“[T]he White House (and most of the press corps) passed over in public silence a key paragraph in the recently concluded U.S.-Iraqi agreement on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Article 26, section 3 of that agreement reads as follows: ‘Consistent with a letter from the President of the United States [Bush] to be […]
1/1/2009
“On January 1, 2009, the security responsibility for the Green Zone in Baghdad was turned over by the Americans to the Iraqi military. On the same day, the British turned their responsibility for the country’s second largest city, Basra, over to the government as well.” – Tom Ridge with Lary Bloom, The Test of Our […]
12/22/2008
For a New York Times article on December 22, 2008, “Vice President [Dick] Cheney told one reporter that ‘If you think about what Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War, what F.D.R. did during World War II. They went far beyond anything we’ve done in a global war on terror. But we have exercised, I […]
12/18/2008
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary:” “Mr Brown announces plans to withdraw the majority of UK troops [from Iraq].” – Commissioned by the Prime Minister The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry: Executive Summary,” IraqInquiry.org.uk, Dec. 18, 2008 […]
12/17/2008
Speaking at the U.S. Army War College on December 17, 2008, President “Bush defended his handling of the war on terrorism. He argued that the passage of seven years without another terrorist attack was ‘not a matter of luck’ but ‘the result of tough decisions that we began making immediately after September the 11th.’ “ […]
12/16/2008
Regarding the torture of detainees in the war on terror, reporter David Rose wrote: “I ask [FBI Director Robert] Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the [Bush] administration still calls ‘enhanced techniques’? ‘I’m really reluctant to answer that,’ Mueller says. He […]
12/16/2008
“As for [9/11 mastermind] K.S.M. [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] himself, who (as Jane Mayer writes [in her book The Dark Side]) was waterboarded, reportedly hung for hours on end from his wrists, beaten, and subjected to other agonies for weeks, [President] Bush said he provided ‘many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans.’ K.S.M. was […]
12/16/2008
Regarding the use of torture for obtaining information from suspected terrorists, reporter David Rose wrote: “In researching this article, I spoke to numerous counterterrorist officials from agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Their conclusion is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering […]
12/16/2008
“CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said that the agency used the [waterboarding] technique on three Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003. But the practice was discontinued when lawyers from the Department of Justice and other agencies began backing away from their opinions endorsing its legality.” – Greg Miller, “Cheney OK’d Harsh CIA Tactics,” […]
12/15/2008
“In December [2008], after the Mumbai [India] attack, Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director, arrived demanding that Pakistan close down the LT [Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, which was responsible for the attacks] and dismantle its infrastructure. Pakistan refused.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, […]