Obama breaks promise to declassify pages of 9/11 report on foreign involvement

In 2002 a report was issued that gave details of support for the hijackers behind the 2001 attacks. Twelve years later the pages dealing with the support still remain classified in spite of many promises to have them released.

The pages are part of a US House-Senate Intelligence Committee's Joint Inquiry. The section classified was on "specific sources of foreign support". George W. Bush classified the pages for national security reasons. Bush himself was criticized by many for not declassifying the material. Critics say that the American public and especially family members of victims of the attacks deserve to know the contents of the report. The attack, involved four hijacked airlines. Two crashed into the New York World Trade Center's Twin Towers. One crashed into the Pentagon, and a third crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The attack killed almost 3,000 people.
 Attempts to declassify the documents are not new with 46 Senators urging release of the section back in 2003, an attempt that failed. The pages can actually be read by members of Congress if given permission from leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Members are accompanied by intelligence officials who ensure that no notes are taken and those who read the notes must not release specific details about the report.
  Stephen Lynch, a congressman who has read the material, said:"I think the 28 pages are stunning in their clarity in terms of how demonstrative they are in showing the planning beforehand, the financing, and the eventual attacks on that day." However, he also cautioned that questions remained whether individuals "were acting as part of a government, or acting as rogue agents".
  Bob Graham, a former senator, was co-chair of the committee that oversaw the writing of the document containing the 28 pages in 2002. . Graham has been asking for years that the White House release the material. He has also claimed that Saudi Arabia was linked to the 9/11 attacks. Graham accuses Omar al-Bayoumi a Saudi citizen who helped two of the hijackers find an apartment in San Diego, and also paid their security deposit and signed their lease, of being a Saudi agent. Those accusations were rejected by a 9/11 Commission Report in 2004. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US at the time of 9/11 denies that the Saudi government had any role in the attacks.
 There were not just rumors of foreign involvement but of the FBI being involved. This article reports that an FBI informant had rented a room to two hijackers. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House.
 Another link to Saudi Arabia involved the house of the father of a Saudi millionaire Abdullaz al-Hiji in Sarasota Florida. The al-Hijii's moved out of their house abruptly and left the country abruptly just weeks before the 9/11 attacks: "..leaving behind three luxury cars, and personal belongings including clothing, furniture, and fresh food. They also left the swimming pool water circulating." An FBI investigation found no connection of the family to the attacks.
However, Bob Graham begs to differ: Graham says he recently gained access to two secret documents regarding the FBI’s investigation of al-Hijji’s family, and says one of the documents “completely contradicts” the bureau’s public statements that there was no connection between the 9/11 hijackers and the al-Hijjis. However, Graham said he could not provide further details because the documents were classified. As the appended video indicates Obama promised 9/11 families that he would declassify the pages. He has not kept his promise and the White House has not even bothered to answer recent letters from the 9/11 family group.

Blair planned to join Iraq invasion nine months before the war.

So the British cheated and became pregnant nine months before the war and then lied about the father being Weapons of Mass destruction.

Antiwar.com -
Blair Planned Iraq Invasion Nine Months Before War

Posted By Jason Ditz

Sir David Manning, a top foreign policy advisor to Tony Blair and the latest in a parade of top officials detailing the run up to the Iraq War to the Chilcot Report, took the stand today to discuss the pre-war planning.


According to Sir David, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair joined the Coalition of the Willing and pledge to help President Bush invade Iraq in April 2002, 11 months before the invasion, and ordered the military to plan for the invasion in June, nine months before the start of the war.

Sir William Patey began the testimony last week and revealed that President Bush had been discussing attacking Iraq just weeks after he took office in 2001. At the time, Britain rejected the invasion as “illegal.”

On September 14, 2001, President Bush telephoned Blair and according to Sir David he claimed that Iraq was secretly in league with al-Qaeda. This appears to have been the turning point at which Britain’s rejection of the war was abandoned and the Bush Administration was given another opportunity to convince Blair of the value of attacking Iraq.

The US, Britain and others invaded Iraq in March of 2003, with a combination of claims about Iraq’s secret weapons of mass destruction arsenal and al-Qaeda ties used as a pretext. Both claims were ultimately proven false, and the British government probe is meant to reveal the errors made which led the nation into attacking Iraq on false pretexts.

Bush to name new US image-maker

There is no reason given why Hughes is leaving the job. Maybe she found it too challenging. Bush is appointing another of his own kind to replace her. However, even an entrepreneur journalist from the American Enterprise Institute may find it difficult to make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Bush to name journalist as new US image-maker Tue Dec 11, 3:27 PM ET



WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will nominate on Tuesday conservative journalist James Glassman as the senior diplomat in charge of improving America's battered image abroad, the White House said.



Glassman would replace a longtime Bush confidante, Karen Hughes, who has announced her intention to step down as under secretary for public diplomacy before the end of the year.

"In his new role, Mr Glassman will help effectively explain our policies and America's fundamental values to people around the world," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters, announcing the appointment.

Hughes, who has worked with Bush since his days as governor of Texas in the 1990s, will leave her post after barely two years and with little visible success in polishing the US image in the world.

Glassman will take over as the Bush administration faces new criticism from human rights groups over its handling of suspects in the "war on terror" following the CIA's admission that it destroyed tapes of interrogations.

Glassman is the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the US government's international broadcasters including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Alhurra.

He is also the editor-in-chief of The American, a bimonthly business and economics magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

More civilian casualties from US air strikes in Afghanistan: Bush satisfied!

We will hear much more about precision bombings from now on. The numbers of civilian casualties may not change but the rhetoric will. Of course Bush supports bomber McNeil. It is virtually inevitable that if airstrikes are called when the Taliban take refuge in civilian structures such as homes etc. that there will be more civilian casualties. What the US and allies care about is their casualties. Afghan casualties are an affair of public relations. Actually this is probably true of all casualties! It is just that negative homeland opinion is regarded as more of a problem than Afghan opinion. This is short sighted because negative Afghan opinion helps the Taleban more than the military successes help the occupiers--sorry I meant ISAF, International Security Assistance Forces.

Afghans 'wounded in air strike'

The injured said they were at a market when the aircraft struck
About 50 Afghan civilians have been wounded in an air strike by US-led forces on a group of Taleban leaders holding a meeting in Helmand province.
Witnesses have told the BBC that a large number of civilians were killed.

The attack on Thursday night reportedly targeted Dadullah Mansour, the group's military commander in the south, and Abdul Rahim, its commander in Helmand.

The Afghan defence ministry said its intelligence reports indicated three militants, including Rahim, had died.

Officials are trying to confirm if Dadullah Mansour, the brother of the late Taleban military commander, Mullah Dadullah, was among those killed.

The Taleban leaders had gathered to watch the public execution of two people on charges of co-operating with the government, ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi said.

'Precision airstrike'

The US-led military coalition could not confirm Gen Azimi's account, but confirmed it had conducted an airstrike against "two notorious Taleban commanders" in a remote area of Baghran district in northern Helmand.

"During a sizable meeting of senior Taliban commanders, coalition forces employed precision-guided munitions on their location after ensuring there were no innocent Afghans in the surrounding area," the coalition statement said.



The coalition gave no word of casualties, but a BBC reporter in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, says about 50 people were admitted to hospital there with injuries.

The injured said they had been at a market when the bombardment happened and that there had been a large number of civilian deaths.

Helmand's police chief, Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, confirmed that wounded civilians had been admitted to hospital.

"I can confirm there were heavy bombardments," he told the Reuters news agency.

"We have heard of heavy casualties too and have sent a team to investigate this."

The news of civilian casualties comes only days after the secretary-general of Nato said it was considering the use of smaller bombs in Afghanistan to try to curb the rising number of civilians killed during operations against the Taleban.

Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, recently warned Western troops against treating Afghan lives cheaply.


Bush hower is satisfied with attempts to limit civilian casualties.

Bush satisfied with efforts to spare Afghan civilians: spokesman Fri Aug 3, 3:44 PM ET



WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush is "absolutely satisfied" that the US military does everything it can to spare civilians when conducting airstrikes in Afghanistan, the White House said Friday.



"He's absolutely satisfied that our military does everything in its power to avoid innocent loss of life," spokesman Scott Stanzel said two days before Bush was due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Camp David retreat.

More than 50,000 US and NATO-led troops fighting the resurgent Taliban Islamist militia are under pressure from rights groups and the government to avoid civilian deaths during their operations.

"That's an issue that I think highlights the great difference between the United States and its allies in prosecuting the war on terror and the people that were going against, which is people who specifically target innocent civilians, women and children, for kidnapping, killing," said Stanzel.

"We mourn every loss of innocent life, and we do more than has ever been done before to avoid that unfortunate situation," said the spokesman.

Krugman on Bush's Health Care Views

In spite of the fact that almost every other advanced capitalist state has some form of universal health care the US considers it some sort of socialist plot and even most Democrats will not even say straight out they are in favor of some single payer system. The result is a health care system that is the most expensive in the world but far from the best particularly for the working poor. It is so inefficient that even without universal care the public expenditure in the US is greater than that in the UK that has a universal system--as percentage of GDP. But the US also has a huge private expenditure as well.


The New York Times
July 30, 2007

An Immoral Philosophy

By PAUL KRUGMAN

When a child is enrolled in the State Childrens Health Insurance
Program (Schip), the positive results can be dramatic. For example,
after asthmatic children are enrolled in Schip, the frequency of
their
attacks declines on average by 60 percent, and their likelihood of
being hospitalized for the condition declines more than 70 percent.

Regular care, in other words, makes a big difference. Thats why
Congressional Democrats, with support from many Republicans, are
trying
to expand Schip, which already provides essential medical care to
millions of children, to cover millions of additional children who
would otherwise lack health insurance.

But President Bush says that access to care is no problem After
all,
you just go to an emergency room and, with the support of the
Republican Congressional leadership, hes declared that hell veto
any
Schip expansion on philosophical grounds.

It must be about philosophy, because it surely isnt about cost. One
of
the plans Mr. Bush opposes, the one approved by an overwhelming
bipartisan majority in the Senate Finance Committee, would cost
less
over the next five years than well spend in Iraq in the next four
months. And it would be fully paid for by an increase in tobacco
taxes.

The House plan, which would cover more children, is more expensive,
but
it offsets Schip costs by reducing subsidies to Medicare Advantage
a
privatization scheme that pays insurance companies to provide
coverage,
and costs taxpayers 12 percent more per beneficiary than
traditional
Medicare.

Strange to say, however, the administration, although determined to
prevent any expansion of childrens health care, is also dead set
against any cut in Medicare Advantage payments.

So what kind of philosophy says that its O.K. to subsidize
insurance
companies, but not to provide health care to children?

Well, heres what Mr. Bush said after explaining that emergency
rooms
provide all the health care you need: Theyre going to increase the
number of folks eligible through Schip; some want to lower the age
for
Medicare. And then all of a sudden, you begin to see a I wouldnt
call
it a plot, just a strategy to get more people to be a part of a
federalization of health care.

Now, why should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children
would
lead to a further federalization of health care, even though
nothing
like that is actually in either the Senate plan or the House plan?
Its
not because he thinks the plans wouldnt work. Its because hes
afraid
that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the
government can help children, would ask why it cant do the same for
adults.

And there you have the core of Mr. Bushs philosophy. He wants the
public to believe that government is always the problem, never the
solution. But its hard to convince people that government is always
bad
when they see it doing good things. So his philosophy says that the
government must be prevented from solving problems, even if it can.
In
fact, the more good a proposed government program would do, the
more
fiercely it must be opposed.

This sounds like a caricature, but it isnt. The truth is that this
good-is-bad philosophy has always been at the core of Republican
opposition to health care reform. Thus back in 1994, William
Kristol
warned against passage of the Clinton health care plan in any form,
because its success would signal the rebirth of centralized
welfare-state policy at the very moment that such policy is being
perceived as a failure in other areas.

But it has taken the fight over childrens health insurance to bring
the
perversity of this philosophy fully into view.

There are arguments you can make against programs, like Social
Security, that provide a safety net for adults. I can respect those
arguments, even though I disagree. But denying basic health care to
children whose parents lack the means to pay for it, simply because
youre afraid that success in insuring children might put big
government
in a good light, is just morally wrong.

And the public understands that. According to a recent Georgetown
University poll, 9 in 10 Americans including 83 percent of
self-identified Republicans support an expansion of the childrens
health insurance program.

There is, it seems, more basic decency in the hearts of Americans
than
is dreamt of in Mr. Bushs philosophy.