George Bush and White House issued 935 false statements after September 11

US President George W Bush and other top officials issued almost one thousand false statements about the national security threat from Iraq following the September 11 attacks, according to a study by two not-for-profit organisations.

The Associated Press reports the study, published on the website of the Centre for Public Integrity, concluded the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanised public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretences”.

According to the study, 935 false statements were issued by the White House in the two years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In speeches, briefings and interviews, President Bush and other officials stated “unequivocally” on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had links to al-Qaeda, or had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to get them.

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From take back the media

Watch this enlightning video

Update: Blackwater in Iraq

According to the Veterans 911 truth site:

Randi Rhodes just reported that Bush called Malaki and that Iraq will reconsider its decision to ban Blackwater. who’s attorney is Ken Starr…!
Remember, Blackwater does not have that many Mercenaries in Iraq, but they are by far the most well connected.

September 11: What You “Ought Not to Know”

by Greg Palast

Watch the BBC Report / Read the Transcript
September 10, 2007- On November 9, 2001, when you could still choke on the dust in the air near Ground Zero, BBC Television received a call in London from a top-level US intelligence agent. He was not happy. Shortly after George W. Bush took office, he told us reluctantly, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the FBI, “were told to back off the Saudis.”

We knew that. In the newsroom, we had a document already in hand, marked, “SECRET” across the top and “” – meaning this was a national security matter.

The secret memo released agents to hunt down two members of the bin Laden family operating a “suspected terrorist organization” in the USA. It was dated September 13, 2001 — two days too late for too many. What the memo indicates, corroborated by other sources, was that the agents had long wanted to question these characters … but could not until after the attack. By that time, these bin Laden birds had flown their American nest.

Back to the high-level agent. I pressed him to tell me exactly which investigations were spiked. None of this interview dance was easy, requiring switching to untraceable phones. Ultimately, the insider said, “Khan Labs.” At the time, our intelligence agencies were on the trail of Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, A.Q. Khan, who built Pakistan’s bomb and was selling its secrets to the Libyans. But once Bush and Condoleeza Rice’s team took over, the source told us, agents were forced to let a hot trail go cold. Specifically, there were limits on tracing the Saudi money behind this “Islamic bomb.”

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Petraeus for president?

GOP Operative Ed Gillespie ‘hard-wired’ into Petraeus’s shop
by: Matt Stoller
Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 12:41:26 PM EDT

As if this is not obvious already.Another new arrival in the West Wing set up a rapid-response PR unit hard-wired into Petraeus’s shop. Ed Gillespie, the new presidential counselor, organized daily conference calls at 7:45 a.m. and again late in the afternoon between the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy and military in Baghdad to map out ways of selling the surge.

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Latest Bin Laden Video Is a Forgery: All References to Current Events Are Made During Video Freeze

Osama Bin Laden’s widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

See the video

Never Doubt That a Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Neocons Can Destroy the World (If We Let Them)

I don’t think this is what Margaret Mead had in mind but I admit it was the first thought that popped into my mind when I saw this composite photograph and read some of the accompanying blog commentary on DownWithTyranny! back on August 9th (a portion of which follows):

Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Scooter Libby

John Bolton, Eliot Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney

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Painful 9/11 Truth

Written by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Published September 04, 2007
See also:
» Senator Craig Grabs The Long Arm of The Law While Bush Kicks AG to The Curb-What a Week
» Separation of Mosque and State
» The Founding Fathers’ “Unalienable Rights”
Many technical analyses cast doubt on the official explanation of the collapse of three World Trade Center buildings, including those presented by an impressive new group: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. More difficult than discovering the truth, however, is convincing most of the public to accept the bitter truth.Americans easily block out painful truths. Powerful societal forces keep much of the population distracted and uninterested in complex issues. Entertainment-oriented mainstream media contribute to mass ignorance. And the political establishment often buries the truth, uses propaganda and manipulates citizens. Intelligent, strong-willed people can fight all these.

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NORTHCOM Plans 5 Day Martial Law Exercise

By Lee Rogers – Intel Strike Contributing Writer

The United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) has just announced plans for an anti-terrorism exercise called Vigilant Shield 08. The exercise which is slated to run from October 15th to October 20th is described as a way to prepare, prevent and respond to any number of national crises. The exercise is simply a test case scenario for the implementation of martial law. Although the description of the exercise is disturbing, USNORTHCOM also announced that they are more prepared for a natural disaster and a terrorist attack after they used their response to Hurricane Katrina as a test laboratory. During Hurricane Katrina, authorities violated the constitutional rights of citizens by stealing people’s firearms and even relocating people against their will. These announcements are incredibly disturbing on a number of levels as the nature of Vigilant Shield 08 and the admission that Hurricane Katrina was used as a test laboratory shows that the government is actively preparing the military and government institutions for martial law.

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When Wishful Thinking Replaces Resistance: Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran

by Prof. Jean Bricmont

Global Research, September 6, 2007
Counterpunch.org
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Many people in the antiwar movement try to reassure themselves: Bush cannot possibly attack Iran. He does not have the means to do so, or, perhaps, even he is not foolish enough to engage in such an enterprise. Various particular reasons are put forward, such as: If he attacks, the Shiites in Iraq will cut the US supply lines. If he attacks, the Iranians will block the Straits of Ormuz or will unleash dormant terrorist networks worldwide. Russia won’t allow such an attack. China won’t allow it — they will dump the dollar. The Arab world will explode.

All this is doubtful. The Shiites in Iraq are not simply obedient to Iran. If they don’t rise against the United States when their own country is occupied (or if don’t rise very systematically), they are not likely to rise against the US if a neighboring country is attacked. As for blocking the Straits or unleashing terrorism, this will just be another justification for more bombing of Iran. After all, a main casus belli against Iran is, incredibly, that it supposedly helps the resistance against U.S. troops in Iraq, as if those troops were at home there. If that can work as an argument for bombing Iran, then any counter-measure that Iran might take will simply “justify” more bombing, possibly nuclear. Iran is strong in the sense that it cannot be invaded, but there is little it can do against long range bombing, accompanied by nuclear threats.

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Nuclear Warheads Mistakenly Flown Across U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Air Force squadron commander has been relieved of his command after five nuclear weapons were mistakenly loaded aboard a B-52 and flown cross-country from North Dakota to Louisiana last week, NBC News reported.

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New Book Details Cheney Lawyer’s Efforts to Expand Executive Power

 

By Dan Eggen and Peter Baker

Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 5, 2007; Page A01

Vice President Cheney‘s top lawyer pushed relentlessly to expand the powers of the executive branch and repeatedly derailed efforts to obtain congressional approval for aggressive anti-terrorism policies for fear that even a Republican majority might say no, according to a new book written by a former senior Justice Department official.

David S. Addington, who is now Cheney’s chief of staff, viewed both U.S. lawmakers and overseas allies with “hostility” and repeatedly opposed efforts by other administration lawyers to soften counterterrorism policies or seek outside support, according to Jack L. Goldsmith, who frequently clashed with Addington while serving as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 and 2004.

The book portrays Alberto R. Gonzales as fairly passive, not an aggressor in counterterror law. (By Chris Graythen — Getty Images) #cheney228 { width: 228px; padding-bottom: 10px; } #cheney228 h3 { font: bold 13px/17px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 2px 0; } #cheney228 p { font: 11px/14px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0; color: #333; } Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This series examines Cheney’s largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment. Read the 4-Part Series » var technorati = new Technorati() ; technorati.setProperty(‘url’,’http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090402292_Technorati.html’) ; technorati.article = new item(‘New Book Details Cheney Lawyer\’s Efforts to Expand Executive Power’,’http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090402292.html’,’Vice President Cheney\’s top lawyer pushed relentlessly to expand the powers of the executive branch and repeatedly derailed efforts to obtain congressional approval for aggressive anti-terrorism policies for fear that even a Republican majority might say no, according to a new book written by a f…’,’Dan Eggen and Peter Baker’) ; document.write( technorati.getDisplaySidebar() );   Who’s Blogging? Read what bloggers are saying about this article. The Chief’s Canon Uncommon Thought Journal opedipus #technorati_link a {color:#339900;} Full List of Blogs (18 links) » Most Blogged About Articles #technorati_link a {color:#339900;} On washingtonpost.com | On the web   Save & Share Article What’s This? Digg Google del.icio.us Yahoo! Reddit Facebook

“We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop,” Addington said at one point, according to Goldsmith.

Addington, who declined comment yesterday through Cheney’s office, is a central player in Goldsmith’s new book, “The Terror Presidency.” It provides an unusual glimpse of fierce internal dissent over the legal opinions behind some of the Bush administration’s most controversial tactics in detaining and interrogating terrorism suspects.

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Dick Cheney page update

I updated the Cheney page with links to the Angler series in the Washington post.
For those of you who haven’t had the chance to read them: Enjoy!

Dick Cheney’s top aide: “We’re one bomb away” from our goal

In October of 2003, Jack Goldsmith — a right-wing lawyer with radical views of executive power and long-time friend of John Yoo — was named by the Bush administration to head the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, one of the most influential legal positions in the executive branch. During his tenure, he discovered numerous legal positions which the administration had adopted (many created by Yoo) that he found baseless and even unconscionable — from torture to detention powers to illegal surveillance — and he repudiated many of them, thereby repeatedly infuriating the most powerful White House officials, led by Cheney top aide David Addington. As a result, his tenure was extremely brief, and he was gone a mere 9 months after he began.

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Post-Mortem America: Bush’s Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead

Written by Chris Floyd

Sunday, 02 September 2007

digg_url = “http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1272/135/”;   Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed — and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn’t that anymore. It’s gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live. The Republic you wanted — and at one time might have had the power to take back — is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it’s not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its “rescuers” after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave. Read more

Phase III of Bush’s War

by Patrick J. Buchanan
Those who hoped that – with the victory of the antiwar party in 2006, the departure of Rumsfeld and the neocons from the Pentagon, the rise of Condi and the eclipse of Cheney – America was headed out of Iraq got a rude awakening. They are about to get another.

Today, the United States has 30,000 more troops in Iraq than on the day America repudiated the Bush war policy and voted the GOP out of power. And President Bush, self-confidence surging, is now employing against Iran a bellicosity redolent of the days just prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

What gives Bush his new cockiness? The total collapse of the antiwar coalition on Capitol Hill and the breaking of the Congress.

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Reichstag 911 I

If this doesn’t scare you than I don’t know what will.

TWO ‘ACTS’ OF TYRANNY ON THE SAME DAY!By Daneen G. Peterson, Ph.D.
December 7, 2006
Updated June 2, 2007

On October 17, 2006, ‘a date which will live in infamy’ . . . there were two acts of tyranny committed. The first was a public signing of the ‘Military Commissions Act of 2006’ which suspended habeas corpus allowing the president to declare you an ‘enemy combatant’ and end your rights to seek legal or judicial relief from unlawful imprisonment.

The second act of tyranny took place in a private Oval Office ceremony, in which the president signed into law the ‘John Warner National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2007’ which essentially eliminates the protections of the Posse Comitatus Act and re-wrote the Insurrection Act. The NDAA will allow the president to declare a ‘public emergency’ and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to ‘suppress public disorder’!

About The Military Commissions Act of 2006 . . .

“A writ of habeas corpus which is Latin for ‘you have the body’ [as proof] is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody.”(1)

“The writ of habeas corpus serves as an important check on the manner in which state courts pay respect to federal constitutional rights. The writ is ‘the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action’.”(1)

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