Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday February 10 2007 - (813)

Saturday February 10 2007 edition
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Target Iran: U.S. Able To Strike By Spring 2007-02-10 03:08:17 U.S. preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington, D.C. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the U.S. to mount an attack by the spring, but the sources said that if there was an attack, it is more likely to be next year, just before Bush leaves office. Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), are urging Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons program and abandon ambitions for regional expansion. Read The Full Story Senate Inquiry On Intelligence Gaps May Reach To White House 2007-02-10 03:07:33 The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday that he would ask current and former White House aides to testify about a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general that criticizes the Pentagon for compiling “alternative intelligence” that made the case for invading Iraq.  The chairman, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said that among those called to testify could be Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and I. Lewis Libby,a former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Both received a briefing from the defense secretary’s policy office in 2002 on possible links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein'sgovernment. In its report on Thursday, the acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, found that the work done by the Pentagon team, which was assembled by Douglas J. Feith, a former under secretary of defense for policy, was “not fully supported by the available intelligence”. It was not clear whether Hadley and Libby would testify. The White House normally resists having top aides testify before Congress. Read The Full Story Nobel Laureate, Author Elie Wiesel Accosted At Peace Conference 2007-02-10 03:06:37 Nobel laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel was dragged from an elevator and roughed up during a peace conference at a San Francisco, California, hotel last week, police said Friday. The author was not injured. The assailant approached Wiesel in an elevator Feb. 1 at the Argent Hotel and requested an interview, said police Sgt. Neville Gittens. When Wiesel consented to talk in the hotel's lobby, the man insisted it be done in a hotel room and dragged the 78-year-old off the elevator on the sixth floor, said Gittens. The assailant fled after Wiesel began to scream, and Wiesel went to the lobby and called police. Read The Full Story Activists Rescued After Clash With Whalers 2007-02-10 03:05:47 Two anti-whaling protesters were rescued from the freezing waters of the Antarctic after angry clashes at sea between environmentalists and the crew of a Japanese whaling ship. One of the men, part of a group of activists trying to stop Japan's annual whale hunt, described their ordeal as "pretty hairy" and said they had lassoed an iceberg for protection from icy winds and to stop themselves drifting away. John Gravois said he and Karl Neilsen huddled in their damaged inflatable craft for eight hours in freezing fog, snow and sleet after the confrontation on Friday before being hauled to safety aboard the flagship boat Farley Mowat, which belongs to the Sea Shepherd conservation group. "When they found us it was a feeling of the most extreme relief that you can imagine," said Gravois. Read The Full Story Court: BP C.E.O. Must Give Deposition 2007-02-10 03:04:54 Outgoing BP PLC chief executive Lord John Browne was ordered Friday to answer questions about the company's deadly Texas City plant explosion in 2005 that killed 15 people and injured hundreds more. Browne was previously ordered to give a deposition, but it was put on hold by the court when attorneys for Eva Rowe, whose parents were killed by the blast, settled with BP in November. Attorney Brent Coon, who represented Rowe, said his firm still has 150 other lawsuits pending against BP and that Browne's deposition is important to them. The company said it is considering its options, including an appeal. Read The Full Story IAEA Halts Aid On Projects With Iran 2007-02-09 18:27:29 The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency on Friday suspended nearly half of the technical aid it now provides Iran, in line with sanctions imposed on the country for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency already suspended aid to Iran in five instances last month in line with Security Council sanctions calling for an end to assistance for programs that could be misused to make atomic weapons. Diplomats emphasized that the freeze was temporary and subject to review and approval by the 35-nation board of the IAEA next month. On Friday, the agency fully or partially suspended another 18 projects that it deemed could be misused. Those too are subject to review and approval by the board. Iran gets IAEA technical aid for 15 projects and 40 more that involve other countries. The suspensions were across the board but in the case of projects involving other countries affected only Iran. Read The Full Story UPDATE: Preliminary Autopsy On Anna Nicole Smith Inconclusive, More Tests Needed 2007-02-09 18:04:05 It will take three to five weeks to determine what killed Anna Nicole Smith, but no illegal drugs have been found and initial findings have ruled out physical trauma, authorities said Friday. At an afternoon news conference, Dr. Joshua Perper, chief of the Broward County medical examiner's office, said toxicology tests were needed, but there was no immediate indication of an overdose of drugs. He said Smith had suffered for several days from stomach flu and authorities had found prescription drugs in her room. The six-hour autopsy also seemed to rule out most physical injuries such as a stabbing or asphyxiation, he said. A minor bruise from a recent fall was found. "We are aware of the significant public interest in this death," said Perper, who performed the autopsy. He said the office "would expedite its testing without jeopardizing the thoroughness of investigation". Read The Full Story Muslim Protesters, Israeli Police Clash At Mosque 2007-02-09 14:14:47 Protesters and Israeli police clashed Friday outside the Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, as Muslims who had come for Friday prayers threw rocks and bottles to protest an Israeli construction project that they feared would damage the mosque. A police spokesman at the scene said that 15 policemen and nine protesters were lightly injured in the clashes, Reuters reported. Seventeen people were arrested, some of them in the streets outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls. The Israeli government is renovating a ramp beside the Western Wall that tourists use to gain access to the compound around the mosque. Some Muslims believe that the work could undermine the compound. Muslim leaders have called for protests over the work, and Arab states have asked Israel to halt it. Read The Full Story Despite Anna Nicole Smith's Death, Legal Battles Continue 2007-02-09 14:14:20 The legal entanglements for former Playboy Playmate and diet diva Anna Nicole Smith did not end with her death on Thursday. Less than 24 hours after Ms. Smith was found dead in a hotel suite in Hollywood, Florida, a former boyfriend was on his way to a Los Angeles, California, court after his lawyer filed an emergency motion to allow them to obtain DNA from Ms. Smith’s body for use in a paternity dispute. Ms. Smith, whose life was a series of tabloid headlines and court appearances, gave birth to a baby girl on Sept. 7 in the Bahamas. The baby’s birth certificate lists the father as attorney Howard K. Stern, Ms. Smith’s most recent companion, who was with Ms. Smith at the hotel in Florida when she died. But the former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, claims he is the father. Read The Full Story British Checking Whether Bird Flu-Tainted Meat Reached Stores 2007-02-09 14:13:28 Britain's food watchdog said on Friday ited their minds on Thursday, saying they now believe the strain found in Britain was identical to that found in Hungary. The virus may have been brought to Britain from Hungary in turkey meat, or by contaminated vehicles, Britain's here is quite a lot of movement of poultry and poultry products within Europe. Those are legitimate and legal movements.'' Hungarian officials said they too were checking whether there was a link between the two outbreaks, but expressed skepticism that live British birds could have been contaminated by virus present in processed meat. Read The Full Story Rep. Waxman Sees Potential Coverup In Coast Guard Ship Contract 2007-02-09 02:01:53 Managers of the U.S. Coast Guard's $24 billion fleet-overhaul program appeared to cover up a Navy engineering report that highlighted design flaws in a new flagship cutter under scrutiny by government investigators, a senior House Democrat said yesterday. U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-California), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the December 2005 report included "bottom-line" warnings in red ink on a pair of briefing slides that concluded the national security cutter, as it is known, would not last the required 30 years. The warnings were deleted in a copy of the report given by Coast Guard officials to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) auditors and altered in an edited version included in a wider briefing on the $1 billion-a-year fleet-replacement program, known as Deepwater, to the Coast Guard's commanding officer at the time, said  Waxman. "Sugarcoating of the situation may have made life easier for the program management, but it certainly is a disservice to you, to the Coast Guard community and to the taxpayers of this country," Waxman told DHS Inspector General Richard L. Skinner in a hearing. Read The Full Story From The Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq 2007-02-09 02:00:46 Intellpuke: The following article is written by journalist Craig Unger and appears in the March 2007 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. Mr. Unger's article follows: The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics-alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on WMD-to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet? In the weeks leading up to George W. Bush's January 10 speech on the war in Iraq, there was a brief but heady moment when it seemed that the president might finally accept the failure of his Middle East policy and try something new. Rising anti-war sentiment had swept congressional Republicans out of power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been tossed overboard. And the Iraq Study Group (I.S.G.), chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, had put together a bipartisan report that offered a face-saving strategy to exit Iraq. Who better than Baker, the Bush family's longtime friend and consigliere, to talk some sense into the president? By the time the president finished his speech from the White House library, however, all those hopes had vanished. It wasn't just that Bush was doubling down on an extravagantly costly bet by sending 21,500 more American troops to Iraq; there were also indications that he was upping the ante by an order of magnitude. The most conspicuous clue was a four-letter word that Bush uttered six times in the course of his speech: Iran. In a clear reference to the Islamic Republic and its sometime ally Syria, Bush vowed to "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies." At about the same time his speech was taking place, U.S. troops stormed an Iranian liaison office in Erbil, a Kurdish-controlled city in northern Iraq, and arrested and detained five Iranians working there. Read The Full Story Fatah, Hamas Sign Accord To Stop Feuding 2007-02-09 01:59:50 The main rival Palestinian factions agreed late Thursday to form a government of national unity aimed at ending a wave of violence between them and an international boycott. The agreement, signed in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city under Saudi auspices, appeared likely to end, at least for now, weeks of fighting that had ravaged the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Still, it seemed to stop short of meeting the demands of the international community for resuming relations and support for the Palestinian Authority. The accord, signed by Khaled Meshal of Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and leader of Fatah, its main rival, is the first time that the two parties have agreed to share authority. It sets out principles for a coalition government, like the distribution of ministerial portfolios, but leaves many of the details for later. Read The Full Story Records Show Bush's Uncle Benefitted From Illegal Stock Sale 2007-02-09 01:59:07 President Bush's uncle William H.T. Bush was among a group of directors of a defense contractor who reaped $6 million from what federal regulators say was an illegal five-year scheme by two company executives to manipulate the timing of stock option grants, documents show. Bush, known as "Bucky," becomes the second member of the president's family to become enmeshed in the stock options scandal this month. The two cases are unrelated. Bucky Bush is the youngest brother of former President George H.W. Bush. He was an outside, non-executive director of Engineered Support Systems Inc., a defense contractor whose profits were bolstered because of the Iraq war. Read The Full Story	U.S. Officials Worry Sanctions Could Cause Iran To Release Al-Qaeda Suspects 2007-02-10 03:07:52 Last week, the CIA sent an urgent report to President Bush's National Security Council: Iranian authorities had arrested two al-Qaeda operatives traveling through Iran on their way from Pakistan to Iraq. The suspects were caught along a well-worn, if little-noticed, route for militants determined to fight U.S. troops on Iraqi soil, according to a senior intelligence official. The arrests were presented to Bush's senior policy advisers as evidence that Iran appears committed to stopping al-Qaeda foot traffic across its borders, said the intelligence official. That assessment comes at a time when the Bush administration, in an effort to push for further U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic, is preparing to publicly accuse Tehran of cooperating with and harboring al-Qaeda suspects. The strategy has sparked a growing debate within the administration and the intelligence community, according to U.S. intelligence and government officials. One faction is pressing for more economic embargoes against Iran, including asset freezes and travel bans for the country's top leaders. But several senior intelligence and counterterrorism officials worry that a public push regarding the al-Qaeda suspects held in Iran could jeopardize U.S. intelligence-gathering and prompt the Iranians to free some of the most wanted individuals. Read The Full Story U.S. Troops Kill Several Kurds, Wound 9 In Mosul 2007-02-10 03:07:15 U.S. forces killed eight Kurdish soldiers and wounded nine others at an established checkpoint in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday, said Kurdish officials. A U.S. military statement offered a differing account of the incident, saying that U.S. troops killed five Kurdish police officers after the men ignored orders to lay down their weapons and exhibited "hostile intention". "What the American statement said is not true," said Kabir Goran, deputy director of the Mosul office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish political party. "They are trying to cover the massacre that they carried out at that military point," he said in a telephone interview. "It is impossible that we attack the Americans," he said. "Their patrols are passing by that point every day, and we never attack them." Read The Full Story 5-Day Blizzard Buries Western New York 2007-02-10 03:06:18 New York's governor has declared a state disaster emergency in Oswego County, where five straight days of lake-effect squalls have dumped nearly 100 inches of snow. Even more snow was forecast through the weekend. The heavy snow started sweeping in off Lake Ontario late Sunday and has pounded the area relentlessly since. "At certain periods of the day, the wind just keeps it right over us. Dumping and dumping," said Oswego Mayor Randy Bateman. "You know, it was neat when it started because we hadn't gotten any snow in December or January. It's getting old now." Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) on Thursday authorized all state agencies to help assist municipalities and residents in the storm-wracked region. The cities of Oswego and Mexico had already declared their own emergencies, kept schools closed most of the week and restricted all nonessential travel. Read The Full Story European Union Considers Strong Penalties For Environamental Crimes 2007-02-10 03:05:23 The executive arm of the European Union proposed legislation Friday that would make companies and individuals subject to criminal penalties for environmental disasters anywhere within the 27-nation bloc. If enacted, the proposal would create some of the most comprehensive environmental penalties in the world. The measure would allow European courts to shut down companies found responsible for environmental disasters, imprison corporate executives for up to five years and levy fines of nearly $1 million. The legislation faces tough scrutiny from individual governments and the European Parliament before any version could be enacted, and it is expected to be the target of powerful industrial lobby groups in Brussels, Belgium, the headquarters of the European Commission, which proposed the measure. E.U. Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said the proposed law is "crucial to avoid criminals profiting from the existing discrepancies in member states' criminal law systems". He added, "We cannot allow safe havens of environmental crime inside the E.U." Read The Full Story Britain's Chief Science Adviser: Mass Recall Of Turkey Meat From Stores May Be Necessary 2007-02-10 03:04:06 The British government's chief scientist said Friday that packaged turkey meat might have to be removed from supermarket shelves in a mass product recall, as the official inquiry into a bird flu outbreak at a Suffolk farm widened. The frank admission by Sir David King came as the government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) confirmed it is looking at the possibility that bird flu has entered the human food chain in the U.K. The FSA is examining how the disease infected turkeys at the Bernard Matthews plant in Holton, Suffolk. It also emerged last night that two loads of meat had arrived at the plant this week from Hungary, where the strain of H5N1 involved is believed to have originated. Sir David's comments appeared to be at odds with the FSA's insistence that it has no plans at present to recall turkey products, but it became clear Friday that some supermarkets are already on standby to react to such an emergency. Read The Full Story U.S. Air Force Academy Probes Student Cheating Allegations 2007-02-09 18:27:19 The U.S. Air Force Academy is investigating allegations of cheating by 28 freshmen and has restricted all 4,300 cadets to campus over the weekend, asking them to meet in small groups to consider "their self-image and the image of the institution," said Air Force officials. In addition to the cheating, the academy's superintendent, Lt. Gen. John F. Regni, cited other recent disciplinary problems in a stern speech this week to the entire student body, faculty and staff. Forty-three cadets lost their Internet privileges in January because they had downloaded pornography or visited pornographic Web sites, and there have been recurring incidents of alcohol abuse, said academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker. Nineteen percent of the freshman class was failing academically at the end of the fall semester, chalking up the lowest collective grade-point average in 20 years, he added. Read The Full Story New York City To Test Ways To Guard Against Nuclear Terror 2007-02-09 14:15:42 New York City is about to become a laboratory to test ways of strengthening the nation’s defenses against a terror attack by a nuclear device or a radioactive “dirty bomb.” Starting this spring, the Bush administration will assess new detection machines at a Staten Island port terminal that are designed to screen cargo and automatically distinguish between naturally occurring radiation and critical bomb-building ingredients. And later this year, the federal government plans to begin setting up an elaborate network of radiation alarms at some bridges, tunnels, roadways and waterways into New York, creating a 50-mile circle around the city. The effort, which could be expanded to other cities if proven successful, is a major shift of focus for the Department of Homeland Security.As it finishes installing the first generation of radiation scanners at the nation’s ports and land border crossings, the department is trying to find ways to stop a plot that would use a weapon built within the United States. Read The Full Story Editorial: Making Democracy Credible 2007-02-09 14:14:31 Intellpuke: The following editorial was written for the New York Times edition for Friday, Feb. 9, 2007. The editorial, which deals with making sure the votes Americans cast in elections are accurately counted, follows: Time is growing short to head off more embarrassing voting machine scandals. The presidential election looms, yet nearly half of the states offer no reassuring paper trail so voters who use electronic voting machines can check that their ballot choices are accurately recorded. With a proper sense of urgency, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who leads the Senate committee in charge of elections, is asking all of the right questions about voting technology. This week, she ordered an investigation of the case of as many as 18,000 electronic votes that turned up missing in a tight Congressional race in Florida last November. Senator Feinstein called on the Government Accountability Office and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to conduct “top to bottom” federal investigations of the machines used in Sarasota County, where the 18,000 votes may have disappeared. Florida is now moving to toss out electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper trail. But this is no comfort to Christine Jennings, the Democrat in the 13th Congressional District race, which includes Sarasota County. She lost by 369 votes and is now in court trying to find out what went wrong in the election. Read The Full Story U.S. To Help Cleanse Base In Vietnam Contaminated By Agent Orange 2007-02-09 14:13:53 The U.S. government will give Vietnam $400,000 toward cleaning up a former U.S. military base contaminated by Agent Orange, its biggest step yet toward resolving one of the most contentious legacies of the Vietnam War, the U.S. ambassador said Friday. The money will be used to help pay for a $1 million study on how to remove dioxin from the soil at the former U.S. base in Danang, one of three Agent Orange hotspots recognized by the U.S. government. Dioxin is a highly toxic ingredient of Agent Orange, an herbicide U.S. forces used to strip away foliage from jungles during the Vietnam War. "I want to make clear that the United States government understands the concerns of the government of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people about the impact of dioxin on the environment and human health," said U.S. Ambassador Michael Marine. Read The Full Story Official's Key Report On Iraq Faulted By Pentagon For Use Of 'Dubious' Intelligence 2007-02-09 02:02:07 Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon's inspector general. Feith's office "was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda," according to portions of the report, released Thursday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Michigan). The inspector general described Feith's activities as "an alternative intelligence assessment process". An unclassified summary of the full document is scheduled for release Friday in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin chairs. In that summary, a copy of which was obtained from another source by the Washington Post, the inspector general concluded that Feith's assessment in 2002 that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a "mature symbiotic relationship" was not fully supported by available intelligence but was nonetheless used by policymakers. At the time of Feith's reporting, the CIA had concluded only that there was an "evolving" association, "based on sources of varying reliability". Read The Full Story Iraq, U.S. Advised To Avoid Offensive Against Militias 2007-02-09 02:01:38 Iraqi and U.S. forces should not launch a military offensive against the militias - most of them Shiite - that are a major source of turmoil in Iraq, but should instead rely on nonviolent steps to bring militiamen into the political fold, according to an Iraqi report that draws largely on the views of prominent Shiite politicians. "In the short-term at least, there can be no military offensive against the militias. Military confrontation, in the current climate, will only strengthen their appeal and swell their ranks," the Baghdad Institute for Public Policy Research concludes. The institute said the 18-page report, "Dismantling Iraq's Militias," was based on a round-table discussion by six Shiite politicians, two Kurds and a Sunni Arab. Government officials said Thursday it would be considered in setting policy, but some here saw it as reflecting the private thinking of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as more U.S. troops arrive to try to end the violence. Read The Full Story Prosecutor Rests Case In Libby Trial 2007-02-09 02:00:15 Prosecutors rested their case Thursday in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, completing a methodical portrait of a top-tier presidential aide who they say diligently scrambled to defend the White House against an early critic of the Iraq war and then lied to investigators about what he had done. Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald concluded the prosecution's portion of the trial after 11 days in which he laid out for jurors a chronological narrative - of a volatile period inside in the White House in 2003 - that was sometimes dry but provided tantalizing glimpses into the worlds of President Bush's closest advisers and an elite tier of Washington journalists. The prosecution first demonstrated the steps Libby allegedly took to find out the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA officer married to a former ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson accused the White House of twisting intelligence he had gathered as it justified the invasion of Iraq. Read The Full Story Israeli Official Faults Egypt On Arms Flow Into Gaza 2007-02-09 01:59:26 A senior Israeli official yesterday accused Egypt of failing to halt arms smuggling into Gaza, thus bolstering the militant group Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian leadership supported by the United States. The comments, by Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, reflect the increasing frustration of Israeli officials that Hamas has been able to increase its grip on the Gaza Strip since Israel withdrew its troops in 2005. Egypt at the time agreed to monitor the six-mile border between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, but hundreds of rockets have fallen on Israeli population centers from Gaza. "There is no doubt that Egypt is not doing enough," Dichter told a group of reporters, asserting that "tens of tons" of explosives are being smuggled. "I am sure that if Egypt decides to block this flow of smuggling, they can do it, 100 percent." Read The Full Story Five Charged Under Britain's Terrorism Laws 2007-02-09 01:58:43 Five men are due to appear in court on Friday charged under anti-terrorism laws after a series of police raids in the central English city of Birmingham last week, said British police. Detectives arrested nine men on January 31 in what a defense source said was an investigation into a suspected plot to kidnap and possibly kill a British Muslim soldier. Three men have been released, while another man is still being held for questioning. "Five men from Birmingham have been charged overnight with offences under the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006," police said in a joint statement with the Crown Prosecution Service. No immediate details of the charges were available. Read The Full Story
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