Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program

LUGANO, Switzerland — Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations oil-for-food program to help fund Al Qaeda?

Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda (search) that continued after billions of oil-for-food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden (search) declared his famous war on the U.S.

Now, buried in some of the United Nation's own confidential documents, clues can be seen that underscore the possibility of just such a Saddam-Al Qaeda link — clues leading to a locked door in this Swiss lakeside resort. (To review a series of documents, audits and other stories related to oil-for-food, click here.)


posted by Frodgie at 6:02 AM

 

GALLUP SHOWS BUSH BLOWOUT: 13 POINT LEAD OVER KERRY

WASHINGTON — President Bush has surged to a 13-point lead over Sen. John Kerry among likely voters, a new Gallup Poll shows. The 55%-42% match-up is the first statistically significant edge either candidate has held this year. (Related item: Poll results)

The boost President Bush received from the Republican convention has increased.
By Jim Mone, AP

Among registered voters, Bush is ahead 52%-44%.

The boost Bush received from the Republican convention has increased rather than dissipated, reshaping a race that for months has been nearly tied. Kerry is facing warnings from Democrats that his campaign is seriously off-track.

With 46 days until the election, analysts say the proposed presidential debates offer Kerry his best chance to change the race.

"It doesn't look like the new consultants and strategies of attacks are the right ones" for Kerry, says Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush campaign. Kerry in recent weeks added veterans of the Clinton White House to his team and began criticizing Bush more sharply on Iraq and other issues.

Dowd says Kerry at this point would "have to defy history" to defeat a sitting president.

"We have seen some bouncing around in the numbers," says Mike McCurry, a top Kerry adviser, "but it is our sense that the race is moving back to a much closer race."

A Pew Research Center poll released Thursday shows a tighter contest. The survey, taken Saturday through Tuesday, gives Bush a statistically insignificant lead of 47%-46% among likely voters.

The Gallup Poll was taken Monday through Wednesday.

Presidential candidates have won after trailing by similar margins. One was George W. Bush himself. In 2000, he was behind Al Gore by 10 points among registered voters in early October and then prevailed in the Electoral College, though he lost the popular vote.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was down 8 points in the Gallup Poll in late October but won in a landslide after doing well in the only debate held with President Carter.


posted by Frodgie at 6:02 AM

 

Powell rebukes Annan on Iraq

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday expressed strong disapproval of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's description of the U.S.-led war in Iraq as illegal, saying the comment was "not a very useful statement to make at this point."
"What does it gain anyone? We should all be gathering around the idea of helping the Iraqis, not getting into these kinds of side issues," Mr. Powell said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
"I'm sure I will have the opportunity to talk to Kofi about this," Mr. Powell added.
In a wide-ranging interview, Mr. Powell said the United States was determined to improve the security situation in time for national elections in Iraq; pledged to keep international attention focused on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan; and lamented the unwillingness of many in the Muslim and Arab world to take on Islamic extremists in their midst.
Mr. Annan's comments, made in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. over the weekend, startled and angered governments in the U.S.-led coalition that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein last year.
The U.N. chief had made no secret of his belief the United States and its allies should have sought an explicit Security Council resolution authorizing the war.
But he went much further in the BBC interview, saying, "From our point of view, from the [U.N. Charter] point of view, it was illegal."
Mr. Powell said the Constitution gives the United States the right to act in its own self-defense without U.N. approval, but argued that the Iraq war itself was justified by Saddam's "material breach" of a string of earlier U.N. resolutions on his weapons programs.

posted by Frodgie at 5:59 AM

 

Kerry dismisses progress in Iraq, talks of 'chaos'

LAS VEGAS — Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry told the National Guard Association yesterday that President Bush is in "a fantasy world of spin" as he continues to mislead the nation about the war in Iraq.
Contrary to Mr. Bush's frequent assertion that progress is being made, Mr. Kerry said the situation has deteriorated and accused Mr. Bush of hiding that fact from this audience when the president spoke here on Tuesday.
"He didn't tell you that with each passing day, we're seeing more chaos, more violence, indiscriminate killings," Mr. Kerry said. "He didn't tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are actually getting bolder."
Mr. Kerry, who was a lieutenant in the Navy during the Vietnam War, also criticized the president for not preparing the National Guard for duty in Iraq.
"When they're facing the same dangers and coming home in the same wheelchairs, the same stretchers and flag-draped coffins, how can we refuse to give them the same resources and respect we give our regular troops?" he said.
That line met with a smattering of applause. Mr. Kerry received more enthusiastic ovations when he promised to lower the retirement age for National Guard service to 55 and allow guard members to enroll in Tricare, the health-insurance program available to active-duty military members. That latter promise brought a standing ovation.
But during his criticism of the administration's calculations on Iraq — which usually draw roars of approval at rallies with his supporters — yesterday's audience was silent.

posted by Frodgie at 5:56 AM

 

Was Dan duped?

Dan Rather, successor to Walter Cronkite as anchor of CBS News, may be about to close out his career on a banana peel.

Last Wednesday, Rather launched a "60 Minutes" pre-emptive strike against the president. Rather's charges: Bush got into the National Guard through pull, was an insubordinate officer who refused to take the medical exam to keep flying and used clout to prevent his being disciplined.

Rather's attack was based on four newly discovered memos said to be from the personal files of Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. The memos, writes the New York Times, indicate "Mr. Bush ... failed to take a physical examination 'as ordered' and that his commander felt under pressure to 'sugarcoat' his performance rating, because 1st Lt. Bush ... was 'talking to someone upstairs.'"

Rather seemed to have substantiated the rumors about Bush's Guard service, as his piece also featured an interview with former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, who confessed to having interceded to get Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.

Within hours, however, Rather's case was crumbling. From both independent analyses of the memos and witness testimony, it appears that Rather may have been duped into colluding with a scheme to use forgeries to smear and sink a president of the United States.

First, the new Killian memos appear to have been produced on a word processor that did not exist in 1972-73. They are written in a Times New Roman typeface rarely found on old typewriters. The letters "th" in "111th squadron" are written in a "superscript" few typewriters of the Vietnam era had. And the spacing of the letters on the memos is more like that of modern word processors than of early 1970s' typewriters, where letters were of equal size.


posted by Frodgie at 5:55 AM

 

U.S. Strikes Kill 60 Insurgents in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A team of kidnappers grabbed two Americans and a Briton in a dawn raid on their home on a leafy Baghdad (search) street Thursday — a bold abduction that underlines the increasing danger for foreigners in the embattled capital as violence soars ahead of national elections planned for early next year.

West of the capital, U.S. forces launched attacks Thursday in the Sunni insurgent strongholds of Fallujah (search) and Ramadi (search), killing up to 60 insurgents in strikes against allies of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a military statement said. The military said that the "foreign fighters" were killed near Fallujah.

Dr. Ali Awad of the Fallujah General Hospital said 30 people were killed and more than 40 were injured, including women and children.

The military launched what it called a "precision strike" against a house in Fallujah and followed it with a second strike in a nearby town. The second strike destroyed three buildings allegedly used by Zarqawi's network.

Also Thursday, three U.S. Marines assigned to 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed by hostile fire in separate incidents in the western Anbar province while conducting security operations, the military said. One Marine died at the scene and the two others died later of their wounds. No other details were released.


posted by Frodgie at 5:51 AM

 

Kerry supports 'right vote, 'while decrying 'wrong war'

DETROIT — John Kerry yesterday said he now can see no reason why the United States went to war in Iraq, yet added that he still stands by his vote to authorize the war.
"Not under the current circumstances, no, there are none that I see," the Democratic presidential nominee said when asked about the justification for the war by radio talk-show host Don Imus. "I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The president distorted that, and I've said that."
Mr. Kerry then said, however, that it was right to threaten Saddam Hussein in order to force him to comply with U.N. weapons-inspection demands and that the senator was "prepared to use the force."

"I think it was the right vote based on what Saddam Hussein had done, and I think it was the right thing to do to hold him accountable," he told Mr. Imus, saying his position "can't be clearer."
But Mr. Kerry's answers left Mr. Imus, who frequently describes himself on air as a Kerry supporter, flummoxed.
"I asked him a number of questions about Iraq, and I can't tell you what he said," Mr. Imus said after Mr. Kerry hung up.
Republicans seized on that statement.
"The bottom line: Anyone who listened to Imus, anyone who reviews the transcript, now recognizes that on the most important issue facing our country today — the question of how we deal with global terrorism — John Kerry's position has deteriorated into complete and total incoherence," Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman told reporters on a conference call yesterday.
Mr. Kerry was one of 77 senators who voted on Oct. 11, 2002, for the resolution titled "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002," which, in addition to weapons of mass destruction, cited Iraq's breach of the 1991 cease-fire and U.N. resolutions as justification for force.
posted by Frodgie at 6:32 AM

 

Rather defends 'thrust' of report on Bush service

A defensive Dan Rather suggested last night that although he may have used forged documents in a CBS report criticizing President Bush's military service, the "thrust" of his report was true.
"Those who have criticized aspects of our story have never criticized the heart of it, the major thrust of our report," he told viewers on "60 Minutes." "George Bush received preferential treatment to get into the National Guard and, once accepted, failed to satisfy the requirements of his service."

He added: "If we uncover any information to the contrary, rest assured we shall report that also."
The unusual remarks were made hours after CBS News President Andrew Heyward grudgingly promised to "redouble" efforts to answer questions about whether the network used forged documents in a report that aired on the Sept. 8 edition of "60 Minutes."
"We would not have put the report on the air if we did not believe every aspect of it," he said on "CBS Evening News." But he added: "Enough questions have been raised that we're going to redouble our efforts to answer those questions."
The remarks by Mr. Heyward and Mr. Rather marked the first time in a week that CBS appeared to be entertaining the possibility that it had built its story on forged documents. But Mr. Rather challenged the president through an interview published yesterday in the New York Observer.
"With respect: answer the questions," he said. "We've heard what you have to say about the documents and what you've said and what your surrogates have said, but for the moment, answer the questions."

posted by Frodgie at 6:30 AM

 

Ivan Slams Alabama Coast

GULF SHORES, Ala. — Hurricane Ivan (search) slammed ashore early Thursday with winds of 130 mph, packing deadly tornadoes and a powerful punch of waves and rain that threatened to swamp communities from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

For the millions of Gulf Coast (search) residents who spent a frightening night in shelters and boarded-up homes, the worst could be yet to come: up to 15 inches of rain and a storm surge of up to 16 feet.

"Say a prayer, say a prayer, say a prayer, that I'll have some place to go when I leave here," evacuee Betty Sigler said in a Mobile shelter, safe from the howling wind and sheets of rain. "We'll see in the morning."

The storm weakened as it moved inland, with winds of 115 mph about two hours after it hit land.


posted by Frodgie at 6:28 AM

 

Two Americans, Briton Abducted in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen kidnapped two Americans and a Briton Thursday from a house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood where many foreign companies are based, the Interior Ministry and witnesses said.

The three were employed by Gulf Services Company (search), a Middle East-based construction firm, and were seized from a two-story house surrounded by a wall in the al-Mansour neighborhood (search), said Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman, a ministry official.

At least four other foreigners — two Frenchmen and two Italian women — have been taken hostage in recent days. On Wednesday, villagers north of Baghdad had found three decapitated bodies, said to be Iraqis, with their hands bound.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman speaking on condition of anonymity could not immediately confirm the report that the Americans and Briton were kidnapped but said officials were investigating. A British diplomat in Baghdad was also unable to confirm any details.

Neighbors said they heard two vehicles drive up to the house around dawn and later noticed that the normally closed sliding iron gate was open, so they called the police. They said they didn't know who was living there.

A police official who asked not to be named said a car was missing from the house where the hostages were believed to have been kidnapped. He said the three were apparently in the garden when the attack took place and that there was no sign of any fighting.


posted by Frodgie at 6:25 AM

 

Kerry blasts Bush 'excuse presidency'

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush on Wednesday of presiding over an "excuse presidency," challenging Bush's credibility on jobs, the record national deficit and the war in Iraq.

"This president has created more excuses than jobs," Kerry told the Detroit Economic Club. "His is the excuse presidency -- never wrong, never responsible, never to blame. President Bush's desk isn't where the buck stops -- it's where the blame begins."

Kerry said that of the last 11 presidents, Bush was the only one to oversee a national job loss, and he said Iraq and the war on terror were no excuse. "Many of them faced more severe recessions, many of them faced bigger wars with bigger expenses," Kerry said.

Bush's Democratic rival focused on one of the president's biggest potential weaknesses -- a record of lost jobs and budget deficits during four years in the White House. And in a broader effort to sharpen critiques and fight back against Republican criticism, Kerry also went after Bush's handling of Iraq.

"We are punching back," Kerry said in an interview with radio host Don Imus. "I am absolutely taking the gloves off."

On Iraq, Kerry raised doubts about whether there could be national elections in January, given security problems in places like Fallujah, Ramadi and Najaf.

"I know that the people who are supposed to run that election believe that they need a longer period of time and greater security before they can even begin to do it," Kerry said. "So I'm not sure the president is being honest with the American people about that situation either at this point."


posted by Frodgie at 6:22 AM

 

Vietnam Vet: I Lied About Atrocities

WASHINGTON — A veteran who testified to John Kerry (search) about atrocities he committed in the Vietnam War (search) is now claiming that the Democratic presidential candidate coerced him to tell tales.

Steven Pitkin, an Army combat veteran, told FOX News that Kerry coached him and others to say they had witnessed war crimes, even after Pitkin told Kerry that he had not.

"Before they started the camera, they told me, 'We need you to speak about the atrocities that happened over there.' The whole company line that I initially came out and said, I was coached to say that over and over again," Pitkin said.

Kerry's former brother-in-law, David Thorne, attended that Winter Soldier investigation, in which more than 100 Vietnam veterans told anti-war activists that they had either committed or witnessed unspeakable war crimes. Thorne flatly denied Pitkin's charges.

"Kerry never forced anyone to testify to war crimes in any way. [Kerry] went to Winter Soldier to listen to what they had to say and to investigate for himself," Thorne said.

Kerry collected the testimony ahead of his appearance during a 1971 hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on widespread atrocities against Vietnamese civilians. He has said the graphic testimony he gave was merely a repetition of testimony combat veterans told him.


posted by Frodgie at 6:32 AM

 

Tancredo presses White House on control of border

The chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus yesterday questioned the commitment of the nation's border czar to track down and deport the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in the United States, asking whether he had "any real interest" in getting the job done.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, said he planned to talk with Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson "in the near future" to find out what the department plans to do to alleviate what the congressman called an "illegal immigration crisis."
Mr. Tancredo's comments came during a Capitol Hill press conference by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which called for stricter enforcement of visa waivers to combat terrorism, and were in response to an interview last week by Mr. Hutchinson with The Washington Times.
In the interview, Mr. Hutchinson said that it was "not realistic" to think that law-enforcement authorities can arrest or deport the millions of illegal aliens now in the United States, that it was "probably accurate" to say no one was looking for them, and that he did not think the American public had the "will ... to uproot" those aliens.
"I think they have too much compassion to tell our law-enforcement people to go out there and uproot those 8 million here — some of whom might have been here 8 or 12 years, who got kids here that are American citizens — and to send them out of the country." said Mr. Hutchinson, who heads border and transportation security.

posted by Frodgie at 6:29 AM

 

Bush to National Guard: 'America Is Safer'

LAS VEGAS — As questions continue to swirl surrounding the authenticity of documents saying he didn't fulfill his National Guard service, President Bush (search) on Tuesday refrained from addressing the controversy in a speech to America's National Guardsmen.

"Nineteen individuals have served both in the National Guard and as president of the United States, and I am proud to be one of them," he said.

Bush instead honored the sacrifice of America's National Guardsmen and women playing a pivotal role in the War on Terror.

"The weapons have changed, and so have our enemies, but one thing remains the same: The men and women of the Guard stand ready to put on the uniform and fight for America," Bush told the 126th National Guard Association of the United States conference in Las Vegas.

For his part, Bush's Democratic presidential challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (search), was in Ohio on Tuesday, talking with the state's seniors about the rising cost of prescription drugs and Medicare premiums. He did not speak directly to the document controversy. Kerry is expected to address the association on Thursday.


posted by Frodgie at 6:27 AM

 

Casting Further Doubt

Sept.14, 2004— Two of the document experts hired by CBS News say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast of a report citing documents that questioned George W. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.

The authenticity of the documents in the report by CBS News' 60 Minutes II has been widely questioned. The documents were allegedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.
Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.

"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.

Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.

But the documents became a key part of the 60 Minutes II broadcast questioning President Bush's National Guard service in 1972. CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.



posted by Frodgie at 6:19 AM

 

Direct Hit by Ivan Could Sink New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS - The worst-case scenario for New Orleans — a direct strike by a full-strength Hurricane Ivan — could submerge much of this historic city treetop-deep in a stew of sewage, industrial chemicals and fire ants, and the inundation could last for weeks, experts say.

If the storm were strong enough, Ivan could drive water over the tops of the levees that protect the city from the Mississippi River and vast Lake Pontchartrain. And with the city sitting in a saucer-shaped depression that dips as much as 9 feet below sea level, there would be nowhere for all that water to drain.

Even in the best of times, New Orleans depends on a network of canals and huge pumps to keep water from accumulating inside the basin.

"Those folks who remain, should the city flood, would be exposed to all kinds of nightmares from buildings falling apart to floating in the water having nowhere to go," Ivor van Heerden, director of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Public Health Center, said Tuesday.

LSU's hurricane experts have spent years developing computer models and taking surveys to predict what might happen.

The surveys predict that about 300,000 of the 1.6 million people living in the metropolitan area would risk staying.

The computer models show a hurricane with a wind speed of around 120 mph or more — hitting just west of New Orleans so its counterclockwise rotation could hurl the strongest surf and wind directly into the city — would push a storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain over the city's levees. Ivan had sustained wind of 140 mph Tuesday.
New Orleans would be under about 20 feet of water, higher than the roofs of many of the city's homes.





posted by Frodgie at 6:16 AM

 

Accountability & the Massachusetts Senator

Not long after the vaunted 9/11 Commission released its final report on July 22, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry fully endorsed its findings and began deriding President Bush for not doing the same. Since then, the exigencies of governing have forced Bush to wrestle with the complexities of intelligence reform — which, the commissioners themselves have conceded, are extensive. Kerry, meanwhile, has gotten a free ride.


That ought to stop now. If, as Kerry the candidate claims, the commission got it right, that is a devastating indictment of Kerry the senator — and it does not bode well for a Kerry presidency in an era of terrorist peril.

Though Kerry tends to find complexity in the most straightforward of matters, his mainstream-media enablers have kept mum when it comes to his uncharacteristically un-nuanced position on the commission's multi-faceted investigation. Without elaboration, we are told he embraces the commission. So sound, so bipartisan was its evaluation that we should adopt its recommendations tout de suite. Period.

Really? Well, with the much-anticipated debates on the horizon, a few follow-up questions would seem to be in order — if only someone would actually ask them.

After two decades in the Senate, Kerry is bereft of notable lawmaking accomplishments. Nonetheless, he has touted his membership on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1993 to early 2001 as a powerful presidential credential. But that stance could not be more at odds with the 9/11 commission's findings.

According to the commission, legislative oversight of America's intelligence community in the years prior to the 9/11 attacks was, in a word, woeful. The commission found that Congress gave its oversight responsibilities low priority and performed them exceedingly poorly. Terrorist organizations in particular received virtually no attention, and, the panel added, congress was essentially AWOL in helping the executive branch "address the questions of counterterrorism strategy and policy" (p. 106, footnote omitted).


posted by Frodgie at 6:17 AM

 

From Biased to Partisan

Last Friday Richard Starr made a prediction about the National Guard memos: CBS would almost certainly admit that they were forgeries. That sure seemed right to me at the time. But instead, CBS said it was standing by its story and, despite reports, would not conduct an internal investigation. On hearing this news, Jim Geraghty of NRO's Kerry Spot spoke for me when he sputtered, "I am stunned." The stunning truth, as Mark Steyn put it was that "Big Media are trashing their reputations in service to a man who can never win." I thought I agreed with that too. But now I'm not so sure.

Why were we so wrong? Why did Dan Rather and CBS News, against all expectations, impeach their own credibility to defend the authenticity of memos that are almost certainly forgeries? The obvious answer is that they did it to save the faltering Kerry campaign from a final and decisive blow. If CBS were to admit that the documents were forgeries, it would have no grounds for protecting its sources. In fact, CBS would have a positive obligation to do everything in its power to expose the malefactors behind the forgeries. If the trail led back to the Kerry campaign, president Bush's reelection would be assured. Dan Rather has been at pains to derogate those who are interested in where the documents came from. This sounds suspiciously like Rather is concerned about what a revelation of his sources might mean. Certainly, if Rather personally received the forgeries from a Kerry operative, it would be a disaster for Rather. That alone might seem to be sufficient to explain CBS's refusal to admit its error. (It now appears that CBS News may well have received the documents from a partisan and highly questionable source.)


posted by Frodgie at 6:16 AM

 

Car Bomb Kills at Least 32 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A car bomb exploded near a police station in Baghdad early Tuesday as dozens of Iraqis were applying to join the force, killing at least 32 people and wounding 88, officials said.

The blast left a 10-foot crater outside the station at the end of Haifa street (search), a main Baghdad thoroughfare that has been the scene recently of fierce clashes. Nearby shops and buildings were badly damaged and 10 cars parked nearby were destroyed.

Paramedics picked up body parts scattered across the street and put them into boxes. Anguished men lifted charred bodies and lay them gently on stretchers. Helicopters circled.

Health Ministry spokesman Saad Al-Amili said at least 32 people were killed and 88 wounded.

Angry crowds near the site of the blast denounced U.S. forces and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (search)'s government for failing to protect police recruiting centers.


posted by Frodgie at 6:12 AM

 

Assault weapons ban to expire Monday

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Ten years after it was born out of the carnage of three California mass shootings, the federal assault weapons ban is fading out of existence Monday.

While manufacturers look for a boom in business as people buy up previously banned weapons like TEC-9s, police chiefs warn of an upsurge in crime.

The law's chief sponsor, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is urging retailers not to sell the disputed weapons, while hoping for a change in the nation's political climate.

Feinstein was horrified by the 1984 shooting rampage at a McDonald's in San Diego County that killed 21 people and the massacre of five people five years later at a Stockton elementary school yard.

But it was the shooting at a law firm in San Francisco in 1993, in which eight were killed and six wounded, that persuaded her to push for the assault weapons ban.

"It was the ultimate shock," Feinstein said in an interview. "That building is one of the great economic citadels in the city, and you see this prestigious law firm. And then -- boom. Someone comes in, aggrieved, and goes right through the place."


posted by Frodgie at 6:10 AM

 

Powell: Unlikely WMD Stocks Will Be Found in Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell, who made the case to the world that pre-war Iraq had stocks of chemical and biological weapons, said on Monday he now thought these will probably never be found.

"I think it's unlikely that we will find any stockpiles," Powell told lawmakers when asked about the intelligence behind his Feb. 5, 2003, U.N. Security Council speech laying out U.S. arguments for the war with Iraq that began six weeks later.

Powell's latest comments appeared to be his most explicit to date suggesting that the central argument for President Bush's decision to invade Iraq -- the belief it possessed weapons of mass destruction -- was flawed.

As early as January Powell said it was an "open question" whether or not such arms would be found and he conceded the possibility Iraq might not have had any when the war began.

Bush himself had often said that even if no such weapons are found he did the right thing in invading Iraq in March 2003 and toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, arguing that the country has been liberated from brutal dictatorship.


posted by Frodgie at 6:08 AM

 

U.S. Jets Strike Fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq — U.S. warplanes and artillery bombed the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah (search) on Monday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 12, hospital officials and witnesses said.

The U.S. military said jets carried out a precision strike on a site where several members of an Al Qaeda-linked group led by Jordanian-born terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search) were meeting.

"Intelligence sources reported the presence of several key Zarqawi operatives who have been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks against Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and multinational forces," the military said in a statement. It provided no details on the site where the militants were allegedly meeting.

Witnesses said the bombing targeted the city's residential al-Shurta neighborhood, damaging buildings and raising clouds of black smoke. Ambulances and private cars rushed the injured to hospital.

Dr. Adel Khamis of the Fallujah General Hospital said at least 16 people were killed, including women and children, and 12 others wounded.


posted by Frodgie at 6:28 AM

 

Kerry challenges Bush on Iraq-9/11 connection

(CNN) -- Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry accused the Bush administration Sunday of falsely linking Iraq to the attacks of September 11, 2001, "in its desperate attempts to reinvent a rationale for the Iraq war."

Kerry made his charge in a statement released after Secretary of State Colin Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he has seen nothing to link Saddam Hussein's regime with the 9/11 attacks.

"We know that there had been connections and there had been exchanges between al Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime. And those have been pursued and looked at," Powell said on the program.

"But I have seen nothing that makes a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and that awful regime, and what happened on 9/11."

Kerry said Powell "came clean with the American people about the lack of a connection between Iraq, Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attacks."

Not only that, Kerry said, Powell also contradicted comments Vice President Dick Cheney has made as recently as Friday.

At campaign stops Thursday and Friday, Cheney mentioned al Qaeda in discussing the Iraq war, but he did not link Iraq under Saddam to September 11.


posted by Frodgie at 6:26 AM

 

A peace bloodier than war

Since the transfer of power to a provisional government in Baghdad at the end of June, more Americans have died in combat than during Gen. Franks' invasion. In August, 1,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded, the highest figure for any month.

"The 'peace' has been bloodier than the war," Capt. Russell Burgos, returning from duty in Iraq, told the Washington Post. Burgos compares America in Iraq to Israel's 18-year occupation of Lebanon. Some of us were using the Lebanon analogy even before we invaded.

U.S. war dead now number over 1,000. Retired Lt. Col. Carlo D'este, war historian, tells the Post, "Sadly, the 1,000th military death is but a bookmark on a longer and more painful road ... There is no visible light at the end of the tunnel, nor has the Bush administration articulated a viable exit strategy, without which war will continue indefinitely – that is, years."

A dissent. This war will not continue indefinitely. America will not tolerate it. We were persuaded by George Bush to support an invasion to remove what was said to be a grave threat. The Congress may have given the president a blank check, but this nation never signed up for an endless war to make Iraq safe for democracy. Nor will Americans pay an endless price in blood to achieve it.


posted by Frodgie at 6:24 AM

 

Gore Unleashes Fury on Democrats' Behalf

Al Gore's stiff jokes are gone now, replaced by recount jokes. The cautious campaigner of 2000 is gone, too, replaced by a fire-breathing Bush basher.

When Gore delivered his latest-in-a-series slam at the Republicans last week, faulting Vice President Dick Cheney for "sleazy and despicable" criticism of the Democrats, a White House spokesman dismissively responded: "Consider the source."

Well, Gore used to be the vice president. And, as he likes to say, he used to be the next president of the United States.

Now, he is Al Gore, private citizen _ unleashed.

Speaking with a freedom and passion less frequently seen in his own political campaigns, Gore is happily making speeches, raking in money and generally raising hell for John Kerry and the Democratic Party these days. In his spare time, he's also teaching at three universities and raising money for himself through various business ventures.

In recent weeks and months, as an uncensored voice for the Democratic cause, Gore has skewered President Bush's team for moral cowardice, the "lowest sort of politics imaginable," aligning itself with "digital brownshirts" who intimidate the press, and political tactics as craven as those of Richard Nixon. Just to cite a few examples.


posted by Frodgie at 6:22 AM