in Choice of Iraqi Leader. White House struggles to defend the selection of candidate who is hardly known in his own country," Guardian/UK, May 29, 2004.
* Mike Allen and Robin Wright, "Pick Appears to Catch Bush Administration Off Guard," Washington Post, May 29, 2004.

* Dexter Filkins, "Exile With Ties to C.I.A. Is Named Premier of Iraq," New York Times, May 29, 2004.

* Hamza Hendawi, "Iraqi panel backs member for premier," AP, May 29, 2004.

* Spencer Abraham, "Iraq'd: Zipless Coup," The New Republic, May 29, 2004.

* "A Hollow Sovereignty for Iraq," New York Times Op-Ed, May 29, 2004.

* Melinda Liu, "Betting on an Old Horse. The CIA finally scores a coup in Iraq—even if it wasn't planned—when the Governing Council agrees on a new leader," Newsweek, June 7, 2004 (Issue).

* “Allawi's rocky road to the top”, Sydney Morning Herald, July 17 2004.

* Dean Yates, “Allawi reveals plan for domestic spy agency”, Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 2004.

* Paul McGeough, “Allawi shot prisoners in cold blood: witnesses”, Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 2004.

* Paul McGeogh, “Hard man for a tough country”, Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 2004.

"Plan B" by Seymour Hersh...conclusion

There may be no way to square it with Turkey. Over breakfast in Ankara, a senior Turkish official explained, “Before the war, Israel was active in Kurdistan, and now it is active again. This is very dangerous for us, and for them, too. We do not want to see Iraq divided, and we will not ignore it.” Then, citing a popular Turkish proverb—“We will burn a blanket to kill a flea”—he said, “We have told the Kurds, ‘We are not afraid of you, but you should be afraid of us.’” (A Turkish diplomat I spoke to later was more direct: “We tell our Israeli and Kurdish friends that Turkey’s good will lies in keeping Iraq together. We will not support alternative solutions.”)


“If you end up with a divided Iraq, it will bring more blood, tears, and pain to the Middle East, and you will be blamed,” the senior Turkish official said. “From Mexico to Russia, everybody will claim that the United States had a secret agenda in Iraq: you came there to break up Iraq. If Iraq is divided, America cannot explain this to the world.” The official compared the situation to the breakup of Yugoslavia, but added, “In the Balkans, you did not have oil.” He said, “The lesson of Yugoslavia is that when you give one country independence everybody will want it.” If that happens, he said, “Kirkuk will be the Sarajevo of Iraq. If something happens there, it will be impossible to contain the crisis.”


In Ankara, another senior Turkish official explained that his government had “openly shared its worries” about the Israeli military activities inside Kurdistan with the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “They deny the training and the purchase of property and claim it’s not official but done by private persons. Obviously, our intelligence community is aware that it was not so. This policy is not good for America, Iraq, or Israel and the Jews.”


Turkey’s increasingly emphatic and public complaints about Israel’s missile attacks on the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip is another factor in the growing tensions between the allies. On May 26th, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, announced at a news conference in Ankara that the Turkish government was bringing its Ambassador in Israel home for consultations on how to revive the Middle East peace process. He also told the Turkish parliament that the government was planning to strengthen its ties to the Palestinian Authority, and, in conversations with Middle Eastern diplomats in the past month, he expressed grave concern about Israel. In one such talk, one diplomat told me, Gul described Israeli activities, and the possibility of an independent Kurdistan, as “presenting us with a choice that is not a real choice—between survival and alliance.”


A third Turkish official told me that the Israelis were “talking to us in order to appease our concern. They say, ‘We aren’t doing anything in Kurdistan to undermine your interests. Don’t worry.’” The official added, “If it goes out publicly what they’ve been doing, it will put your government and our government in a difficult position. We can tolerate ‘Kurdistan’ if Iraq is intact, but nobody knows the future—not even the Americans.”

A former White House official depicted the Administration as eager—almost desperate—late this spring to install an acceptable new interim government in Iraq before President Bush’s declared June 30th deadline for the transfer of sovereignty. The Administration turned to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy, to “put together something by June 30th—just something that could stand up” through the Presidential election, the former official said. Brahimi was given the task of selecting, with Washington’s public approval, the thirty-one members of Iraq’s interim government. Nevertheless, according to press reports, the choice of Iyad Allawi as interim Prime Minister was a disappointment to Brahimi.


The White House has yet to deal with Allawi’s past. His credentials as a neurologist, and his involvement during the past two decades in anti-Saddam activities, as the founder of the British-based Iraqi National Accord, have been widely reported. But his role as a Baath Party operative while Saddam struggled for control in the nineteen-sixties and seventies—Saddam became President in 1979—is much less well known.

“Allawi helped Saddam get to power,” an American intelligence officer told me. “He was a very effective operator and a true believer.” Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former C.I.A. case officer who served in the Middle East, added, “Two facts stand out about Allawi. One, he likes to think of himself as a man of ideas; and, two, his strongest virtue is that he’s a thug.”


Early this year, one of Allawi’s former medical-school classmates, Dr. Haifa al-Azawi, published an essay in an Arabic newspaper in London raising questions about his character and his medical bona fides. She depicted Allawi as a “big husky man . . . who carried a gun on his belt and frequently brandished it, terrorizing the medical students.” Allawi’s medical degree, she wrote, “was conferred upon him by the Baath party.”

Allawi moved to London in 1971, ostensibly to continue his medical education; there he was in charge of the European operations of the Baath Party organization and the local activities of the Mukhabarat, its intelligence agency, until 1975.


“If you’re asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does,” Vincent Cannistraro, the former C.I.A. officer, said. “He was a paid Mukhabarat agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff.”

A cabinet-level Middle East diplomat, who was rankled by the U.S. indifference to Allawi’s personal history, told me early this month that Allawi was involved with a Mukhabarat “hit team” that sought out and killed Baath Party dissenters throughout Europe. (Allawi’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)

At some point, for reasons that are not clear, Allawi fell from favor, and the Baathists organized a series of attempts on his life. The third attempt, by an axe-wielding assassin who broke into his home near London in 1978, resulted in a year-long hospital stay.


The Saban Center’s Flynt Leverett said of the transfer of sovereignty, “If it doesn’t work, there is no fallback—nothing.” The former senior American intelligence official told me, similarly, that “the neocons still think they can pull the rabbit out of the hat” in Iraq. “What’s the plan? They say, ‘We don’t need it. Democracy is strong enough. We’ll work it out.’”


Middle East diplomats and former C.I.A. operatives who now consult in Baghdad have told me that many wealthy Iraqi businessmen and their families have deserted Baghdad in recent weeks in anticipation of continued, and perhaps heightened, suicide attacks and terror bombings after June 30th. “We’ll see Christians, Shiites, and Sunnis getting out,” Michel Samaha, the Lebanese Minister of Information, reported. “What the resistance is doing is targeting the poor people who run the bureaucracy—those who can’t afford to pay for private guards. A month ago, friends of mine who are important landowners in Iraq came to Baghdad to do business. The cost of one day’s security was about twelve thousand dollars.”


Whitley Bruner, a retired intelligence officer who was a senior member of the C.I.A.’s task force on Iraq a decade ago, said that the new interim government in Iraq is urgently seeking ways to provide affordable security for second-tier officials—the men and women who make the government work. In early June, two such officials—Kamal Jarrah, an Education Ministry official, and Bassam Salih Kubba, who was serving as deputy foreign minister—were assassinated by unidentified gunmen outside their homes. Neither had hired private guards. Bruner, who returned from Baghdad earlier this month, said that he was now working to help organize Iraqi companies that could provide high-quality security that Iraqis could afford. “It’s going to be a hot summer,” Bruner said. “A lot of people have decided to get to Lebanon, Jordan, or the Gulf and wait this one out.”



* note from this blogger...The neo-cons appear to have completely failed to do their homework and to be totally absent of a clue about the underlying dynamics of the region . The israelis on the other hand , meticulous in their dirty work as ever , are set to toss aside the good relations they have been carefully building with turkey and prepared , through supporting the statehood ambitions of the kurds to plunge the region into chaos .

the israelis seem determined that the promises made by ahmed chalabi of a israel-friendly government in iraq that would gladly sell the zionists much needed iraqi oil through a northern pipeline from kirkuk to the israeli port of haifa will be made real through supporting the kurds .

the shia majority and the sunni populations would vehemently oppose this act politically in any national government formed in iraq . the only other option would be for the israelis to egg the kurds on to declare an independent kurdistan which would force the hand of the Turks , Syrians and Iranians in order to keep the lid on their own significant populations of ethnic kurds .

it would represent a huge gamble , but if it paid off , the entire region could then eventually balkanize into a patchwork of small states and bickering ethnic enclaves while israel remains strong , united and intact---it would be for the right winged zionists like hitting the "super lotto" and the "lotto" --all on the same day as israel's neighbors would be too preoccupied and weakened by internal strife to offer any real opposition to zionist territorial aspirations for a "greater israel" and israeli domination of the region.

As seen in Africa -- in Angola ,Rwanda , Congo , Sierra Leone , and elsewhere (umm...Russia for instance) , if a nation has valuable resources , old ethnic rivalries can be easily exploited to unravel the states created by former colonial powers and set off civil wars that only the advocates of "divide and conquer" can win .

In angola and rwanda short-sighted ethnic "leaders" signed away tens of billions of dollars worth of natural resources for a few million dollars worth of obsolete weapons from old Cold War stockpiles . Tens of thousands were slaughtered in the ensuing bloodbaths as africans slew africans while the west feigned horror , sat back and watched .

Perhaps from firsthand knowledge gained from working so closely on these types of covert "projects" over the years with the west , the zionists plan on raising similar breeds of these foolish 'chickens' to roost in the middle east backyard ?

"Plan B" by Seymour Hersh...part 2

The Israelis, however, view the neighborhood, with the exception of Kurdistan, as hostile. Israel is convinced that Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, and that, with Syria’s help, it is planning to bolster Palestinian terrorism as Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip.

Iraqi Shiite militia leaders like Moqtada al-Sadr, the former American intelligence official said, are seen by the Israeli leadership as “stalking horses” for Iran—owing much of their success in defying the American-led coalition to logistical and communications support and training provided by Iran. The former intelligence official said, “We began to see telltale signs of organizational training last summer. But the White House didn’t want to hear it: ‘We can’t take on another problem right now. We can’t afford to push Iran to the point where we’ve got to have a showdown.’”

*note from this blogger ...and for all the american bluster about 'axis of evil' 'war on terror' ...blah blah blah...the syrians , north koreans and iranians...hell--everybody in the world for that matter--knows america is over-extended in iraq...so why insist on further alienating the rest of the world ? why does the bush administration continue to make itself look foolish with wild west sherrif talk and cowboy posturing that everybody knows america can't back up ?

Last summer, according to a document I obtained, the Bush Administration directed the Marines to draft a detailed plan, called Operation Stuart, for the arrest and, if necessary, assassination of Sadr. But the operation was cancelled, the former intelligence official told me, after it became clear that Sadr had been “tipped off” about the plan.


*note... first , who tipped Sadr off ? is it that the iraqi security services are so thoroughly infiltrated by both sunni and shia insurgents that vital intel leaks through like cheesecloth ? or is that the old ahmed chalabi security leak again? Or is it an Iyad allawi security leak--both men being shia's with an interest in not seeing the shia militias completely destroyed since shia's would need a counterbalance to sunni and kurdish military in the new iraqi political dynamic/vaccum.

*and secondly , Yeah...that's the way to REALLY build democracy in iraq...arrest the political opposition on trumped up charges , or assassinate them 'if necessary'...that's DEFINITELY how to win hearts and minds... But then the old question re-emerges of what's the difference between you and saddam? and where's your justification for the war...after the WMD threat proved a scam , you said you invaded to bring democracy to iraq ? you invaded because saddam was a cruel dictator who arrested his opposition on trumped up charges , shut down opposition newspapers , tortured and assassinated his political rivals ? What's the difference between old and new regime...what's the difference between then and now ? Perhaps the islamic world doesn't hate america , as bush claims , because america has 'freedom' ...perhaps they hate america for the TYPE of 'freedom' it brings ?

Seven months later, after Sadr spent the winter building support for his movement, the American-led coalition shut down his newspaper, provoking a crisis that Sadr survived with his status enhanced, thus insuring that he will play a major, and unwelcome, role in the political and military machinations after June 30th.

“Israel’s immediate goal after June 30th is to build up the Kurdish commando units to balance the Shiite militias—especially those which would be hostile to the kind of order in southern Iraq that Israel would like to see,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Of course, if a fanatic Sunni Baathist militia took control—one as hostile to Israel as Saddam Hussein was—Israel would unleash the Kurds on it, too.”


* note ...maybe this might have something to do with why the kurds get such bad treatment in the region...either that or a sign of their desperation...their willingness to be pawns of israeli interests ? Allowing themselves to be used and then abandoned by the us and now used by the israelis in hopes of a kurdish state that Turkey , Iran, Syria as well as many Iraqis are vehemently opposed to . Of course a kurdish state would greatly intensify all sorts of long simmering domestic squabbles in those countries ...weakening them and taking much pressure off israel in terms of foreign opposition...if the nations of the region were greatly weakened by internal strife , the palestinians , with little or no support left from those countries , could perhaps be bullied into a settlement with israel giving them even less than the 'nothing' they were given in previous negotiations with zionist state.

Of course the zionists will have meticulously evaluated whether sacrificing good relations with Turkey are worth the advantages that destabilizing Turkey , Syria Iraq and Iran would bring the Israelis... personally this blogger thinks Sharon and company would gleefully give that destabilization the go-ahead ...which should be a warning to the Turks , the Kurds and anyone else ...make deals with the devil and you always get burned...

The Kurdish armed forces, known as the peshmerga, number an estimated seventy-five thousand troops, a total that far exceeds the known Sunni and Shiite militias.
The former Israeli intelligence officer acknowledged that since late last year Israel has been training Kurdish commando units to operate in the same manner and with the same effectiveness as Israel’s most secretive commando units, the Mistaravim.


The initial goal of the Israeli assistance to the Kurds, the former officer said, was to allow them to do what American commando units had been unable to do—penetrate, gather intelligence on, and then kill off the leadership of the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies in Iraq. (I was unable to learn whether any such mission had yet taken place.)

“The feeling was that this was a more effective way to get at the insurgency,” the former officer said. “But the growing Kurdish-Israeli relationship began upsetting the Turks no end. Their issue is that the very same Kurdish commandos trained for Iraq could infiltrate and attack in Turkey.”


The Kurdish-Israeli collaboration inevitably expanded, the Israeli said. Some Israeli operatives have crossed the border into Iran, accompanied by Kurdish commandos, to install sensors and other sensitive devices that primarily target suspected Iranian nuclear facilities. The former officer said, “Look, Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way—as balance against Saddam. It’s Realpolitik.” He added, “By aligning with the Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq, and Syria.” He went on, “What Israel was doing with the Kurds was not so unacceptable in the Bush Administration.”


Senior German officials told me, with alarm, that their intelligence community also has evidence that Israel is using its new leverage inside Kurdistan, and within the Kurdish communities in Iran and Syria, for intelligence and operational purposes.

*note...the israelis with kurdish commandos are crossing from kurdish held iraq into iran and installing sensors that "target" iranian nuclear facilities ??? "Target" as in targeting for aircraft bombing as the israelis did to iraq's nuclear facility in the 1980s ???

the iraqi facility was built by France at the urging of the US--from whom i believe the iraqis were also urged to borrow the money , the facility was strictly monitored from the start by the international atomic energy agencies and certified by them as a non-weapons type reactor ...the israelis waited until it was completed and then bombed it to hell. THAT act BTW , marked the beginning of saddam hussein's attempts to get a nuclear weapon in his arsenal... Apparently , once again the israelis are able to thumb their noses and do whatever they want , despite international law to the contrary .

Syrian and Lebanese officials believe that Israeli intelligence played a role in a series of violent protests in Syria in mid-March in which Syrian Kurdish dissidents and Syrian troops clashed, leaving at least thirty people dead. (There are nearly two million Kurds living in Syria, which has a population of seventeen million.) Much of the fighting took place in cities along Syria’s borders with Turkey and Kurdish-controlled Iraq.

Michel Samaha, the Lebanese Minister of Information, told me that while the disturbances amounted to an uprising by the Kurds against the leadership of Bashir Assad, the Syrian President, his government had evidence that Israel was “preparing the Kurds to fight all around Iraq, in Syria, Turkey, and Iran. They’re being programmed to do commando operations.”



The top German national-security official told me that he believes that the Bush Administration continually misread Iran. “The Iranians wanted to keep America tied down in Iraq, and to keep it busy there, but they didn’t want chaos,” he said. One of the senior German officials told me, “The critical question is ‘What will the behavior of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel?’ Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier”—that is, a military stronghold—“on its border.”

Another senior European official said, “The Iranians would do something positive in the south of Iraq if they get something positive in return, but Washington won’t do it. The Bush Administration won’t ask the Iranians for help, and can’t ask the Syrians. Who is going to save the United States?” He added that, at the start of the American invasion of Iraq, several top European officials had told their counterparts in Iran, “You will be the winners in the region.”

*note...Iranians will be the 'winners' IF the israeli regional destabilization efforts and right winged zionist fanatical hopes of widening the US/Iraq war to include Syria and Iran , can also be checked...

TO BE CONTINUED...

Meanwhile back in Tel Aviv and 'Kurdistan'...

PLAN B

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.

Posted 2004-06-21

In July, 2003, two months after President Bush declared victory in Iraq, the war, far from winding down, reached a critical point. Israel, which had been among the war’s most enthusiastic supporters, began warning the Administration that the American-led occupation would face a heightened insurgency—a campaign of bombings and assassinations—later that summer. Israeli intelligence assets in Iraq were reporting that the insurgents had the support of Iranian intelligence operatives and other foreign fighters, who were crossing the unprotected border between Iran and Iraq at will. The Israelis urged the United States to seal the nine-hundred-mile-long border, at whatever cost.

The border stayed open, however. “The Administration wasn’t ignoring the Israeli intelligence about Iran,” Patrick Clawson, who is the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and has close ties to the White House, explained. “There’s no question that we took no steps last summer to close the border, but our attitude was that it was more useful for Iraqis to have contacts with ordinary Iranians coming across the border, and thousands were coming across every day—for instance, to make pilgrimages.” He added, “The questions we confronted were ‘Is the trade-off worth it? Do we want to isolate the Iraqis?’ Our answer was that as long as the Iranians were not picking up guns and shooting at us, it was worth the price.”

*note from this blogger... YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ! AFTER READING THAT I AM TOTALLY CONVINCED THAT AMERICA IS BEING LED BY FOOLS...

Clawson said, “The Israelis disagreed quite vigorously with us last summer. Their concern was very straightforward—that the Iranians would create social and charity organizations in Iraq and use them to recruit people who would engage in armed attacks against Americans.”

* note from this blogger...perhaps the israelis know what they are talking about here after having screwed up by financing islamic clerics and social institutions and social charities as a counterweight to the secular PLO...social/religious groups that eventually became Hamas . The israelis hoped to support a religious revival among palestinian youth that would radicalize them and lead them down the blind alley of demanding the impossible...an islamic palestinian state that world opinion would never support and would alienate the 1/3 of the palestinian population that were christians-- ala the old 'divide and conquer' strategy...


* after thought on the above note * Hmmm...from a rightwinged zionist perspective, perhaps the losses from the suicide bombings were worth it... And by creating their own boogeymen 'terrorist' groups to fight --Hamas and islamic jihad , it was worth it for the zionists as another excuse for further ravaging palestinian populations , homes , farms and villages as was so viciously done in Jenin spring of 2002 and also promoting sufficient violence to appear to justify the building of a land grabbing wall in the occupied territories??? sorta like greasy american traders on the old frontier secretly selling arms and whiskey to disgruntled indians in hopes of sparking enough raids on settlers that would justify the US army driving all the indians from their lands...something to think about...


The warnings of increased violence proved accurate. By early August, the insurgency against the occupation had exploded, with bombings in Baghdad, at the Jordanian Embassy and the United Nations headquarters, that killed forty-two people. A former Israeli intelligence officer said that Israel’s leadership had concluded by then that the United States was unwilling to confront Iran; in terms of salvaging the situation in Iraq, he said, “it doesn’t add up. It’s over. Not militarily—the United States cannot be defeated militarily in Iraq—but politically.”

Flynt Leverett, a former C.I.A. analyst who until last year served on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, told me that late last summer “the Administration had a chance to turn it around after it was clear that ‘Mission Accomplished’”—a reference to Bush’s May speech—“was premature. The Bush people could have gone to their allies and got more boots on the ground. But the neocons were dug in—‘We’re doing this on our own.’”

Leverett went on, “The President was only belatedly coming to the understanding that he had to either make a strategic change or, if he was going to insist on unilateral control, get tougher and find the actual insurgency.” The Administration then decided, Leverett said, to “deploy the Guantánamo model in Iraq”—to put aside its rules of interrogation. That decision failed to stop the insurgency and eventually led to the scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison.


In early November, the President received a grim assessment from the C.I.A.’s station chief in Baghdad, who filed a special field appraisal, known internally as an Aardwolf, warning that the security situation in Iraq was nearing collapse. The document, as described by Knight-Ridder, said that “none of the postwar Iraqi political institutions and leaders have shown an ability to govern the country” or to hold elections and draft a constitution.

A few days later, the Administration, rattled by the violence and the new intelligence, finally attempted to change its go-it-alone policy, and set June 30th as the date for the handover of sovereignty to an interim government, which would allow it to bring the United Nations into the process. “November was one year before the Presidential election,” a U.N. consultant who worked on Iraqi issues told me. “They panicked and decided to share the blame with the U.N. and the Iraqis.”


*joke from this blogger... hmmm..." We need something REALLY big to turn the public perception around that things are out of control in iraq ...What media photo-op can we scheme up to do that ?" ...Hey , how about the capture of saddam hussein? It will look like we're making REAL progress against the insurgency... "yeah ...that just might work...Contact the kurds...Set it up for next month... around the christmas holidays for the greatest effect..."


A former Administration official who had supported the war completed a discouraging tour of Iraq late last fall. He visited Tel Aviv afterward and found that the Israelis he met with were equally discouraged. As they saw it, their warnings and advice had been ignored, and the American war against the insurgency was continuing to founder. “I spent hours talking to the senior members of the Israeli political and intelligence community,” the former official recalled. “Their concern was ‘You’re not going to get it right in Iraq, and shouldn’t we be planning for the worst-case scenario and how to deal with it?’”

Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, who supported the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq, took it upon himself at this point to privately warn Vice-President Dick Cheney that America had lost in Iraq; according to an American close to Barak, he said that Israel “had learned that there’s no way to win an occupation.” The only issue, Barak told Cheney, “was choosing the size of your humiliation.” Cheney did not respond to Barak’s assessment. (Cheney’s office declined to comment.)

In a series of interviews in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, officials told me that by the end of last year Israel had concluded that the Bush Administration would not be able to bring stability or democracy to Iraq, and that Israel needed other options. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government decided, I was told, to minimize the damage that the war was causing to Israel’s strategic position by ,expanding its long-standing relationship with Iraq’s Kurds and establishing a significant presence on the ground in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Several officials depicted Sharon’s decision, which involves a heavy financial commitment, as a potentially reckless move that could create even more chaos and violence as the insurgency in Iraq continues to grow.


part 1.