Interview with Ron Suskind

"The President Knows more than He Lets on" at Spiegel International (27.10.2006) :

SPIEGEL ONLINE: With all your access to high-level sources, have you come across anyone who still thinks it is a good idea for the US to torture people?

Suskind: No. Most of the folks involved say that we made mistakes at the start. The president wants to keep all options open because he never wants his hands tied in any fashion, as he says, because he doesn't know what's ahead. But those involved in the interrogation protocol, I think are more or less in concert in saying that, in our panic in the early days, we made some mistakes.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because they could have gotten information through normal interrogations ...

Suskind: ... yes, and without paying this terrific price, namely: America's moral standing. We poured plenteous gasoline on the fires of jihadist recruitment.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the average interrogator at a Black Site understands more about the mistakes made than the president?

Suskind: The president understands more about the mistakes than he lets on. He knows what the most-skilled interrogators know too. He gets briefed, and he was deeply involved in this process from the beginning. The president loves to talk to operators.

Ashcroft Warned Pre-9/11

By Jason Leopold at TruthOut (04.10.2006) :

In an interview with the New York Times Monday, former Attorney General John Ashcroft said he was never briefed in early July 2001 by then-CIA Director George Tenet about a purported terrorist threat against the United States by al-Qaeda the spy agency had received.

"Frankly, I'm disappointed that I didn't get that kind of briefing," Ashcroft told the Times. "I'm surprised he didn't think it was important enough to come by and tell me."

But Ashcroft was not being forthcoming. He was in fact warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack two months before 9/11 and told by his top officials in July 2001 to avoid traveling aboard commercial airliners because the FBI had received a credible "threat assessment" against the United States.

Pardon Me?

By Elizabeth de la Vega at TomDispatch (03.10.2006). — Scooter Libby's Trial Strategy.

115 mensonges sur les attentats du 11 septembre

By David Ray Griffin at Voltaire Net (03.10.2006) :

Il n’existe toujours pas de version officielle des attentats du 11 septembre 2001. Aucune enquête judiciaire n’a été ouverte sur les attentats eux-mêmes, ni d’enquête parlementaire d’ailleurs. Tout au plus dispose-t-on d’une version gouvernementale explicitée par un rapport rendu par une commission présidentielle. Le professeur David Ray Griffin, qui a consacré un ouvrage de référence à l’étude de ce rapport, y a relevé 115 mensonges dont il dresse ici la liste.

Rice Ignored bin Laden Warnings Prior to 9/11

By Jason Leopold at TruthOut (29.09.2006).

Beware The NIE

By Robert Dreyfuss at TomPaine.com (26.09.2006). Worth a read.

Uncovering the Truth about the Death of David Kelly

By Rowena Thursby at Global Research (17.09.2006) :

The Kelly Investigation Group (KIG) is a loose affiliation of professionals and laypeople from all walks of life; it includes nine doctors, four of them surgeons, and a QC. Medical and legal expertise has ensured our objections to the the official line on Dr David Kelly’s death are taken seriously by the media and public, even if the authorities affect to ignore them. Our aim is to ensure agents of the state do not bury the truth, along with Dr Kelly.

American Intelligence -- Still Stupid

By Amy Zegart at The LA Times (17.09.2006) :

FIVE YEARS AFTER the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history, all our worst intelligence deficiencies remain. Intelligence is spread across 16 agencies that operate as warring tribes more than a team. The CIA is in disarray. And the FBI's information technology is stuck in the dark ages.

CIA Learned in '02 That Bin Laden Had No Iraq Ties, Report Says

By Walter Pincus at Washington Post (15.09.2006).

Bush acknowledges CIA prisons exist

By Brian Knowlton at IHT (07.09.2006) :

President George W. Bush acknowledged Wednesday that 14 of the most notorious terrorism suspects had been held and interrogated in secret CIA camps, but said that they had been moved to the Guantánamo Bay detention center to face eventual trial, with the legal protections provided by the Geneva conventions.

Bush said that the International Committee of the Red Cross would be allowed to meet with the men at the U.S. base in Guantánamo, on the Cuban coast.

"Those charged with crimes will be given access to attorneys, who will help them prepare their defense, and they will be presumed innocent," he said.

Continue reading "Bush acknowledges CIA prisons exist"

Lie By Lie

Mother Jones presents "Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003." Via TomPaine.com.

Iraqi Weapons cover-up revealed... How M-I6 used Fake Intelligence to "Sex Up" the WMD Report

By Rowena Thursby at Global Research (31.08.2006).

Robert Novak and the Perfect Stranger

By Jason Leopold at TruthOut (29.08.2006).

The Man Who Said Too Much

By Michael Isikoff at The Newsweek (04.09.2006 Issue) :

In the early morning of Oct. 1, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell received an urgent phone call from his No. 2 at the State Department. Richard Armitage was clearly agitated. As recounted in a new book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,"  Armitage had been at home reading the newspaper and had come across a column by journalist Robert Novak. Months earlier, Novak had caused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer. Ever since, Washington had been trying to find out who leaked the information to Novak. The columnist himself had kept quiet. But now, in a second column, Novak provided a tantalizing clue: his primary source, he wrote, was a "senior administration official" who was "not a partisan gunslinger." Armitage was shaken. After reading the column, he knew immediately who the leaker was. On the phone with Powell that morning, Armitage was "in deep distress," says a source directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. "I'm sure he's talking about me."

The Rise of Japan's Thought Police

By Steven Clemons at Washington Post (27.08.2006).

The Liquid Bomb Hoax: The Larger Implications

By James Petras at Dissident Voice (25.08.2006).