mr mahs

Millennial Mistake Jamie Gorelick’s dangerous “wall of separation.†by Mark Levin In his public testimony before the 9/11 Commission the other day, Attorney General John Ashcroft exposed Commissioner Jamie Gorelick's role in undermining the nation's security capabilities by issuing a directive insisting that the FBI and federal prosecutors ignore information gathered through intelligence investigations. But Ashcroft pointed to another document that also has potentially explosive revelations about the Clinton administration's security failures. Ashcroft stated, in part: ... [T]he Commission should study carefully the National Security Council plan to disrupt the al Qaeda network in the U.S. that our government failed to implement fully seventeen months before September 11. The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 — with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government. In March 2000, the review warns the prior Administration of a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here. Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls. These are the same aggressive, often criticized law enforcement tactics we have unleashed for 31 months to stop another al Qaeda attack. These are the same tough tactics we deployed to catch Ali al-Marri, who was sent here by al Qaeda on September 10, 2001, to facilitate a second wave of terrorist attacks on Americans. Despite the warnings and the clear vulnerabilities identified by the NSC in 2000, no new disruption strategy to attack the al Qaeda network within the United States was deployed. It was ignored in the Department's five-year counterterrorism strategy. I did not see the highly-classified review before September 11. It was not among the 30 items upon which my predecessor briefed me during the transition. It was not advocated as a disruption strategy to me during the summer threat period by the NSC staff which wrote the review more than a year earlier. I certainly cannot say why the blueprint for security was not followed in 2000. I do know from my personal experience that those who take the kind of tough measures called for in the plan will feel the heat. I've been there; I've done that. So the sense of urgency simply may not have overcome concern about the outcry and criticism which follows such tough tactics." What is Ashcroft talking about? An article in Reader's Digest, "Codes, Clues, Confessions" (March 2002; by Kenneth R. Timmerman), provides some valuable insight. It states, in part: French counter-terrorism magistrate, Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, first began tracking Ahmed Ressam back in 1996. As a Magistrate, he was allowed to use prosecutorial evidence, as well as share intelligence gathered by French intelligence agencies in his investigations and prosecutions. Between 1996 and 1999 he had gathered enough evidence to know that Ressam was part of al-Qaeda, what he called the "spider web." And that Ressam and al-Qaeda had made the U.S. a target, and that Ressam had moved from Europe to Canada at some point in 1999 to prepare his attack. Bruguiere shared this information with both Canadian and U.S. intelligence some time prior to 1999. By March 1999, Bruguière had gathered enough information from terrorist cells he had broken up in France, Jordan, and Australia, to send a thick file to Canadian authorities, asking that they arrest Ressam and hold him for interrogation, but Ressam had already gone underground. 'On December 14, 1999 the news came of Ressam's arrest [near Seattle]. As you know, it was completely by chance. Just plain luck!' U.S. Customs officer Diana Dean told the Digest she found the olive-skinned Canadian who identified himself as "Benni Norris" unusually nervous. The ferry from Vancouver had just chugged up to its slip at Port Angeles, Washington on the afternoon of December 14, 1999, and Norris lowered the window of his Chrysler 300. Despite the chilly air, he was sweating, Dean noticed. When she asked him to open his trunk, he bolted. After a brief chase, "Norris"/Ressam was arrested. In the trunk, they found 130 pounds of plastic explosives, two 22 ounce plastic bottles full of nitro glycol, and a map of LAX. When the Department of Justice began interviewing "Norris"/Ressam, they didn't have a clue who he was. But Judge Bruguière did. He called the Department of Justice, and offered prosecutors his file on Ressam and his ties to al Qaeda. At the time, Bruguiere said, DOJ had no idea what a big catch they had, nor did DOJ have access to any intelligence about Ressam's ties to al-Qaeda. Ultimately, because of "The Wall" Bruguiere had to testify for seven hours in Seattle to lay out the al Qaeda connection to help U.S. prosecutors make their case against Ressam. In other words, the "wall of separation" constructed by Jamie Gorelick made it virtually impossible for U.S. authorities to stop Ahmed Rassam, the "Millenium Bomber," by design or intention. It was left to blind luck. The NSC's Millennium After Action Review — which, based on Attorney General Ashcroft's testimony, must be devastating in its analysis of not only this event but of the Gorelick policy — remains classified. And, most significantly, it's likely the Review's criticisms and warnings were either ignored or rejected by the Clinton Justice Department. Given all the past intelligence information that has been made public by the 9/11 Commission — including the August 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief, which had never before been released — there appears to be no legitimate basis for the 9/11 Commission keeping the Review under lock and key. It's time to release it.

Destined to Fail†The attorney general on the fatal pre-9/11 intel wall. EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the text of John Ashcroft's opening statement to the 9/11 Commission, delivered on April 13, 2004, as released by the Department of Justice. Thank you. It is with great sorrow that I join this Commission today in reflection on September 11, 2001. Even today, 31 months after the attacks, I struggle to learn the lessons of that day without being overwhelmed by the losses of that day. I feel sorrow for the loss of life, sorrow for the loss of promise, sorrow for the lost innocence of a nation forever scarred. My sorrow for the victims of September 11 is equaled only by my rage at their killer. Usama Bin Laden is to blame for my anger. I blame his hatred for our values, his perversion of a faith, his idolatry of death. It was his hand that took the lives of nearly 3,000 innocents on September 11. It is his face that is the face of evil. September 11 revealed not just our enemy's capacity for murder but our fellow Americans' thirst for justice. The men and women of the Department of Justice have embraced the cause of our time: the protection of the lives and liberties of Americans. Working within the Constitution, we fight any battle and shoulder any burden — no matter personal or political cost - to prevent additional terrorist attacks. And for the time being, al Qaeda's slaughter has ceased on American soil. We have been aggressive. We have been tough. And we have suffered no small amount of criticism for our tough tactics. We accept this criticism for what it is: the price we are privileged to pay for our liberty. Had I known a terrorist attack on the United States was imminent in 2001, I would have unloaded our full arsenal of weaponry against it — despite the inevitable criticism. The Justice Department's warriors, our agents, and our prosecutors would have been unleashed. Every tough tactic we have deployed since the attacks would have been deployed before the attacks. But the simple fact of September 11 is this: we did not know an attack was coming because for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to its enemies. Our agents were isolated by government-imposed walls, handcuffed by government-imposed restrictions, and starved for basic information technology. The old national intelligence system in place on September 11 was destined to fail. This Commission can serve a noble purpose. Your responsibility is to examine the root causes of September 11 and to help the United States prevent another terrorist attack. Your duty is solemn and sobering. But I, too, have a duty today. I have sworn to tell the whole truth, and I intend to fulfill this obligation. Today I will testify to four central issues which have not been developed fully in the Commission's work and deserve your attention. First, this Commission has debated the nature of the covert action authorities directed at Usama Bin Laden prior to 2001. In February 2001, shortly after becoming Attorney General, I reviewed these authorities. Let me be clear: My thorough review revealed no covert action program to kill Bin Laden. There was a covert-action program to capture Bin Laden for criminal prosecution. But even this program was crippled by a snarled web of requirements, restrictions and regulations that prevented decisive action by our men and women in the field. When they most needed clear, understandable guidance, our agents and operatives were given the language of lawyers. Even if they could have penetrated Bin Laden's training camps, they would have needed a battery of attorneys to approve the capture. With unclear guidance, our covert action team's risk of injury may have exceeded the risk to Usama Bin Laden. On March 7, 2001, I met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. I recommended that the covert-action authorities be clarified and be expanded to allow for decisive, lethal action; we should end the failed "capture" policy. We should find and kill Bin Laden. I recall that Dr. Rice agreed and gave Director Tenet responsibility for drafting, clarifying, and expanding the new authorities. My second point today goes to the heart of this Commission's duty to uncover the fact: The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents. Government erected this wall. Government buttressed this wall. And before September 11, government was blinded by this wall. In 1995, the Justice Department embraced flawed legal reasoning, imposing a series of restrictions on the FBI that went beyond what the law required. The 1995 Guidelines and the procedures developed around them imposed draconian barriers to communications between the law enforcement and intelligence communities. The wall "effectively excluded" prosecutors from intelligence investigations. The wall left intelligence agents afraid to talk with criminal prosecutors or agents. In 1995, the Justice Department designed a system destined to fail. In the days before September 11, the wall specifically impeded the investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. After the FBI arrested Moussaoui, agents became suspicious of his interest in commercial aircraft and sought approval for a criminal warrant to search his computer. The warrant was rejected because FBI officials feared breaching the wall. When the CIA finally told the FBI that al-Midhar and al-Hazmi were in the country in late August, agents in New York searched for the suspects. But because of the wall, FBI Headquarters refused to allow criminal investigators who knew the most about the most recent al Qaeda attack to join the hunt for the suspected terrorists. At that time, a frustrated FBI investigator wrote Headquarters, quote, "Whatever has happened to this — someday someone will die — and wall or not — the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems'. Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decision then, especially since the biggest threat to us, UBL, is getting the most protection." FBI Headquarters responded, quote: "We are all frustrated with this issue ... These are the rules. NSLU does not make them up." But somebody did make these rules. Someone built this wall. The basic architecture for the wall in the 1995 Guidelines was contained in a classified memorandum entitled "Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations." The memorandum ordered FBI Director Louis Freeh and others, quote: "We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation." This memorandum established a wall separating the criminal and intelligence investigations following the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the largest international terrorism attack on American soil prior to September 11. Although you understand the debilitating impact of the wall, I cannot imagine that the Commission knew about this memorandum, so I have declassified it for you and the public to review. Full disclosure compels me to inform you that its author is a member of this Commission. By 2000, the Justice Department was so addicted to the wall, it actually opposed legislation to lower the wall. Finally, the USA PATRIOT ACT tore down this wall between our intelligence and law enforcement personnel in 2001. And when the PATRIOT ACT was challenged, the FISA Court of Review upheld the law, ruling that the 1995 guidelines were required by neither the Constitution nor the law. The third issue I would like to raise with the Commission this afternoon is another limitation government placed on our ability to "connect the dots" of the terrorist threat prior to September 11: the lack of support for information technology at the FBI. After I became Attorney General in February 2001, it soon became clear that the FBI's computer technology and information management was in terrible shape. The Bureau essentially had 42 separate information systems, none of which were connected. Agents lacked even the most basic Internet technology. These problems did not just hamper interagency communication; they hindered information sharing with the Justice Department, the intelligence community, and state and local law enforcement. It is no wonder, given the state of its technology, that the Phoenix memo warning that terrorists may be training in commercial aviation was lost in the antique computers at Washington headquarters. Yet for year after year, the FBI was denied the funds requested for its information technology. Over eight years, the Bureau was denied nearly $800 million of its information technology funding requests. To put this $800 million shortfall in perspective, the Trilogy program, which is now revolutionizing computer, data and information sharing at the Bureau, has cost $580 million. On September 11, 2001, the FBI's annual technology budget under the prior Administration was actually $36.1 million less than the last Bush budget eight years before. The FBI's information infrastructure had been starved and by September 11 it collapsed from budgetary neglect. When the Hannsen and McVeigh failures fully exposed that this neglect cost national security, I ordered four independent external reviews of the FBI's information infrastructure under coordination from the Deputy Attorney General. And my first two budgets, both proposed before 9/11, requested a 50 percent increase for FBI information technology. Finally, the Commission should study carefully the National Security Council plan to disrupt the al Qaeda network in the U.S. that our government failed to implement fully seventeen months before September 11. The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 — with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government. In March 2000, the review warns the prior Administration of a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here. Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls. These are the same aggressive, often criticized law enforcement tactics we have unleashed for 31 months to stop another al Qaeda attack. These are the same tough tactics we deployed to catch Ali al- Marri, who was sent here by al Qaeda on September 10, 2001, to facilitate a second wave of terrorist attacks on Americans. Despite the warnings and the clear vulnerabilities identified by the NSC in 2000, no new disruption strategy to attack the al Qaeda network within the United States was deployed. It was ignored in the Department's five-year counterterrorism strategy. I did not see the highly-classified review before September 11. It was not among the 30 items upon which my predecessor briefed me during the transition. It was not advocated as a disruption strategy to me during the summer threat period by the NSC staff which wrote the review more than a year earlier. I certainly cannot say why the blueprint for security was not followed in 2000. I do know from my personal experience that those who take the kind of tough measures called for in the plan will feel the heat. I've been there; I've done that. So the sense of urgency simply may not have overcome concern about the outcry and criticism which follows such tough tactics. I am aware that the issues I have raised this afternoon involve at times painful introspection for this Commission and for the nation. I have spoken out today not to add to the nation's considerable stock of pain, but to heal our wounds. This Commission's heavy burden — to probe the causes of September 11 — demands that the record be complete. Our nation's heavy burden — to learn from the mistakes of our past — demands that this Commission seeks the whole truth. May this Commission be successful in its mission. And may we learn well the lessons of history. I thank members of the Commission for their service and for the opportunity to testify today.

Oh boy....

And how many in the Iraqi military?

The Road map... Meeting with Sharon to discuss the pullout from the gaza strip.... Just because he hasn't said GET OUT or else, he isn't doing anything to help these parasites?

Please explain...

I win... How does the Clinton KOOL AIDE taste??? Mr Clinton met with Monica more then Tenet..

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/3/123551.shtml Bin Laden Arrest Offer Spurned as Clinton Met Lewinsky At least two offers from the government of Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. were rebuffed by the Clinton administration in February and March of 1996, a period of time when the former president's attention was distracted by his intensifying relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. One of the offers took place during a secret meeting in Washington, the same day Clinton was meeting with Lewinsky in the White House just miles away. On Feb. 6, 1996, then-U.S. Ambassador to the Sudan Tim Carney met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Osman Mohammed Taha at Taha's home in the capital city of Khartoum. The meeting took place just a half mile from bin Laden's residence at the time, according to Richard Miniter's book "Losing bin Laden." During the meeting, Carney reminded the Sudanese official that Washington was increasingly nervous about the presence of bin Laden in Sudan, reports Miniter. Foreign Minister Taha countered by saying that Sudan was very concerned about its poor relationship with the U.S. Then came the bombshell offer: "If you want bin Laden, we will give you bin Laden," Foreign Minister Taha told Ambassador Carney. Still, with the extraordinarily fortuitous offer on the table, back in Washington President Clinton had other things on his mind. A timeline of events chronicled in the Starr Report shows that during the period of late January through March 1996, Mr. Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was then at its most intense. On Feb. 4, 1996, for instance - two days before Ambassador Carney's key meeting with the Sudanese Foreign Minister, the president was focused not on Osama bin Laden, but instead on the 23-year-old White House intern. Their rendezvous that day included a sexual encounter followed by a leisurely chat between Clinton and Lewinsky, as the two "sat and talked [afterward] for about 45 minutes," according to the Starr Report. Later in the afternoon that same day, as Sudanese officials weighed their decision to offer bin Laden to the U.S., Clinton found time to call Lewinsky "[to say] he had enjoyed their time together." If there were any calls from Clinton to the State Department or Khartoum that day, the records have yet to surface in published reports. The Feb. 4 encounter with Lewinsky followed a period of intense contact detailed in the Starr report in interviews with the former White House intern, including a sexual encounter on Jan. 6, 1996, several sessions of phone sex during the week of Jan. 14 - 21, and another sexual encounter on Jan. 21. Sudan's offer to the U.S. for bin Laden's extradition remained on the table for at least a month, and was reiterated by Sudanese officials who traveled to Washington as late as March 10, 1996. On March 3, Sudan's Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa met secretly with Ambassador Carney, another State Department official and the CIA's Africa bureau Director of Operations at an Arlington, Va., hotel, according to Miniter's book. Erwa was handed a list of issues the U.S. wanted taken care of if relations were to improve. The list included a demand for information on bin Laden's terrorist network inside Sudan. Erwa replied that he would have to consult with Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir about the list. When he returned for a March 10, 1996 meeting with the CIA's Africa bureau chief, "Erwa would be empowered to make an extraordinary offer," writes Miniter. On instructions from its president, the government of Sudan agreed to arrest bin Laden and hand him over to U.S law enforcement at a time and place of the Clinton administration's choosing. "Where should we send him?" Erwa asked the CIA representative. President Clinton has acknowledged being fully briefed on the Sudanese efforts to turn over the 9/11 mastermind, admitting that he made the final decision to turn the offer down. "The Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again," Clinton confirmed during a February 2002 speech to a New York business group. "They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America." As chronicled in the Starr report, however, Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky proved to be a growing distraction around this time. Two weeks before the secret meeting between Erwa, Carney and the CIA bureau chief, the president summoned Lewinsky to the White House to inform her that he "no longer felt right" about their relationship and it would have to be suspended until after the election. Lewinsky explained, however, that Clinton's decision to put their relationship on hold did little to change its basic character, telling Starr's investigators, "There'd continue to be this flirtation when we'd see each other." The Starr report noted, "In late February or March [1996], the president telephoned her at home and said he was disappointed that, because she had already left the White House for the evening, they could not get together." The call, Lewinsky said, "sort of implied to me that he was interested in starting up again." On March 10, 1996, as Sudanese Defense Minister Erwa was making his extraordinary offer for bin Laden's arrest to the CIA's Africa bureau chief, Clinton met with Lewinsky in the White House. The Starr report: "On March 10, 1996, Ms. Lewinsky took a visiting friend, Natalie Ungvari, to the White House. They bumped into the president, who said when Ms. Lewinsky introduced them, 'You must be her friend from California.' Ms. Ungvari was 'shocked' that the president knew where she was from." Though there was no physical contact that day, three weeks later, on March 31, 1996, Clinton resumed his sexual relationship with Lewinsky. It was around this time, the president later admitted, that he was involved in delicate negotiations to try to persuade Riyadh to take bin Laden, after refusing to accept his extradition to the U.S. "I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have," Clinton admitted in the 2002 speech. "But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan." On April 7, 1996, Monica Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. Around the same time, the administration's hunt for bin Laden finally seemed to begin in earnest. Just weeks after Clinton spurned Sudan's bin Laden offer, for instance, the CIA created a separate operational unit dedicated to tracking down bin Laden in Sudan. But it happened too late to capture the 9/11 mastermind. On May 18, 1996, bin Laden boarded a chartered plane in Khartoum with his wives, children, some 150 al-Qaida jihadists and a cache of arms - and flew off to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

She shouldn't be sitting on the panel...If Janet Reno had to testify so should she.. http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetR...id=123-04142004 Contact: Jeff Lungren or Terry Shawn of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 202-225-2492, http://www.house.gov/judiciary WASHINGTON, April 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) released the following statement: "Yesterday, a 1995 memo written by 9/11 Commission Member Jamie Gorelick, in her former role as the second in command at the Justice Department, revealed her actions in establishing the heightened 'wall' prohibiting the sharing of intelligence information and criminal information. Scrutiny of this policy lies at the heart of the Commission's work. Ms. Gorelick has an inherent conflict of interest as the author of this memo and as a government official at the center of the events in questions. Thus, I believe the Commission's work and independence will be fatally damaged by the continued participation of Ms. Gorelick as a Commissioner. Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that Ms. Gorelick should resign from this Commission. "The Commission's Guidelines on Recusals state, 'Commissioners and staff will recuse themselves from investigating work they performed in prior government service.' Commissioner Gorelick's memo directing a policy that 'go(es) beyond what is legally required' indicates that her judgment and actions as the Deputy Attorney General in the Reno Justice Department are very much in question before the Commission. Indeed Attorney General Ashcroft called this DOJ policy, 'the single greatest structural cause for September 11 ... (and) embraced flawed legal reasoning.' Commissioner Gorelick is in the unfair position of trying to address the key issue before the Commission when her own actions are central to the events at issue. The public cannot help but ask legitimate questions about her motives. "While it is regrettable that this conflict had not come to light sooner, this Commission's work and forthcoming recommendations are too important to be questioned in this way, and may be devalued by Ms. Gorelick's continued participation as a Commissioner. Given Ms. Gorelick's work as the Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno, Ms. Gorelick can be quite valuable to the Commission's work preparing 'a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.' However, that contribution should come as a witness before the Commission - not as a member. "Key figures like former FBI Director Freeh, Director Mueller, Attorney General Ashcroft, former presidential adviser Richard Clarke, and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice have all testified before the Commission and would have rightly sparked indignation about a conflict of interest had these individuals also been members of the Commission. Testifying before the Commission is Ms. Gorelick's proper role, not sitting as a member of this independent commission." __________________

Call George Soros maybe he has some pennies for them... http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm STATION OWNER CLAIMS: AIR AMERICA 'BOUNCES CHECK'; LIBERAL RADIO NET TAKEN OFF IN LOS ANGELES, CHICAGO AFTER ONLY TWO WEEKS Wed Apr 14 2004 16:18:43 ET After just two weeks on the air, Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network featuring Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, appears to have encountered serious cash-flow problems. The CHICAGO TRIBUNE is developing a story, insiders tell DRUDGE, on how the network was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, because, the owner of both stations said, the network bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million! A charge the network strongly denies. A Chicago source familiar with the situation said a Multicultural representative showed up at WNTD's offices Wednesday morning, kicked out Air America's lone staffer overseeing the network's feed to the station from New York, switched over to a Spanish-language feed, and changed the locks on the doors... Air America filed a complaint Wednesday in New York state Supreme Court charging Multicultural with breaching their contract and seeking an injunction to force Multicultural to restore the Air America broadcast on both stations. Developing... __________________

No mention of Mr Clinton?

The final Clinton report didn't make one reference to Alqeada

Lets open the flood gates on the press conference already... BUSH HANGS TOUGH By JOHN PODHORETZ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email Archives Print Reprint April 14, 2004 -- THE purpose of last night's presidential press conference was to show purpose, and rarely has a president seemed quite so purposeful as George W. Bush did last night. The purpose of the White House press corps was to make the president confess to weakness - to corner him into creating the soundbite of all soundbites, in which Bush would acknowledge his errors as president and thereby give John Kerry all the material he would need for a killer TV ad or two. The president achieved his purpose. The press corps did not achieve its purpose. He would not fall into their astonishingly blatant trap. He simply refused to offer a satisfactory answer to four - four! - different questions demanding that he either enumerate or apologize for his failures. No one should be fooled by the way he stumbled through some of his answers about his mistakes as president. Bush knew exactly what he was doing, as he always does. Rather than apologize to the 9/11 families for the terror strike that day, the president said the responsibility for the attacks rested squarely on the shoulders of Osama bin Laden. And it's a mark of how demented the debate has gotten in the past few weeks that this simple statement of truth seemed bracing and even daring. The purposeful Bush sought to reassure the American people that the cost and the burden of the mission in Iraq are worth it - and that the sacrifices being borne by our military and their families are noble and valuable. "One of the things that's very important," he said, "is to never allow our youngsters to die in vain. And I made that pledge to their parents. Withdrawing from the battlefield of Iraq would be just that, and it's not going to happen under my watch." The sacrifices are being made for freedom - and for American security. He said it plainly and simply: "By helping secure a free Iraq, Americans serving in that country are protecting their fellow citizens. Our nation is grateful to them all and to their families that face hardship and long separation." The fighting in Iraq is self-evidently part of the War on Terror, he said, because those who are trying to kill soldiers and contractors in Iraq use the same tactics as the terrorists who kill everywhere - and for the same reasons. "The terrorists who take hostages or plants a roadside bomb near Baghdad," he said, are "serving the same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid, and murders children on buses in Jerusalem, and blows up a nightclub in Bali and cuts the throat of a young reporter for being a Jew." In the president's formulation, the mission in Iraq is not only noble and valuable, but now inescapable. There are only two possible outcomes, he said: "Iraq will either be a peaceful, democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terror and a threat to America and to the world." As a result, the United States cannot fail in Iraq "because the consequences of failure would be unthinkable." Failure will embolden terrorists and purveyors of violence, who "would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers." Bush's purposefulness was also on display in answering those who demand a delay in the sovereignty schedule. There will, he said, be a handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi authority on June 30. "Were the Coalition to step back from the June 30th pledge, many Iraqis would question our intentions and feel their hopes betrayed," he said. "And those in Iraq who trade in hatred and conspiracy theories would find a larger audience and gain a stronger hand. We will not step back from our pledge." This is a presidency with a purpose. It will be up to the American people whether this purpose is worth giving George W. Bush a second term. "I look forward to making my case," he said. "I'm looking forward to the campaign." Judging from his stout rhetoric and surpassingly clever gamesmanship with a scalp-hungry press corps last night, Bush has every reason to __________________

HELLOOOO YOU CLUELESS MEATHEAD... AL-JAZEERA WAS DENOUNCED BY Iraq's National Security Advisor Muaffaq al-Rubaie, a Shiite FOR TELLING LIES!!!!!!! Read the first part of the thread before spewing your clueless bile...

Look at this garbage http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F8388B06-6A1B-43AB-8DF1-529ADBEA24DA.htm Occupation forces violate Falluja ceasefire Occupation forces in Iraq have used F16 fighter planes to bomb the Nizal neighbourhood in Falluja, Aljazeera TV's correspondent has reported. The journalist also said that the occupation on Tuesday pushed several tanks through the only open gateway used as an exit for Iraqi families in an apparent violation of the latest ceasefire in Falluja. "The invading forces were met with fierce resistance by the Fallouja defenders which forced the US tanks into a quick withdrawal," correspondent Abd al-Azim Muhammad reported. "Three Iraqis were killed and severel others injured in the battles between the resistance fighters and the occupation troops." The US fighter planes dropped stun bombs to cover their troops withdrawal, he added.

Me? Tell me faggotmania is Arafat hung?

First off, go fawk your camel you little punk... I didn't catch a attitude with you pussy boy, so don't get your turbin in a bunch over a valid question I asked about that scumbag Arafat. I'll tell you what your promblem is.. You appeasing fawk.. You appease and take the side of degenarate lowlife scum WHO BLOW UP BUSES WITH CHILDREN ON THEM!!!! Arafat has a 1.4 billion net worth, explain that numbnuts?

So thats what you're calling it these days, occupation?hmm interesting

Arafat has a 1.4 billion net worth, explain that numbnuts?

The ones causing problems are! And from recent reports it looks like Syrians, Egyptians and Iranians have their hands in all of this...

The more Arafat pockets from the aid given to the Palestinians, the poorer they become and the hatred for Isreal increases. Arafat is the only one making out in the deal. I say withdraw to the pre- 67 boundries, and put 2 in Arafat's skull as a good measure...

Yeah, suicide, bomber belt technician.. looks really good on a resume..

Amazing how Al jazeera always has a audio tape of Bin LADEN or first video of hostages taken. Remember when some of Al JAZEERA's employees were found to be on Sadam's payroll? The U.S has failed to put out a powerful voice and arabic voice to speak to the Iraqi's, but hopefully when the governing council is handed power in July, things will change. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...ia_040412180400 Arab TV networks accused of fueling violence in Iraq Mon Apr 12, 2:04 PM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo! BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US-led coalition and its Iraqi allies accused the Arab world's two biggest television news stations of fanning anti-US sentiment and sectarian violence in Iraq (news - web sites) with their reporting. "Anti-US sentiment has been heightened by Al-Jazeera and other anti-coalition media reporting" on the closure of a Shiite radical newspaper and the siege of the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, the coalition's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, told a news conference. "We have reason to believe that several news organizations do not engage in truthful reporting," coalition civilian spokesman Dan Senor said. "In fact it is no reporting." Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and its Dubai-based rival Al-Arabiya, have been providing graphic images of the devastation and casualties in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah during fierce fighting between US forces and insurgents last week. Al-Jazeera has also been giving significant prominence and airtime to supporters of Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr, who is wanted in connection with the murder of a rival cleric last year. Both Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya have also been the exclusive broadcasters of several videotapes of foreigners kidnapped by insurgents in Iraq. Iraq's National Security Advisor Muaffaq al-Rubaie, a Shiite, lashed out at what he called "false reports" by both channels Sunday that he resigned from the council in protest against fighting between US troops and Sadr's supporters that has left many civilians dead in Baghdad and the south. "I am so upset and so angry about what has been reported on Arab media and television about my resignation," Rubaie told a press conference in Baghdad. He said he left his position in the council which is legislative in nature to take an executive post as national security advisor as part of the transfer of power by the US-led coalition to a caretaker government on June 30. "I warn the Arabic media: Iraq's patience has reached its limit and they will regret what they are doing," said a visibly angry Rubaie. He accused both channels of inciting violence between the country's ethnic groups with their reporting. "This media is not happy with the end of the sectarianism in Iraq with the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), so they lie, lie and lie," said Rubaie. He warned both television stations and other "irresponsible" Arab media that they would be shut down and banned from reporting from Iraq if they did not change their ways. "All they have to do if they want to continue working in Iraq is to abide by the international and basic rules of reporting and refrain from using these facts and semi-facts to incite sectarian violence," he said. But Al-Jazeera, which has been in hot water many times before regarding its reporting in Iraq, insists on its professional standards. "Al-Jazeera is regularly the butt of criticism, often misplaced," spokesman Jihad Ballout told AFP. The widely viewed channel is merely "reporting events objectively, which cannot possibly please everyone," he said. "Al-Jazeera is not in the business of politics. It is a professional news outlet ... which is neither with nor against anyone." Ballout said he hoped Rubaie would not carry out his threat to shut down the station's operation in Iraq, saying that such a move would "harm not just Al-Jazeera ... but also the Arab viewer and press freedom." Al-Arabiya, which was banned from reporting in Iraq for more than two months at the end of November on charges on inciting murder, was not immediately available for comment. But in a sign of Al-Jazeera's popularity, Japanese reporters slammed their diplomats in Jordan Monday, saying that they were left with reports by Al-Jazeera and other Arab media as the sole source of news about three Japanese hostages held by insurgents in Iraq. "We end up getting our only news from Al-Jazeera," said Yoichi Koizumi, a reporter with Fuji Television News Network __________________

Hopefully July 1st will exstinguish all this baseless rhetoric of empire building and occupation...

Yeah, good observation:rolleyes: Let me guess, we're there for oil right? We gave them freedom,on June 30th the deal is complete and we won't stay there one day over whats needed...