“On July 9 [2008], Congress passed the bill [the FISA Amendments Act] permanently authorizing the [warrantless] surveillance program and exempted the telecommunications firms from liability for past actions.” – Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 597 […]
7/9/2008
“[T]he Bush administration largely got its way on July 9 [2008] when the Senate went along with the House and passed the FISA Amendments Act. The new law provides what amounts to legal immunity to the telecoms [for allowing intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on communications], weakens the authority of the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] […]
6/30/2008
On June 30, 2008, “the New York Times noted that even though [President] Bush had made al Qaeda’s destruction his top priority, ‘it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability […]
6/28/2008
” ‘Iraq is miles away from being healthy,’ he [New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman] wrote [on June 28, 2008]. ‘And now that Iraqi’s Shiite and Sunni communities are taking more responsibility for their own country, you are also going to see an intense power struggle over who dominates within each community. With oil dollars […]
6/24/2008
According to a Salon.com article on June 24, 2008: “While the exact number of juvenile detainees [in the war on terror] may never fully be known since the DOD [Department of Defense] does not follow international law in the categorization of adults and children, government records reveal that more than twenty detainees under the age […]
6/19/2008
On June 19, 2008, Afghan President Hamid “Karzai warns that Afghanistan will send troops into Pakistan to fight militants if Islamabad [Pakistan] fails to take action against them.” – Ahmed Rashid, Taliban, Page 270 […]
6/19/2008
“A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say. …Criticism like that has prompted objections by the Bush administration and the secretary […]
6/19/2008
“The invasion of Iraq may have passed a point of no return when Dick Armey–the majority leader of the president’s [Bush’s] [Republican] party, from the president’s home state [Texas]–said [during a June 19, 2008, interview with author Barton Gellman, that] it was ‘very likely the biggest foreign policy blunder of modern times.’ ” – Barton […]
6/18/2008
“[British] Brigadier-General James Ellery CBE, the Foreign Office’s Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since 2003, confirmed the critical role of Iraqi oil reserves in potentially alleviating a ‘world shortage’ of conventional oil. The Iraq War has helped to head off what Brigadier Ellery described as ‘the tide of Easternisation’–a shift in […]
6/17/2008
Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), discussed enhanced interrogation techniques on June 17, 2008. ” ‘If we use those same techniques offensively against detainees, it says to the world that they have America’s stamp of approval,’ said Levin at the start of a committee hearing. ‘That puts our troops at greater […]