Fri May 26, 2006
Reuters WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush admitted on Thursday that his bellicose "bring 'em on" taunt to Iraqi insurgents was a big mistake, as he and British Prime Minister Tony Blair carefully avoided setting a timetable for removing troops from Iraq. [...]
At a joint news conference with Blair, after three years of war that has killed more than 2,400 Americans and thousands of Iraqis, Bush was asked what mistake he most regretted. The Texan said that he regretted saying "bring 'em on" when responding in July 2003 to a question about the Iraqi insurgency. On Thursday, Bush said the remark was "kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong message to people." "I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner, you know. "Wanted, dead or alive"; that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted," he said. He also cited the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal as "the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement in Iraq ... We've been paying for that for a long period of time," he said. [...] Comment: I know we have asked this before, but is there even one American who is NOT excruciatingly embarassed every time Bush opens his mouth? "Kind of tough talk"?? PLEASE! Someone remove this guy from public view before he makes an even bigger ass of himself in front of the entire world.
At the same freak show of a speech, Blair said: "I think it's easy to go back over mistakes that we may have made. But the biggest reason why Iraq has been difficult is the determination by our opponents to defeat us. And I don't think we should be surprised at that,"To which we can only reply, "No way! You really think so Tony? Please, explain to us further how frickin obvious it is that one of the 'difficulties' your invading army is encountering in Iraq is that the Iraqi people are fighting back. Wow! Thanks for that one Tony. Perhaps we should go and watch an episode of the Teletubbies for further incisive insights into the Iraqi invasion?" |
by Laurent Lozano
AFP Fri May 26, 2006 WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair bluntly acknowledged that the Iraq war had been marked by "mistakes" and "missteps" but insisted that the world must support the new Baghdad government.
During an extraordinary 50-minute White House press conference Thursday, the political brothers-in-arms expressed distress at many aspects of the campaign which brought down Saddam Hussein but also undermined their own popularity. Bush expressed regret for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and some of his tough-talking comments. Comment: When somebody like George W. Bush - who has formerly declared that he takes his instructions from God and that he is the "decider" - starts talking openly about how he made have screwed up, you know he is worried. What he is counting on is that average Americans will be moved by his "honesty" and ignore his war crimes, massive spying operations against US citizens, and human rights violations.
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by Jim Mannion
AFP Fri May 26, 2006 WASHINGTON - American support for the war in Iraq is down because news from Iraq has been bad and "war is an ugly thing," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld would not say how much longer US troops are likely to remain in Iraq, saying that "depends on so many variables that nobody can know the answer to." In a wide-ranging interview with CNN's Larry King, Rumsfeld defended the war and expressed confidence that the American people would persevere despite the souring public mood. "Well, obviously, they hear a lot of bad news and it's not surprising. A war is an ugly thing. I don't think you'll ever find a popular war," he said. "Why should war be popular. It's a vicious, horrible, ugly thing. But by golly, if we tossed in the towel every time we had a problem in this country we wouldn't have a country," he said. "Turning over that country to violent extremists would destabilize that region, it would put at risk the neighboring Sunni regimes. If you were Iran, it would be the best thing in the world," he said. Rumsfeld's interview was taped earlier Thursday but aired just after a press conference between President George W. Bush and visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair who met to discuss the way forward in Iraq. |
Reuters
May 25, 2006 Former Enron chief executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were found guilty on Thursday of lying about their company's crumbling finances in one of the biggest U.S. business scandals and could face years in prison.
The jury verdict in a trial that began January 30 capped a four-year-long government effort to get those responsible for a corporate collapse that cost investors billions of dollars, wiped out thousands of jobs and sent shockwaves through Wall Street and Washington. Lay, 64, and Skilling, 52, who were once lauded as two of the world's top business leaders but later became poster boys for corporate deception, looked shaken when U.S. District Judge Sim Lake read the decision to a packed courtroom. Skilling looked down as the verdict was read. Lay sighed heavily, as his wife Linda grabbed his arm. Lay was convicted of all six counts of conspiracy and fraud and faces a maximum of 45 years in prison. Skilling was found guilty of 19 counts of conspiracy, fraud, insider trading and making false statements which, combined, carry a maximum sentence of 185 years. He was not convicted on nine criminal counts. In a separate trial for Lay, Judge Lake found Lay guilty of all four bank fraud charges for illegally using money from $75 million in personal loans to buy stock. Comment: Don't miss this part:
"Lay used his and the company's money to gain political power by donating heavily to candidates, particularly Republicans and especially the Bush family. |
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
by Greg Palast Don't kid yourself. If you think the conviction of Ken Lay means that George Bush is serious about going after corporate bad guys, think again.
First, Lay got away with murder -- or at least grand larceny. Like Al Capone convicted of failing to file his taxes, Ken Lay, though found guilty of stock fraud, is totally off the hook for his BIG crime: taking down California and Texas consumers for billions through fraud on the power markets. Lay, co-convict Jeff Skilling and Enron did not act alone. They connived with half a dozen other power companies and a dozen investment banks to manipulate both the stock market and the electricity market. And though their co-conspirators have now paid $3 billion to settle civil claims, the executives of these other corporations and banks get a walk on criminal charges. Furthermore, to protect our President's boardroom buddies from any further discomforts, the Bush Justice Department, just days ago, indicted Milberg, Weiss, the law firm that nailed Enron's finance industry partners-in-crime. The timing of the bust of this, the top corporation-battling law firm, smacks of political prosecution -- and a signal to Big Business that it's business as usual. |
APFN
25/05/2006 While the White House has repeatedly described former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay as simply a "supporter" of George W. Bush, extensive correspondence between the two men paints a far cozier picture of their relationship, according to copies of letters obtained this afternoon (2/15) by The Smoking Gun.
The pages of correspondence, exchanged during the years Bush served as governor of Texas, were released today in Austin by the state archives in response to Freedom of Information requests filed by TSG and other news organizations. |
By Dawn Kopecki
BusinessWeek Online May 23, 2006 Now, the White House's top spymaster can cite national security to exempt businesses from reporting requirements
President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye. Comment:
"The timing of Bush's move is intriguing. On the same day the President signed the memo, Porter Goss resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency amid criticism of ineffectiveness and poor morale at the agency."Speaking of the CIA... |
AFP
May 26, 2006 WASHINGTON - Reports of gunfire at a US House of Representatives office building have prompted officials to lock down part of the Capitol complex.
"There are reports of gunfire in the building," Congressman Peter Hoekstra told a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, saying that a message was sent to him on a portable e-mail device. "It's a little unsettling to get a Blackberry message in front of you that says there's gunfire in the building," he added. An AFP reporter at the Rayburn House Office Building, where the reported shots were heard, saw armed Capitol police surrounding the complex. No one was being allowed to enter the building and at least four ambulances were parked outside. The gunfire reportedly was heard in a garage of the Rayburn building. The House was not in session at the time, while debate in the Senate continued uninterrupted. |
AFP
May 26, 2006 WASHINGTON - The US Senate confirmed Air Force General Michael Hayden as the new director of the CIA, which has been in turmoil over intelligence failures leading up to the September 11 attacks and the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Hayden, 61, was approved to run the embattled CIA by a vote of 78 to 15, despite questions raised during Senate hearings over his oversight of the National Security Agency's controversial domestic wiretap program. He was nominated on May 8 by President George W. Bush to replace Porter Goss, who stepped down after a year and a half as the Central Intelligence Agency director amid criticism that morale in the agency had deteriorated under his watch. |
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times 07/04/2006 In light of the 'insider' fingerprints left all over the 9/11 attacks, a few recent stories made us sit up and take notice.
On Monday, the U.S. Capitol building (seat of the great American Democracy inaction) experienced a 'power out' that caused an evacuation for about an hour. Strangely enough, a spokeswoman for Potomac Electric Power Co., said the electricity shut off automatically after there was "a momentary drop in voltage due to customer operations up the lines" away from the Capitol. |
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