Tiassa
07-21-03, 10:39 PM
(1) The 9/11 Report: Slamming the FBI (MSNBC) (http://www.msnbc.com/news/941425.asp?0si=-)
(2) Report cited threat in Hussein defeat (MSNBC) (http://www.msnbc.com/news/941757.asp?0si=-)
(2a) Oct. Report Said Defeated Hussein Would Be Threat (Washington Post) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20698-2003Jul20.html)
(3) UN labor agency says chemical weapons chief was wrongly dismissed (USA Today) (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-07-21-OPCW-wrongly-dismissed_x.htm)
(4) Poll suggests public attitudes about Bush and terror war boost overall standing (SF Chronicle) (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/07/21/national2127EDT0707.DTL)
This is one of those days when the Bush administration gets hit by rough news all around. While not going so far as Arianna Huffington's accusation that the Drug War allowed the FBI to botch the run-up to 9/11, the 900-page, overdue report even makes an alarming suggestion:THE LONG-DELAYED 900-page report also contains potentially explosive new evidence suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi-government agent, sources tell NEWSWEEK . . . .
. . . . The report is sure to reignite questions about whether some Saudi officials were secretly monitoring the hijackers—or even facilitating their conduct. Questions about the Saudi role arose repeatedly during last year’s joint House-Senate intelligence-committees inquiry. But the Bush administration has refused to declassify many key passages of the committees’ findings. A 28-page section of the report dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments will be deleted. “They are protecting a foreign government,” charged Sen. Bob Graham, who oversaw the inquiry. (1) Apparently this report is going to bring the feeding frenzy. We'll see how sick it gets as this story develops.
Meanwhile, on the American Iraqi front, the Bush Administration is in for a rough ride as another of Bush's public statements framing the debate prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq comes under fire._“IRAQ COULD decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,” President Bush said in Cincinnati on Oct. 7. “Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.”
_But declassified portions of a still-secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released Friday by the White House show that at the time of the president’s speech the U.S. intelligence community judged that possibility to be unlikely. In fact, the NIE, which began circulating Oct. 2, shows the intelligence services were much more worried that Hussein might give weapons to al Qaeda terrorists if he were facing death or capture and his government was collapsing after a military attack by the United States. (2)[/url]As the Washington post notes:[quote][font=times]The declassified sections of the NIE were offered by the White House to rebut allegations that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The result, however, could be to raise more questions about whether the administration misrepresented the judgments of the intelligence services on another basis for going to war: the threat posed by Hussein as a source of weapons for terrorists . . . .
. . . . In fact, Bush, in his May 1 speech from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, appeared to take just the opposite position. "We have removed an ally of al Qaeda," Bush said. "No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime." (2a)And in a subtle blow to the administration's reputation that will most likely see its best shelf life among conspiracy theorists, the ILO, an arbitrating body charged with handling labor disputes at the United Nations, has ruled that the former head of the world's chemical weapons regulatory organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), was improperly dismissed in April, 2002.Jose Mauricio Bustani was voted out of office as director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in April 2002, after Washington accused him of mismanagement and rallied other countries in a vote to have him dismissed.
At the time, Bustani's supporters said Washington wanted him removed not because he performed poorly, but because he supported making Iraq a member of the OPCW, which might have interfered with U.S. plans for war in Iraq.
The International Labor Organization, a U.N. body charged with arbitrating labor disputes at the United Nations and other international institutions, said that Bustani was improperly dismissed and awarded him $56,700 in damages to be paid by the organization.
The ruling was issued Wednesday but not publicly released.
In a copy of the July 16 decision obtained by The Associated Press, the court said Bustani was not given a fair opportunity to respond to Washington's charges, which it qualified as "extremely vague." It said the lack of due process in his dismissal was "an unacceptable violation of the principle on which international organizations' activities are founded, by rendering officials vulnerable to pressures and to political change."
It said that while the United States had followed procedures, Bustani should have had a chance to defend himself in a court free of political pressures. I suppose the key point for the administration insofar as bad news is concerned lies in how admission of Iraq to OPCW would interfere in American war plans in Iraq. Perhaps an added layer of due process? You know, that concept that apparently either the US (how?) or UN (perhaps a typo?) violated?
But this is not the kind of news Americans want to hear, or is it? Apparently, the administration's handling of both Iraq and the War on Terror are what's keeping Bush's public support afloat. (4)
:m:,
Tiassa :cool:
(2) Report cited threat in Hussein defeat (MSNBC) (http://www.msnbc.com/news/941757.asp?0si=-)
(2a) Oct. Report Said Defeated Hussein Would Be Threat (Washington Post) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20698-2003Jul20.html)
(3) UN labor agency says chemical weapons chief was wrongly dismissed (USA Today) (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-07-21-OPCW-wrongly-dismissed_x.htm)
(4) Poll suggests public attitudes about Bush and terror war boost overall standing (SF Chronicle) (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/07/21/national2127EDT0707.DTL)
This is one of those days when the Bush administration gets hit by rough news all around. While not going so far as Arianna Huffington's accusation that the Drug War allowed the FBI to botch the run-up to 9/11, the 900-page, overdue report even makes an alarming suggestion:THE LONG-DELAYED 900-page report also contains potentially explosive new evidence suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi-government agent, sources tell NEWSWEEK . . . .
. . . . The report is sure to reignite questions about whether some Saudi officials were secretly monitoring the hijackers—or even facilitating their conduct. Questions about the Saudi role arose repeatedly during last year’s joint House-Senate intelligence-committees inquiry. But the Bush administration has refused to declassify many key passages of the committees’ findings. A 28-page section of the report dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments will be deleted. “They are protecting a foreign government,” charged Sen. Bob Graham, who oversaw the inquiry. (1) Apparently this report is going to bring the feeding frenzy. We'll see how sick it gets as this story develops.
Meanwhile, on the American Iraqi front, the Bush Administration is in for a rough ride as another of Bush's public statements framing the debate prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq comes under fire._“IRAQ COULD decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,” President Bush said in Cincinnati on Oct. 7. “Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.”
_But declassified portions of a still-secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released Friday by the White House show that at the time of the president’s speech the U.S. intelligence community judged that possibility to be unlikely. In fact, the NIE, which began circulating Oct. 2, shows the intelligence services were much more worried that Hussein might give weapons to al Qaeda terrorists if he were facing death or capture and his government was collapsing after a military attack by the United States. (2)[/url]As the Washington post notes:[quote][font=times]The declassified sections of the NIE were offered by the White House to rebut allegations that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The result, however, could be to raise more questions about whether the administration misrepresented the judgments of the intelligence services on another basis for going to war: the threat posed by Hussein as a source of weapons for terrorists . . . .
. . . . In fact, Bush, in his May 1 speech from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, appeared to take just the opposite position. "We have removed an ally of al Qaeda," Bush said. "No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime." (2a)And in a subtle blow to the administration's reputation that will most likely see its best shelf life among conspiracy theorists, the ILO, an arbitrating body charged with handling labor disputes at the United Nations, has ruled that the former head of the world's chemical weapons regulatory organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), was improperly dismissed in April, 2002.Jose Mauricio Bustani was voted out of office as director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in April 2002, after Washington accused him of mismanagement and rallied other countries in a vote to have him dismissed.
At the time, Bustani's supporters said Washington wanted him removed not because he performed poorly, but because he supported making Iraq a member of the OPCW, which might have interfered with U.S. plans for war in Iraq.
The International Labor Organization, a U.N. body charged with arbitrating labor disputes at the United Nations and other international institutions, said that Bustani was improperly dismissed and awarded him $56,700 in damages to be paid by the organization.
The ruling was issued Wednesday but not publicly released.
In a copy of the July 16 decision obtained by The Associated Press, the court said Bustani was not given a fair opportunity to respond to Washington's charges, which it qualified as "extremely vague." It said the lack of due process in his dismissal was "an unacceptable violation of the principle on which international organizations' activities are founded, by rendering officials vulnerable to pressures and to political change."
It said that while the United States had followed procedures, Bustani should have had a chance to defend himself in a court free of political pressures. I suppose the key point for the administration insofar as bad news is concerned lies in how admission of Iraq to OPCW would interfere in American war plans in Iraq. Perhaps an added layer of due process? You know, that concept that apparently either the US (how?) or UN (perhaps a typo?) violated?
But this is not the kind of news Americans want to hear, or is it? Apparently, the administration's handling of both Iraq and the War on Terror are what's keeping Bush's public support afloat. (4)
:m:,
Tiassa :cool: