“Iraq is a sovereign state with a democratically elected Council of Representatives. A government of national unity was formed May 20, 2006 that is broadly representative of the Iraqi people.” – James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report, Page 26 […]
5/18/2006
On May 18, 2006, “A United Nations Committee Against Torture report calls for the U.S. to stop use of ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques and the use of secret prisons, which it considers tantamount to torture.” – M. Cherif Bassiouni, The Institutionalization of Torture by the Bush Administration, Pages xlv-xlvi […]
5/18/2006
According to a New York Times article on May 18, 2006: “by 2002 the NSA [National Security Agency] was ingesting about 650 million intercepts a day–voice and data–the same as the number of pieces of mail delivered every day across the country by the U.S. Postal Service.” – James Bamford, The Shadow Factory, Page 211 […]
5/18/2006
The UN’s Committee Against Torture “issued a May [18] 2006 report demanding that the Guantanamo Bay facility be closed. This committee, established to monitor compliance with CAT [Convention Against Torture], was ‘concerned that detainees are held for protracted periods’ and lack ‘legal safeguards’ and ‘judicial assessment of the justification of their detention.’ It also claimed […]
5/15/2006
“In May 2006, media reports indicated that a nearly final draft of a new Army Field Manual on interrogation contained major changes from previous manuals and would perpetuate unlawful treatment during interrogation of alleged terrorists and unprivileged belligerents that was authorized by several members of the Bush administration and military commanders at Guantanamo Bay and […]
5/15/2006
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) liaison to Operation Able Danger, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, told the 9/11 Commission’s executive director Philip “Zelikow and company that the operation had identified ‘two of the three cells which conducted 9/11’ and they included lead hijacker Mohammed Atta. The Atta reference would prove explosive, since by then, the commission was […]
5/15/2006
Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), in an interview with author Peter Lance on May 15, 2006, pointed out one of the problems with the members of the 9/11 Commission: ” ‘There’s little doubt that [former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie] Gorelick and [former Assistant U.S. Attorney Dietrich] Snell should have been witnesses before the commission… ‘Snell, […]
5/14/2006
“Earlier in the year, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld had said that the U.S. military would not intervene in a civil war, leaving that to Iraqi forces. ‘May God damn you, sir,’ responded the radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr [on May 14, 2006]. ‘You said in the past that civil war would break out if […]
5/11/2006
“In May [11] 2006, [journalist] Leslie Cauley reported in USA Today that the NSA [National Security Agency] had been secretly collecting information about tens of millions of telephone calls, reaching ‘into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans–most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.’ This collection […]
5/11/2006
On May 11, 2006, “USA Today revealed that a number of the largest American telecommunications companies, including AT&T, MCI, and Sprint, had closely collaborated with NSA [National Security Agency] in the warrantless eavesdropping program. Only Qwest, the nation’s fourth-largest telecommunications company, had refused to participate in the program, despite repeated requests by NSA.” – Matthew […]