Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday February 20 2007 - (813)

Tuesday February 20 2007 edition
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Iran '6 Months' From Uranium Enrichment, 5 - 10 Years From A Bomb 2007-02-20 02:35:33 Iran could be as little as six months away from being able to enrich uranium on an industrial scale, having mastered the technology since last August, the head of the United Nation's nuclear watchdog warned in an interview published Tuesday. However, Mohamed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, stressed that Iran was still years away from developing a nuclear weapon. "The intelligence, the British intelligence, the American intelligence, is saying that Iran is still years, five to 10 years, away from developing a weapon," he told the Financial Times in an interview on the eve of Wednesday's deadline for Tehran to suspend its enrichment work. ElBaradei said he expected Iran to ignore the deadline. He said Iran could install a network of 3,000 centrifuges - enough to begin producing fissile material for a bomb - within months. "It could be six months, it could be a year," said ElBaradei. However, he added, "there's a big difference between acquiring the knowledge for enrichment and developing a bomb". Since August last year Iran has been using centrifuges at a pilot plant in the town of Natanz to enrich uranium. It has refused to halt this process, insisting its purposes are purely peaceful. Read The Full Story Commentary: 9/11 Fantasists Pose A Mortal Danger To Popular Oppositional Campaigns 2007-02-20 02:34:54 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Prof. George Monbiot, who writes that 9/11 "...conspiracy idiots are a boon for Bush and Blair..." Prof. Monbiot's column, which appears on the Guardian Unlimited's website edition for Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007, follows: "You did this hit piece because your corporate masters instructed you to. You are a controlled asset of the new world order ... bought and paid for." "Everyone has some skeleton in the cupboard. How else would MI5 and special branch recruit agents?" "Shill, traitor, sleeper", "leftwing gatekeeper", "accessory after the fact", "political whore of the biggest conspiracy of them all". These are a few of the measured responses to my article, a fortnight ago, about the film "Loose Change", which maintains that the United States government destroyed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Having spent years building up my leftwing credibility on behalf of my paymasters in MI5, I've blown it. I overplayed my hand, and have been exposed, like Bush and Cheney, by a bunch of kids with laptops. My handlers are furious. I believe that George Bush is surrounded by some of the most scheming, devious, ruthless men to have found their way into government since the days of the Borgias. I believe that they were criminally negligent in failing to respond to intelligence about a potential attack by al-Qaeda, and that they have sought to disguise their incompetence by classifying crucial documents. I believe, too, that the Bush government seized the opportunity provided by the attacks to pursue a longstanding plan to invade Iraq and reshape the Middle East, knowing full well that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush deliberately misled the American people about the links between 9/11 and Iraq and about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. He is responsible for the murder of many tens of thousands of Iraqis. Read The Full Story Terrorist Networks Lure Young Moroccans To Iraq 2007-02-20 02:34:08 In the Arab world, this hilly North African city is about as far as you can get from Iraq. But for many young men here in Tetouan, Morocco, the call to join what they view as a holy war resonates loudly across the 3,000-mile divide. About two dozen men from Tetouan and nearby towns in the Rif Mountains have traveled to Iraq in the past 18 months to volunteer as fighters or suicide bombers, according to local residents and officials. Moroccan authorities said the men were recruited by international terrorist networks affiliated with al-Qaeda that have deepened their roots in North Africa since the invasion of Iraq four years ago. To stanch the flow, U.S. intelligence and military officials have tried to trace the fighters' steps. On the basis of DNA evidence recovered from the scenes of suicide attacks, as well as other clues, officials have confirmed that at least two bombers came from Tetouan, a city of more than 320,000 across the Strait of Gibraltar from southern Spain. One of them, Abdelmonaim el-Amrani, a 22-year-old laborer, abandoned his wife and infant child in Tetouan to go to Iraq. On March 6, 2006, just before sunset, he drove a red Volkswagen Passat stuffed with explosives into a funeral tent in a village near Baqubah, Iraq, according to witnesses. Six people were reported killed and 27 injured. It was months before Amrani's family in Tetouan learned of his fate from Moroccan police. Read The Full Story For Gods And Country 2007-02-19 21:18:37 The night wind pushes Don Larsen's green robe against his lanky frame. A circle of torches lights his face. "The old gods are standing near!" calls a retired Army intelligence officer. "To watch the turning of the year!" replies the wife of a soldier wounded in Iraq. "What night is this?" calls a former fighter pilot. "It is the night of Imbolc," responds Larsen, a former Army chaplain. Of the 16 self-described witches who have gathered on this Texas plain to celebrate a late-winter pagan festival with dancing, chanting, chili and beer, all but two are current or former military personnel. Each has a story. None can compete with Larsen's. A year ago, he was a Pentecostal Christian minister at Camp Anaconda, the largest U.S. support base in Iraq. He sent home reports on the number of "decisions" - soldiers committing their lives to Christ - that he inspired in the base's Freedom Chapel. Read The Full Story XM Radio, Sirius To Merge 2007-02-19 21:17:57 Washington, D.C.-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.,  which together control the emerging satellite subscription radio market, Monday announced that they plan to merge in a $13 billion deal. Mel Karmazin, the chief executive of Sirius, would become chief executive of the new company, and Gary Parsons, the chairman of XM, would become chairman, said the companies. They also said they would retain operations both in New York, where Sirius rents space, and in Washington, D.C., where XM owns a building. Such a merger would face significant regulatory scrutiny and questions about whether a monopoly was being created and would take months to complete. The companies hope to complete the merger by the end of the year. "The commitment of the company is to have a significant, presence both in Washington, D.C., and in New York City," said Hugh Panero, currently chief executive of XM Satellite Radio. Read The Full Story Mexico Raises Troop Salaries In Drug Crackdown 2007-02-19 21:15:10 Mexico gave the military salary increases of almost 50 percent on Monday to reward it for leading the fight against violent drug gangs. President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops to combat drug cartels in several states since he took office last December. "Our armed forced are first in the line of battle, and each soldier, without respite, has faced up to this battle against organized crime," Calderon told troops in a ceremony to mark army day. The monthly pay of rank-and-file troops will increase to about $472 from $318, backdated to the start of the year, he said. Other ranks will get similar raises proportionate to their salaries. Read The Full Story Mt. Hood Climbers Rescued 2007-02-19 16:09:37 Three climbers stranded on Mount Hood after a fall were rescued Monday after spending the night amid ferocious winds and blowing snow. "Their condition is very good at this time," Russell Gubele, coordinating communications for the rescue operation, told CNN. "They were located in the area where their mountain locator units suggested that they were, and we finally got some of our rescuers down there to them," he said. "They are fine. They are being warmed up right now and fed by our rescuers." The three well-equipped climbers, two women and a man, fell off a ledge Sunday. Read The Full Story Police Arrest Man In British Letter Bombings Case 2007-02-19 16:09:12 A school janitor was arrested before dawn Monday in connection with a series of letter bombings that has injured at least nine people, and the police said their investigation had reached a “very significant stage”. Officers made the arrest at around 3 a.m. at a modest village house in Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, 60 miles northeast of London. They cordoned off the building and began a search that is likely to take several days. Anton Setchell, a senior police official, said it was too early to say whether there were more letter bombs already in the postal system awaiting delivery. The seven letter bombs delivered so far were sent in book-sized padded envelopes and contained explosives similar to powerful firecrackers. Two of them also contained shards of glass, and one had been mailed from Cambridgeshire. Read The Full Story Commentary: Once George Bush Has Got Hold Of A Bad Idea He Just Can't Let Go 2007-02-19 03:00:50 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Guardian correspondent Gary Younge and appears on the Guardian Unlimited's website edition for Monday, February 19, 2007. Mr. Younge's column follows: On December 20 1954, a woman known as Marion Keech gathered her followers in her garden in Lake City, Illinois, and waited for midnight, when flying saucers were supposed to land and save them from huge floods about to engulf the planet. Keech had received news of the impending deluge from Sananda, a being from the planet Clarion, whose messages she passed on to a small group of believers. Unbeknown to her, the group had been infiltrated by a University of Minnesota researcher, the social psychologist Leon Festinger. As dawn rose on December 21 with no flying saucer in sight, Keech had another revelation. Sananda told her that the group's advanced state of enlightenment had saved the entire planet. They rejoiced and called a press conference. "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change," wrote Festinger in his book on the cult, When Prophecy Fails. "Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." George Bush is a man of conviction and clearly a hard man to change. When reality confronts his plans he does not alter them but instead alters his understanding of reality. Like Keech and her crew, he stands with a tight band of followers, both deluded and determined, understanding each setback not as a sign to change course but as further proof that they must redouble their efforts to the original goal. Read The Full Story Commentary: U.S. Freedom Of The Press Needs Shield Law 2007-02-19 03:00:16 Intellpuke: You can read this commentary by Seattle Post Intelligencer staff writer Amy Goodman. Ms. Goodman's column first appeared in the Intelligencer edition for Thursday, February 15, 2007. Ms. Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now", a daily international TV/Radio news hour. Her column follows: Josh Wolf, videographer and blogger, is now the journalist imprisoned longest in U.S. history for refusing to comply with a subpoena. He has been locked up in federal prison for close to six months. In July 2005, Wolf was covering a San Francisco protest against the G-8 Summit in Scotland (G-8 stands for the Group of Eight industrialized nations: Britain, France, Russia, Germany, the U.S., Japan, Italy and Canada). He posted video to the Web and sold some video to a local broadcast-news outlet. The authorities wanted him to turn over the original tapes and to testify. He refused. In a recent court filing, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan says it's only in Wolf's "imagination that he is a journalist." The Society of Professional Journalists must be equally imaginative. Their Northern California chapter named Josh Wolf Journalist of the Year for 2006, and in March will give him the James Madison Freedom of Information Award. "Josh's commitment to a free and unfettered press deserves profound respect," SPJ National President Christine Tatum said. Read The Full Story Iraqi Sunni Lands Show Oil And Gas Promise 2007-02-19 02:58:33 In a remote patch of the Anbar desert just 20 miles from the Syrian border, a single blue pillar of flanges and valves sits atop an enormous deposit of oil and natural gas that would be routine in this petroleum-rich country except for one fact: this is Sunni territory. Huge petroleum deposits have long been known in Iraq’s Kurdish north and Shiite south. But now, Iraq has substantially increased its estimates of the amount of oil and natural gas in deposits on Sunni lands after quietly paying foreign oil companies tens of millions of dollars over the past two years to re-examine old seismic data across the country and retrain Iraqi petroleum engineers. The development is likely to have significant political effects: the lack of natural resources in the central and western regions where Sunnis hold sway has fed their disenchantment with the nation they once ruled. And it has driven their insistence on a strong central government, one that would collect oil revenues and spread them equitably among the country’s factions, rather than any division of the country along sectarian regional boundaries. Read The Full Story	Walter Reed's Former Aid Director Investigated 2007-02-20 02:35:21 For the past three years, Michael J. Wagner directed the Army's largest effort to help the most vulnerable soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His office in Room 3E01 of the world-renowned hospital was supposed to match big-hearted donors with thousands of wounded soldiers who could not afford to feed their children, pay mortgages, buy plane tickets or put up visiting families in nearby hotels. While he was being paid to provide this vital service to patients, outpatients and their relations, Wagner was also seeking funders and soliciting donations for his own new charity, based in Texas, according to documents and interviews with current and former staff members. Some families also said Wagner treated them callously and made it hard for them to receive assistance. Last week, Walter Reed launched a criminal investigation of Wagner after the Washington Post sought a response to his activities while he ran the Army's Medical Family Assistance Center, a position he left several weeks ago. Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, the commander at Walter Reed, said the probe by the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) "reflects the seriousness with which we take these allegations." Weightman's legal adviser, Col. Samuel Smith, said that "it would clearly be a conflict of interest" prohibited by federal law, Army regulations and Defense Department ethics rules if Wagner used his position to solicit funds for his own organization. Read The Full Story Rescuer: Velvet, The Dog, May Have Saved Climbers 2007-02-20 02:34:32 Three climbers who tumbled off a ledge on Mount Hood were taken away in an ambulance after they hiked down much of the state's highest peak with their rescuers - and a dog who may have saved their lives. "We're soaking wet and freezing," said one of two rescued women as she walked from a tracked snow vehicle to an ambulance. One of the women, whose name was not released, was taken to a Portland hospital and being treated for a head injury, said Jim Strovink, spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Department. "She's going to be fine," he said, noting that she had walked most of the way down the mountain. Read The Full Story In Baqubah, 'Focus Is Aimed, Controlled Shooting' 2007-02-19 21:18:57 Helicopters hovered over the American military base here Sunday night, and the crackling of automatic gunfire echoed as U.S. forces attacked insurgents they believed were trying to plant an improvised explosive device, or IED, just outside the camp. Detecting IEDs is a never-ending task for American and Iraqi military forces here, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, a place that has become one of the most lethal in Iraq for U.S. troops. In the past two weeks, nine members of the U.S. Army battalion responsible for this city of 300,000 have been killed, most as a result of IED attacks. U.S. military officials reported Sunday night that in operations in the past 72 hours, troops had found 32 IEDs in some of the city's most troubled areas. They also recovered 16 rocket-propelled grenades, along with antitank mines, AK-47 assault rifles, IED components and other weaponry used by insurgents. Violence is on the rise in Baqubah, U.S. military officials acknowledge, even as they maintain that it is waning in other parts of oil-rich Diyala province. In recent weeks, they say, insurgents have stepped up attacks against civilians and staged spectacular strikes against the Iraqi police and army. Read The Full Story Democrats Consider New Ways To Limit Iraq War 2007-02-19 21:18:16 Thwarted in their attempt to formally rebuke President Bush, Senate Democrats yesterday shifted their focus to narrowing the U.S. military mission in Iraq. Meanwhile, an influential Republican urged the president to reach out to Democratic leaders in Congress and seek bipartisan legislation on Iraq, citing as a possible road map President Ronald Reagan's compromise with Democrats on Social Security in 1983. "My guess is that the president might make headway, and he would be well served by having a bipartisan policy which does pass ... the House and the Senate, as really, a stamp of the American people at a time in which they see the urgency of Iraq," Richard G. Lugar (Indiana), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on CBS's "Face the Nation." A day after seven GOP senators joined Democrats in unsuccessfully attempting to condemn Bush's current Iraq policy, the White House offered no sign of compromise. Read The Full Story Prince Harry's Deployment Poses Royal Dilemma 2007-02-19 21:17:44 He's a freckle-faced royal rascal who has led a life of privilege. But Britain's Prince Harry is also an army officer -  and he could soon be heading to Iraqto face the reality of combat. No matter that royal officials have said no decision about a deployment has been made, or that the Ministry of Defense has dismissed such reports as "entirely speculative." Newspapers are filling their pages about the security headache that a war zone assignment for Harry - who is third in line to the throne - could bring for the British army. "Harry's always wanted to be treated as an ordinary soldier," the Daily Mail quoted an unidentified army source as saying. "He's not an ordinary soldier, of course." When Harry, 22, left Sandhurst Military Academy last year, he became a second lieutenant and joined the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry. At the time, the defense ministry said he could possibly be deployed to Iraq, but that there might be situations when the presence of a member of the royal family could increase the risk for his comrades. Read The Full Story Militants Attack U.S. Base In Iraq, 2 U.S. Troops Killed, 17 Injured 2007-02-19 16:09:51 In a coordinated assault on an American combat outpost north of Baghdad, suicide bombers drove three cars filled with explosives into the base today, killing two American soldiers and wounding at least 17 more, witnesses and the American military said. The brazen and highly unusual attack, which was followed by fierce gun battles and a daring evacuation of the wounded Americans by helicopters, came on a day of violence across the country that left more than 40 people dead in shootings, suicide bombings, mortar attacks and roadside explosions. The violence was directed at civilians, Americans and the Iraqi security forces. As American and Iraqi troops flood the streets of Baghdad in an attempt to stem the bloodshed, and thousands more Marines head out to the Sunni Arab heartland west of the city in Anbar Province, American and Iraqi military officials are concerned that militants will simply try to move to areas where the troop presence remains thin. Read The Full Story Avalanches Kill 6 In 3 Western States 2007-02-19 16:09:25 Weekend avalanches killed six people in Montana, Utah and Idaho, with one bruised survivor traveling miles by snowmobile and on foot to reach help, authorities said. In Montana's Big Belt Mountains, the bodies of two snowmobilers caught in an avalanche were found by searchers early Sunday and removed by helicopter later in the day. That avalanche happened Saturday at the base of Mount Baldy, about 20 miles from Townsend. A survivor traveled the 15 or 20 miles back to the trailhead, initially by snowmobile and then on foot after the machine became stuck, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Cheryl Leidle said. Upon reaching a pickup truck at the trailhead, he used a cell phone to call for help. Read The Full Story Global Warming: Scientists Warn It May Be Too Late To Save The Ice Caps 2007-02-19 03:01:06 A critical meltdown of ice sheets and severe sea level rise could be inevitable because of global warming, the world's scientists are preparing to warn their governments. New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a United Nations expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss "may no longer be avoided" because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Such melting would raise sea levels by four to six meters (12 to 18 feet), the scientists say. It would cause "major changes in coastline and inundation of low-lying areas" and require "costly and challenging" efforts to move millions of people and infrastructure from vulnerable areas. The previous official line, issued in 2001, was that the chance of such an event was "not well known, but probably very low". The melting process could take centuries, but increased warming caused by a failure to cut emissions would accelerate the ice sheets' demise, and give nations less time to adapt to the consequences. Areas such as the Maldives would be swamped and low-lying countries such as the Netherlands and Bangladesh, as well as coastal cities including London, New York and Tokyo, would face critical flooding. The warning appears in a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses the likely impacts of global warming and will be published in April. A final draft of the report's summary-for-policymakers chapter, obtained by the Guardian, says: "Very large sea level rises that would result from widespread deglaciation of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets imply major changes in coastlines and inundation of low-lying areas, with greatest effects in river deltas. Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen To Regain Power 2007-02-19 03:00:34 Senior leaders of al-Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials. American officials said there is mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described bin Laden and Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of al-Qaeda. The United States has also identified several new al-Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan. Read The Full Story 65 Die In Fire On India-Pakistan Train 2007-02-19 02:59:48 An explosion on a train headed for Pakistan set off a fire that swept through two cars and killed at least 65 people in an attack that a government minister said was aimed at undermining the peace process between India and Pakistan. Authorities said two suitcases packed with unexploded crude bombs and bottles of gasoline were found in cars not hit in the attack, leading them to suspect the fire was set off by an identical explosive device. "It appears to be a case of sabotage," said the general manager of the Northern Railway, V.N. Mathur. India's junior home Minster, Sriprakash Jaiswal, said the homemade bombs were not powerful, and were simply intended to start a fire on the train, one day before Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri was to arrive in New Delhi for talks on the ongoing peace process. Read The Full Story
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