Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Northwest pilot from rural Glyndon alleges 9/11 cover-up

west central tribune
Field McConnell is convinced the 9/11 terrorist attacks are being covered up.

The Northwest Airlines pilot from rural Glyndon, Minn., said a second attack is imminent and conspirators already have aborted their plan once this year.
Those beliefs prompted him to begin writing for a Web site where like-minded people gather and to file a lawsuit in Fargo's federal court to expose an alleged conspiracy.

The lawsuit, filed last week, claims Boeing Co. and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) can't assure him that B747-400 planes are safe. McConnell, who is the process of seeking an early retirement from Northwest, claims the planes are rigged by Boeing and can be remotely detonated.

“We do not believe in any way, shape or form that that is true,” said Pete Janhunen, a spokesman for ALPA, the world's largest pilot's union.

“Our senior lawyer and senior engineer both said that on its face, it's an insane complaint. … It sounds like he's a troubled guy.”

McConnell, a rural Glyndon rancher, has been a Northwest Airlines pilot for more than 28 years. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1971 and flew planes in the military, including with Fargo's Happy Hooligans, for 22 years.

“I am obligated under company procedures and FAA regulation not to operate an aircraft if I suspect it is unsafe,” McConnell, 57, states in his handwritten claim.

Janhunen dismisses the claim.

“We take every threat to airline security and safety very seriously,” he said. “In this case, we do not believe there's any shred of evidence that the allegations about these Boeing airplanes are true, and the case should be immediately dismissed.”

Many of McConnell's allegations are outlined in Internet postings on www.hawkscafe.com, which its creators say provide an analysis of the weapons and motives behind 9/11. The group claims to have more than 4 million members worldwide.

“I think this lawsuit is opening a Pandora's box,” McConnell said. “It will turn into a legal case that solves 9/11.”

He claims to know the true conspirators behind the 9/11 attacks and that radical Muslims served as a masquerade.

“If you want to know why I'm doing it, it is to make aviation safer,” McConnell said.

Boeing spokesman Tim Neale said each of its planes exceeds federal standards and undergoes rigorous certification before taking to the air.

“It's (safety) something we take very, very seriously,” Neale said. “There are no safety issues that go ignored. There's just too much at stake.”

Northwest Airlines denied comment. In the lawsuit, McConnell said the company and pilots union “have suggested that I am crazy.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of those working with the Web site, said McConnell, who previously filed for bankruptcy and seeks $4.5 million from Boeing and ALPA.

“I'm trying to retire early so I can do something more important than hauling 400 people to Hawaii,” said McConnell, who added that he wants to move to a warmer climate.

White House panel OKs surveillance plans

AP

WARRANTLESS EAVESDROPPING, FINANCIAL MONITORING UPHOLD RIGHTS, IT SAYS

WASHINGTON - A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two of the Bush administration's surveillance programs -- electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking -- and says they do not violate citizens' civil liberties.

Democrats newly in charge of Congress quickly criticized the findings, which they said were questionable given some of the board members' close ties with the Bush administration.

``Their current findings and any additional conclusions they reach will be taken with a grain of salt until they become fully independent,'' said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee.

Work in secrecy

After operating mostly in secret for a year, the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is preparing to release its first report to Congress next week.

The report finds that the National Security Agency's warrantless-eavesdropping program and the Treasury Department's monitoring of international banking transactions have sufficient privacy protections, three board members told the Associated Press in telephone interviews.

The programs have multiple layers of review before sensitive information is accessed, they said.

``We looked at the program, we visited NSA and met with the top people all the way down to those doing the hands-on work,'' said Carol Dinkins, a Houston attorney and former Reagan administration assistant attorney general who chairs the board.

``The program is structured and implemented in a way that is properly protective and attentive to civil liberties,'' she said.

Some board members were troubled by the Homeland Security Department's error-ridden no-fly lists, which critics say use subjective or inconclusive data to flag suspect travelers.

Anti-terror screening

One area the board will focus on in its report is the computerized anti-terrorism screening system recently announced by DHS and used for years without travelers' knowledge to assign risk assessments to millions of Americans who fly abroad.

``That's a place where there's a lot of opportunity for improvement,'' Dinkins said.

Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House counsel and the lone Democrat on the panel, described the board's first report to Congress as modest. He said most of the work in the past year was spent being briefed on the administration's surveillance programs.

``We felt reassured regarding the checks-and-balance concerns,'' Davis said. He said that after several classified briefings, members were impressed by the multiple layers of review, which included audit trails to track whoever has access to the data.

Still, Davis said he anticipated the board will continue to monitor the program as needed.

The board's initial findings come as Congress is moving forward on measures to give the board more authority and make it more independent of the president. Created in late 2004, the panel was established as a compromise between Congress and the White House after a recommendation by the Sept. 11 commission.

Sick people used like laboratory rats in GM trials

independent news
Genetically modified potatoes developed by Monsanto, the multinational biotech company, have been fed to sick patients in an experiment. Rats that ate similar potatoes in the research suffered reductions in the weight of their hearts and prostate glands.

Dr Michael Antoniou, reader in molecular genetics at Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine, said use of humans was "irresponsible and totally unethical, especially when already ill subjects were enrolled. These people truly were guinea pigs." Other scientists said the trials were too short, on too few people, to give meaningful results of long-term effects.

Monsanto said the vegetables were safe, and the researchers conducting the experiment said effects on the rats were within "permissible" limits.

The experiment is described in a hitherto unpublished report by the Nutrition Institute of the Russian Academy of Medical Science, done "by agreement with Monsanto Company" in 1998.

The report says "10 patients suffering from hypertensive disease and ischemic heart disease" were fed a pound of the Russet Burbank potatoes - modified to resist Colorado beetles - every day for three weeks, and monitored.

It goes on: "A certain risk of GM food products for human health does exist, as there can be by-effects of inserted genes besides the designed ones." The report describes the patients as "volunteers" and says they liked the GM potato so much they all "expressed their intention to consume it at home".

After comparing them with 10 other patients fed conventional potatoes, the report concludes: "The genetically modified potato provided by Monsanto did not reveal toxic, mutagenic, immune modulating and allergic effects within the examined parameters of the present experiment".

It recommended the GM potatoes "can be used for human nutrition purposes in further epidemiological research". The report says the rats, tested over six months, suffered "increases of kidneys' absolute weight" when compared to ones fed conventional potatoes but that all changes were "within permissible physiological fluctuation".

But Dr Irina Ermakova, of the Russian Academy of Science, calls the GM potatoes "dangerous" for rats, adding: "On this evidence, they cannot be used in the nourishment of people".

Tony Coombs from Monsanto UK said in a statement: "Potatoes genetically improved to prevent Colorado beetle destroying the crop have already been consumed, as safely as conventional or organic ones, in North America for years."

Timeline of Lewis 'Scooter' Libby Case

FOX NEWS
2003:

—Jan. 28: President Bush asserts in his State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

—May 6: New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof reports that a former ambassador, whom he does not name, had been sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate the uranium report. The column says the ex-ambassador reported to the CIA and State Department well before Bush's speech that the uranium story was unequivocally wrong and was based on obviously forged documents.

—May 29: Libby asks Marc Grossman, an undersecretary of state, for information about the ambassador's travel to Niger. Grossman later tells Libby that Joseph Wilson was the former ambassador.

—June 11 or 12: Grossman tells Libby that Wilson's wife works at the CIA and that State Department personnel are saying Wilson's wife was involved in planning the trip. A senior CIA officer gives him similar information.

—June 12: Cheney advises Libby that Wilson's wife works at the CIA.

—June 14: Libby meets with a CIA briefer and discusses "Joe Wilson" and his wife, "Valerie Wilson."

—June 23: Libby meets with Times reporter Judith Miller. During the meeting he tells Miller that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA.

—July 6: The Times publishes an opinion piece by Wilson titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa" and he appears on NBC's "Meet the Press." Wilson said he doubted Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger recently and thought Cheney's office was told of the results of his trip.

—July 7: Libby meets with then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Libby notes that Wilson's wife works at the CIA and that the information is not widely known.

—July 8: Libby meets with Miller again and tells her that he believes Wilson's wife works for the CIA.

—July 12: Libby speaks to Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and confirms to him that he has heard that Wilson's wife was involved in sending Wilson on the trip. Libby also speaks to Miller and discusses Wilson's wife and says that she works at the CIA.

—July 14: Syndicated columnist Robert Novak reports that Wilson's wife is a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction and that two senior administration officials, whom Novak did not name, said she suggested sending her husband to Niger to investigate the uranium story.

—Sept. 26: A criminal investigation is authorized to determine who leaked Plame's identity to reporters. Disclosing the identity of CIA operatives is illegal.

—Oct. 14 and Nov. 26: Libby is interviewed by FBI agents.

—Dec. 30: U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in Chicago, a tough and aggressive career prosecutor, is named to head the leak investigation after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft takes himself out of the case to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

2004:

—January: A grand jury begins investigating possible violations of federal criminal laws.

—March 5 and March 24: Libby testifies before the grand jury.

2005:

—Oct. 28: Libby is indicted on five counts: obstruction of justice and two counts each of false statement and perjury.

2006:

—Sept. 7: Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admits he leaked Plame's identity to Novak and to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. Armitage says he did not realize Plame's job was covert. Woodward taped his June 13, 2003, interview with Armitage.

2007:

—Jan. 16: Libby's trial begins in U.S. District Court.

US Army hospital problems feared widespread

smh
PROBLEMS with the treatment of wounded soldiers that created a scandal at the top US military veterans' hospital are prevalent throughout the army's health-care system, legislators say.

The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, vowed to fix the substandard conditions at Walter Reed hospital, which have dealt yet another blow to an administration reeling from public anger over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two weeks after The Washington Post reported that soldiers at Walter Reed were recuperating in rodent-infested quarters and trapped in a bureaucratic limbo, army brass apologised at a US House of Representatives hearing on Monday.

John Tierney, a Democrat who chairs the House oversight and government reform committee's national security subcommittee, said the problems did not stop with the hospital in Washington.

"I also, unfortunately, feel that these problems go well beyond the walls of Walter Reed, and that they are problems systemic throughout the military health-care system," he said.

"Is this just another horrific consequence of the terrible planning that went into our invasion of Iraq?" In any case, he warned, the problems were now likely to get worse with the decision of the President, George Bush, to send more US troops to Iraq.

The Army Secretary, Francis Harvey, resigned last week over the scandal. The general in charge of the hospital, Major-General George Weightman, was replaced.

Mr Bush has ordered a wide-ranging review of all US veterans' facilities. Mr Cheney said on Monday that they wanted to "find out whether similar problems have occurred at other military and VA [Department of Veterans Affairs] hospitals."

The Washington Post revelations were particularly embarrassing in Washington because Mr Bush, senior Pentagon officials and legislators have often visited people in the hospital injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"These problems are not unique to Walter Reed," said Tom Davis, a Republican.

"The crushing complexity and glacial pace of outpatient procedures in medical evaluation boards are army-wide problems."

NATO launches offensive against Taliban

CHRON.COM
KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO-led troops launched their largest offensive yet against Taliban militants, focusing on the same southern region where U.S.-led forces carried out an even bigger operation less than a year ago.

Some 4,500 NATO troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers were headed to volatile Helmand province, where hundreds militant fighters have amassed. They included some 1,500 U.S. troops.

NATO said Operation Achilles initially would focus on improving security, but that its "overarching purpose" was to enable the Afghan government to begin reconstruction and economic development of the region.

The offensive "is focused on improving security in areas where Taliban extremists, narco-traffickers and foreign terrorists are currently operating," said Col. Tom Collins, the spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. "Once the security situation is improved, we will begin short- and long-term reconstruction projects."

He was optimistic about their chances for success, even though they were returning to a region U.S.-led troops tried to subdue nine months ago in Mountain Thrust, an operation involving 11,000 troops, twice as many as in the current offensive.

The situation was "fundamentally different" this year, Collins said, adding that NATO had a much better opportunity to succeed because there were now more troops in the country overall.

British, Canadian, Dutch and Afghan forces are also taking part in the offensive, which began Monday and will focus on a northern section of the province.

An ISAF statement said that one soldier died Tuesday in the south during combat operations, but it gave no further details about the soldier's death or where it happened. Collins said he didn't know if the death was due to the new operation.

Also Tuesday, the British Embassy was looking into reports that a British man has been kidnapped in southern Afghanistan, an official said. A Taliban spokesman claimed the hardline militia had detained the Briton — whom he did not name but said had claimed to be a journalist — and two Afghans as they traveled together by vehicle Monday in Helmand province.

Afghan officials had no immediate information on the reported kidnapping.

The government has little control over many parts of northern Helmand, and the British troops stationed there fight almost daily battles with militants. U.S. intelligence officials say Taliban fighters have flooded into Helmand the last several months, and that there are now more fighters there than any other part of the country.

The militants overran Musa Qala, in northern Helmand province, on Feb. 1 after defying a peace deal between the government and elders reached last fall that capped weeks of fighting. The Taliban still control the town more than a month after the initial attack. Collins said forces would not move into the village until given approval by the government.

British troops have also been battling militants in the nearby district of Kajaki to enable repair work on a hydroelectric damn there, which supplies close to 2 million Afghans with electricity.

"Strategically, our goal is to enable the Afghan government to begin the Kajaki project," said Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon, ISAF's southern commander. "This long-term initiative is a huge undertaking and the eventual rehabilitation of the Kajaki multipurpose dam and power house will improve the water supply for local communities, rehabilitate irrigation systems for farmlands and provide sufficient electrical power for residents, industries and commerce," he said.

Helmand is the world's biggest producer of opium, and a new U.N. drug assessment indicates this year's poppy harvest could be higher than last year's record output. The U.N. says Taliban fighters protect poppy farmers and tax the crop, deriving much-needed income for their insurgency.

Meanwhile, a remote-control bomb targeting a police vehicle on Tuesday killed one policeman and wounded another in Murja district, also in Helmand, said Ghulam Nabi Mulakhail, the province's police chief.

The blast also wounded six Afghan civilians nearby, said Abdul Basir, a police officer in the district.