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2006 entries
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Jan 3,
2007 Antiwar
"Mission Accomplished The War Party meant to destroy Iraq – and so
they did ... "With the entry of Iran into the equation, the
next phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom could possibly include … a major
invasion of Iran and pro-Iranian forces against Western forces in the region
and Israel, and/or a global energy crisis. We may be better served to plan
for repositioning in this strategically important region. While withdrawal
may be necessary in Iraq, withdrawal from the region would precipitate a
global balance-of-power shift toward the Iran-Russia-China axis, which would
be very detrimental for the energy dependent West."
-
Jan 3,
2007 Washington
Times (A Sun Myung Moon organization) "Classified
info ... While Mr. Berger's "punishment" (for stealing documents)
was a pittance of a fine, former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin has been
financially ruined and sentenced to 12 and a half years for passing along
far less-classified information to unauthorized third parties.
Unfortunately, disproportionate justice is inherent to the legal system
... Rosen Weissman trial is slated to begin by the spring."
-
Guardian
"News Media Seek Audio of Libby Trial ... The Supreme Court
releases audio recordings of arguments in major cases, and lower federal
courts have ``started to follow the Supreme Court's lead,'' lawyers for the
news organizations said in filings this week in U.S. District Court
... I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial witnesses include:
Tim Russert, and these orgs want audio tapes: The organizations are
ABC, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, CNN, CBS, Dow Jones, E.W.
Scripps, the Hearst Corp., the Los Angeles Times, the McClatchey Co., NBC,
National Public Radio, USA Today, the Washington Post, the American Society
of Newspaper Editors, the Newspaper Association of America, the
Radio-Television News Directors Association, the Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press and the Society of Professional Journalists.
-
Jan 6,
2007 Target
Iran Scott Ritter 
-
Reuters
"Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment
facilities with tactical nuclear weapons, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper
said." more search terms: low-yield bunker busters, Natanz, heavy
water plant at Arak, uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, conventional
bombs, U.N. Security Council sanctions, pre-emptive strike, too much for
Israel to take on alone, reduce radioactive fallout.
-
Jan 7,
2007 Times
Online "ISRAEL has drawn up
secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical
nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an
Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to
several Israeli military sources."
-
Jan 9,
2007 San
Francisco Chronicle "The trial
of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is to begin Jan. 16 ... A
federal judge said Tuesday he would not make available daily audio
recordings.
-
Bloggers get access to Libby
trial.
-
China
Post "Iran
will avoid harsh response to sanctions ... New U.N. sanctions
are too soft to hinder Iran's nuclear program or push Tehran to retaliate by
ejecting U.N. inspectors, diplomats and analysts say. Iran, aiming to
install 3,000 centrifuges soon as the basis for nuclear fuel output, is
expected to avoid radical reactions to the sanctions that would widen
suspicions it secretly seeks atomic bombs, not just energy for electricity
as it insists,
-
Jan 11,
2007 WRMEA
"FBI Investigation of AIPAC Reportedly Has Been “Expanded”
search Jane Harman
-
Consortium
News,
"At a not-for-quotation pre-speech briefing on Jan. 10,
George W. Bush and his top national security aides unnerved network anchors
and other senior news executives with suggestions that a major confrontation
with Iran is looming. ..
-
Salon
"Did the U.S. just provoke Iran? Thursday's raid on the Iranian
consulate is more evidence that President Bush is ready to escalate the
conflict. By Juan Cole
-
Jan 13,
2007 The
Militant "Despite partisan rhetoric of "opposition" to the
escalation, statements by top Democratic Party politicians indicated that
bipartisan support for the imperialist war aims remains firm.
The "new strategy" Bush described had been largely outlined in a
study by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank.
It was authored by Frederick Kagan, an AEI military analyst, working with
Jack Keane, a retired U.S. Army general and de facto operational advisor of
the Bush administration. Kagan and Keane coauthored a number of articles and
opinion columns arguing for the plan in recent weeks"
-
Jerusalem
Newswire "Russian admiral: Numerous US nuclear subs signals imminent
strike on Iran ... and previous story Times
Online, UK
-
Jan 14,
2007 Anti-war
"On the Mideast Escalator ... by Rep. Ron Paul While the
president's announcement that an additional 20,000 troops would be sent to
Iraq dominated the headlines last week, the real story was the president's
sharp rhetoric toward Iran and Syria. And recent moves by the administration
only serve to confirm the likelihood of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
-
WW4Report,
Scott Ritter, on Iran Attack
-
Jan 18,
2007 The
People's Voice "Libby’s Trial Crafted to Protect Bush-Cheney Gang
...
-
Freeze
Congressional scorecard on Iran Attack
-
Jan 23,
2007
Antiwar
"The defense fired off its big guns on the first day, with Libby's
lawyer, Ted Wells, rebutting Patrick J. Fitzgerald's contention that Libby
had a motive to lie because the president had declared that anyone who
leaked would be fired. (I note here that I'm citing not the
"mainstream" media's account of the proceedings, but that of a
blogger who has gained entry to the trial as a reporter, the anonymous
"Emptywheel," whose reportage on the background of this case is
surely one of the investigative wonders of the blogging world): "Mr.
Libby was not concerned about losing his job. He was concerned about being
set up. He was concerned about being the scapegoat.
-
Guardian
"Tehran power struggle intensifies ... Iran's
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faces a fierce challenge from the man he
defeated in the 2005 presidential election. ...He is trying to persuade the
country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - who has the final say in
all state matters - that further negotiations are essential to avoid a
potentially disastrous conflict with the US or Israel.
-
Jan 25,
2007
LA
Times ... In the first such account from Vice President Dick
Cheney's inner circle, a former aide testified Thursday that Cheney
personally directed the effort to discredit an administration critic by
having calls made to reporters in 2003"..and "she said, she
discussed with Cheney and Libby how she had learned from Harlow that two
network reporters were writing stories about the case, and how Cheney
ordered Libby to call them personally, including one call that Libby made
from his private anteroom outside of Cheney's office. "I was
aggravated that Scooter was calling the reporters and that I wasn't,"
Martin said" copy
-
Jan 26,
2007 WMR
- "Deputy White House Director of Communications for Policy and
Planning Cathie Martin, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief media
adviser, testified at the Scooter Lobby trial yesterday that Cheney and
Libby orchestrated the media attack on Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his
covert CIA agent wife, whose identity was compromised in the White House
retaliatory conspiracy against the Wilsons. So far, Fitzgerald has presented
evidence of a deep White House conspiracy to punish the Wilsons for an op-ed
Ambassador Wilson wrote in the New York Times highlighting that Bush's
comments in his 2003 State of the Union address about Iraq trying to obtain
yellowcake uranium from Niger was bogus. However, Fitzgerald took the road
of trying to nail Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice, giving
former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and, possibly, Karl Rove,
immunity from obstruction and/or perjury charges and the much more serious
criminal conspiracy charges that would also implicate Cheney and George W.
Bush. In a previous statement by Theodore Wells, Libby's attorney, Rove was
considered a top priority for protection from an indictment because of his
important role in securing Bush's re-election in 2004. Fitzgerald has always
claimed that he would not allow politics to influence his criminal probe.
However, in giving Rove a pre-election pass and running out the statute of
limitations clock to the point the Wilsons were forced to file a civil suit
against the key White House perpetrators, including Cheney, Libby, and Rove,
last June, Fitzgerald has consistently shown he follows a political time
clock in a very political criminal case that rivals Watergate and
Iran-contra in the involvement of senior White House officials in a major
criminal conspiracy." search terms: State of the Union, yellowcake,
"serious mistake", "Bush needs to explain", hand-written
notes, NBC, Russert complicit in leak scheme, Woodward, Pincus,
Sanger, smoking gun, Watergate tapes, ....
-
Jan 28,
2007 Al
Jazeera ... Turkey Mulls Iraq Invasion ... Israel and the United
States are believed to have been working together to provide the needed aid
to Kurdish groups such as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, which has
been conducting clandestine cross-border raids into Iran, seen as other
means of applying pressure on Iran. Also some sources say that the
Pentagon has reached secret agreements with Kurdish, Azeri, and Baluchi
tribesmen encouraging their efforts to undermine the regime’s authority in
northern and southeastern Iran. Bush’s fears and stance had been
made manifest in recent arrests by American troops in Iraq of Iranian
officials.
-
Editor
& Publisher, Cathie Martin,
Media manipulation .... "Cheney, Libby and Martin spent the
next week trying get out word that Cheney did not know Wilson, did not ask
for the mission to Niger, never got Wilson's report and only learned about
the trip from news stories in 2003." and see LA
Times
-
Zmag
"Did Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, run a covert program
with operatives in high-level US government positions to influence the Bush
Administration's decision to go to war in Iraq? The FBI wants to know.
search terms: AIPAC
-
Jan 29,
2007 MSNBC
"The vice president personally penned an October 2003 note in which
he wrote, “Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the other.”
The note, read aloud in court by Wells, implied that Libby was the one being
sacrificed in an effort to clear Rove of any role in leaking the identity of
CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq war critic Joe Wilson. “Wow, for
all the talk about this being a White House that prides itself on loyalty
and discipline, you’re not seeing much of it,” the lawyer said.
-
AP
Libby's attorneys argue that the media campaign was based on refuting
Wilson on the merits of his argument and that his wife was simply an
afterthought. In the frenzy of responding to the story, they say, Libby
forgot when and where he learned about Plame. Fleischer's testimony
will be key to the prosecution because he says Libby told him about Plame
and encouraged him to keep it quiet. As Special Prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald said in his opening statement: "You can't learn something on
Thursday that you're giving out on Monday."
- Feb 1,
2007 IBD,
"Judith
Miller's bout with amnesia apparently is over. In the Libby trial, she can
recall exactly what he told her when, something she couldn't when she had 85
days in jail to think about it.
- Alternet,
Libby Trial: Smoking Gun for Impeachment? By Robert Scheer, Truthdig.
The Libby case testimony, centered on the chicanery of the vice president,
certainly suggests that impeachable offenses occurred at the highest level
of the White House.
- Pacifica
Radio Karl Rove revealed identity of Plame
- Feb 5,
2007 LA
Times 2007 Libby's credibility, "The closest thing to a
smoking gun in the case so far are notes handwritten by Libby during a phone
conversation with Cheney on June 12, 2003. Cheney told Libby, according to
the notes, that Wilson's wife was a counter-proliferation specialist at the
CIA." ... According to the notes from that conversation, Wilson
was saying that Cheney's office had expressed strong interest in the notion
that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium in Africa.
- Feb 7,
2007 HuffingtonPost:
"Fitzgerald parsed his words carefully but said
that it was well within the realm of what was known that two administration
officials -- at the very least Libby and Ari Fleischer -- contacted more
than six journalists. Fitzgerald mentioned that Cooper, Miller and Novak had
been approached, and that Fleischer had contacted two journalists on the
trip to Africa (he didn't say, but probably John Dickerson and David
Gregory), and that the defense might call Walter Pincus, and then of course
there was Bob Woodward." ... "Did Dick Cheney order two senior
administration officials to contact six journalists and expose Valerie
Plame's identity in an attempt to smear her husband?"
- Feb 8,
2007 BBC
Libby trial ..."Jurors have heard more than three weeks of testimony
from witnesses. The defence will begin its case on Monday. The final
witness was NBC journalist Tim Russert, who denied discussing Ms Plame with
Mr Libby. ... Mr Libby says that Mr Russert told him then that
"all the reporters" knew of Ms Plame's occupation. But Mr
Russert told the court that that part of the conversation did not take
place. He testified that he never discussed Ms Plame with Mr Libby.
-
Washington
Post, Journalism on Trial, Russert, Libby, lies.... and copy
- Army
Times Pentagon Inspector
General, Douglas Feith, A “very damning” report by the Defense
Department’s inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely
manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in
the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee. “That was the argument that was used to
make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war,” said
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. He said the Pentagon’s work, “which was wrong,
which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is
highly disturbing.”
- Feb 9,
2007 MediaMonitors
"Relations between the neocon-ish Harman and the House Democratic
leader soured when Harman learned that Pelosi planned not to reappoint her
to the House Intelligence Committee. As the committee’s ranking minority
member, Harman stood to become chair if the Democrats won the House in the
November elections. The spurned Harman embarked on an aggressive
campaign to persuade Pelosi to reappoint her. According to Time, the
alternative LA Weekly reported that Harman “had some major contributors
call Pelosi to impress on her the importance of keeping her as head of the
House Intelligence Committee. These tactics did not endear Harman to Pelosi.”
Among those who called Pelosi on Harman’s behalf, according to Time, was
billionaire Zionist Haim Saban. Harman has hired GOP super lawyer Ted
Olson, a former solicitor general, because, Olson told Time, “she is not
aware of any such [FBI] investigation, does not believe it is occurring and
wanted to make sure you and your editors know that as far as she knows, that’s
not true…No one from the Justice Department has contacted her.”
-
Feb 10,
2007 Mail
Guardian Online: "But Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based
intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning
(for Iran attack) is well under way. "Planning is going on, in spite of
public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing
campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to
carry this out are being put in place."
-
Feb 11,
2007 World
Socialist Website And under heavy
US pressure, India has twice voted with the US against Iran in International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deliberations over Teheran’s nuclear program.
But New Delhi is aghast at the thought the Bush administration may try to
extricate itself from its strategic debacle in Iraq by engineering a wider
war—that is, by attacking Iran and possibly Syria.
-
Feb 12,
2007 Antiwar,
"Secrets Bush and Cheney Can't 'Declassify' by Gordon Prather
... If "reporters" covering the Scooter Libby trial for
alleged perjury and obstruction of justice had bothered to read President
Bush's Executive Order 12958 of March 28, 2003 – entitled "Classified
National Security Information" – they would know that it does not
give the vice president the authority to declassify anything.
"But in an interview, Cheney said there is an executive order that
gives the vice president the authority to declassify information.
"'I have certainly advocated declassification. I have participated in
declassification decisions,' Cheney said. "Asked for details, he said,
'I don't want to get into that. There's an executive order that specifies
who has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and
foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."
-
Antiwar
on Feith, cooked intelligence, deceptions, Congressional investigations?
-
Feb 20,
2007 Washington
Post "The government's perjury case against Libby will go to the
jury this week after a trial that exposed the vice president's large
behind-the-scenes involvement in seeking to discredit Joseph C. Wilson IV, a
former ambassador who accused Cheney and other administration officials of
twisting intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.
-
Feb 21,
2007
Antiwar,
"Every moment we stay in Iraq increases the likelihood of war with
Iran"
-
TPMuckraker
-
Feb 22,
2007
Harretz,
Rosen Weissman
-
Northern
Star His name is John Hannah, the
assistant to the vice president for National Security Affairs ...
Hannah worked on what was called the "White House Iraq Group," a
team dedicated to finding intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq. ... A Feb. 11 Washington Post article quotes an ambassador as
saying that Hannah remarked that 2007 was "the year of Iran" and
that there was a high possibility of a U.S. attack. ...
-
Feb 24,
2007
CommonDreams
"Speculation Rages: Is Iran Bush's Next Target? ...
Dispatched a second aircraft carrier strike group to patrol the Persian Gulf
and sent Patriot anti-missile missiles to Arab allies bordering the
Gulf. Expanded operations against alleged Iranian networks operating
in Iraq, conducting two raids, one involving U.S. soldiers snatching
Iranians said to be members of the al Quds paramilitary force. Accused
Iran of supplying roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents and vowed to stop the
shipments. Moved to bolster the government of Lebanese Prime Minister
Fuad Saniora with money and military supplies in a proxy struggle with the
Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group. Launched an aggressive
financial campaign against Iran to curb its access to the international
financial system, freezing bank funds and barring U.S. transactions with
various entities. This week the Treasury Department added Hezbollah's
construction arm, Jihad al Bina, to a roster of blacklisted banks.
-
FoxNews
"Report: Israel Asks U.S. for Iraqi Airspace Corridor for Iran
Strike"
-
Guardian
"US intelligence on Iran does not stand up, say Vienna sources
...
-
Feb 26,
2007
Scoop
/ Truthout "It was the defense attorney representing I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby who first told jurors during closing arguments in
the perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial Tuesday that the government
believes Vice President Dick Cheney told Libby to leak the identity of
covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to a New York Times reporter in
July 2003 to undermine the credibility of her husband, a critic of the Iraq
War."
-
NewYorker, CommonDreams: "the Pentagon has already set up a working group to plan
airstrikes on Iran. The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s
nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been
instructed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or
aiding militants in Iraq."
-
CommonDreams,
"Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to
resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran
... General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said
recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down
claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for
supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive. Pace’s
view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of
the Iranian government’s involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small
number of Revolutionary Guards was “far from clear”. Hillary Mann,
the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s
repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent
at the top."
-
Feb 27,
2007
FrontPage
"Pelosi Hires Soros' Right-Hand Man ... Joseph Onek, a 1967
graduate of Yale Law School, is currently a Senior Policy Analyst for George
Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI), one of the world’s major
financiers of the political far Left. OSI is a member of the benignly named
Peace and Security Funders Group, an association of more than 50 foundations
that earmark a sizable portion of their $27 billion in combined assets to
leftist organizations that undermine the war on terror in several
interrelated ways ... " go Joe, go Nancy...
-
Mar 1,
2007 Rep.
Barbara Lee, Iran attack preemption legislation
-
Manilla
Standard
Hagee speech, ... at the
July 19, 2006 Washington DC inaugural event for CUFI, after recorded
greetings from George W. Bush, with four US Senators and the Israeli
ambassador to the US in attendance, Pastor John Hagee stated::
"“’The United States must join
Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan
for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time
confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation and the
Second Coming of Christ.”
-
Guardian,
sea-change in Bush foreign policy.
-
Mar 3,
2007 PressTV,
Middle East, Hans Blix, "Israel is now producing and reprocessing more
plutonium to establish more nuclear plants and it should be forced to stop
the process, he warned.
-
Mar 7,
2007 Libby convicted on 4 of 5 counts.
-
Etherzone:
"CORRUPT
ENDEAVOR, WHO LIED US INTO WAR? By:
Justin Raimondo, "To
get a glimpse of what we're in for, if investigations proceed, take a look
at the details of a very similar case coming to court this summer – the
long-delayed trial of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two top officials of
AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. In this case, the
umpire didn't get sand thrown in his eyes, because the FBI's
counterintelligence unit had the bad guys bugged from the beginning. They
watched Larry Franklin, Doug Feith's top Iran expert, as he offered Rosen
and Weissman access to classified information. They listened to Rosen –
the longtime spark plug behind AIPAC's energetic efforts to influence
government circles – as he boasted to Weissman what a good catch Franklin
was. They followed the AIPAC duo as they met with Israeli officials,
including the then-Israeli ambassador, and passed on classified information
of a highly sensitive nature."
-
Mar 8,
2007 ThinkProgress,
"Wilson Responds: Bush And Cheney Must Explain Why They Outed My Wife
Ambassador Joseph Wilson offered his first response to the Scooter Libby
verdict during a conference call today. ... “Now that this trial is
over,” Wilson said, “the president and the vice president owe the
country a much broader explanation of their own actions.” Wilson called on
them both to release the transcripts of their discussions with Special
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and called on Bush specifically to apologize
for overseeing the outing of his wife ..."
-
Guardian
"Where's Rove? Where's, you know, where are these other guys?"
wondered a juror, Denis Collins, standing on the courthouse steps after the
Libby verdict was delivered. Collins said that he and other jurors came to
think of Libby as a "fall guy", someone who had certainly
committed the crimes of which he was accused but who also was hardly acting
on his own. ... Libby and Rove's falsehoods in front of the grand jury, in
which they blamed reporters for telling them about Plame, were a cleverly
contrived coverup. They did not believe that the prosecutor would be able to
break through the curtain of the First Amendment or untangle the tale as
told by journalists. Both Libby and Rove relied on the same alibi, hiding
behind the press corps that they had manipulated for years and whose erratic
habits they knew well. But prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was not about to be
confounded by this device. He knew the law was on his side, and he received
a judicial decision forcing the reporters to testify.
-
Media
Monitors
Rosen, Weissman: CORRUPT
ENDEAVOR,WHO LIED US INTO WAR? By: Justin Raimondo ... :take a look at the
details of a very similar case coming to court this summer – the
long-delayed trial of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two top officials of
AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. In this case, the
umpire didn't get sand thrown in his eyes, because the FBI's
counterintelligence unit had the bad guys bugged from the beginning. They
watched Larry Franklin, Doug Feith's top Iran expert, as he offered Rosen
and Weissman access to classified information. They listened to Rosen –
the longtime spark plug behind AIPAC's energetic efforts to influence
government circles – as he boasted to Weissman what a good catch Franklin
was. They followed the AIPAC duo as they met with Israeli officials,
including the then-Israeli ambassador, and passed on classified information
of a highly sensitive nature."
-
Mar 10,
2007 Centre
for Research on Globalization
"AIPAC Pushes to Eliminate Anti-Iran-War Language from Pelosi Iraq
Bill ...
-
Palestinian
Chronicle, "The judge in the trial of the two former senior AIPAC
officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who are charged with having
transferred secret information to Israel, ruled last week against the
defendants' demand to compel Israeli diplomats with whom they had been in
contact to testify at the trial. However, the judge also hinted at the
delicate question of the organization's relationship with Israel, and more
precisely whether AIPAC has served as a back channel for transmitting
messages between the administration and Israel. This could be an
embarrassing and unpleasant event, both for Israel and the
organization."
-
Mar 13,
2007 Middle
East North Africa Financial Network "The question of whether
Iran will or will not be attacked is a hard one. ... For sure there is
a detailed plan in place but whether this can be implemented by what some
refer to as a lame duck president with approval ratings heading south is
moot. In my opinion there is only one way this could be done. Israel would
have to strike first claiming Iran is a threat to its very existence when
the US would "reluctantly" weigh in. If this is the case,
then Saturday's meeting in Baghdad was a red herring; an attempt to lead
Iraq and Syria away from the scent to give Israel and the US a crucial
element of surprise."
-
AP
"Democratic leaders are stripping from a military spending bill for the
war in Iraq a requirement that President Bush gain approval from Congress
before moving against Iran.
-
Antiwar:
"Pelosi's Betrayal "Antiwar" Democrats cave on Iran by Justin
Raimondo Read it and weep: "Top House Democrats retreated Monday
from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military
action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming
confrontation with the White House over Iraq. Officials said Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major
military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress
before moving against Iran"
-
Mar 15,
2007 Reporters
Committee A coalition of media groups asked for permission to intervene
in the AIPAC espionage case today, citing an apparent secret request by the
U.S. government to hold a substantial portion of the criminal trial of two
lobbyists in secret. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
and 12 other groups, including ABC, Inc., The Associated Press, Dow Jones
& Co., Reuters, Time, Inc., and the Washington Post, asked to enter the
case for the limited purpose of challenging the government's apparent
request to close the upcoming trial in this matter, and any other pending or
future motion seeking to restrict public access to the trial proceedings or
record.
-
Mar 16,
2007 Plame Congressional testimony:
El
Paso Times: James
Knodell, director of
the White House security office, also testified about general security
procedures and J. William Leonard, security director of the National
Archives, discussed general procedures for handling sensitive
information. Also scheduled to testify Friday were attorney Mark Zaid,
who has represented whistleblowers, and attorney Victoria Toensing, who said
early on that no law was broken and has criticized the CIA's handling of the
case. file
-
Mar 17,
2007 WMR "CIA
Director Michael Hayden told House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman
and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Sylvestre Reyes that Valerie Plame
Wilson had been a CIA covert agent up until July 14, 2003, the day Robert
Novak revealed her name and identity."
-
Truthout
Libby trial transcripts: " According to trial transcripts obtained
by Truthout, former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
testified before a grand jury in 2004 that Vice President Dick Cheney
instructed him to divulge portions of a then-classified report to New York
Times reporter Judith Miller. Libby testified that Cheney said authorization
to leak a section of the report had come directly from President George W.
Bush, the court transcripts state." and see NIE from FAS
-
Mar 18,
2007 BBS
News copy of Waxman letter to Joshua Bolten, "Valerie Plame
and her testimony on Friday ... made very clear her covert
status at the time of the leak ... assist the Committee in its investigation
into these issues, I request that you provide the Committee with a complete
account of the steps that the White House took following the disclosure of
Ms. Wilson's identity (1) to investigate how the leak occurred; (2) to
review the security clearances of the White House officials implicated in
the leak; (3) to impose administrative or disciplinary sanctions on the
officials involved in the leak; and (4) to review and revise existing White
House security procedures to prevent future breaches of national
security. full letter
-
Mar 21,
2007 John
Birch Society, yes, JPS ... "Engineering War ... Denials
notwithstanding, the evidence suggests that the Bush administration is fully
committed to a “pre-emptive” war against Iran, possibly as early as
April.
-
TheJewishWeek
"Soros Won’t Take On AIPAC (Yet) Lightning rod financier and
political donor — who favors talks with Hamas — puts off his push for
alternative lobby, citing lack of prior standing in Jewish life. ...
In the article, Soros urged Israel and the United States to drop their
refusal to deal with a new unity government in the Palestinian Authority
dominated by Hamas, a terrorist organization that rejects Israel’s right
to exist. He suggests a peace agreement could be reached that Hamas would
ultimately accept under pressure from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries,
which have signaled they seek such an agreement to counter a rising threat
from Iran.
-
Guardian
The firm Turkish belief that the US is playing a double game in northern
Iraq. Officials say the CIA is covertly funding and arming the PKK's sister
organisation, the Iran-based Kurdistan Free Life party, to destabilise the
Iranian government. US acquiescence in plans to hold a referendum in
oil-rich Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Turkey suspects Iraqi Kurds are seeking
control of Kirkuk as a prelude to the creation of an independent Kurdistan.
Plans by the US Congress to vote on a resolution blaming Turkey for genocide
against the Armenians in 1915. Faruk Logoglu, a former ambassador to
Washington, said that if the resolution passed, relations "could take
generations to recover".
-
Mar 25,
2007 Globe
& Mail Captured U.K. sailors missing in Iran TARIZ PANJA Associated
Press LONDON — British officials do not know where Iran is holding 15
sailors and marines captured in the Persian Gulf, and requests for access to
them have been denied, the Foreign Office said Sunday. Iranian state
television, meanwhile, said its Foreign Ministry summoned the British
ambassador in Tehran “to protest the illegal entry of British sailors into
Iranian territorial waters.” It gave no details about the meeting.
- Guardian
new sanctions, Iran
-
Mar 29,
2007 Muslim
News "Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was warned last month by a
diverse group of British organizations of the devastating consequence in
backing any military attacks by the US or Israel on Iran. The disastrous
consequences were highlighted in a report by such organizations as the
Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) and Oxfam with the support of such faith groups
as Muslim Council of Britain, British Muslim Forum and Christian Solidarity
Worldwide and major trade unions, Amicus, GMB, PCS and Unison. Even former
British Ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton.."
-
Mar 30,
2007 CommonDreams
... Beaufort ... new
Israeli film ... by Joseph Cedar ... filmed before last summer’s war,
“Beaufort” is set during Israel’s 18-year occupation of Lebanon, which
ended seven years ago. But its story of a shell-shocked Israeli unit charged
with defending and dismantling a military outpost established at a
12th-century Crusader castle resonates today as confidence in the Israeli
government remains low over what Israelis believe was a disappointing end to
last summer’s war.
-
Apr 10,
2007 Uruknet
In case you missed it: Ex-AIPAC
staffers say Condi Rice leaked them classified info: Two
former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
say Condoleezza Rice was their informant on sensitive national security
matters. Lawyer for Steve Rosen (AIPAC’s former foreign policy director)
said Rice had not merely been Rosen’s interlocutor, but had leaked
information identical to and at times more sensitive than examples cited in
the indictment. In addition the lawyer said, the information Rice provided
was more "volatile" than the information described in the
indictment. All details here…
I’ll be surprised if the court charge Condi for anything, not because she
has not done it, but because the court will soon find out (if not already)
that the whole administration is a puppet agent for AIPAC and they are just
doing the job they were assigned to. It is unfortunate that majority of
Americans don’t know (or don’t want to believe) that their country is
also occupied by the Zionists.
-
Apr 22,
2007 Antiwar
"Is the Media Sabotaging the AIPAC Spy Trial? by Grant F. Smith
... The stakes in the AIPAC espionage case could not be higher. The AIPAC
espionage case, if it comes to trial, could redefine the role of lobbies,
the mainstream press, and think-tanks operating in Washington, D.C. It is
not yet clear whether average Americans approve of Washington's hidden world
of selective third-party disclosure and trafficking in classified
information. It is also not known whether selectively disclosed and
leveraged classified information fed to the "free press" has
played a wider, unknown role in promoting misguided war, wasteful military
spending, and perpetuating the influence of the Israel lobby
-
May 3,
2007 Jerusalem
Post Judge in trial of former AIPAC
staffers rips prosecution for delays ... The
judge in the trial against former AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs
Committee) staffers sternly chastised the prosecution Wednesday for delaying
the trial, after the government asked for more time to decide how it would
proceed in the case. The prosecution's request set back the expected
start of the trial against Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, accused of
passing on classified information, well past its scheduled start of June
4."
-
Secrecy
News, FAS
-
May 11,
2007 Secrecy
News, FAS "The
presiding judge in the closely-watched prosecution of two former officials
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) charged with
unlawfully receiving national defense information has denied a defense
motion to dismiss the case on grounds of alleged constitutional violations
by the government. The defense had argued that the case should be
dismissed because the government pressured AIPAC, the defendants' former
employer, not to pay their legal fees and thereby violated their
constitutional rights to due process and the right to counsel. The
alleged interference occurred in 2004 and 2005, when "the government
was actively investigating defendants and AIPAC," Judge T.S. Ellis III
explained in a
new memorandum opinion (pdf). According to the defendants'
account, "prosecutors implicitly or explicitly threatened AIPAC with
criminal charges, and/or threatened further intense scrutiny of AIPAC in the
event the government perceived AIPAC's cooperation as unsatisfactory."
To demonstrate its "cooperation," AIPAC subsequently fired the
defendants and ceased to pay their legal fees. The organization was not
charged in the indictment."
-
May 14,
2007 Baltimore
Chronicle "Those in state
governments, like Vermont, who have taken the issue seriously have also
realized if proceedings were started for impeaching Bush that Cheney would
also have to be impeached. Cheney is as guilty as Bush, if not more so, of
the impeachable offences of the administration. How, then, could Nancy
Pelosi, next in line for the presidency, support impeachment? Successful
proceedings would make her commander-in-chief."
-
May 17,
2007 Legal
Times "They said that Plame’s
former covert position stood in the way of her equal protection claims
against the defendants, meaning that in order to proceed with the case the
court might have to dig into the covert actions of the CIA. ... Valerie
Plame sat at the plaintiff’s table with her counsel from the Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington"
-
May 18,
2007 Jewish
Exponent "The deputy U.S.
attorney general who indicted two former AIPAC staffers on classified
information charges resigned ... McNulty ... In a development in the AIPAC
case, the organization reached a deal with lawyers for Weissman, its former
Iran analyst, to pay for his defense against Espionage Act charges"
-
ay 23,
2007 Aljazeerah
"Although the Bush administration claims that its current priority is
Iraq, it hasn’t given up on Iran. Silently, the war on the Islamic
Republic has begun, according to an article on the Guardian Unlimited. Many
other reports confirm that Washington increased its aid to arm opposition
groups among Iran’s ethnic minorities that make up about 40% of the
country’s population. Last month, ABC News reported that the U.S. had
secretly assisted the Baluchi group Jund al-Islam, which claimed
responsibility for an attack that killed 20 Revolutionary Guards. A U.S.
Foundation report also stated that U.S. commandos have operated inside Iran
since 2004."
-
May 26,
2007 BBC
"Prosecutor urges prison for Libby ... Lewis "Scooter" Libby
says he was a scapegoat Former White House aide Lewis "Scooter"
Libby deserves to spend up to three years in jail for obstructing justice,
the prosecutor in the case has said."
-
ThinkProgress
-
RawStory
Susan Rallston, Abramoff, Rove, immunity
-
May 29,
2007 AlArab
"Frustrated with Bush, the Veep Urges Israel to Attack Iran ... Clemens
cites a Cheney aide as indicating "that Cheney himself is frustrated
with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is
making a disastrous mistake" by supporting the diplomatic approach to
Iran apparently favored by the State Department. So Cheney plans to deploy
an "end run strategy" around the president (who's more swayed at
present by Condi Rice's "realists" than Cheney's neocons) if his
flank doesn't prevail and Bush resists the demand of the neocons and the
AIPAC lobby for a bloody showdown."
-
Guardian
blog
-
USNews
pre-sentencing
-
Guardian,
Libby "Libby Sentenced to 2 and 1/2 Years in Prison ... Former White
House aide I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison
Tuesday for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.
-
Commentary
Magazine
"The Slow-Motion AIPAC Case ... On August 4, 2005, Keith
Weissman and Steven J. Rosen, two employees of AIPAC, were indicted for
receiving classified information and then passing it along to reporters and
to the officials of a foreign government, namely, the state of Israel. Up
until a few weeks ago, their trial was set to commence this coming Monday,
June 4. It has now been delayed, for the umpteenth time, to an unspecified
date this fall."
-
June 10,
2007 Executive
Intelligence Review "Dick
Cheney Becomes Ever More Impeachable ... With more and more spotlights being
trained upon Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors against the U.S.
Constitution, he becomes ever more impeachable—and the political excuses
for failing to pursue impeachment more and more unacceptable.
Specifically, if impeachment is "off the table," the war against
Iran and shredding of the U.S. Constitution are surely on the table.
The three hits delivered to Cheney were: 1) the sentencing of his chief of
staff, I. Lewis Libby, to 30 months in prison; 2) the stunning revelation by
former Deputy Attorney General James Comey of Cheney's pivotal role in the
illegal NSA wiretap program; and 3) the legal overturning of two cases
before the Cheney-promoted Military Commissions at Guantanamo. ...
Now, facing a substantial prison term, Libby is reportedly under intense
pressure to cooperate with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and to tell
Fitzgerald what he knows, in order to obtain a reduced sentence. Which is
one of the reasons that the campaign to obtain a pardon for Libby, before he
talks, is so intense."
-
June 11,
2007 TimesOnline.uk
"IRAN has threatened to launch a
missile blitz against the Gulf states and plunge the entire Middle East into
war if America attacks its nuclear facilities.
-
June 14,
2007 Media
Matters "Summary: An editorial in The Daily Sentinel of Grand
Junction that recommended a pardon for former vice presidential chief of
staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby after his sentencing in the Valerie
Plame CIA leak case echoed numerous conservative commentators and repeated
right-wing talking points that misrepresented Patrick Fitzgerald's
prose``Scooter'' Libby is headed back to court to try to forestall his
2-year prison term in the CIA leak case. ... If they lose
Thursday, Libby's lawyers have said they will ask an appeals court for an
emergency order delaying the sentence. Because one of the issues in the
appeal is whether Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had the authority to
charge Libby, defense lawyers also could ask the Supreme Court to step
in. Then there is the pardon question."
-
June 19,
2007 BradBlog
"Bork and Friends File Amici Brief in Libby CIA Case Questioning
Constitutionality of Fitzgerald Appointment ... While Bork and friends can't
fire the Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald in the CIA leak matter, their brief
argues to Judge Reggie Walton that they believe “the constitutionality of
Special Counsel Fitzgerald’s appointment presents a close question.”
Quick note: a “close question” apparently means one that has a chance of
winning on appeal. For the bail hearing for Lewis 'Scooter' Libby ---
Thursday June 14 --- Libby's attorneys must argue that the issues for appeal
are substantive and not just a way to postpone imprisonment. This
"friends of the court" brief is offered to help the defendant.
-
Uruknet.net
AIPAC Lobby
-
June 21,
2007 Atlantic
Free Press Libby guaranteed pardon
by Cheney if Fitzgerald indicts, ... during summer Congressional recess.
-
Huffington
Post "Attacking Iran "On the table
... First, the good news: General Peter Pace will no longer be the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His cheerleading for the invasion and
occupation of Iraq, his ass-kissing of Donald Rumsfeld (the worst Defense
Secretary in American history), and his love letter in behalf of the
four-time convicted felon, Scooter Libby, illustrate a level of political
hackery on his part that is wholly inconsistent with protecting the
neutrality and autonomy of the U.S. military from the vicissitudes of the
corrupt politicians who come and go in Washington. Pace will no doubt follow
in the footsteps of former general Richard Meyers and move on to rake in
enormously lavish sums of cash by serving on the boards of military
corporations.
-
June 22,
2007 ePluribus
"Trials, Tribulations and Treason: Scooter Libby, Misplaced Loyalty and
Renegade Republicans ... search terms: treason. "
-
MediaMatters
"Summary: In a Washingtonpost.com discussion, Richard Cohen asserted
that Lewis "Scooter" Libby "didn't commit the original
crime" in the CIA leak case because he wasn't Robert Novak's source for
the column that disclosed Valerie Plame's identity. However, Libby did leak
Plame's identity to other reporters. Cohen also falsely claimed that Plame
was not "covert." An unclassified summary of Plame's CIA
employment established that she was, in fact, a covert CIA employee."
-
Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs "four measures
introduced to counter the push by unrepentant neocons for the U.S. to launch
a “pre-emptive strike” against Iran. Overlooked in that column was
H.Con.Res. 14, introduced Jan. 5 by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), which
states that “Congress has the sole and exclusive power to declare war.”
On Feb. 14, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced H.Res. 163, saying that “the
Constitution provides that the president may act to defend the country in an
emergency, but reserved the matter of offensive war to Congress.”
Neither of the above measures mentions Iran, nor does S. 39, introduced Jan.
24 by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) as reported. Also described in the
previous issue were H.J.Res. 14, which has gained 30 co-sponsors, for a
total of 53, and H.Con.Res. 33, which has gained 17 co-sponsors, for a total
of 47. Joining these measures, both of which call for congressional
authorization prior to the use of military force specifically against Iran,
was S.Con.Res. 13. Introduced Feb. 15 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the
resolution states that “the president should not initiate military action
against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress.”
-
July 2,
2007 Penninsula
Online "A US Congress leader called on Friday for the
resignation of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, questioning his
candor over the controversial dismissal of eight top
prosecutors. .... Meanwhile, a
Democratic committee chairman in the US House of Representatives threatened
on Friday to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice if she refuses to
testify voluntarily about claims made in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Rep Henry Waxman of California said his House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee would vote on Wednesday whether to subpoena Rice to discuss
administration warnings, since refuted, that Iraq had sought uranium from
Niger for nuclear arms. Waxman said his panel also would vote on whether to
compel testimony from former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about
the 2003 leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s status as a covert CIA
analyst."
-
From Aug 2004, Washington
Post, now at top of search engines for Rosen Weissman and file
""If the disclosure of newsworthy information about the national
defense to reporters for the purpose of publication can constitute
espionage, that places enormous power in the hands of prosecutors, because
information about national defense is passed on every day to reporters in
this town."
-
Guardian
"Court Won't Delay Prison for Libby ... The U.S. Bureau of
Prisons has not yet assigned Libby a prison or given him a date to
surrender. But last week it designated him as federal inmate No.
28301-016"
-
WMR
"Libby a long time Israeli intelligence agent. ... I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby has been a long-serving intelligence agent for
Israel's Mossad, according to a veteran CIA "official cover"
officer who spoke to WMR on deep background. The CIA's Clandestine Service
has, over the years, gathered a tremendous amount of intelligence on Libby's
activities on behalf of Mossad. ... Libby served as the lawyer for
Switzerland-based American fugitive financier Marc Rich, aka Mark David
Reich, who is also known to be an Israeli intelligence asset and someone
Israel relies upon for missions that demand "plausible
deniability" on the part of the Mossad. Rich heads up a worldwide
empire of dummy corporations, foundations, and numbered bank accounts that
have been involved in sanctions busting and weapons smuggling. The nations
involved include Israel, United States, United Kingdom, Iran, Panama,
Colombia, Russia, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Cuba, Spain, Nigeria,
Singapore, Bolivia, Jamaica, Bermuda, France, Italy, East Germany,
Czechoslovakia, Austria, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Australia, Argentina,
Peru, Ireland, Zambia, Sweden, Monaco, and apartheid South Africa. ...
In 1983, the then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York urged
jail time for Rich and his partner Pincus Green for racketeering. ....
more search terms: Rudolph Giuliani, Paul Klebnikov, Moscow, Forbes,
Berezovsky, Neil Bush, Godfather of the Kremlin, Russian-Israeli Mafia WMR
$$$
-
July 4,
2007 San
Francisco Chronicle "The
"Scooter" Libby's name is neither Dick Cheney nor Karl Rove might
explain why the left is apoplectic over President Bush's commutation of his
sentence and why the right is indignant that he was ever prosecuted in the
first place. ... Through the more than three years of Libby's trial and
conviction on perjury -- the details of which have obsessed Washington and
glazed over the heartland -- the once obscure, behind-the-scenes aide to the
vice president has always been a proxy for larger issues and bigger fish:
the Iraq war, the perceived lack of accountability for the consequences of
that war and its architects who remain in the White House. ...and
'hush commutation" file
-
July 5,
2007 Bloomberg
"Libby Leniency Shows Bush Had Nothing To Lose.. Margaret Carlson: ...
Defense Strategy .. Libby sent word that he had no idea Bush would commute
his sentence, though his defense strategy belies that. The best legal talent
Libby's fundraisers could buy promised at the outset of his trial that they
would show Libby was a scapegoat and Cheney was behind the leak. The defense
soon dropped that along with the idea of calling the vice president to
testify."
-
July 10,
2007 Antiwar,
Cheney, attack Iran
-
July 19,
2007 AmericanThinker
-
Plame's
cased tossed by court
-
Aug 6,
2007 NewsHounds
"FOX News Sunday Perpetuates Myth That O'Hanlon and Pollack Are
"Anti-war" Democrats ...He went on to enumerate the
pair's history of acting as water-carriers for the Bush administration,
claiming time after time they would appear on the scene and guarantee that
things were getting better, the light at the end of the tunnel was in sight,
blah, blah, blah. Pollack, in fact. is closely aligned with AIPAC and,
according to Wikipedia, a U.S. government indictment "alleges that
Pollack provided information to former American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) employees Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman during the AIPAC
espionage scandal."
-
Aug 15,
2007 Forward,
Rice, Abrams, Hadley subpoenas? and
text
-
Aug 30,
2007 JTA,
"The federal judge in the case against two former
AIPAC staffers heard government arguments against subpoenaing top U.S.
officials, including Condoleezza Rice.
... Judge T.S. Ellis III's pretrial hearing Thursday in Alexandria,
Va., in the classified information leak case against Steve Rosen, the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former foreign policy chief, and
Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, was closed to the media because it
dealt with classified information. However, a docket entry described the
hearing as dealing with prosecutors' "objections to defendants'
prospective subpoenas to U.S. government officials."
-
Antiwar
"the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington powerhouse
whose former chief lobbyist (Rosen) once boasted to the New Yorker's Jeffrey
Goldberg: "You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the
signatures of seventy senators on this napkin."
-
Jurist
"US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [official
profile] and other senior administration officials should be exempt from
testifying about whether they shared classified national defense information
with two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) [advocacy website]
lobbyists, lawyers argued at a closed-door court session Thursday. Steven
Rosen and Keith Weissman, News
Leader
-
Sept 27,
2007 WMR
"Anti-Iran Senate resolution drafted by AIPAC, supported by 29
Democrats .... The Iran resolution was attached as an amendment to the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Although the
"sense of the Senate" resolution does not specifically authorize
military force against Iran, it is seen as a component of possible future
authorization for war. The resolution ratchets up tensions with Iran by
calling on the State Department to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps, a component of the Iranian military, a terrorist organization and
impose economic sanctions against it. ....
Twenty-nine Democrats, all subject to AIPAC pressure and recipients of money
from AIPAC and other right-wing Jewish political action committees (PACs),
voted for the Iran resolution, seen by its opponents as giving George Bush
and Dick Cheney the legislative cover to launch military action against
Iran. Those Democrats who voted for the Iran resolution are: Akaka (HI),
Baucus (MT), Bayh (IN), Cardin (MD), Carper (DE), Casey (PA), Clinton (NY),
Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Durbin (IL), Feinstein (CA), Johnson (SD), Kohl
(WI), Landrieu (LA), Lautenberg (NJ), Levin (MI), Menendez (NJ), Mikulski
(MD), Murray (WA), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Reed (RI), Reid
(NV), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO), Schumer (NY), Stabenow (MI), and
Whitehouse (RI). Obama (IL) did not vote. .... Those Democrats
and Republicans who saw the resolution as giving Bush a blank check to
attack Iran, and voted against it, are: Biden (DE), Bingaman (NM), Boxer
(CA), Brown (OH), Byrd (WV), Cantwell (WA), Dodd (CT), Feingold (WI), Hagel
(NE) (R.), Harkin (IA), Inouye (HI), Kennedy (MA), Kerry (MA), Klobucher
(MN), Leahy (VT), Lincoln (AR), Lugar (IN) (Rep.), McCaskill (MO), Sanders
(VT), Tester (MT), Webb (VA), and Wyden (OR).
-
Oct 27,
2007 News
Leader Lawrence Franklin "Attorney general will block
probe ... The Gonzales replacement, Michael Mukasey,
another pro-Israeli Zionist, is now needed to suppress the investigations of
AIPAC and members of the Bush administration, and to drop the charges
against the spies for Israel, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. Alberto
Gonzales was moving forward on the prosecutions ... he had to go!"
-
Nov 2,
2007 Judge T. S. Elliot III allowed
issuance of subpoenas to 16 of 20 government officials. JTA
Go to NFU AIPAC
page
-
Nov 3,
2007 Guardian
"Defendants are entitled to show that, to them, there was simply no
difference between the meetings for which they are not charged and those for
which they are charged," Mr Ellis wrote. ... "They believed
that the meetings charged in the indictment were simply further examples of
the government's use of Aipac as a diplomatic back channel."
... He held out little hope that he could be persuaded by
administration efforts to block the subpoenas. "The government's
refusal to comply with a subpoena in these circumstances may result in
dismissal or a lesser sanction," he wrote."
-
Nov 5,
2007 Antiwar
Rosen Weissman, "When the news first broke, it was a national
scandal – and then the story sank like a stone, for three solid years,
while the extensive litigation surrounding the case played out. ...
The defense, in what would normally be an open-and-shut case, has been
struggling frantically [.pdf] to avoid a trial at all costs. That's
understandable: after all, the FBI has the whole thing – the entire course
of their crimes against America – on record. The verbal transmission of
classified information, the elaborate arrangements to avoid detection, the
open boasting of the analyst's two handlers that they had a live one on the
hook, it's all there: raw, naked treason. Rather than come up against the
incontrovertible facts, the defense has tried hard to divert the energies of
the court away from actually bringing this to trial, in the hopes that the
administration will back down and drop the charges. ... Now
there has been a major development on this front. No one took seriously the
defense's motion, made a few months ago, that they be allowed to subpoena
Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Council chief Stephen
Hadley, and a whole platoon of government officials and former officials.
The motion was made on the grounds that these officials, too, had
transmitted classified information to AIPAC, and that this is proof that
such behavior was and is routine, part of the normal way of doing business
in the world of Washington lobbyists. The defendants' case has always been
that they have a First Amendment right to commit espionage, and that their
indictment amounted to a government assault on their right to "free
speech." ... That he granted the defense motion in all but
a few cases is bad news for the government – and good news for the Israel
lobby, which may just be spared the embarrassment of having its essential
nature as a fifth column for Israel exposed to the light of day.
-
Wikipdia
"Mukaseygraduated
in 1959 from the Ramaz School, a Modern Orthodox Jewish prep school
... In 1976, he joined the New York law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb
& Tyler, to which he returned after retirement from the U.S. District
Court.[15] Mukasey began teaching at Columbia Law School ... The Mukaseys
have a professional relationship with Rudy Giuliani; Mukasey and son are
also justice advisers to Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.[19] Mukasey
swore in Mayor-elect Giuliani in 1994 and 1998.[19] ... During his
tenure on the bench, Mukasey presided over the criminal prosecution of Omar
Abdel Rahman and El Sayyid Nosair, whom he sentenced to life in prison for a
plot to blow up the United Nations and other Manhattan landmarks uncovered
during an investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[15] During
that case, Mukasey spoke out against leaks by law enforcement officials
regarding the facts of the case allegedly aimed at prejudicing potential
jurors against the defendants."
-
Nov 6,
2007 Forward
"The ruling by T.S. Ellis III, a federal judge for the Eastern District
of Virginia, could jeopardize the entire case put forward by the Department
of Justice more than three years ago. The administration now faces a tough
dilemma. It could follow the court’s decision and allow senior officials
to take the stand, but this might open up to public view closed-door
discussions between government officials and pro-Israel lobbyists and bring
to light inter-agency disputes regarding American policy toward Iran. ... On
the other hand, the government could fight the decision and see the legal
case to fall apart. Ellis warned the prosecution in his decision that “the
government’s refusal to comply with a subpoena in these circumstances may
result in dismissal or a lesser sanction.” ... The judge accepted the
defendants’ view that in order to prove guilt, the prosecution must show
to the court that Rosen and Weissman had a criminal intent when they
received and passed on classified information. If the defense can
demonstrate, by subpoenaing Rice and other officials, that classified
information was regularly conveyed to Aipac by the highest-ranking
government officials, it would help them make the case that Rosen and
Weissman had no way of knowing they were breaking the law by receiving other
information from former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin."
-
Investigate, Schumer, Clinton, Mukasey, AIPAC
-
Nov 6,
2007 Aljazeera
on summons, "The court documents are also said to contain the
alleged recording of 57 acts, involving a mishandling of secrets, including
meetings and telephone calls, passing the information with both US and
foreign nationals. ... The intelligence involved terrorist activities
in central Asia, US intelligence and policy regarding Middle Eastern
countries and information on al-Qaeda."
-
Nov 6,
2007 Wall
Street Journal "Under the circumstances, this is a case that should
never have been brought. No fair-minded jury could conclude that Mr.
Weissman and Mr. Rosen acted with criminal intent." Schoenfield
commentary
-
Powerline
blog "Lobbyists or Spies"...
-
Nov 8,
2007 LA
Times Choke
free speech ..."Ellis already has ruled that the government must prove
that Rosen and Weissman intended to injure the national interest and that
they knew Franklin's conversation was based on classified information he was
not legally entitled to discuss with them. ..." file
-
Rosen Weissman Kerik Giuliani
-
Nov 12,
2007 WSJ
"Much of the information (passed from Franklin to Rosen, Weissman then
to Israel) was about Iran's plans for destabilizing Iraq. Mr. Franklin, who
was also indicted, subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years
in prison. Under intense government pressure he has agreed to testify
against his friends, the former AIPAC lobbyists. ... Espionage
Act is so vague the Supreme Court would conclude it unconstitutional should
it have the chance to rule. ... "
-
Nov 20,
2007 AP
"Former Aide Blames Bush for Leak Deceit ... By MATT APUZZO
... WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan
blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead
the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a
CIA operative. ... In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan
recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl
Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in
the leak involving operative Valerie Plame. "There was one
problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief
excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false
information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration
were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the
president's chief of staff and the president himself." Bush's
chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card."
-
Dec
3, 2007 Dear Mr. Attorney General: On December 3, 2007, I
wrote you to request documents from the Department of Justice from Special
Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of the covert
identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. I have not received a response
from you to my inquiry. .... Since I wrote you on December 3, Lewis I. “Scooter”
Libby has dropped the appeal of his criminal conviction arising from the
Fitzgerald investigation. With that action, there remains no further pending
litigation associated with the Fitzgerald investigation. .......... I do not
regard the existence of an on-going investigation or pending litigation as a
sufficient reason to withhold information from Congress. Now that Mr.
Fitzgerald’s investigation and Mr. Libby’s appeal have both ended,
however, there should be no basis for further delay in responding to the
Committee’s request. Thus, I request that you provide the Committee by
January 3, 2008, with the documents requested in the Committee’s July 16
letter to Mr. Fitzgerald, including the reports of interviews with President
Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other White House officials. ...........
Last week, you wrote several congressional committees about the
investigation into the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes. You
resisted providing information to the committees because of your concern
that providing information could undermine the Justice Department’s
on-going investigation. In the Plame matter, there is no pending Justice
Department investigation and no pending Justice Department litigation.
Whatever the merits of the position you are taking in the CIA tapes inquiry,
those considerations do not apply here. ............ There remain important
questions about the leak of Ms. Wilson’s identity and the White House
response that have not been answered by the prosecution and conviction of
Mr. Libby and the commutation of his sentence. I urge you to cooperate with
Congress’ investigation into these unanswered questions. If you have any
questions regarding my request, please contact me personally or ask your
staff to contact David Rapallo or Theodore Chuang of the Committee staff at
(202) 225-5420. ..... Sincerely, Henry A. Waxman, Chairman
-
Dec 4,
2007 NY Sun
Secrets Case Eyes Jurors' Religion
-
Jan 8,
2008
-
AP
White House emails on backup tapes, Plame identity leak evidence, McCelland
-
Antiwar, on Rosen Weissman
-
Jan 11,
2008 Asia
Times, How the Pentagon planted a false story By Gareth Porter
... WASHINGTON - Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a
broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon
briefing to turn the January 6 US-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz
into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a
reconstruction of the events following the incident shows. ...
The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a
briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in
charge of media operations, Bryan Whitman, contained similar information
that has since been repudiated by the navy itself.
-
Jan 16,
2008 "WMR
has learned that Bush committed himself to supporting an Israeli government
plan to launch a three-pronged major military assault on Hamas in Gaza,
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and on Iranian nuclear facilities. There is
also some evidence that the non-existent naval "incident" between
U.S. Navy ships and Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz was a
staged event concocted by neocons still present within the Department of
Defense and White House, as well as by Israeli intelligence elements, to
create a "Gulf of Tonkin"-like incident to drive the United States
into a military engagement with Iran. ... However, just as U.S.
Air Force senior brass, aided by officers and enlisted personnel at Minot
and Barksdale Air Force Bases who prevented a B-52 carrying nuclear armed
cruise missiles from flying to the Middle East last Labor Day weekend for a
planned attack on Iran, senior U.S. Navy officers stepped in to avert a
pretext for conflict with Iran. ... The naval
"incident" was hyped as Bush was readying for his departure to
Israel where he and all major Israeli political leaders, including Olmert,
Labor Party leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Likud Party leader
Binyamin Netanyahu had all lined up to support a U.S.-backed Israeli strike
on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Moreover, Bush met with two of the most
extreme members of the Israeli government, anti-Arab Moldovan Jewish racist
Avigdor Lieberman and Rafi Eitan, the Israeli intelligence control officer
for convicted and jailed-for-life Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. While in
Israel, Bush was pressed by Israeli leaders to pardon Pollard or commute his
sentence to time served."
more
-
Jan 19,
2008 Washingtonian
"Ellis also knew that the subpoenas might derail the case. If the
administration balks at allowing sworn testimony by senior officials about
sensitive conversations, the case against Rosen and Weissman could be
dismissed. ... The line between information that can and can’t get
passed is blurred by the amount of officially sanctioned daily intelligence
sharing between the United States and its allies. Such exchanges are
particularly intense between the United States and Israel, which regularly
trade information and assessments on terrorism and other perceived
threats."
-
AP
missing tapes, CIA, investigation, Plame, Cheney
-
Feb 29,
2008 American
Thinker "AIPAC case prosecutor quits Clarice Feldman With
little more than a month to go before the AIPAC criminal case is scheduled
to go to trial, the prosecutor has announced he's leaving government
service. The top prosecutor in the case against two former AIPAC
staffers is quitting. Less than two months before the trial date Kevin
DiGregory, an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia's Eastern District, is
joining the private intellectual property firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips
starting Monday. DiGregory has led the classified information case
against Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former
foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, since
they were indicted in August 2005.
-
Jan 8,
2008 A Times
Online (a Rupert Murdoch paper) file
pic "A
WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt
government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear
weapons secrets. ... Sibel
Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the
FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while
based at the agency’s Washington field office. ... She approached The
Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had
revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in
Turkey. ... Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted
the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive
military and nuclear institutions. ..." and WMR
August 31, 2005 -- A convergence of investigations: AIPAC and ATC. As
reported previously on WMR
, federal investigators are poring over wiretap transcripts and other
intelligence that link the Larry Franklin/Rosen/Weissman AIPAC investigation
to the investigation of who in the White House leaked the name of Valerie
Plame Wilson and her Brewster Jennings & Associates non-official cover
company to journalists, including Robert Novak. According to intelligence
insiders, a new nexus of the investigation is the intelligence relationship
discovered between AIPAC and the American
Turkish Council (ATC). As with the AIPAC and Mossad penetration
of the Pentagon, a similar ATC and Turkish intelligence penetration of the
Defense Department was discovered and it reportedly involved some of the
same players involved in the AIPAC probe, including former Deputy Secretary
of Defense for Policy and Plans Douglas Feith.
-
Mar 12,
2008 InfoIsrael.net
"By Yossi Melman IHC Abstract Three months ago a US federal grand
jury issued a subpoena against James Risen, The New York Times reporter for
national security and intelligence affairs, ordering Risen to give evidence
in court as to who leaked information about secret CIA and Mossad plans
regarding Iran's nuclear program. ... Risen discussed such possible
CIA-Mossad operations against Iran in his book, State of War: The Secret
History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. One idea was to sabotage
electric power to the nuclear sites; another was called Operation Merlin, to
dupe a former-Soviet nuclear engineer into penetrating Iran's nuclear
program and disrupting it. The CIA bungled Merlin because they had to fool
the expert former-Soviet nuclear engineer who had defected to the US in the
90s; and then fool the Iranian nuclear scientists and technicians into
accepting the fake (dud) Russian bomb plan ginned up by the CIA, which would
be delivered by the former-Soviet engineer cum CIA operative. The results
were disastrous for the CIA: the former-Soviet engineer detected the errors
in the bomb plans; pointed out the errors to his Iranian counterparts to
convince them he was truly on their side; the Iranian nuclear program was
enhanced in spite of the preceding; and the CIA operation may have helped
Iran assemble a nuclear warhead."
-
Jewish
Voice New Jersey "Is it connected to the
classifiedinformation case against two former AIPAC staffers? A bid to
pressure Israel to concede more to the Palestinians ahead of a new round of
peace talks? Connected to the murky circumstances of Israel's mysterious
airstrike in Syria last September? For now, the main question surrounding
the case of Ben- Ami Kadish, the octogenarian New Jersey man arrested this
week for allegedly sharing classified information with Israel decades ago
is: Why now?" more search terms:
-
May 14,
2008 JTA
The government recently filed a rare pretrial appeal to an appeals court
after a number of rulings by federal Judge T.S. Ellis III, sitting in
Arlington, Va., undercut much of the prosecution's case. ...
"The government put a lot of pressure on AIPAC and basically misled
AIPAC on what it was that Keith and Steve did," Lowell said.
-
- Go to archive for Jan 1, 2005 - Mar 31,
2006 entries
 
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