Hong Kong Monetary Chief Fears a U.S. Dollar Collapse, and Hedge-Fund Destabilization

May 29, 2007 (EIRNS)—The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has warned about the dangers posed to the world financial system by the vulnerabilities of the U.S. economy, in a statement yesterday, the Hong Kong Standard reported. "A sudden and sharp depreciation of the U.S. dollar, the disorderly unwinding of global imbalances and a spillover of U.S. housing market weakness are external risks to the currency stability in Hong Kong. Financial instability and volatile capital flows are induced by an increased risk aversion of market participants and higher market volatility and the destabilizing activities of hedge funds," HKMA chief executive Joseph Yam Chi-kwong said in a report to the Hong Kong Legislative Council Panel on Financial Affairs.

Yam's warning points to those made by Lyndon LaRouche for two years against those bankers, elected officials, and economists who want to force China's currency dramatically upward; they are driving for a global dollar collapse and financial chaos. The HKMA recently decoupled the Hong Kong dollar from China's yuan, according to Yam, and kept it pegged to the U.S. dollar, though it has slid to the 22-year low end of its range against the U.S. dollar. Meanwhile, he said, the value of China's yuan has actually already risen 7% in two years. Now he is warning about "an asset bubble in China"; but clearly, Yam's real worry is of a U.S. dollar collapse and "an interest rate shock," with China tightening and raising interest rates even as the dollar plunges.

While Yam maintained that the economy of Hong Kong itself is "normal," he had warned in February, that efforts in Beijing to control liquidity and China's enormous trade surplus, means that "the economy may be faced with consequences beyond imagination, eventually."

Hong Kong, although only a "special zone" of China, has the eighth-highest amout of foreign exchange reserves in the world, $137 billion, more than either Germany or Brazil.

Buying up the US, Chinese-style

TAIPEI TIMES
When China National Offshore Oil Company tried to buy the US firm UNOCAL two years ago, it set off a political firestorm in the US. When Dubai Ports World bought Britain's P&O Steam Navigation Company, the fact that P&O operated ports inside the US led to more controversy.

One would think that a country like the US, with a current account deficit of roughly US$800 billion a year, would realize that such a yawning external gap is inevitably financed only by selling off assets, which means that foreigners with money acquire ownership and control of US-based businesses.

But the US -- or at least Congress and the media -- doesn't get it. Americans evidently hope for a world in which they have feckless deficit-generating fiscal policies, a very low private savings rate and a moderate rate of investment, all financed by foreign capital whose owners are happy to bear the risks yet have no control over their assets.

One might think that foreign investors would quake in terror at these terms and shy away from dollar-denominated assets. But this has not been the case. High oil prices have created huge export revenues for Middle Eastern governments, which still want to park their earnings in US assets. The same is true of Russia, whose oligarchs, as well as the huge state investment fund that Finance Minister Alexi Kudrin has created, also want to invest their oil revenues in the US.

As for Asia's governments, with China in the lead, the US remains the importer of last resort. The key to their development strategy is to put migrants from the countryside to work making exports destined for the US market. They doubt that an alternative development strategy based on boosting domestic demand would succeed. Thus, the real values of their currencies must be kept low relative to the dollar, which means that their reserves now invested in the US must continue to grow.

Someday, of course, this will come to an end. Perhaps Asian real currency values will rise sharply as a result of a burst of inflation in Asia. Perhaps the dollar will collapse and there will be a burst of inflation in the US as the Federal Reserve Board decides that temporarily abandoning its price-level peg is a lesser evil than the unemployment fallout that will result from a dollar collapse and interest rate spike.

A government that buys political risk insurance by placing an ever-growing stock of reserve assets in dollar securities guards against some dangers. But it is exposed to other risks, especially if it confines its investments to that slice of the asset pool, US Treasury and high-grade corporate bonds, that US politicians are comfortable having foreigners own. Nominal bonds are not well hedged against inflation and, over the long run, assets that are claims to cash without effective control are highly vulnerable to financial vultures. Prudent foreign government and private investors would find some way to diversify.

But how? Buying other countries' bonds would mean abandoning the goal of keeping real currency values low against the dollar. Buying up whole enterprises triggers angry speeches in the US Congress. What are needed are intermediary organizations that will grant a measure of control to foreigners, allow diversification across a wider range of US-located assets, and yet still appear 100 percent American to US politicians.

Enter the Blackstone Group.

China's US$3 billion investment in Blackstone, while insignificant relative to China's US$1.3 trillion in reserve assets -- a sum headed for US$1.5 trillion by the end of this year and likely to hit US$2 trillion sometime in 2009 -- is but a toe dipped in the water, a test run. At the start of the process, China will have small and indirect ownership stakes in a great many US enterprises, and the odds are that the usual objections will be absent. China will gain a measure of risk diversification, reduce the price pressure that has kept earnings on its foreign exchange reserves low and avoid running into political trouble. Blackstone will gain extra cash to deploy and extra fees.

Some observers think that the US political backlash against foreigners "buying up America" is what will bring the current configuration of global imbalances to an end. Deals like China's investment in Blackstone postpone that backlash, but not for long: US$3 billion is equivalent to what China accumulates in reserve in less than three working days.

The question following China's Blackstone investment is this: How far can this process go? And how much control will US investors ultimately realize they have given up?

JFK Airport Plot Has All The Hallmarks Of Staged Terror

Near-retarded "ringleader", paid government provocateur mirrors legion of previous cases
PRISONPLANET

An alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks, terminal buildings and fuel lines running beneath Kennedy International Airport has all the hallmarks of being another staged terror alert, having never advanced beyond a rudimentary planning stage while being prodded and provocateured by a paid government informant.

In every single major terror sting we have researched in the west since 9/11, not one single plot has been absent the ingredient of a government provocateur, save the cases that were outright manufactured by imaginative government propagandists in alliance with the corporate media.

In this case, the provocateur was "An informant with a criminal history including drug trafficking and racketeering agreed to work with investigators on the case, in exchange for payments and a reduced sentence," according to the New York Times.

Officials have refused to say how they became aware of the plot in the first place, but in every previous case of this nature we have found that it is the government agent provocateur who radicalizes the group and formulates the plot. The cover story is that the group is infiltrated by the informant having already planned the attack but as more details emerge, inevitably the plot always reveals itself as an artificial creation on behalf of the intelligence services.

What's the motive? The war on terror is the most politically exploited concept since the cold war. The propaganda boon from hoodwinking Americans into thinking they are constantly under threat from terrorists is unsurpassed. On the very day that this alleged plot was announced, Rudy Giuliani was already using it to inflate his presidential campaign.

In addition, the new head of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan, told a reporter this past weekend that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country.

Once again we learn that "the plot was only in a preliminary phase and the conspirators had yet to lay out detailed plans or obtain financing or explosives," and yet the event is reported by a jingoistic and frothing media as if an imminent attack on the scale of 9/11 has been averted.

But as always, the devil is in the details, because even if the group had managed to acquire the financing and explosives to enact the plot, it would have been unsuccessful, due to "safety shut-off valves would almost assuredly have prevented an exploding airport fuel tank from igniting all or even part of the network."

The sum of the group's planning for the alleged attack amounts to nothing more than visiting Google Maps and printing off photographs.

It appears that part of the agenda in hyping the alleged plot is to undermine Hugo Chavez, since the ringleader, Russell Defreitas, has links to Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a Muslim group headed up by Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, and in turn Bakr has been affiliated with Chavez.

As Kurt Nimmo writes, Neo-Con websites are already exploiting these tenuous links to demonize Hugo Chavez, who - whatever you think of his domestic policies - has been a constant thorn in the side of the Globalists and was subject to an attempted CIA coup in 2002.

Defreitas is described by one law enforcement official as “a sad sack” and “not a Grade A terrorist,” who would have been incapable of carrying out any attack. A friend described him as "not smart enough" to have carried out the attack.

In several other cases, we see a pattern where near-retarded individuals are used as patsies for terror plots orchestrated by intelligence agencies because they are easily manipulated and cannot defend themselves after the fact.

From out of nowhere, Defreitas goes from embracing American culture and enjoying jazz music to dressing in traditional Muslim garb and referring to himself as Mohammed while planning a devastating attack due to his supposed hatred of the west.

The basic tenet that the terror threat has been overhyped and magnified a thousand-fold for political propaganda is proven alone by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that show only 0.0015 percent of the total number of cases filed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were terrorism related, despite the fact that the Bush administration has repeatedly asserted that it is the primary focus of the DHS.

As more details leak out, there seems little doubt that the JFK airport plot will dissipate into nothing more than another hyped terror alert - coddled, molded, and directed by the government, before being unleashed on an increasingly skeptical American public in another vain attempt to prop up the flagging legitimacy of the "war on terror".

Gop Head: We Need More 'attacks On American Soil', so people appreciate Bush

raw story
In his first interview as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan told a reporter that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country.

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country."

Milligan, who was elected as the new chair of the Arkansas Republican Party just two weeks ago, also told the newspaper that he is "150 percent" behind Bush in the war in Iraq.

In his acceptance speech on May 19th, Milligan told his fellow Republicans that it was "time for a rediscovery of our values and our common sense."

The owner of a water treatment company, Milligan was a relative unknown in Arkansas politics until last week's vote. He had previously served as the party's treasurer and the Saline County Republican chair.

Plame vows to battle CIA over speech - Politics - MSNBC.com

Plame vows to battle CIA over speech - Politics - MSNBC.com

Plame vows to battle CIA over speech
Outed former covert agent plans to press lawsuits against Cheney, agency
By Claudia Parsons
Reuters
Updated: 3:30 p.m. ET June 2, 2007

NEW YORK - An ex-spy whose unmasking led to the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s top aide vowed on Saturday to press on with lawsuits against Cheney and the CIA for the sake of freedom of speech.

“Just as we have to be vigilant to protect our national security—something I believe in passionately—we have to be vigilant to protect our freedom of speech and First Amendment rights,” Valerie Plame Wilson said in a speech at a book convention.

Plame and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York on Thursday against top CIA officials for blocking publication of her memoir on national security grounds.

Plame’s cover as a CIA agent was blown when her identity was leaked to reporters and appeared in a newspaper column in July 2003, shortly after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, emerged as an Iraq war critic.

Plame said she had no intention of endangering national security with the book but was entitled to tell her story.

“This has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with political influence and manipulation,” Plame said of the CIA’s demand that she not discuss her service before 2002.

The CIA has argued her book could hurt operations and affect its ability to conduct intelligence activities in the future.

“I’m not seeking carte blanche to reveal all the details of my government service,” Plame said.

The book, “Fair Game,” is set to be published on Oct. 21.

The leaking of Plame’s identity prompted an investigation to determine if government officials had broken any laws.

Nobody was charged with blowing her cover, but Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, was found guilty in March of lying and obstructing the investigation. He is due to be sentenced on Tuesday and faces up to three years in prison.

‘Troubled times’
Evidence at Libby’s trial showed he and several other White House and State Department officials leaked her identity to discredit her husband, who had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to build a case for invading Iraq.

Plame has since filed a lawsuit against Cheney and other top administration officials, seeking money damages for violating the couple’s constitutional free speech, due process and privacy rights.

She said initially she was reluctant to sue, but did so for three reasons.

“The first one is to get the truth,” she told the audience of publishers and booksellers in New York who gave her a standing ovation even before she spoke.

“Secondly, to hold our government officials to account for their words and their deeds ... Finally it’s to prevent future abuses.”

“We are living in very troubled times and it’s imperative that we all understand what our rights are and understand when we are being trampled on,” she said later, answering a question from the audience.

Plame said she expected a judge to rule by the end of the summer on a motion by Cheney to dismiss the suit.

All publications by current and former CIA agents must be approved by a review board, which says its only objective is to prevent classified material from being released to the public.

Simon & Schuster is a unit of CBS Corp.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

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Putin reacts to U.S. defense plan with warning - Focus on Russia - MSNBC.com

Putin reacts to U.S. defense plan with warning - Focus on Russia - MSNBC.com

Putin reacts to U.S. defense plan with warning
He says U.S. defense plans will force Russia to target weapons on neighbors
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:59 p.m. ET June 3, 2007

ROME - Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons against Europe.

The threat, in an interview published Sunday in Italy’s Corriere della Sera and other foreign media, marked one of Putin’s most strident statements to date against the U.S. plans and came just days before he is to join President Bush and other leaders at a Group of Eight summit in Germany.

In the interview, Putin was asked whether the proposed missile defense shield would compel Moscow to direct its own missiles at locations and U.S. military sites in Europe, as during the Cold War.

“If the American nuclear potential grows in European territory, we have to give ourselves new targets in Europe,” Putin said, according to Corriere. “It is up to our military to define these targets, in addition to defining the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles.”

Russia has not overtly targeted Europe since agreeing after the fall of the Soviet Union not to direct missiles against specific countries, according to Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst based in Moscow. He added however, that that was simple technical matter, since a missile can be given a target within minutes.

Previously, some Russian military officials have said Moscow could aim Russian weapons at Europe-based missile systems.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek accused Russia on Sunday of misleading the public about the planned missile defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland to hide Russia’s internal problems.

“Russia needs an outside enemy to hide problems at home,” Topolanek said.

U.S. wants radar base in Czech Republic
The United States made a formal request in January to place a radar base in a military area southwest of Prague, Czech Republic, and 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland as part of plans for a missile defense shield that Washington says would protect against a potential threat from Iran.

The U.S. plans have brought a strong reaction from Russia, which accuses the United States of threatening Russian territory and of trying to start a new arms race.

Putin was interviewed Friday at his dacha by journalists from each of the G-8 countries, Corriere said.

The three-day summit, Wednesday to Friday at the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, will bring together leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, and Japan.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Suicide bomber kills 7 near Somali PM's home | Top News | Reuters

Suicide bomber kills 7 near Somali PM's home | Top News | Reuters

Suicide bomber kills 7 near Somali PM's home
Sun Jun 3, 2007 6:00PM BST

By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed seven people outside the Somali prime minister's home in Mogadishu on Sunday, just hours after an official said Western jihadists were among the dead from U.S. strikes in the north.

Security sources said Ali Mohamed Gedi was unhurt, but five soldiers and two civilians died when the bomber detonated a car rigged with explosives at the gates of his residence in a heavily guarded neighbourhood of the capital.

"I saw limbs nearly a kilometre from where the suicide bomber detonated," a police officer at the scene who asked not to be named told Reuters by telephone.

"We don't know how the suicide bomber managed to pass through undetected ... The wounded cannot be counted."

African Union peacekeepers raced to the area. "We took the prime minister to a safe place after the blast. He is well," said their spokesman, Captain Paddy Ankunda.

Gedi's interim administration is struggling to impose its authority on the anarchic Horn of Africa nation. Near daily attacks on government troops and their Ethiopian military allies are blamed on members of a defeated Islamist movement who have vowed to wage an "Iraq-style" insurgency.

On Friday, a U.S. warship fired missiles at one group of foreign fighters in the remote mountains of northern Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland. CNN said the attacks were aimed at an al Qaeda suspect.

On Sunday, the region's finance minister said six Islamists -- from America, Britain, Sweden, Morocco, Pakistan and Yemen -- had been killed in the air strikes and in gun battles with local forces. He gave no other details.

AL QAEDA TARGETED

Speaking in Singapore, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates declined to comment on the strikes in rugged northern Somalia, saying it was possibly an operation still in progress.

A Somali jihadist group calling itself the Young Mujahideen Movement said it suffered no casualties in what it called "random" U.S. air strikes and said it killed 11 soldiers. The Web posting could not immediately be verified but was on a site used by al Qaeda and other Islamists.

Sources told CNN the air strikes were the second in six months aimed at a suspect in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 240 people.

The United States also launched air strikes in southern Somalia in January aimed at three top al Qaeda suspects but killed their allies instead, U.S. officials have said.

They were believed to be in a group of Islamists who fled Mogadishu in January after being routed by Somali interim government forces and the Ethiopian military.

Washington says six al Qaeda operatives or associates are in Somalia, including alleged embassy bomber Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, and Abu Talha al-Sudani, accused of orchestrating the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya that killed 15.

Others include Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, hardline leader of the ousted Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC), and Adan Hashi Ayro, head of the SICC's feared military wing, the Shabaab.

(Additional reporting by Abdiqani Hassan in Bossasso)

BBC NEWS | Africa | Ethiopia seeks prince's remains

BBC NEWS | Africa | Ethiopia seeks prince's remains

Ethiopia seeks prince's remains
By Elizabeth Blunt
BBC News, Addis Ababa

Ethiopia's president has sent Queen Elizabeth II a formal request for the remains of a prince who died in Britain more than a century ago.

The royal household at Windsor Castle, where Prince Alemayehu was buried, is said to be considering the request.

President Woldegiorgis Girma hopes the prince's bones can be reburied for millennium celebrations in September.

Ethiopia has been waging a lively campaign to get back historic treasures looted during the last two centuries.

Father's suicide

Its most striking success has been in recovering a massive stone obelisk from Axum, carried off to Rome by Mussolini's army.

But the campaign now has a new impetus.

Ethiopia's calendar is more than seven years behind that of the rest of the world - here, it is still 1999 and Ethiopians are planning to mark what they believe is the 2000 anniversary of the birth of Christ with big celebrations in September.

[Prince Alemayehu] was buried at Windsor Castle, with Queen Victoria describing as "too sad" his short life and early death

Now the Ethiopian president has put in a formal request for the return of the remains of Prince Alemayehu.

His father, the Emperor Tewodros II, committed suicide after his defeat by the British at the Battle of Magdala in 1868.

The young boy was taken to Britain and sent to boarding school and officers' training school at Sandhurst, but died at the age of 18.

He was buried at Windsor Castle, with Queen Victoria describing as "too sad" his short life and early death.

The Ethiopian embassy in London says Windsor is now considering their request.

The young prince was not the only thing the British took from Magdala - they reportedly needed 15 elephants and nearly 200 mules to carry away the treasures that Tewodros had accumulated.

Many of them are still in Britain and the Queen has some of them - notably six of the very finest illuminated manuscripts, which are part of the royal collection in Windsor Castle.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6716921.stm

Published: 2007/06/03 15:40:26 GMT

© BBC MMVII

BBC NEWS | Europe | Gorbachev criticises US 'empire'

BBC NEWS | Europe | Gorbachev criticises US 'empire'

Gorbachev criticises US 'empire'
The former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, has blamed the US for the current state of relations between Russia and the West.

In a BBC interview, Mr Gorbachev said that the Russians were ready to be constructive, but America was trying to squeeze them out of global diplomacy.

He added that the Iraq War had undermined Tony Blair's credibility.

Mr Gorbachev accused America of "empire-building", which he said the UK should have warned it away from.

'New empire'

Moscow and the West have been in dispute over Iraq, America's plans for a missile defence system and civil rights within Russia itself.

I don't understand why you, the British, did not tell them, 'Don't think about empire'
Mikhail Gorbachev

Britain's extradition request for a Russian man in connection with the murder of ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko has also caused tension.

In an interview with Radio Four's The World This Weekend, Mr Gorbachev said relations between Russia and the West were in a bad state.

"Well, it's worse than I expected," he said through a translator.

"We lost 15 years after the end of the Cold War, but the West I think and particularly the United States, our American friends, were dizzy with their success, with the success of their game that they were playing, a new empire.

"I don't understand why you, the British, did not tell them, 'Don't think about empire, we know about empires, we know that all empires break up in the end, so why start again to create a new mess.'"

He added that the war with Iraq had damaged Britain's relationship with Russia after a promising start.

"Tony Blair and Putin established a very good relationship and that made it possible to advance our relationship," he said.

"But then Iraq happened and Tony found himself in the embrace of that military monster, of that war situation, and he lost a lot of his credibility in the world and in Europe."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6717037.stm

Published: 2007/06/03 15:48:42 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Anti-crime teams being sent to 4 cities - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

Anti-crime teams being sent to 4 cities - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

Anti-crime teams being sent to 4 cities
Move comes ahead of FBI stats expected to show rise in violent crime
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:21 p.m. ET June 1, 2007

WASHINGTON - A violent crime spike in four cities led the Justice Department on Friday to dispatch additional teams of federal agents to combat guns, gangs or surging murder rates in Mesa, Ariz.; Orlando, Fla.; San Bernardino, Calif., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The four-city push comes as the FBI is expected to report a 1.3 percent rise in violent crime nationwide in 2006 — an increase for the second straight year.

At the same time, a new internal Justice report rapped crime-busting task forces for failing to coordinate efforts and potentially endangering agents’ lives.

“Each of these cities has seen an unacceptable increase in homicides or other violent crimes,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told employees at the Washington headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Authorities in each have come forward and asked for our help.”

Defying critics who have demanded his resignation over the firings of U.S. attorneys, Gonzales said he would spend the final 18 months of his tenure “in a sprint” to curb violent crime.

The influx of agents brings the number of ATF Violent Crime Impact Teams, which first deployed three years ago, to 29 cities. The FBI is also adding to its more than 180 Safe Streets Task Forces by sending one to Orlando, which Gonzales said has been plagued by gang violence.

Orlando police spokeswoman Barbara Jones said the department “welcomes any additional federal support in our efforts to combat violent crime.”

No additional funds or grants are expected to be funneled to communities to bolster their own law enforcement efforts, Justice officials said. Gonzales also called anew for laws to strengthen penalties against criminals, including imposing mandatory minimum sentences on federal convicts.

Team issues
The report, released Friday by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, warned of problems with federal crime-fighting task forces. It concluded the teams duplicate efforts and compete for help from local authorities while failing to communicate among themselves. The poor communication, in particular, resulted in three so-called “blue-on-blue” cases where federal agents mistook each other for criminals.

Those incidents, which the report found “put officers’ safety at risk,” included:
# An undercover ATF agent and informant in Chicago bought a loaded gun from an informant working for the FBI’s Safe Streets task force.
# FBI Safe Streets agents in Atlanta pulled over a member of a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force whose car matched the description of a suspect both teams were looking for.
# ATF agents working an undercover sting at a Las Vegas gun show arrested a suspect for illegally buying firearms. The buyer turned out to be an informant working for the FBI — even though the ATF had taken steps to make sure there would be no overlap between federal agencies.

Fine’s inspectors studied task forces in eight cities: Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., Camden, N.J., Chicago, Gary, Ind., Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Nearly 130 task force members in the cities reported working on at least 45 duplicate investigations.

Gonzales said Justice’s investigative agencies have already taken steps to fix the problems, and were ordered in March to make sure their task forces coordinate and share information with each other to prevent overlap. Additionally, the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys were told last month to meet with task force leaders in their districts and fix any coordination problems.

Between 2003 and 2006, Fine’s report showed, 210 Justice Department task forces were working in 256 cities nationwide.

$1.5 million teams
ATF Director Michael J. Sullivan said each of his Violent Crime Impact Teams cost an estimated $1.5 million in personnel, equipment and other expenses. After being strapped by budget cuts last year, the new teams are being deployed now so “we can come in with money and bodies — we can have new agents, investigators, intel analysts” to help local authorities, Sullivan said in an interview.

But violent crime nationally continued to climb last year, if at a slower pace than in 2005, which marked the first increase since 2001.

FBI data set for release Monday is expected to show an overall 1.3 percent rise in violent crime during 2006, according to a Justice Department official who had seen the numbers. Comparatively, violent crime increased by 2.2 percent in 2005.

A second Justice Department official said the murder rate also is up, if modestly, but robberies rose by as much as 6 percent. And a third department official said the number of property crimes — such as burglary, car theft and arson — again dropped.

All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the data had not yet been released.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18984489/
© 2007 MSNBC.com

White House seeks new path to secrecy - Politics - MSNBC.com

White House seeks new path to secrecy - Politics - MSNBC.com

White House seeks new path to secrecy
Bush officials had lengthy debate before calling visitor records confidential
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:08 p.m. ET June 1, 2007

WASHINGTON - A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.

Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them.

The drive to keep the logs secret, the administration says, is essential to assuring that the president and vice president receive candid advice to carry out their duties.

Exploiting exemptions
Cabinet officers often don't want to give up their meeting calendars to journalists. They have no choice under the Freedom of Information Act, which provides public access to some records kept by federal agencies.

But the FOIA disclosure law, which doesn't apply to Congress, also doesn't apply to presidential records.

The Bush administration has exploited that difference, triggering a battle in the courts.

The administration is seeking dismissal of two lawsuits by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, demanding Secret Service visitor logs.

In trying to get the cases thrown out, the Justice Department has filed documents in court outlining a behind-the-scenes debate over whether Secret Service records are subject to public disclosure. The discussions date back at least to the administration of President Bush's father and involve the Justice Department and the National Archives as well as the White House and the Secret Service.

The government's court filings show that the Bush White House focused on the issue in the months before Election Day 2004.

Discussions moved into high gear when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal prompted news organizations and private groups to demand that the administration turn over Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex and the vice president's residence.

Standing on principle
There was precedent for the demands.

During the Clinton administration, Republican-controlled congressional committees obtained Secret Service visitor logs while conducting investigations of the president and first lady.

Christopher Lehane, a former special assistant counsel to President Clinton and press secretary to then-Vice President Al Gore, points out the political implications of the Bush administration campaign to close off access to the records.

"The question it raises is 'what are these guys hiding?'" said Lehane, now a Democratic consultant. "They can live with it because they've only got a year or so left, but it doesn't do a lot for public confidence in open government."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Thursday, "I can't comment on a case in litigation, and I can't speak to the decisions made by other administrations."

The Bush administration says it is standing on principle.

"It is important that the president be able to receive candid advice from his staff and other members of the administration," Fratto said. "To ensure that he receives candid advice, it is essential as a general matter that the advice remains confidential."

In a declaration filed in court a week ago, Cheney's deputy chief of staff, Claire O'Donnell, stated that "systematic public release of the information regarding when and with whom the vice president and vice presidential personnel conduct meetings would impinge on the ability of the OVP (office of the vice president) to gather information in confidence and perform its essential functions, including assisting the vice president in his critical roles of advising and assisting the president."

In May 2006, the Secret Service and the White House signed a memorandum of understanding designating visitor records as presidential.

They are "not the records of an 'agency' subject to the Freedom of Information Act," says the agreement that was not disclosed until months later, in late 2006. The records are "at all times under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White House."

In search of vice presidential visitors
Four months after the memorandum of agreement, Cheney's counsel wrote the Secret Service, stating that visitor records for the vice president's personal residence "are and shall remain subject to the exclusive ownership, custody and control of OVP."

The Sept. 13, 2006, date on the Cheney letter coincides with requests by The Washington Post seeking records on the vice president's visitors under the Freedom of Information Act.

The law enforcement agency "shall not retain any copy of these documents and information upon return to OVP," stated the letter to the Secret Service's chief counsel.

"If any documents remain in your possession, please return them to OVP as soon as possible," the letter added.

The Justice Department filed the Cheney letter last Friday in one of the lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is invoking the FOIA law in seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited the White House complex and the vice president's residence. The group, which represents Valerie Plame and her husband in their lawsuit against Cheney and other key administration figures in the leak of Plame's CIA identity, also is seeking White House visitor logs in the Abramoff scandal.

Document destruction stopped
According to government documents, the Secret Service routinely destroyed five of eight categories of information relating to visitors to Cheney's residence. Of the records it retained, the Secret Service regularly turned over handwritten visitor logs to Cheney's office.

The Secret Service stopped the destruction in June 2006 because of lawsuits by various groups, according to the court papers. The law enforcement agency also is retaining copies of the material, contrary to the directive in the September 2006 letter from Cheney's counsel.

The court filings by the government show that:
# On three occasions late in the administration of the first President Bush and during the first term of President Clinton, the Secret Service proposed treating copies of White House visitor documents as non-presidential records. In its court filings, the current Bush administration opposes releasing details of the Secret Service proposals, saying this "poses a substantial risk of creating public confusion" because the proposals were never adopted.
# In January 2001, as Clinton prepared to leave office, White House lawyers proposed the transfer of visitor records from the Secret Service to the White House. The proposal was entitled "Disposition of certain presidential records created by the USSS," or the Secret Service. The records are now at the Clinton library in Little Rock, Ark., the National Archives confirmed Thursday.
# In September 2004, a lawyer for the Bush White House and a special assistant to the director of the Secret Service proposed "informal views on one way to address the disposition" of visitor records, according to court documents. The unnamed associate White House counsel and the Secret Service assistant jointly authored a July 29, 2004, document bearing the same title as the Clinton administration document from 3 1/2 years earlier.
# In July 2005, the Secret Service gave a presentation on the issue to the White House counsel's office, the Justice Department and the National Archives.
# On May 11, 2006, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel provided a legal opinion on the issue, which is among the many documents the government is refusing to disclose. Six days later, the White House and the Secret Service signed the agreement designating the records as presidential.

Power grab?
Presidential records are released starting five years after a president leaves office. Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, non-classified material is disclosed first, with classified documents and advice to the president released later after review by federal agencies, the White House and the former president.

Under an executive order President Bush signed in 2001, the archivist of the United States cannot unilaterally release the records without the permission of the current president, former presidents and their representatives.

"The scary thing about this move by the vice president's office is the power grab part of it," said Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, a private group which uses the FOIA law to pierce government secrecy.

"We're looking at a huge problem if the White House can reach into any agency and say certain records have something to do with the White House and they are presidential from now on," Blanton said. "This White House has been infinitely creative in finding new ways and new forms of government secrecy."
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18977033/page/2/
MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2007 MSNBC.com

Baghdad embassy plans appear on Internet - Security - MSNBC.com

Baghdad embassy plans appear on Internet - Security - MSNBC.com

Baghdad embassy plans appear on Internet
Computer-generated images of heavily fortified compound removed
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:25 a.m. ET June 1, 2007

WASHINGTON - Detailed plans for the new U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad appeared online Thursday in a breach of the tight security surrounding the sensitive project.

Computer-generated projections of the soon-to-be completed, heavily fortified compound were posted on the Web site of the Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm that was contracted to design the massive facility in the Iraqi capital.

The images were removed by Berger Devine Yaeger Inc. shortly after the company was contacted by the State Department.

“We work very hard to ensure the safety and security of our employees overseas,” said Gonzalo Gallegos, a department spokesman. “This kind of information out in the public domain detracts from that effort.”

The 10 images included a scheme of the overall layout of the compound, plus depictions of individual buildings including the embassy itself, office annexes, the Marine Corps security post, swimming pool, recreation center and the ambassador’s and deputy ambassador’s residences.

U.S. officials said the posted plans conformed at least roughly to conceptual drawings for the new embassy, which is being built on the banks of the Tigris River behind huge fences due to concerns about insurgents’ attacks.

Dan Sreebny, a spokesman for the embassy in Baghdad, declined to discuss the accuracy of the posted images.

“In terms of commenting whether they’re accurate, obviously we wouldn’t be commenting on that because we don’t want people to know whether they’re accurate or not for security reasons,” he said.

No help to enemies
Berger Devine Yaeger’s parent company, the giant contractor Louis Berger Group, said the plans had been very preliminary and would not be of help to potential U.S. enemies.

“The actual information that was up there was purely conjectural and conceptual in nature,” said company spokesman Jeffrey Willis. “Google Earth could give you a better snapshot of what the site looks like on the ground.”

Some U.S. officials acknowledged that damage may have been done by the postings and used expletives to describe their personal reactions. Still, they downplayed the overall risk.

“People are eventually going to figure out where all these places are, but you don’t have to draw them a map,” said one senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the embassy project.

Few are, and in Baghdad, the construction is under heavy guard and treated with extreme secrecy. It is off-limits to all but those with special passes, surrounded by tall, concrete blast walls and impossible to see except from the air.

The images posted on the Web site show that the $592 million embassy, expected to be completed in September on prime real estate two-thirds the size of Washington’s National Mall, will be a spacious and comfortable facility, albeit dangerous.

Identified as the “Baghdad U.S. Embassy Compound Master Plan,” the images show palm-lined paths, green grass gardens and volleyball and basketball courts outside the Marine post, as well as the swimming pool.

“In total, the 104-acre compound will include over twenty buildings, including one classified secure structure and housing for over 380 families,” the Web site says.

It says the compound will include the embassy building, housing, a PX, commissary, cinema, retail and shopping areas, restaurants, schools, a fire station, power and water treatment plants as well as telecommunications and wastewater treatment facilities.

A U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report last year said embassy security will be extraordinary: Setbacks and perimeter no-go areas will be especially deep, structures reinforced to 2.5 times the standard and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18979621/
© 2007 MSNBC.com

Mossad Agent Pearlman Releases Phony "Al-Qaeda Tape"

While President Bush authorizes the CIA to bankroll and arm the real Al-Qaeda in Iran
PRISON PLANET

Adam Pearlman, the Jewish Mossad agent who once wrote stinging essays condemning Muslims as "bloodthirsty terrorists", has once again popped up as an "Al-Qaeda spokesman" to frighten the dwindling number of Americans who still believe Al-Qaeda exists outside of U.S. intelligence circles.
"An American member of al-Qaida warned President Bush on Tuesday to end U.S. involvement in all Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the Sept. 11 suicide assault, according to a new videotape."

"Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam al-Amriki, said al-Qaida would not negotiate on its demands," reports the Associated Press.

Who is the mysterious Adam Yehiye Gadahn?

The FBI lists Gadahn's aliases as Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, and Yayah.

Adam Pearlman is his real name and his grandfather is none other than the late Carl K. Pearlman; a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, which was caught spying on Americans for Israel in 1993. Mike Rivero has the scoop at WhatReallyHappened.com .

Israel's Mossad intelligence agency was caught in 2002 creating a phony Al-Qaeda group to justify attacks on Palestinians.

Pearlman has a knack of releasing his tapes at the most politically opportune time for Bush, having first burst onto the scene shortly before the 2004 presidential election and then again right after Katrina when the President's approval rating was tanking fast.

Even more mainstream publications, like the Los Angeles City Beat , have dismissed Pearlman before as nothing more than "cartoonish propaganda."

Pearlman had a hippy upbringing, a brief but intense flirtation with death metal and before a sudden transformation, once referred to Muslims as “bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists.” Pearlman was a hardcore Jewish Zionist and wrote essays and screeds bashing the Muslim faith. He even got into fights at mosques and beat up Muslim worshippers.

Pearlman, the hardcore Jewish Zionist who trashed Muslims and beat them up, grows a beard and suddenly becomes an "Al-Qaeda spokesman" - nothing suspicious here, move along!

Pearlman's personal history and the highly suspicious nature in which he suddenly professed his conversion to Islam in a single Internet posting and later appeared on the scene as a spokesman for "Al-Qaeda" are all the ingredients needed to draw the conclusion that Pearlman is working as a double agent and most likely for Mossad.

The Pearlman tape was once again obtained by the IntelCenter group, a U.S. government contractor, and it's head Ben Venzke has given the tape credence in media interviews concerning the story.

In our previous groundbreaking expose , we unveiled the ties between Intelcenter, a group that regularly 'obtains' Al-Qaeda tapes and the Pentagon. Intelcenter is an offshoot of IDEFENSE, which was staffed by a senior military psy-op intelligence officer Jim Melnick, who has worked directly for Donald Rumsfeld.

Intelcenter were behind the October 2006 release of the "laughing hijackers" tape that showed Mohammad Atta and Ziad Jarrah allegedly attending a 2000 Al-Qaeda meeting and reading their last will and testament.

Segments of the video that were interspersed with footage of the "laughing hijackers," Jarrah and Atta, showing Bin Laden giving a speech to an audience in Afghanistan on January 8 2000, were culled from what terror experts described as surveillance footage taken by a "security agency."

News reports at the time contained the admission that the U.S. government had been in possession of the footage since 2002, while others said it was found when the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and yet it was still bizarrely reported that the tape, bearing all the hallmarks of having been filmed and edited by undercover US intelligence and having admittedly been in US possession for five years, was released over the weekend of September 31/October 1 by Al-Qaeda.

The video also contained segments that were first broadcast in a British documentary called The Road to Guantanamo , which was originally aired in March 2006. The context of the corresponding scene in the dramatized documentary featured U.S. interrogators attempting to coerce Gitmo detainees into confessing Al-Qaeda membership by showing them fake videos where their likeness had been computer generated to appear as if they were in attendance during Bin Laden's January 8 2000 speech.

The monster in the closet is once again being waved in front of the American people's faces in order to quell bubbling national resentment about the ongoing carnage in Iraq and the fact that May was the deadliest month in terms of our boys returning home in flag-draped caskets.

Meanwhile, President Bush has authorized the CIA to bankroll and arm Jundullah, a Sunni Al-Qaeda organization , to attack Iran in order to destabilize Ahmadinejad's government.

While Bush grandstands in his Rose Garden speech about how Al-Qaeda wants to kill our children and as Mossad agent Pearlman rants on a video tape about a new 9/11, the only real Al-Qaeda are being equipped, funded and trained by our own government to kill innocent civilians in the Middle East in order to pave the way for the next chapter of Neo-Con blood-letting - while crude propaganda tapes are foisted on us at home in an effort to hoodwink us into supporting it all.

Bush begins push for immigration plan

He accuses rivals of criticizing bill before reading it
sfgate

President Bush cranked up his campaign for immigration reform Tuesday, accusing detractors of unfairly picking apart a compromise bill and of denouncing the legislation without reading it.

The president used his most forceful language yet in support of the Senate bill, which would establish a new point system for awarding green cards and offer legal status to many illegal workers already in the country.

"The first step to comprehensive reform must be to enforce immigration laws at the borders and at work sites across America. And this is what this bill does," Bush said at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco. "For the skeptics who say that we're not concerned about border security or workplace enforcement, they need to read the bill."

Bush accused conservative opponents of the bill of engaging in "empty political rhetoric."

"I know there are some people out there hollering and saying, 'Kick them out.' That is simply unrealistic. It won't work," the president said. "If you want to scare the American people, what you say is, the bill is an amnesty bill. It's not an amnesty bill. That's empty political rhetoric, trying to frighten our fellow citizens."

Under the deal struck this month between the White House and a bipartisan group of senators, workers seeking legal status would need to pay fines and back taxes and eventually demonstrate proficiency in English.

Border security also would need to be improved before other parts of the immigration package -- including a temporary worker program and legal status for some workers who are currently illegal -- can take effect.

One reason Bush chose to speak to law enforcement trainees at this federal site about 60 miles south of Savannah was to underscore his commitment to improved border controls. The bill would increase the number of border agents to 20,000, add hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers, and build 105 more surveillance towers.

"A lot of Americans are skeptical about immigration reform primarily because they don't think the government can fix the problems," Bush said. "And my answer to the skeptics is ... give us a chance to fix this problem. Don't try to kill this bill before it gets moving."

White House officials declined to say whether the president has made progress in persuading members of his own party to support the deal.

"I'm not going to get into nose counting right now," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "We have been inviting folks to take a look. And I think the more they hear, the more they're going to be inclined to support it."

The immigration package survived several legislative challenges last week, its first on the floor of the Senate. The administration and other supporters say they are optimistic that the bill will be passed in the Senate with its central compromise intact: legal status for many of those already in the country in return for shifting the emphasis in the future away from family unification toward a more merit-based system.

The bill's fate in the House is less certain.

Last year, a comprehensive immigration reform package squeaked past the Senate only to die in the House. This year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, has said the White House needs to deliver 70 Republican votes or the bill will not make it to the president's desk.

"I appreciate the Republicans and Democrats in the United States Senate ... who put politics aside and put courage first to work on a comprehensive bill," Bush said. "It takes a lot of courage in the face of some of the criticism in the political world to do what's right, not what's comfortable. And what's right is to fix this system now before it's too late."

U.S. Wants Defense Cooperation as Russia Tests Weapon

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. wants cooperation with Russia on missile programs, the State Department said, as the government in Moscow announced it successfully tested a weapon that it claims is immune to all defense shields.

The U.S. can't confirm the Russian report, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said a briefing in Washington yesterday. ``We would hope that the Russians would want to cooperate with us on the issue of missile defense,'' he said.

A strategic cruise missile was fired yesterday from a mobile ground-based system in the southern Astrakhan region near the Caspian Sea, Interfax cited Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying.

Tensions have risen between the U.S. and Russia over a U.S. plan to base interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic as part of a system defending against long-range missile attacks from countries such as Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday the U.S. action risked turning Europe into a ``powder keg.''

``Nothing we have proposed or planned is in any way, shape or form a threat to Russia's strategic capabilities and certainly shouldn't be viewed that way,'' Casey said, according to a State Department transcript.

The defense system involves only 10 interceptors and is ``designed to defend against a limited attack by a rogue nation, including a nation like Iran,'' he said. ``This is a threat that's there, not only for the United States and its European allies, but also for the Russians as well.''

Russian Defenses

The Russian test of a high precision missile shows the country has a new tactical and strategic system, Ivanov said, according to Interfax. Such missiles may be deployed in the defense program by 2009, he added.

The weapons are ``capable of overcoming all existing and future missile defense systems,'' he said. ``That is why, from the point of view of defense and security, Russians can look into the future without any worries.''

The U.S. deployment will spark a ``new spiral of the arms race,'' Putin said in Vienna last week. He dismissed American concerns that Iran could threaten the U.S. and Europe. Iranian missiles now have a maximum range of 1,100 miles (1,700 kilometers) and by 2012 they may have missiles with a range of 1,500 miles, too short to justify a missile shield, he said.

The dispute with the U.S. comes at a time of growing strains between Russia and seven eastern European countries that were once within the Soviet Union and are now members of the European Union.

Bush insider nominated to head World Bank

rte
The United States has nominated former trade representative and Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, to become President of the World Bank, an international organisation designed to eliminate poverty.

Mr Zoellick will succeed Paul Wolfowitz, who steps down at the end of June following a scandal involving a pay deal for his partner.

Mr Zoellick has worked in various capacities for several US Presidents such as Ronald Reagan, George H Bush and George W Bush.
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His opposition to 'nation building' as a foreign policy put him at odds with neo-cons like Mr Wolfowitz.

However, Mr Wolfowitz and Mr Zoellick did co-sign a 1998 letter to then President Bill Clinton calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

They also served together in the informal group headed up by Condoleezza Rice known as the 'Vulcans' which advised George Bush on foreign policy during his first campaign.

Last year, Mr Zoellick stepped down from his job as Deputy Secretary of State to join the investment bank Goldman Sachs.

At the State Department, he tried to negotiate a peace deal in Darfur and worked to improve US relations with China.

From 2001 to 2005 he served as the US Trade Representative and was centrally involved in talks to lower tariffs and to bring China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organisation.

His name was mentioned early on as a replacement during the crisis which engulfed the World Bank.

The US traditionally nominates the head of the World Bank, however the bank's board must approve the appointment.

A formal announcement is expected today.

Email Tax Coming

new york times
The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful. State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other Internet-service connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail.

Pro-tax advocates this week advanced a flurry of proposals pushing in that direction. A bill was introduced that would usher in mandatory sales tax collection for Internet purchases. Then, during a House of Representatives hearing the same day, politicians weighed whether to let a temporary ban on Net access taxes lapse when it expires on November 1. A House backer of another pro-sales tax bill said to expect a final version by July.

The response to the moves in CNET News.com's TalkBack forum was overwhelmingly negative, mostly along antitax convictions. However, some readers took a bigger-picture approach to the situation.

"Half the reason the Internet has become so successful is because the government has had little involvement."
-- CNET News.com reader

"Half the reason the Internet has become so successful is because the government has had little involvement," wrote one reader to the forum.

The U.S. Congress is also poised to create a set of massive new government databases that all employers must use to investigate the immigration status of current and future employees or face stiff penalties. The so-called Employment Eligibility Verification System would be established as part of a bill that senators began debating on Monday. The procedure that is likely to continue through June and would represent the most extensive rewrite of immigration and visa laws in a generation.

Because anyone who fails a database check would be out of a job, the proposed database already has drawn comparisons with the "no-fly list" and is being criticized by civil libertarians and business groups.

All employers--at least 7 million, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--would be required to verify identity documents provided by both existing employees and potential hires, the legislation says. The data, including Social Security numbers, would be provided to Homeland Security, on penalty of perjury, and the government databases would provide a work authorization confirmation within three business days.

Contractors Open Fire in Baghdad

washington post

Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.

Blackwater confirmed that its employees were involved in two shootings but could neither confirm nor deny that there had been any casualties, according to a company official who declined to be identified because of the firm's policy of not addressing incidents publicly.

Blackwater's security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq, and its employees operate in a perilous environment that sometimes requires the use of deadly force. But last week's incidents underscored how deeply these hired guns have been drawn into the war, their murky legal status and the grave consequences that can ensue when they take aggressive action.

Matthew Degn, a senior American civilian adviser to the Interior Ministry's intelligence directorate, described the ministry as "a powder keg" after the Iraqi driver was shot Thursday, with anger at Blackwater spilling over to other Americans working in the building.

Degn said he was concerned the incident "could undermine a lot of the cordial relationships that have been built up over the past four years. There's a lot of angry people up here right now."

Details about that incident remained sketchy. The Blackwater guards said the victim drove too close to their convoy and drew fire, according to the three American officials. Concerned about a possible car bomb or other threat, the guards said they tried to wave off the vehicle, shouted, fired a warning shot into the radiator, then shot into the windshield when the driver failed to pull back, the officials said. Such steps are recommended under the rules for the use of force by contractors in Iraq specified in Memorandum 17, a set of guidelines adopted in 2004 by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led occupation government, and still in effect.

The Iraqi official said the driver encountered the Blackwater convoy after leaving a gas station just outside the Interior Ministry. Some witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked, the official said. He said the driver had wounds in his shoulder, chest and head.

The Blackwater employees refused to divulge their names or details of the incident to Iraqi authorities, according to two of the U.S. officials and the Iraqi official. The officials described a tense standoff that ensued between the Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces -- both sides armed with assault rifles -- until a passing U.S. military convoy intervened.

Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company did not discuss specific incidents. In a statement via e-mail, she wrote: "Blackwater investigates any reports of hostile action in Iraq. Per the terms of our US Government contracts, as a matter of routine, Blackwater is required to file after action reports on any such incidents."

Dan Sreebny, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Baghdad, said: "The security contractors are an important part of our embassy here. We expect all people within the mission to conform to the rules and procedures of professional behavior. We take allegations of misbehavior very seriously, and when there are such allegations we investigate thoroughly."

Blackwater, which is headquartered in Moyock, N.C., gained national attention in March 2004, when a mob killed four of its employees in the city of Fallujah and hung their charred corpses from a bridge. Blackwater is now the most prominent of dozens of security companies working in Iraq, with hundreds of guards and a fleet of armored vehicles and helicopters.

The Interior Ministry, which regulates security companies for the Iraqi government, has received four previous complaints of shooting incidents involving Blackwater in the past two years, according to Hussein Kamal, undersecretary for intelligence affairs. But in an interview before last week's shootings, Kamal said Iraqi authorities have been hampered by a Coalition Provisional Authority order granting contractors immunity from the Iraqi legal process.

Interior Ministry officials said Blackwater has not applied to operate as a private security company in Iraq. That process has been completed by several security firms with U.S. government contracts, including ArmorGroup International and Aegis Defense Services, two British companies.

Tyrrell wrote that Blackwater is "working lawfully in Iraq," adding, "We comply with all contractual obligations, including obtaining all appropriate registrations in the very dynamic environment in Iraq whose requirements for registration and licensing are always evolving."

The Pentagon and company representatives estimate that 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors work in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates run much higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition forces and are prohibited from taking part in offensive operations. But their convoys are often attacked, drawing guards into firefights and ground combat.

The Blackwater convoy involved in the Wednesday incident was ambushed at 11 a.m., according to the U.S. military, while escorting State Department employees participating in the reconstruction effort. U.S. officials and bystanders said the Blackwater vehicles were struck by a well-coordinated attack, with insurgents unleashing a barrage of small-arms fire from surrounding rooftops.

A statement released by the military said that the "security unit" requested assistance and that Apache helicopters attached to the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, arrived before ground forces.

Mohammed Mahdi, 37, an employee at a veterinary drugstore, said the combined American forces unleashed a fury of gunfire near the Amanat, the municipal headquarters located in the heart of downtown Baghdad. Before taking cover in his store, Mahdi said, he saw two people killed and one wounded near the city's legal registry.

A U.S. Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Blackwater contractors "did their job," enabling the State Department employees to be extracted without injuries. The U.S. military said no American soldiers were killed or wounded during the attack.

Mahdi said that the battle lasted for nearly an hour and that when he emerged he saw four mini-buses, a taxi and an Opel sedan containing dead and wounded. He said that he saw "at least four or five" people "who were certainly dead" but that he did not know how the people were killed, who killed them or whether they were civilians or combatants.

"There were people yelling: 'There's someone dead over here! Come!' " he said. "And another saying: 'There's someone wounded over here. Come and get them.' "

U.S. Government Uses Al-Qaeda To Attack Iran

prisonplanet
Bush authorizes group formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind to be bankrolled & armed by CIA for covert regime change

Recent revelations illustrating the fact that the U.S. government is using a Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist group formerly headed by the alleged mastermind of 9/11 to carry out bombings in Iran undermines the entire war on terror as a monumental hoax that is being exploited purely to realize a geopolitical agenda.
"President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs."

"The CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan," the London Telegraph reported yesterday.

Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Even if you believe the official story of 9/11 to the letter, the fact that Bush has personally authorized U.S. support for this group completely dismantles the facade of the war on terror.

The group has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad's government and is also active in Pakistan , having been fingered for its involvement in attacks on police stations and car bombings at the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in 2004.

The U.S. government is arming and directing a Sunni Al-Qaeda group to carry out bombings in Iran and yet Bush has the temerity to grandstand during his Rose Garden speech last week and wave the Al-Qaeda bogeyman to strike the fear of God into American citizens.

"As to al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda is going to fight us wherever we are. That's their strategy. Their strategy is to drive us out of the Middle East. They have made it abundantly clear what they want. They want to establish a caliphate. They want to spread their ideology. They want safe haven from which to launch attacks. They're willing to kill the innocent to achieve their objectives, and they will fight us. And the fundamental question is, will we fight them? I have made the decision to do so. I believe that the best way to protect us in this war on terror is to fight them," Bush said on Thursday.

Bush's definition of fighting Al-Qaeda is apparently to lend them all the funds, weapons and tactical know how they need to carry out attacks against innocent civilians in Iran, and let us not forget that America's allies the British have also been caught training insurgents in Iraq to carry out hi-tech bombings that are later blamed on Iran - just as the SAS worked with U.S. special forces to train the KLA in Kosovo , which was also an Al-Qaeda chapter having been financed directly by Bin Laden himself.

But in the world of newspeak and the lowest common denominator propaganda that cloaks the real agenda of the "war on terror", anyone who rises up against occupation, be it a kid who throws a rock in Baghdad or a car bombing on behalf of an increasingly Shiite-led insurgency, the natural enemies of the Sunni "Al-Qaeda," are terrorists and are Al-Qaeda members.

A cruel irony exists whereby anyone and everyone who opposes military occupation is smeared as an Al-Qaeda terrorist and yet the only real Al-Qaeda terrorists are being bankrolled, armed and directed by the CIA itself, with Bush's explicit approval.

Since President Bush didn't know the difference between Sunni & Shiite Muslims until two months before the invasion of Iraq and the incoming chairman of a congressional intelligence committee said Al Qaeda prominently came from the Shia branch of Islam, we can't hold out much hope for Joe Public and this is why the simplest propaganda is always the most effective.

They're the bad guys, we're the good guys - black and white with no shades of gray.

In reality, Al-Qaeda only exists within intelligence circles coordinated by the highest echelons of the U.S. government, and is being used yet again as a tool for destabilization in nations targeted for regime change by the Neo-Cons.

Jundullah is not the only anti-Iranian terror group that US government has been accused of funding in an attempt to pressure the Iranian government.

Multiple credible individuals including US intelligence whistleblowers and former military personnel have asserted that the government is conducting covert military operations inside Iran using guerilla groups to carry out attacks on Iranian Revolution Guard units.

It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services, is now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations and carrying out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.

After a bombing inside Iran in March, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official has blown the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.

Cheney criticizes the Geneva Conventions in Military Academy commencement address

raw story

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the notion of applying the Geneva Conventions to individuals captured in the course of the war on terrorism in a Saturday commencement address at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

"Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States," the Vice President said in the Saturday morning speech. "Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away."

Cheney delivered the remarks in the context of moral and ethical lessons that the graduating cadets at West Point had learned in the course of their study.

"You have lived by a code of honor, and internalized that code as West Point men and women always do," he said. "As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for."

Recently, West Point instructors have complained of the difficulty of persuading Army cadets to adhere to the principles of the Geneva Conventions in the war on terrorism. A February article in the New Yorker highlighted a dialog on the problem between West Point's dean and Joel Surnow, producer of the hit Fox television program '24.'

"This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind '24,'" wrote Jane Mayer in the magazine. "Finnegan, who is a lawyer, has for a number of years taught a course on the laws of war to West Point seniors - cadets who would soon be commanders in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misperceptions spread by '24,' which was exceptionally popular with his students. As he told me, 'The kids see it, and say, ''If torture is wrong, what about '24?''"

The excerpt of Cheney's remarks is presented below, and can be accessed in full at the White House website.

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The standards of this Academy only highlight the deepest and most fundamental difference between the United States and our sworn enemies. A month ago, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Pace, spoke to this class about each officer's duty to follow a moral compass in all of his or her actions. In these four years you have learned the rules of warfare and professional military ethics. You've studied the tenets of morality. You've reflected on the seven Army values: of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. You have lived by a code of honor, and internalized that code as West Point men and women always do.

As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away. These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Their cruelty is not rebuked by human suffering, only fed by it. They have given themselves to an ideology that rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. The terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds, and they hate nothing more than the country you have volunteered to defend.

The terrorists know what they want and they will stop at nothing to get it. By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to their ideology. Their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian empire, a caliphate, with Baghdad as its capital. They view the world as a battlefield and they yearn to hit us again. And now they have chosen to make Iraq the central front in their war against civilization.