The 9/11 whistleblowers-get-screwed data dump

[Minstrel Boy]

Some who’ve spoken up, and paid the price. I'd say that "incompetence theory" cannot explain what these people faced.

Michael Springman

WHO: Twenty-year State Department veteran, and former head of the visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

CLAIM: He was repeatedly overruled by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to bin Laden recruits so they could receive training in the United States. Says this continued at least until the summer of 2001. (Notably, 15 of the 9/11 hijackers first entered the US through Jeddah.) Springman protested.

RESULT: Fired. Springman says he believes that the victims of 9/11 "may have been sacrificed in order to further wider US geopolitical objectives."
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=104&row=1
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2002/02/521.shtml
http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/dispatches/audio/020116_springman.rm


Sibel Edmonds

WHO: FBI translator

CLAIM: That a Turkish "spy ring" operated in the translation department with the apparent protection of FBI brass, falsifying intercepts containing explicit, actionable warnings of 9/11. That members of this ring were involved with the subjects of the intercepts. And that high-ranking officials asked her to falsify her translations and bribed her to keep quiet.

RESULT: Fired. After taking concerns to upper management, was dismissed with only one reason offered: "for the convenience of the government." Escorted from building by agents who said "We will be watching you and listening to you. If you dare to consult an attorney who is not approved by the FBI, or if you take this issue outside the FBI to the Senate, the next time I see you, it will be in jail." Told by John Ashcroft that he was invoking "State Secret Privilege and National Security" to keep what she knows from reaching the public.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds.htm
http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8516
http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=50


Robert Wright

WHO: FBI special investigator

CLAIM: That FBI agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution. That the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism. Says the FBI "intentionally and repeatedly thwarted his attempts to launch a more comprehensive investigation to identify and neutralize terrorists."

RESULT: Suspended and ordered to remain silent. Subject of at least three internal FBI investigations. Has written a book that the FBI is not only refusing to allow publication, but is not permitting anyone to even see it.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_2469.shtml
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/37/news-crogan.php


Lt. Col. Steve Butler

WHO: Vice Chancellor for student affairs, Defense Language Institute in Monterey.

CLAIM: In a letter to the editor of a local paper, Butler wrote "Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is...contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain." During Butler’s term as chancellor, 9/11 hijacker Saeed Alghamdi was enrolled at the Defense Language Institute.

RESULT: Disciplined, lost his position and threatened with court martial.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mcherald/3406502.htm
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.06E.butler.bush.htm
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/com/21220698.html


Indira Singh

WHO: "Risk architect" consultant to JP Morgan Chase.

CLAIM: That Ptech, a software company founded by a Saudi financier on the terrorist watch list, had troubling access to sensitive US institutions, which was apparently of no concern to the institutions involved or the FBI. For instance, a "person of interest" from Ptech “had a team in the basement of the FAA for two years” before 9/11. One of Ptech’s projects gained it access to "all information processes and issues that the FAA had with the National Airspace Systems Agency."

RESULT: Warnings went ignored by institutions and the FBI. Told to keep quiet. Subject to surveillance and threats.
http://www.madcowprod.com/index45.html


Colleen Rowley

WHO: FBI field agent, Minnesota office.

CLAIM: That FBI head office perversely thwarted the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, throwing up unusual roadblocks which prevented exposing the terrorist use of flight schools in the summer of 2001. That Dave Frasca of the Radical Fundamentalism Unit altered her report, rendering it impossible for the FBI to pursue the matter further.

RESULT: After 9/11, Frasca – the senior official who altered Rowley’s report and sat on the Minnesota office's request to investigate flight schools, even though he had received a similar request from the Phoenix office – is promoted and commended.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOO208B.html


John O’Neil

WHO: Former FBI head of antiterrorism.

CLAIM: That his investigations into al Qaeda in general and the Cole bombing in particular were subverted by senior officials, and the situation had become much worse under Bush. Authorisation to re-enter Yemen to investigate the Cole denied by US Ambassador Barbara Bodine. Quit the FBI under a cloud.

RESULT: Killed in the World Trade Center.
http://www.hereinreality.com/johnoneill.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/

[yardwork]

1. Excellent. Thank you!

Don't forget Valerie Plame.

[buycitgo]

2. very valuable infosink, minstrel boy!

as always

Gail Sheehy has an article, linked last night, about Edmonds
VERY informative.....long, too. God so infuriated, that I couldn't finish it (like when I read "The Jungle"--still haven't finished that, after over 20 years)

anyway, I'll find that and link it...saved it to Word, w/o URL, though

[buycitgo]

4. here

http://www.gailsheehy.com/9_11/9_11_art1_21.html


Now I'm getting inCENSED again:

On the morning Ms. Edmonds was terminated, she said, she was escorted from the building by an agent she remembered saying: "We will be watching you and listening to you. If you dare to consult an attorney who is not approved by the F.B.I., or if you take this issue outside the F.B.I. to the Senate, the next time I see you, it will be in jail." Two other agents were present.

"I know about my constitutional rights, but do you know how many translators would be intimidated?"

Shortly after her dismissal, F.B.I. agents turned up at the door of the Ms. Edmonds' townhouse to seize her home computer. She was then called in to be polygraphed--a test which, she found out later, she passed. A few months after her dismissal, accompanied by her lawyer on a sunny morning in May 2002, Ms. Edmonds took her story to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As her high heels glanced off the marble steps of Congress she sensed two men ascending right behind her. Turning, she recognized the agent walk, the Ray-Bans, the outline of a weapon, and the deadest giveaway of all--a cell phone pointed straight at her, transmitting. "They weren't secretive about it, they wanted me to know they're there," she said. After being shadowed in plain sight many more times, she said with dark humor, "I call them my escorts."

[Octafish]

18. Remember Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick?

Please add Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick. He worked for Clinton and was carried over into the Bush madministration. Seymour Hersh reported he quit when Smirk and Sneer paid no heed to terrorism. A few months later -- 9-11.

From an interview with Will Pitt of DU and TruthOut.org:

Interview: Sidney Blumenthal with William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t | Interview, Monday 08 December 2003

EXCERPT...

On terrorism, they assigned the matter to Vice President Dick Cheney “for study.” Anyone who has been in government knows that when you do that, you are essentially taking it off the table and not taking it seriously. As I reported in my book, Donald Kerrick, who is a three-star general, was a deputy National Security Advisor in the late Clinton administration. He stayed on into the Bush administration. He was absolutely not political. He was a general. He told me that when the Bush people came in, he wrote a memo about terrorism, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The memo said, “We will be struck again.” As a result of writing that memo, he was not invited to any more meetings. No one responded to his memo. He felt that, from what he could see from inside the National Security Council, terrorism was demoted.

CONTINUED...

http://cosmiciguana.blogspot.com/2003_12_07_cosmiciguana_archive.html

BTW: As always. Excellent work, Minstrel Boy!

People like you -- and those on your list -- make this a world worth living in.

[Minstrel Boy]

20. thanks Octafish! Forgotten him. And I know there are many more:

I think we should include Delmart Vreeland, too. A controversial figure for sure, but the more time elapses, the more of his story checks out. (For instance, the claim that Canadian diplomat Marc Bastien was murdered in Russia. When he said it, he was alone. It was natural causes. Now, the Canadian government has come to the same conclusion.) And he undeniably copied and sealed the message he'd uncovered - "Let one happen, stop the rest" - and left it with Canadian officials one month before the attack. He warned, no one but his lawyers listened, and now he's missing. (Toronto Star, Dec 5 2003: "Post-9/11, this doesn't seem all that weird": http://tinyurl.com/y02l .)

Thanks for your words, Octafish, and keep fighting the good fight yourself. Your good work has educated many here, myself included, about the all-but-unbelievable corruption of these monsters.

[seemslikeadream]

32. Deputy National Security Advisor Lt General Donald L. Kerrick

, who stayed through the first four months of the Bush administration, said, "candidly speaking, I didn't detect" a strong focus on terrorism. "That's not being derogatory. It's just a fact. I didn't detect any activity but what Dick Clarke and the CSG were doing." General Hugh Shelton, whose term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff began under Clinton and ended under Bush, concurred. In his view, the Bush administration moved terrorism "farther to the back burner."

America Unbound, p. 76
Ivo Daalder & James Lindsay

Bush's war -- against Richard Clarke

The White House's furious response to Richard Clarke only underscores the truth of his testimony.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal



But his account need not stand on his reputation alone. Clarke was not the only national security professional who spanned both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Gen. Donald Kerrick served as deputy national security advisor under Clinton and remained on the NSC for several months into the new Bush administration. Kerrick wrote his replacement, Stephen Hadley, a two-page memo. "It was classified," Kerrick told me. "I said they needed to pay attention to al-Qaida and counterterrorism. I said we were going to be struck again. We didn't know where or when. They never once asked me a question nor did I see them having a serious discussion about it. They didn't feel it was an imminent threat the way the Clinton administration did. Hadley did not respond to my memo. I know he had it. I agree with Dick that they saw those problems through an Iraqi prism. But the evidence wasn't there."

more
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/03/25/clarke/index.html

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:hN92LqpYcJ0J:yaleglobal.yale.edu/about/pdfs/bush_revolution.pdf+Lt+General+Donald+L.+Kerrick&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[DODI]

3. We have lost so many good career government people.

I would love to find a listing of all the people who have left the State Department since the junta took over. We have lost a lot of people in intelligence. President Kerry is going to have a lot of rebuilding to do.

[buycitgo]

5. Rand Beers, Greg Theilman, Karen Kwiatkowski

who else?

[seemslikeadream]

34. A bit more

Richard Clarke, US Counterterrorism Czar, National Security Council official, who exposed the _resident's incompetence both pre-9/11 and post-9/11 in his book, Against All Enemies, and under oath at the 9/11 commission hearings.

Rand Beers, National Security Council official, resigned in protest over the _resident's handling of the "war on terrorism," spoke out publicly and went to work for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mekong Delta).

Joseph Wilson, former Poppy Bush ambassador to Iraq, spoke out publicly denouncing the _resident for using the "Niger uranium" lie in the 2003 SOTU as a justification for the war in Iraq.

Greg Thielmann, former State Dept. intelligence official, who spoke out publicly on the _resident's trumped up excuses for his unilateral, "pre-emptive" war in Iraq.

Eric Schaeffer, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official, who resigned in protest and spoke out publicly to denounce the _resident's pro-polluter actions within the EPA.

Colleen Rawley, FBI investigator who blew the whistle and spoke publicly about how her attempts to get action on pre-9/11 intelligence on Al-Qaeda pilot training in the US were blocked by officials at the _resident's Just Us Dept. in D.C.

Robin Cook, Glenda Jackson and Clair Short, members of the British cabinet, Labor Party MPs, who resigned in protest of various misdeeds by the-shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony Blair.

Michael Meacher, who resigned as UK Environment Minister, who wrote in the Guardian that "the war on terrorism is a smokescreen and that the US knew in advance about the September 11 attack on New York but, for strategic reasons, chose not to act on the warnings"

Dr. David Kelly, UK's leading bio-war expert, found dead in an alleged suicide (under investigation by a special inquiry in the UK) after being "outed" as the source for a BBC story on false allegations about WMD made by the-shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony Blair in the ramp up the war in Iraq.

Katharine Gun, who worked as a translator at Britain’s super-secret Government Communications Headquarters and now faces up to two years in prison

Andrew Wilkie, Australian intelligence officer, who gave testimony on the lies which the US, UK and Australian governments fed to their peoples.

[Career Prole]

8. Hopefully the only rebuilding necessary will be

giving the truth-tellers back their government jobs.:)

[Skidmore]

6. So are these people being called on to testify

before the 911 commission?

[Minstrel Boy]

7. snarf!

It is to laugh. Bitterly.

The families have given names of whistleblowers to gatekeeper Zelikow whom they'd like to see appear, but he hasn't called them.

Geez, I wonder why?

[buycitgo]

9. NO, except, I think, Edmonds

read this.....it explains why in the bolded part

To the Moms, the problems with the 9/11 commission were always apparent. But the disappointing testimony from Mr. Rumsfeld was especially difficult to bear. The Moms had tried to get their most pressing questions to the commission to be asked of Mr. Rumsfeld, but their efforts had foundered at the hands of Philip Zelikow, the commission’s staff director.

Indeed, it was only with the recent publication of Richard Clarke’s memoir of his counterterrorism days in the White House, Against All Enemies, that the Moms found out that Mr. Zelikow—who was supposed to present their questions to Mr. Rumsfeld—was actually one of the select few in the new Bush administration who had been warned, nine months before 9/11, that Osama bin Laden was the No. 1 security threat to the country. They are now calling for Mr. Zelikow’s resignation.

Ms. Gorelick sees their point.

"This is a legitimate concern," Ms. Gorelick said in an interview, "and I am not convinced we knew everything we needed to know when we made the decision to hire him."

But despite her obvious discomfort at the conflicts of interest apparently not fully disclosed by Mr. Zelikow in his deposition by the commission’s attorney, Ms. Gorelick believes that the time is too short to replace the staff director.

"We’re just going to have to be very cognizant of the role that he played and address it in the writing of our report," she said.

That doesn’t satisfy the Four Moms. They point out that it is Mr. Zelikow who decides which among the many people offering information will be interviewed. Efforts by the families to get the commission to hear from a raft of administration and intelligence-agency whistleblowers have been largely ignored at his behest. And it is Mr. Zelikow who oversees what investigative material the commissioners will be briefed on, and who decides the topics for the hearings.

http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage2.asp

[Minstrel Boy]

10. I think Edmonds has already testified,

but it wasn't a public hearing.

[Minstrel Boy]

11. Some more on how Dave Frasca impeded investigations:

According to Agent Rowley's 13 page memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Dave Frasca threw "up roadblocks and undermined Minneapolis' by now desperate efforts to obtain a FISA search warrant, long after the French Intelligence service provided information and probable cause became clear." (Rowley's memo to FBI, May 21, 2002, page 3) (see the following web site) http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html Not only did Dave Frasca not share the information about Moussaoui to other appropriate intelligence/law enforcement authorities, he also, according to Rowley "never disclosed to the Minneapolis agents that the Phoenix Division had, only three weeks earlier, warned of Al Qaeda operatives in flight schools seeking flight training for terrorists purposes!" (Rowley's memo to FBI, May 21, 2002 p. 3) It is of course impossible to believe that Dave Frasca on his own, is just sitting on this information and not doing anything with it, unless ordered to do so.

The Minneapolis agents even tried to do an end run around Dave Frasca and notified the CIA's Counter Terrorist Center. The end result was that FBI headquarters personal (Dave Frasca and unnamed higher ups) "actually chastised the Minneapolis agents for making the direct notification without their approval." (Rowley Report, p. 4) Going even further, Dave Frasca "undercut" the search warrant application by not adding information on Moussaoui's foreign power connections which he had promised Minneapolis agents would be included. He also made damaging changes to the text provided by Minneapolis agents thereby, according to one Minneapolis agent, "setting this up for failure." (Rowley Report p. 4)

Even after the World Trade Center was hit, Agent Rowley asked Dave Frasca if she could now obtain a criminal search warrant for Moussaoui's laptop and personal property, she was again refused because it was probably all a "coincidence". Agent Rowley was warned to "do nothing" because "we might ‘screw up' something else going on elsewhere in the country." (Rowley Report, p. 7) The words "do nothing" are interesting; even more revealing what's to ‘screw up' at that point, except another plane going into another building?

After, when Rowley talked to other FBI agents in other parts of the country, the first question was Why?—"Why would an FBI agent(s) deliberately sabotage a case?" Agent Rowley reports that jokes were made that FBI Headquarters personnel were "spies" or "moles" who were actually "working for Osama Bin Laden." (Rowley Report p. 7) Apparently no one mentioned that it could be the other way around i.e., Bin Laden working for the CIA/FBI. The notion that Bush cabinet members were urging the CIA/FBI chiefs to keep a lit on local FBI investigative actions to arrest or curtail terrorist plots was, at the time, an unthinkable thought. That after all, would not be a joke. It would be one of the most murderous, diabolical cover up committed against American citizens by an American President and cabinet.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOO208B.html

[Octafish]

21. Remember Michael Guess / Frasca did what Louis FREEH wanted him to do...

... same goes for the Minneapolis FBI office that told Moussaoui's flght school he was OK. The story went like this:

Moussaoui's flight instructors discovered their angry and ignorant student was interested in turning on the GPS and getting the plane to turn. Landings and take-offs were not needed where he was going.

So, these flying teachers went and called the FAA and reported what was going on. The FAA said to call the FBI in Minneapolis. FBI said, OK. He’s probably just nothing to worry about.

Odd reaction. So the flight instructors went to their congress critter, Oberstar. He went to FBI Washington and of course THEY had to do something then.

FBI popped Moussaoui and were still thwarted. They couldn’t get a FISA warrant approved. Odd reaction that. The information Moussaoui’s laptop contained may have saved untold thousands of lives.

Anyway, one of the teachers was named Michael Guess. He went to work flying for ou



Eagan flight trainer wouldn't let unease about Moussaoui rest

Greg Gordon, Star Tribune
Published December 21, 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When a Twin Cities flight instructor phoned the FBI last August to alert the agency that a terrorist might be taking lessons to fly a jumbo jet, he did it in a dramatic way:

"Do you realize how serious this is?" the instructor asked an FBI agent. "This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon!"

The aviation student he was talking about was Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested the following day and last week was charged in a federal indictment with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and others to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks.

New details of how Moussaoui raised suspicions at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan -- and the company's eerily prescient tip -- are emerging from the briefings the school recently gave to congressional offices.

The still-unidentified flight instructor became wary of Moussaoui immediately, according to Minnesota Rep. Jim Oberstar and others with direct knowledge of the briefings.

CONTINUED…

http://www.startribune.com/stories/843/913687.html


Co-pilot & Moussaoui

The co-pilot who flew with Wellstone had known Zacharias Moussaoui, the accused Sept. 11 conspirator who had attended an Eagan (Minn.) flight school.

Co-pilot Michael Guess, 30, had met the flying student Moussaoui at the Pan Am International Flight Academy where Guess worked last year. Guess had reportedly “inadvertently” given Moussaoui unattended access to a computer program on flying a 747 jumbo jet.

An ex-manager of Pan Am told the FBI that Guess had placed a CD-ROM containing the 747 software at a workstation before one of Moussaoui’s training sessions. After Moussaoui was arrested, the FBI searched his belongings and found the proprietary program copied on his laptop computer, the ex-manager said.

Guess had recently been laid off at the flight academy, where he had hoped to become a flight instructor.

“At Executive Aviation in Eden Prairie, where Guess had been employed as a pilot since June 2001, a spokesman said colleagues remembered Guess telling them he had played a more significant role regarding the suspicions concerning Moussaoui,” the Star Tribune reported.

CONTINUED…

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=271

[seemslikeadream]

23. AMS co-founder bankrolled 9-11 flight academy

This is not what you guys are talking about but just came across it, thought it was interesting, didn't bobthedrummer talk about this guy?




Posted Mar. 22, 2004

AMS co-founder bankrolled 9-11 flight academy


Wally Hilliard

New book dramatizes mere coincidences, Hilliard says
By Jean Peerenboom
[e-mail]

Terrorists, drug runners, cover-ups, CIA, KGB and shady characters are the cloak-and-dagger kinds of elements that make for a riveting spy novel or action thriller. It’s hardly the place you’d expect to find retired Green Bay businessman Wally J. Hilliard.

Yet Hilliard finds himself in the middle of a nonfiction tale published as “Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-Up in Florida,” by Daniel Hopsicker (Mad Cow Press, $29.95). Hopsicker links Hilliard to Huffman Aviation, the flight school that trained Atta and the other hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

The author implicates Hilliard in a complicated plot as the investor in the flight school in Venice, Fla., and owner of a Lear jet that was seized by Drug Enforcement Administration officials after it returned with a passenger who was jailed for possession of heroin.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_15309268.shtml

and this

North to Alaska!



When we looked for evidence for the intriguing claim, we found an October 21, 2000 New York Times story confirming our reader’s account of Bush’s summer in Alaska.

“When Mr. Bush arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska International Industries was a fledgling business whose holdings included Alaska International Air, an air cargo company that was loading its giant Lockheed-382 Hercules airplanes, the civilian version of C-130's, with construction equipment and supplies and flying them to pipeline workers 24 hours a day,” reported the Times.

Neil G. Bergt, a pilot and entrepreneur who was president of both the parent company and the airline, told the paper, "We used to haul the equivalent of the Berlin airlift every week."

“People who worked there recall that in addition to its aviation and construction work for the pipeline, the company flew planes that carried food and mining equipment into Zambia and ambulances into Libya. It also "flew a bunch of F-14 parts into a town in Iran for the shah," said Steve Scott, who worked as a loadmaster. And "we helped build a military base in Oman."

The Times reported that a number of onetime employees say they found themselves doing contract work for the CIA. And the company’s President seemed to confirm their reports.

“I had a big reputation for doing C.I.A. work," Mr. Bergt said. "It wasn't deserved. We did some."

His experience there has now emerged in part because a leaflet that Republicans have circulated in the state on his behalf referred to him as "a former Alaska resident."

What the Times failed to report was that Bergt changed the airline’s name, when it began passenger service, from Alaska International to Mark Air. This relieved the paper of telling its readers that Mark Air, which flew support flights for Oliver North’s NHAO, had been fingered for drug trafficking by the Iran Contra Final Report.

Ironically, it was Senator John Kerry who began an investigation of allegations that elements of the supply network supporting the Contras were linked to drug traffickers, in early 1986.

Libya managed to acquire the planes through an intermediary in Miami who purchased the plane from Alaska International Airways, according to Salinger. The 'middleman' used in the deal may be relevant to 9/11: notorious Lebanese weapons merchant Sarkis Soghanalian, also a key figure in BCCI.

http://www.madcowprod.com/indexbb.html

[Octafish]

24. Smirk ran dope?

No. Really? Who'd trust the ignorant turd? Besides, he'd use up all the merch.

[seemslikeadream]

26. Did you know about Alaska?

[Octafish]

28. Sorry, no.

Only can remember a thread or two. With all the hot gas that's gone the Tokamak, the old walnut overloads now and then. By the time I'm back online, the infostream's moved past the spot in which I stand. I hope my mouth wasn't open.

[Minstrel Boy]

25. Hilliard, heroin and al Qaeda came up in this thread today, too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1294206

[seemslikeadream]

27. Small world

I hadn't seen that

[Mandate My Ass]

12. Awesome resource, MB

Thanks. Bookmarked.

[ParanoidPat]

13. Bookmarked and kicked!

Thanks! :evilgrin: :toast:

[rucky]

14. Great work!

:yourock:

[HydroAddict]

15. Thanks Minstrel Boy.

This is an awesome thread. Booked and Kicked.

[devinsgram]

16. While I am

sitting here reading this and crying, I just for the life of me can not understand how heartless this administration can be knowing they are responsible for the killing of more than 3,000 people on 9-11 and a devastating war killing many, many more. I just don't understand it and I don't think I ever will. Then to top it off, they lie about it.

[Zan_of_Texas]

17. one more from the State Dept.

MYSTERY SURROUNDS DEATH OF STATE DEPT. OFFICIAL
by Wayne Madsen

(special to From The Wilderness)
LONG URL -- http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc= http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/112003_kokal.html

© Copyright 2003, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.

November 20, 2003 (FTW), WASHINGTON -- In a case eerily reminiscent of the death of British Ministry of Defense bio-weapons expert, Dr. David Kelly, an official of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research Near East and South Asian division (INR/NESA), John J. Kokal, 58, was found dead in the late afternoon of November 7. Police indicated he may have jumped from the roof of the State Department. Kokal's body was found at the bottom of a 20 foot window well, 8 floors below the roof of the State Department headquarters near the 23rd and D Street location. Kokal's death was briefly mentioned in a FOX News website story on November 8 but has been virtually overlooked by the major media.

Interestingly, the FOX report states that State Department officials confirmed Kokal's death to The Washington Post yet the Post - according to an archive search - has published nothing at all about Kokal's death. A subsequent search revealed that the Post had made a short three-paragraph entry the death in the Metro section on November 7, 2003. However, the Post entry stated that Kokal did not work in intelligence and the story does not show up in the archives.
Kokal's INR bureau was at the forefront of confronting claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Washington police have not ruled out homicide as the cause of his death. Kokal was not wearing either a jacket or shoes when his body was found. He lived in Arlington, Virginia.

However, a colleague of Kokal's told this writer that the Iraq analyst was despondent over "problems" with his security clearance. Kokal reportedly climbed out of a window and threw himself out in such a manner so that he would "land on his head." At the time Kokal fell from either the roof or a window, his wife Pamela, a public affairs specialist in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, was waiting for him in the parking garage. Mrs. Kokal had previously worked in Consular Affairs where she was involved in the stricter vetting of visa applicants from mainly Muslim countries after the Sept. 11 attacks.

State Department officials dispute official State Department communiqués that said Kokal was not an analyst at INR. People who know Kokal told the French publication Geopolitique that Kokal was involved in the analysis of intelligence about Iraq prior to and during the war against Saddam Hussein.

Another INR official, weapons expert Greg Thielmann, said he and INR were largely ignored by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton and his deputy, David Wurmser, a pro-Likud neo-conservative who recently became Vice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser. Kokal's former boss, the recently retired chief of INR, Carl W. Ford, recently said that Bolton often exaggerated information to steer people in the wrong directions.
A former INR employee revealed that some one-third to one-half of INR officials are either former intelligence agents with the CIA or are detailed from the agency. He also revealed it would have been impossible for Kokal to have gained entry to the roof on his own. INR occupies both a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on the sixth floor that has no windows and a windowless structure on the roof that has neither windows nor access to the roof, according to the former official. The other windows at the State Department have been engineered to be shatter proof from terrorist bomb attacks and cannot be opened.

INR and other State Department officials report that a "chill" has set in at the State Department following Kokal's defenestration. A number of employees are afraid to talk about the suspicious death. It also unusual that The Northern Virginia Journal, a local Arlington newspaper, has not published an obituary notice on Kokal.

(Wayne Madsen, a frequent FTW contributor, is a former US Naval officer and intelligence analyst who is currently an author, freelance writer and commentator in Washington, D.C.)

[Octafish]

19. Remember Maj. Gen. Wayne A. Downing.

From what seems like another life...Ha ha ha ha (maniacal Democratic Donkey laugh)!!!!

Downing Resignation Bodes Ill for Terror War

Here's analysis from "Debka Files," going over the Why behind Downing's departure. Seems the CIA/FBI don't like anyone reading other people's mail over their shoulders.

Downing's resignation also reminded me of something from the distant past:

Isn’t General Downing’s resignation the SECOND of a top counterterror expert from the Bush White House?

Remember, there was another military man (Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick - Octafish) who resigned, months before September 11, stating words to the effect “There just didn’t seem to be the same emphasis placed on counterterror as there was in the Clinton White House.”

PLEASE POST THE OTHER RESIGNED COUNTERTERRORISM GENERAL’S NAME, IF ANYONE REMEMBERS. CONGRESS MAY NEED TO BE REMINDED, AS WELL. THANK YOU.


http://www.debka.com/

(please scroll down a bit…)

EXCERPT:

Downing Resignation Bodes Ill for Terror War
DEBKAfile Special Analysis

29 June: The surprise resignation of retired Army General Wayne A. Downing as deputy national security adviser to the president for combating terrorism, on Thursday, June 27, is bad news for the road ahead of America’s war on terror, according to DEBKAfile ’s intelligence sources.

The walkout of the forceful, down to earth Gen. Downing after 10 months on the job has been variously explained as a reaction to the preoccupation with terrorism at the top White House level - the president, the vice president and the national security adviser - on a day to day basis leaving him little to do, or discomfort with his role as a “coordinated” member of the White House staff.

According to DEBKAfile’s Washington sources, however, the general left because he strongly disapproved of the way the Bush administration is handling the anti-terror offensive, and more particularly its intelligence side.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=4682&forum=DCForumID43&archive=

These are SERIOUS people. Frist and ALL his dead cats won't find a thing on 'em.

Wayne A. Downing

Wayne Allan Downing (1940- ) is a non-executive director of Metal Storm Limited<1>:


"Metal Storm continues to build its strategic presence in the US and strengthen already established relationships at a senior level within government and defence circles. Contributing to that effort has been the company's highly experienced and respected US directors, Admiral William A. Owens US Navy retired), General Wayne A. Downing (US Army retired), Lieutenant General Daniel W. Christman (US Army retired). Dr. Daniel L. Alspach joined the board in August 2003."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to research posted on the Disinfopedia article for the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, "General Wayne Downing, U.S. Army (retired), has been a lobbyist for the Iraqi National Congress, the CIA-bankrolled opposition to Saddam Hussein."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Profile: Committee for the Liberation of Iraq:


"General Wayne A. Downing, U.S. Army (Retired) is a highly decorated combat veteran who retired after a 34-year career in the U.S. Army. While on active duty he served in a variety of command assignments in infantry, armored, special operations, and joint units, culminating in his appointment as the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command. He commanded the special operations of all services during the 1989 invasion of Panama and commanded a joint special operations task force operating deep behind the Iraqi lines during Operation DESERT STORM. Following retirement, General Downing was appointed by the President to assess the 1996 terrorist attack on the U.S. base at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and to make recommendations on how to protect Americans and U.S. facilities worldwide from terrorist attack. From 1999-2000, General Downing served as member of the congressionally mandated National Commission on Terrorism (the Bremer Commission) charged with examining the terrorist threat to the US, evaluating America’s laws, policies, and practices for preventing and punishing terrorism directed at US citizens, and recommending corrective actions. Most recently, General Downing served in the White House as National Director and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism (Department of Homeland Security). As the President’s principal advisor on matters related to combating terrorism, he was responsible for coordinating, developing and executing a strategy that draws on and integrates all elements of national power."<2>

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Wayne_A._Downing

[seemslikeadream]

22. Peter Slevin Washington Post - others will speak to journalists

Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 25, 2004; 12:00 PM

Washington Post foreign policy reporter Peter Slevin comes to the Web to discuss the latest developments in U.S. foreign policy

Detroit, Mich.: Do you expect anyone else who served in the Bush administration aside from Clarke and O'Neil to come forward and assert or imply that the administration was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq? One thing that I have not read about but I have thought about is that the ferocious attacks that the administration is now directing at Clarke is not just to discredit him, but that it is also to serve as a warning to other administration figures of what will happen to them if they make similar accusations.

Peter Slevin: I expect we'll hear from more members of the administration as they depart this year or later; and from some still inside the government who have been speaking to journalists and authors who are putting together books on the subject, including the Post's Bob Woodward.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5828-2004Mar18.html

I don't know about Woodward but there are others

[Bushknew]

29. Marvin Cetron "No one could have suspected such an attack"

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/wnt_missedsignals_1_020218.html

Fact:
Terrorism expert Marvin Cetron gave the military an aerial attack scenario.

Quote:

"You could make a left turn at the Washington Monument and take out the White House. And you could make a right turn and take out the Pentagon."

Fact / Quote

Terrorism expert Marvin Cetron warned the Pentagon that two events earlier that year Ñ the crash-landing of a small airplane at the White House by an apparently unstable man, and French authorities' storming of a hijacked airliner that Algerian terrorists had planned to fly into the Eiffel Tower Ñ made an airborne terrorist attack on the United States a very real possibility. "We knew that was going happen and we were scared," he told ABCNEWS.

Fact:

Pentagon officials told him to delete the warning from the report. "I said, 'It's unclassified, everything is available,' and they said, 'We don't want it released because you can't handle a crisis before it becomes a crisis, and no one is going to believe it anyhow,' " Cetron said. Even with the warnings of an airborne attack deleted, the report was not released to the public.

[seemslikeadream]

30. Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers

The Ordeal of Attorney Jesselyn Radack

By ELAINE CASSEL

D.C. attorney Jesselyn Radack was once employed in the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (an oxymoron these days, if you ask me, but that is another article). She was the wrong woman in the wrong place at the right time. In 2002, Ashcroft was trying to get the lethal injection for young John Walker Lindh. To hear Ashcroft describe him, Lindh, the misguided, naive, well-to-do student of Islam, was the anti-Christ himself....

So now, a 32-year old woman of principle, with two children, a third on the way, and suffering from multiple sclerosis, has DOJ breathing down her neck. They didn't get to put Lindh to death, partly because the validity of some of his statements were in question, but they got 20 years out of the young man's life.

What they didn't get from Lindh, they are trying to make up by ruining Radack's legal career, and even more. And if having DOJ trying to ruin your life is not enough, after the Hawkins firm firmed her, they appealed her receipt of unemployment benefits. She won that round. But, they struck back. They told her they turned over her office computer to the Justice Department.

Radack's professional and personal lives are in limbo because Radack dared to mess with one of John Ashcroft's cases. His prosecutors were left bumbling and scrambling, they had to negotiate with the attorney the FBI would not let Lindh see, and someone is going to pay. This time, it is the attorney who stood for the right thing. That is the wrong thing to do in these times.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel07152003.html

U.S. Prosecutor Sues Ashcroft

CBS/AP) A federal prosecutor in a major terrorism case in Detroit has taken the rare step of suing Attorney General John Ashcroft, alleging the Justice Department interfered with the case, compromised a confidential informant and exaggerated results in the war on terrorism.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino of Detroit accused the Justice Department of "gross mismanagement" of the war on terrorism in a lawsuit filed late Friday in federal court in Washington.

Justice officials said Tuesday they had not seen the suit and had no comment.

The suit is the latest twist in the Bush administration's first major post-Sept. 11 terrorism prosecution, which is now in danger of unraveling over allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

Convertino came under internal Justice Department investigation last fall after providing information to a Senate committee about his concerns about the war on terror. His testimony came just months after he helped convict some members of an alleged terrorism cell in Detroit.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/17/terror/main600677.shtml

Katharine Gun says thank you

Background to Katharine's case
Katharine Gun used to work as a translator at GCHQ, the Government’s eavesdropping centre. In the weeks leading up to the Iraq War, at a time when the UN was still considering whether to pass a second resolution authorising war, she disclosed that the American National Security Agency had asked the British Government to help in the illegal surveillance of the six delegations holding the balance of power in the UN Security Council.

Katharine made the disclosure because she believed that it was necessary to prevent an illegal war in which thousands of Iraqi citizens and British and American soldiers would die or be maimed.

She did what she thought was right.

Katharine faced trial the Old Bailey, charged under the Official Secrets Act with disclosing secret Government information. The case was dropped in February 2004

http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/katharine-gun.shtml

[Minstrel Boy]

31. from The Family Steering Committee statement on extending

the 9/11 Commission to January 2005:

Question #4: Should federal whistleblowers from intelligence agencies, the FAA, and the airlines - whistleblowers with vital, first-hand knowledge about 9/11 failures - be denied access to the 9/11 Commission?

The 9/11 Independent Commission, because of its time-constraints, has been unwilling to include certain specific and highly relevant material regarding 9/11 held by federal whistleblowers. These federal whistleblowers are ready, willing, and able to testify before the Commission as soon as possible. The information these certain individuals share must be made part of the Commission's investigation and Final Report.

The FSC will not accept the failure of the Commission to interview these whistleblowers. The 9/11 Independent Commission's mandate will not be met and the Final Report will be incomplete without the inclusion of these individuals' knowledge and information as it pertains to 9/11.

http://www.911independentcommission.org/archives/020304extension.doc

[seemslikeadream]

33. Minstrel Boy - John O'Neil

This was just posted by Trajan and I think it should go here

Did YOU know that Richard Clarke was 'good friends' with John ONeill ???? ....

Neither did I ...

From Asia Times: ... http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC27Aa01.html

New light on the life and death of John O'Neill

By Tom Griffin

LONDON - Former White House counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke has rocked the Bush administration with his criticism of the "war on terror". However, doubts about the administration's commitment to the fight against al-Qaeda are not new.

-snip-

"I called and John answered the phone. I said, 'Who's this'? He responded, 'Well, who the hell are you? I'm John O'Neill'. I explained, 'I'm from the White House. I do terrorism. I need some help'."

O'Neill had never worked on the case before, but together with Clarke he manned the phones coordinating the capture of Yousef before he could slip over the border into Afghanistan. It was, according to Clarke, "the beginning of a beautiful friendship".

-snip-

Those interviews are still so far the only ones in which Clarke has elaborated on the role of John O'Neill, and that means that there may yet be further revelations about the obstacles O'Neill faced, the reasons he left the FBI and the source of the leak to the New York Times about his departure.

-snip- (sorry for the snips, rules rules rules)


SO:

IF Clarke was such good friends with John ONeill, and worked side by side with him in his fight against Terror ... Then what could Clarke know of the obstacles ONeill faced in Afghanistan ??? ..

Wow: .. the answer is PLENTY ...

Clarke MAY have the goods on both;

1) The fawning Bush diplomatic mission waged on the Taliban for the benefit of UNOCAL and Halliburton .. NOT to 'pursue the terrorists', but to enrich the corporate friends of the GOP AT THE EXPENSE of american safety and security ....

2) What was contained in the Energy Task Force documents ... SURELY he was affected by those same obstacles which restricted the fight against Terror in Afghanistan .... Those documents probably contain VERY damning material regarding Afghanistan in early 2001 ...


Ohhh boy, Ladies and Gentlemen: ...

Clarke MAY be the Golden Goose ...

Clarke MAY be this century's 'Deep Throat" ...

He has already damaged the Bush administration .. and with DIRECT knowledge of the Bush team's actions in Afghanistan in early to mid 2001, he could knock them out of the park ...

Mewonders: .. Will the GOP try to cover their losses, and STOP fucking with Clarke ? ... Will they try to stop the damage, and try to simply FORGET him ? ...

Or ? .. will they piss him off ? ..

Stay tuned .....

Maybe John still has a voice!


and this from October 2001 is a bit interesting

Richard Clarke
Office of Cyber Security Director



Oct. 9 — Richard A. Clarke was appointed today by President Bush to be the Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security within the National Security Council.

Clarke became well-known for his use of the phrase "electronic Pearl Harbor," when predicting the implications of a cyber-terrorist attack. Critics say he overstates the threat, perhaps as a tactic to win greater attention, support and resources for government computer defense capabilities.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/bush_advisors_clarke ...

Ambassador William S. Farish


Look what the American Embassy, London is saying and isn't this Farish guy old friends of the bushs?

American film director Billy Wilder once said, "Hindsight is always twenty-twenty." But Richard Clarke's recent assertions show that even hindsight can be woefully off the mark.

Who is Richard Clarke? For thirty years, he was a civil servant in the United States Government. When President Bush assumed office, he kept Dick Clarke on as his principal counterterrorism expert. In return, Clarke has written a new book giving his view of events. He has accompanied its release with an orchestrated array of books and self-promotion interviews, to launch a political attack on President Bush and his administration in the hothouse atmosphere of a presidential campaign season. This is a good atmosphere to sell books, perhaps, but not one designed for a cold examination of the facts.

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/ukamb/farish25.html

ALarmed See Dick Resign

Edited on Sat Mar-27-04 01:06 PM by seemslikeadream
This is off topic but interesting

"About half my job is marketing," Clarke told CSO magazine late last year in an interview. But many factors largely out of his control conspired to make that marketing fail. Those factors include: The emasculation of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace; an administration that wouldn't consider the most cogent ideas to secure cyberspace (including regulation); a constituency of technology vendors that has never been serious about the task and had a part in emasculating the National Strategy; and, most recently, the Litchfields' move.

It starts to become clear why Clarke is resigning. Why push a rock uphill if everyone above you is pushing back down on it?

In his memo to the ISACs, Clarke cited two specific—and far less controversial—reasons for leaving his post: the completion of the National Strategy and the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, whose Secretary, Tom Ridge, was sworn in right when news of Clarke’s departure first leaked. This provides "a good juncture ... to end my 11 years in the White House," Clarke wrote. He also mentions briefly his desire to "contribute to these issues as a private citizen."

http://www.csoonline.com/alarmed/02032003.html

Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11


Assembling The Legend of 9/11
Excerpted from: Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11
by Chaim Kupferberg

One man was Clinton's counter-terrorism "czar". The other was reputedly the FBI's most dogged pursuer of Osama bin Laden. But did these two men perform a more sinister, covert role in coordinating the global elements of the unfolding 9/11 Legend? In this latest excerpt from his landmark article, Chaim Kupferberg takes a closer at Richard Clarke and John O'Neill - the men who reportedly "discovered" Osama bin Laden as a terrorist mastermind.

Heading up that clique was Richard A. Clarke, who joined the National Security Council under the first President Bush, and stayed there under Clinton. As reported by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker, "In the web of federal agencies concerned with terror, Clarke was the spider." Tim Weiner of the New York Times wrote of Clarke on February 1, 1999: "He has placed proteges in key diplomatic and intelligence positions, creating a network of loyalty and solidifying his power."

It was Clarke who, together with John O'Neill, "discovered" bin Laden as a global terrorist mastermind. Here, as reported by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker, was Clarke's version of his discovery:

"We'd see CIA reports that referred to 'financier Osama bin Laden' and we'd ask ourselves, 'Who the hell is he?' The more we drilled down, the more we realized he was not just a financier - he was the leader. John said, 'We've got to get this guy. He's building a network. Everything leads back to him.' Gradually the CIA came along with us."

Presumably, Clarke had help in marketing bin Laden - for bin Laden himself would soon enough make his high profile media debut as the declared enemy of American interests the world over, thereby giving the world's only superpower a plausibly sophisticated foe who would overshadow the efforts of one Muslim fanatic (Ramzi Yousef, World Trade Center '93) or one right-wing nutcase (Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma '95). Meanwhile, the gregarious John O'Neill would make the global rounds, liaising with various counterparts as he shadowed the presumed activities of Osama bin Laden. In other words, if one were theoretically to posit the type of operatives who would be most suited to running a highly compartmentalized "op" to develop a global legend of Osama bin Laden, one could find no more conveniently placed men than Richard Clarke and John O'Neill. Where Clarke would manage the national security rank-and-file through his network of loyalists, O'Neill would be the globetrotter, coordinating the unfolding legend through his counterparts in various countries.

In short, Clarke and O'Neill would theoretically be conducting their activities in "plain sight." Under the cover of counter-terrorism, O'Neill would be building a terror legend fit for the New World Order - in the same manner that Oliver North in the '80s employed the cover of counter-terrorism to conduct, on behalf of Vice-President Bush, the illegal arms dealing operations popularly known as Iran-Contra (for which North took a decidedly light rap as the designated patsy). The main difference would be that where North would eventually be tagged as the moron of Iran-Contra, O'Neill would take his place as the martyr of 9/11.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP312A.html

[Octafish]

35. What ewing2001 said...

Nico believed, a couple years back, that Clarke was a suspect in LIHOP. Thanks to Sneering Dick Cheney's character assassination job, it seems Clarke really was out of the loop, though. Here's some nice background on the relationship between the buds...

"Do you think," says a White House antiterrorism official, "that if Dick Clarke had known that the FBI had in custody a foreigner who couldn't speak English, who was trying to fly a plane in midair, he wouldn't have done something?"
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020527/story2.html

http://codshit.com/911-tlih.htm



Richard Clarke (CSG chief and Cyber Security Task Force)

"something spectacular is going to happen."
July 5th, 2001 Richard Clarke in a White House meeting

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/may/timeline/

If anyone knew most about warnings and war plans at the same time, it was Richard Clarke.

Interestingly Richard Clarke was also connected with John O'Neill, who died in the World Trade Center. This is what the New Yorker wrote about their relationship:

"On a Sunday morning in February, 1995, Clarke went to his office to review intelligence cables that had come in over the weekend. One of the cables reported that Ramzi Yousef, the suspected mastermind behind the first World Trade Center bombing, two years earlier, had been spotted in Pakistan.

Clarke immediately called the F.B.I. A man whose voice was unfamiliar to him answered the phone. "O'Neill," he growled. "Who are you?" Clarke said. "I'm John O'Neill," the man replied. "Who the hell are you?" O'Neill had just been appointed chief of the F.B.I.'s counter-terrorism section, in Washington.

He was forty-two years old, and had been transferred from the bureau's Chicago office. After driving all night, he had gone directly to headquarters that Sunday morning without dropping off his bags.

CONNTINUED...

http://codshit.com/911-tlih.htm

[skeptic9]

36. Don't forget John DiIulio, Dubya's first "Faith-Based ...

... Initiatives" czar. He coined the memorable phrase "Mayberry Machiavellis" to describe Karl Rove, Andy Card, Karen Hughes, and the rest of Dubya's praetorian guard/propaganda machine. But he recanted his whisteblowing just weeks later, in a statement reminiscent of witnesses' confessions at Joe Stalin's show trials in 30's Red Russia.
From http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2002/021202_mfe_diiulio_1.html

'CONFIDENTIAL
To: Ron Suskind
From: John DiIulio
Subject: Your next essay on the Bush administration
Date: October 24, 2002
Dear Ron:
For/On the Record

My perspective on the president and the administration reflects both my experiences at the White House and my views as a political scientist and policy scholar.... I helped with certain campaign speeches and with certain speeches once he became president. I spent time with the president in briefings, in meetings with groups, and on certain trips. I was there in the White House during the first 180 days. I was an Assistant to the President, and attended many, though by no means all, senior staff meetings....

what you might call Mayberry Machiavellis--staff, senior and junior, who consistently talked and acted as if the height of political sophistication consisted in reducing every issue to its simplest, black-and-white terms for public consumption, then steering legislative initiatives or policy proposals as far right as possible.... I could cite a half-dozen examples, but, on the so-called faith bill, they basically rejected any idea that the president's best political interests--not to mention the best policy for the country--could be served by letting centrist Senate Democrats in on the issue...

For a fact, had they done that, six months later they would have had a strongly bipartisan bill.... But, ... they winked at the most far-right House Republicans who, in turn, drafted a so-called faith bill (H.R. 7, the Community Solutions Act) that (or so they thought) satisfied certain fundamentalist leaders and beltway libertarians but bore few marks of "compassionate conservatism" and was, as anybody could tell, an absolute political non-starter. It could pass the House only on a virtual party-line vote, and it could never pass the Senate, even before Jeffords switched. Not only that, but it reflected neither the president's own previous rhetoric on the idea, nor any of the actual empirical evidence that recommended policies promoting greater public/private partnerships involving community-serving religious organizations. I said so, wrote memos, and so on for the first six weeks. But, hey, what's that fat, out-of-the-loop professor guy know....

Compare this whistleblowing with Dilulio's complete recantation within weeks, reported by the Washington Post and archived at http://www.bizmarts.com/rec/2004_01_18_arc.html :

'DiIulio Saga Highlights Primacy Placed on Secrecy By Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 10, 2002; Page A27

"My criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. I sincerely apologize and I am deeply remorseful."

-- Former Bush White House official John DiIulio last week after calling Bush political aides "Mayberry Machiavellis."

The apology issued last week by John DiIulio, which echoed White House press secretary Ari Fleischer's denunciation of his remarks as "baseless and groundless," is destined for the Pantheon of Famous Recantations. It sent the grassy-knoll crowd into a frenzy: Did Bush aides threaten DiIulio's employer, the University of Pennsylvania, with loss of federal funds? Did the Huntsman family, Bush friends and big Penn donors, threaten to cut off the school?

Writing in the Philadelphia Daily News yesterday, DiIulio offered a less sinister explanation. Acknowledging that his recantation was a "verbatim" replica of Fleischer's charge, DiIulio said his father taught him to apologize "on your knees, or not at all. In other words, whether completely culpable or not, and whether there are complicated mitigating if not exonerating motivations and circumstances or not, you do not express honest, heartfelt remorse for wrong by quibbling over how the wronged person or persons characterize it.'

[9215]

37. Meacher, the Brit Cabinet Minister

He cites Springman I think

He adds: "Given this, it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance. . . The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies." <http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1036588,00.html>