- Bombshell: Chalabi & Top INC Official Are Spies for Iran; Op Inadvertently Paid for by Pentagon
The US-backed Iraqi National Congress was actually a front for Iranian intelligence, which used the group to help bamboozle the US into invading Iraq and then to receive stolen US military secrets, some of it classified above top secret. Patrick...
Posted Sat 05/22/2004
- Senior Pentagon & Dept. of Justice Officials Approved Torture, er, "Extreme Interrogation" Techniques at Gitmo
From the Washington Post: In April 2003, the Defense Department approved interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit reversing the normal sleep patterns of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and "sensory assault," including loud...
Posted Sun 05/09/2004
- Torture at Abu Ghraib: The Complete Taguba Report (part 1)
The full text of the secret Teguba Report, detailing the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison by members of the US military. Includes the section on "ghost detainees" (prisoners secretly held with no record of their detention) that is missing from many public versions. Also includes photos.
Posted Sun 05/09/2004
- Torture at Abu Ghraib: The Complete Taguba Report (part 2)
(Continuation from part 1 of this post.) The full text of the secret Teguba Report, detailing the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison by members of the US military. Includes the section on "ghost detainees" (prisoners secretly held with no record of their detention) that is missing from many public versions. Also includes photos.
Posted Sun 05/09/2004
- Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) Illegally Used State Dept. Money to Disseminate Propaganda In US
From Newsweek (4/5/2004): Ahmad Chalabi has never paid much attention to rules. As an international financier, he was convicted in absentia in 1992 of embezzling millions from his own bank in Jordan. In the mid-'90s, the CIA tried to make...
Posted Wed 04/14/2004
- Iraqi National Congress (INC) List of News Items Using Their Propaganda
List distributed by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) summarizing articles in major English-language news outlets worldwide (October 2001-May 2002) using propaganda information disseminated by their Information Collection Program (ICP). The goal of the ICP was to plant information (much of...
Posted Wed 04/14/2004
- Claim vs. Fact: Rice's 9/11 Testimony Dissected
Claim vs. fact – a factual counterpoint to the testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (aka the 9/11 Commission) on April 8, 2004. Written by David J. Sirota and Christy Harvey and...
Posted Sat 04/10/2004
- Full Transcript: Condoleezza Rice's Sworn Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission, 4/8/04
The complete transcript of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, on April 8, 2004. Includes her prepared opening statement as well as the question-and-answer session that followed.
Posted Sat 04/10/2004
- Justice Scalia Illegally Uses Federal Marshalls to Force Reporters to Erase Audio Tapes of His Public Speech
Scalia orders reporters to erase Constitution speech AP via USA Today (4/8/2004) Two reporters were ordered Wednesday to erase their tape recordings of a speech by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at a Mississippi high school. Scalia has long...
Posted Sat 04/10/2004
- Declassified: Presidential Daily Briefing, Aug. 6, 2001 (text)
The full text (as declassified) of the Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." Transcribed from a photographic copy. The text below is formatted similarly to the original. All italics and name...
Posted Sat 04/10/2004
- Declassified: Presidential Daily Briefing, Aug. 6, 2001 (images)
Photo reproductions of the declassified version of the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001. Also, click here to download as a PDF (273kb). For a text transcript, go here....
Posted Sat 04/10/2004
- GOP Voter Survey Asks Who We Should Invade Next
A voter survey tied to a Republican effort to raise money for House candidates mislabels Thailand and the Philippines as countries that "harbor and aid terrorists," say officials from both governments. A question on the National Republican Congressional Committee's "Ask...
Posted Wed 03/31/2004
- Uncensored 'Hackergate' Report Accidentally Released; Perps' Names Revealed
An uncensored version of the Senate Sergeant At Arms' report on his investigation into Republican hacking of sensitive Democrat computer servers was accidentally released to journalists on March 4. The 67-page report includes the names of the partisan cyber-thieves, other...
Posted Tue 03/30/2004
- FBI, Customs Stole Declassified Docs From AP in 2003
As reported here previously, in early 2003 the FBI and US Customs secretly "seized" a declassified government report being sent from one Associated Press reporter to another from a Federal Express facility in Indianapolis, IN. No warrant was ever issued,...
Posted Tue 03/30/2004
- FBI 'Warned' Magazine in 2002 That FOIAed Docs 'Might' Be Stolen
In early 2002, Insight magazine reported it had been visited by FBI agents who "warned" the editors that if documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act were given to the periodical, "someone" might steal them. The report takes on...
Posted Tue 03/30/2004
- Kerry FBI Files Stolen From Author's Home in 'Very Professional Job'
From CNN: FBI documents about FBI surveillance of John Kerry in the early 1970s have been stolen, according to their owner, a historian who lives near San Francisco, California. Gerald Nicosia, who spent more than a decade collecting the information,...
Posted Tue 03/30/2004
- GAO Says White House Lying About Drug Science is Perfectly Okay
Responding to a request by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, yesterday gave the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) unfettered permission to mislead the public in the...
Posted Tue 03/23/2004
- Bush Campaign Hires Paramilitary Security Firm
The Daily KOS blog reveals that FEC records show the Bush campaign has hired Vance International, one of the new breed of security firms offering everything from labor busting to sophisticated surveillance and infiltration to protection for international and government...
Posted Tue 03/23/2004
- Transcript: Richard Clarke on 60 Minutes, 3/21/04
CBS has not posted an official, full transcript of Richard Clarke's explosive appearance on 60 Minutes. Here is an unofficial rush transcript. Leslie Stahl interviews Richard Clark Sixty Minutes March 21, 2004 LESLIE STAHL: ... and was held over by...
Posted Tue 03/23/2004
- Forensic Experts Confirm Northern Alliance Massacre of Afghan Prisoners; Hundreds, Possibly Thousands Died
From the London Observer: Dramatic corroboration of the massacre of Afghan prisoners by the US-backed Northern Alliance at the start of the war in 2001 was last night provided by American pathologists commissioned to investigate the claims by the UN....
Posted Tue 03/23/2004
- The Bush Admin's Version of Aristide's Ouster: Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens
From the Washington Post: It was shortly after 4 a.m. on Sunday, U.S. diplomat Luis Moreno recalled, when he pulled up to the gate of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's walled compound in the suburb of Tabarre. He was traveling with...
Posted Mon 03/15/2004
- In Lengthy Interview, Aristide Insists He Was Kidnapped, Overthrown in US-Backed Coup
On March 8, 2004, the alternative news program Democracy Now! managed to reach exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by cell phone in the Central African Republic. The 30 minute interview is the most extensive English-language comments given by Aristide to...
Posted Mon 03/15/2004
- GAO: CAPPS II Airline Screening Program Poses 'Severe Threats' to Civil Liberties
A highly critical report by Congress' investigative wing released today [Feb. 12, 2004] vindicates the long-standing concerns of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups from across the political spectrum that the controversial airline passenger screening system known as...
Posted Sun 02/15/2004
- 9-11 Investigation Finding Contradictory Claims
The New York Observer's excellent, lengthy article on the state of the investigation into the 9-11 attacks finds a whole mess of stange facts and pointedly-unanswered questions.
Posted Sun 02/15/2004
- Senate Republicans Hacked Dem Computers For At Least a Year, Stole Secret Memos
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. The security hole dates from 2001, so the penetration may have began earlier. During that time, the GOP staffers "monitored" secret strategy memos and accounts of private meetings, periodically passing on copies to the media. One of the media recipients was Robert Novak, the columnist who illegally revealed the name of an active CIA deep-cover agent last year.
Posted Sun 01/25/2004
- White House Source Confirms O'Neil Account on Iraq Invasion
From ABC News: President Bush ordered the Pentagon to explore the possibility of a ground invasion of Iraq well before the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, an official told ABCNEWS, confirming the account former Treasury Secretary Paul...
Posted Thu 01/15/2004
- Bush Planned Iraq Invasion From Day 1 - Transcript of Paul O'Neil on 60 Minutes
The official CBS transcript of the Paul O'Neil segment on 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2004. In it, O'Neil (Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury) discusses the very first NSC meeting of the new Administration, 10 days...
Posted Thu 01/15/2004
- Bush to America: 'So What's the Difference' If He Lied About Iraqi WMD?
President Bush told ABC News in an interview for broadcast that whether or not Iraq had WMD was irrelevant to his Administration's justification for invading. "So what's the difference?" Bush said. "The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger." (Includes transcript excerpts from the interview.)
Posted Mon 01/05/2004
- Pentagon Tries to Shut Down Wash. Post Military Reporter in Meeting With Editors
The Defense Department sent a letter of complaint to the Washington Post, then met with the paper's top editors in an effort to crack down on the paper's military reporter, Tom Ricks. It is unusual -- if not unprecedented --...
Posted Fri 01/02/2004
- Official CENTCOM Casualty Counts Before & After Hussein Capture
Quoting a release from US Central Command (CENTCOM). The following information may be used by those papers wishing to chart US casualties for the 14 days prior to and 14 days after Saddam's capture: Nov. 29 - 2 dead, 1...
Posted Fri 01/02/2004
- Memo Shows INC Piped Raw Iraq 'Intel' Directly to Cheney & Office of Special Plans
A memo obtained by Newsweek shows the Iraqi National Congress fed questionable intelligence reports about Iraqi WMD and purported ties to al-Qaida directly to one of Vice President Cheney's top national security aides, as well as to a senior member of the Office of Special Plans who formerly served as military adviser to Newt Gingrich. This completely bypassed all normal intelligence channels and vetting, contrary to Cheney denials on just this point. Cheney and OPS staffers later pushed that same INC info to bolster the case that Hussein's government posed a direct threat to America.
Posted Fri 01/02/2004
- A Reader's Guide to SAOs (Senior Administration Officials)
New coverage of the executive branch is packed with quotes by "senior administration officials." The Bush team seems obsessed with keeping the names of top officials out of the news except for strictly sanctioned occasions. Who are the people behind the blind quotes? This key to the "SAOs" will help you decipher the dispatches.
Posted Fri 01/02/2004
- Compile of News Links re: Kurdish Capture of Saddam Hussein
A phenomenal piece of work by Rowan Wolf at Correspondences.org compiling dozens of news stories on the Kurdish capture of Hussein.
Posted Tue 12/30/2003
- Bush Admin Steps Up 'Web Scrubbing'; Removing Embarrassing Docs and Transcripts from Gov't Web Sites
As intrepid bloggers and a few others have been noticing, the Bush Admin has long maintained a practice of re-editing or simply deleting from government web sites media transcripts and documents that prove embarrassing. Now even the Washington Post has...
Posted Wed 12/24/2003
- Nat'l Park Service Caves to Xtian Fundamentalists
In a series of recent decisions, the National Park Service has approved the display of religious symbols and Bible verses, as well as the sale of creationist books giving a non-evolutionary explanation for the Grand Canyon and other natural wonders...
Posted Wed 12/24/2003
- 'Nonexistent' Videotapes Found: Show Abuse of 'Terrorist' Detainees Denied by Feds
From the ACLU: In a surprise development, hundreds of videotapes that were originally said by the Department of Justice not to exist were discovered recently by its own internal affairs bureau and document many of the detainee abuses listed in...
Posted Fri 12/19/2003
- Gen. Tommy Franks: Terrorist WMD Attack Would Mean Military Rule in US
Gen. Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander in charge of the Iraq invasion who retired in July, says that if terrorists attacked the US with biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons and there were heavy casualties, the Constitution would be discarded in favor of military rule. Franks made his comments in an extensive interview published in the Nov.-Dec. 2003 issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine.
Posted Fri 11/21/2003
- Even GW's ex-Sec. of the Army Says Admin Lied About Iraq
An unprecedented array of United States intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush Administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq. In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering...
Posted Thu 11/13/2003
- More Blatant Rumsfeld Lies: Claims He Never Said Quotes Broadcast on TV
In the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. forces would be welcomed by the Iraqi citizenry and that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Now, after both statements have...
Posted Thu 11/13/2003
- Senate Republicans Freeze Iraq Inquiry Over Leaked Dem Strategy Memo
Angry about a leaked Democratic memo, the Republican leadership of the Senate yesterday took the unusual step of canceling all business of the committee investigating prewar intelligence on Iraq. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called on the author of the...
Posted Thu 11/13/2003
- 'A Bit of Structure': White House Squelches Dem Queries
The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers. The decision -- one that Democrats...
Posted Thu 11/13/2003
- With God on Our Side: Gen. Boykin in His Own Words
Following are quotes from recent speeches by Lt. Gen. William Boykin to evangelical church groups, as posted to the NBC News web site. Subliminal News reported in April that Boykin invited hundreds of Baptists ministers to Ft. Bragg for a...
Posted Mon 10/20/2003
- Ambassador Wilson: 'What I Didn't Find in Iraq'
The NY Times Op-Ed piece by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson that prompted the Bush Admin to illegally leak the name of his wife, an active deep-cover agent for the CIA working on WMD, in retribution.
Posted Mon 07/07/2003
- US Has Plans for Guantanamo 'Death Camp'
The US commander of the Guantanamo detention camp has revealed that the US plans to build its own death row and execution chamber there. According to press reports, prisoners "would be tried, convicted and executed without leaving [Guantanamo's] boundaries, without...
Posted Tue 06/03/2003
- Pentagon Claims Office of Special Plans Not Intended to Bypass CIA
Pentagon officials tell Reuters that the Office of Special Plans was supposedly only meant to "relay Defense Department needs to the spy agencies," not bypass them or skew their findings. Whatever....
Posted Thu 05/29/2003
- Pentagon: US-China alliance for N. Korea overthrow?
A report in the NY Times on April 21, under the rather obtuse headline "Administration Divided Over North Korea," says that Rumsfeld has been circulating a classified Pentagon memo proposing that "the United States...should team up with China to press...
Posted Wed 04/23/2003
- DOJ and Repubs Conspire to Make PATRIOT Act Permanent
Officials from the Justice Department and elsewhere within the Bush Admin are strategizing with Republicans in Congress on steps that would make the USA PATRIOT Act permanent. Currently, many of the most intrusive provisions of the law are set to...
Posted Wed 04/09/2003
- Ft. Bragg Commander Invites 'Hundreds' of Xtian Evangelists for Special Visit
Even as the US is openly at war with a Muslim nation, the commander of Fort Bragg, where the Special Forces are trained, has personally invited "hundreds" of Southern Baptist ministers to attend a special getaway at the base. The commander, Maj. Gen. William G. Boykin, has close ties to a religious group called FAITH Force Multipliers, which is sponsoring the event.
Posted Mon 04/07/2003
- Army Intelligence Questions Musician's Family
Army intelligence men in plainclothes recently questioned the family of a member of the band Spearhead because of the band's outspoken opposition to the Iraq invasion. The men showed covertly-taken photos, a list of the band's management, knew of two recent trips to Japan by the musician, and made threatening remarks to his mother.
Posted Sun 04/06/2003
- White House's 'Global PR Network' Used to 'Dominate' War Coverage
The eruption of war in Iraq last week set in motion a massive global PR network, cultivated by the Bush administration during the months-long buildup of forces. The network is intended not only to disseminate, but also to dominate news...
Posted Thu 03/27/2003
- Bush Orders Halt to Document Declassifications Required by Law, Will Re-classify Many Others Already Released
President Bush signed an Executive Order today that delays the release of millions of documents that were due to be automatically declassified, as required by a 1975 law. What's more, he announced the government would actually re-classify documents already released...
Posted Tue 03/25/2003
- FBI & Customs Intercepts, Seizes Associated Press Mail
The Associated Press has just gone public with an event that happened in September. US Customs intercepted and seized a package mailed between two Associated Press reporters and turned the contents over the FBI. Bureau spokesman Doug Garrison said the...
Posted Sat 03/15/2003
- NSA Intercepting UN Security Council Members' Private Communications
The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq. Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves...
Posted Mon 03/03/2003
- 1,700 US Troops Secretly Entering Philippine Combat Role
Just as the US is preparing to invade Iraq, 1,700 US troops are entering combat in the Philippines against the Abu Sayyaf rebel group in Mindanao. (Abu Sayyaf is believed to have ties to Al Qaida.) US troops have long...
Posted Sun 02/23/2003
- US Secretly Using 'Torture by Proxy'
US interrogators overseas are using "take-down teams" to intimidate terrorist suspects. If that doesn't work, they "extradite" the prisoners to countries known to use torture.
Posted Fri 02/14/2003
- Secret 'Patriot II' Law Even Worse Than the First
The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information.
Posted Sat 02/08/2003
