Bush rejects US intelligence agency findings, uses $400 million to attack Iran?

Why should Bush listen to his own experts? He should just trust his manly hunches about who has nookular weapons.

The Bush administration has significantly increased covert military operations inside Iran aimed at destabilising the country’s government, according to a US report published yesterday.

The report, in the New Yorker magazine, quotes military, intelligence and congressional sources as saying that CIA and special forces operations were ordered by George Bush in a “presidential finding” in the past few months. It said Bush sought – and congressional leaders from both parties approved – $400m (£200m) for the secret war, which includes abductions and assassinations.

According to the report’s author, Seymour Hersh, the operations inside Iran have been under way since last year but have recently been “significantly expanded”. … There have been reports from Iran of assassinations of military officers, which Tehran has sometimes blamed on US and British operations. Both the US and Britain insist they are focused on diplomatic means to convince the Iranian government to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing.

… a US intelligence estimate published late last year concluding that Iran had closed down its weaponisation programme in 2003…

There has been persistent speculation that the Bush White House is considering air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities before it leaves office next January.

Over the weekend, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, told a Tehran newspaper that Iran would retaliate against any US or Israeli attack on its nuclear installations by targeting the global oil supply. – guardianUK

Or, perhaps Bush is not really planning to attack Iran at all and there is something else going on…

Oil Rises to Record on Concern Iran Supplies May Be Disrupted

Crude oil rose to a record above $143 a barrel on speculation the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program may disrupt supply from OPEC’s second-largest producer.

Soooooooo, Bush isn’t really planning to attack Iran; this is just a giant scam to run up the price of Congress members’ oil stock portfolios!!!!!!! – wrh

Anthrax settlement doesn’t address reporters’ issue or solve case

How much is the settlement? Some say $5.85 million, but there are several other figures out there too. There seems to be a confusion curse on the entire anthrax case. Based on the timing and the people targeted the anthrax attacks seemed to be an act of political terrorism intended to help get the Patriot Act passed.

The U.S. government will pay $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Steven Hatfill, a former U.S. Army biodefense researcher who was intensively investigated as a “person of interest” in the deadly anthrax letters of 2001, the Justice Department announced Friday.

The settlement, consisting of $2.825 million in cash and an annuity worth $1.8 million that will pay Hatfill $150,000 a year for 20 years, brings to an end a five-year legal battle.

Hatfill, who worked at the army’s laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, in the late 1990s, was the subject of a flood of news media coverage beginning in mid-2002, after television cameras showed FBI agents in biohazard suits searching his apartment near the army base. John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, later called him a “person of interest” in the case on national television.

In a news conference in August 2002, Hatfill tearfully denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters and said irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks had destroyed his reputation.

Hatfill’s lawsuit, filed in 2003, accused FBI agents and Justice Department officials involved in the criminal investigation of the anthrax mailings of leaking information about him to the news media in violation of the Privacy Act. In order to prove their case, his lawyers took depositions from key FBI investigators, senior officials and a number of reporters who had covered the investigation.

Mark Grannis, a lawyer for Hatfill, said his client was pleased with the settlement.

“The good news is that we still live in a country where a guy who’s been horribly abused can go to a judge and say, ‘I need your help,’ and maybe it takes a while, but he gets justice,” Grannis said. … The settlement, Grannis said, “means that Steven Hatfill is finally an ex-person of interest.”…

Nearly seven years after the toxic letters were mailed, killing five people and sickening at least 17 others, the case has not been solved.

An FBI spokesman, Jason Pack, said the anthrax investigation, “is one of the largest and most complex investigations ever conducted by law enforcement.”

“Solving this case is a top priority for the FBI and for the family members of the victims who were killed,” Pack said. “Our commitment is undiminished.” – iht

The little known negro space program

more about “The old negro space program. Ken Burn…“, posted with vodpod

WARNING: Strong language. A well made mocumentary.  I ask you, would this video be offensive to some people? Would some see it as racist humor? This is obviously a parody based on the Tuskegee Airmen.

Remembered for their valor and bravery, 72 of the nation’s first African-American fighter pilots were recognized during the Sixth Annual Tuskegee Airmen Convocation on Feb. 23. The convocation, which was held at 11 a.m., in the General Daniel “ Chappie ” James Center for Aerospace Science and Health Education, recognized the Tuskegee Airmen’s exemplary combat performance during World War II and their important contribution to Tuskegee ’s distinctive educational mission. -tuskegee

Lightning blasts a hole in airliner as bad luck strikes again

PEOPLE who believe bad things come in threes may have second thoughts about flying with Lan Chile after the airline suffered a second rare accident on its Sydney-Santiago run.

The airline made international headlines last year when flaming pieces of a re-entering satellite came within five nautical miles (9.2km) of an Airbus A340 travelling from Santiago to Auckland and Sydney.

And last week, lightning punched a hole in the nose of a Lan Chile Airbus carrying almost 300 people as it approached Auckland from Sydney. A New Zealand report quoted a witness as saying the strike caused a hole “the size of a dinner plate”, although the plane landed safely.

The plane was among four aircraft struck by lightning last Wednesday as New Zealand was hammered by almost 15,000 strikes in 24 hours. -theaus

Sixteen hurt at French army show

Sixteen people including four children were wounded after a soldier fired live ammunition during a military show in the southern French town of Carcassonne, a local official said on Sunday. The accident occurred during a combat demonstration by the Third Marine Parachute regiment in which a soldier used live ammunition instead of blanks … – reuters