Impeach Bush

Dedicated to exposing the lies and impeachable offenses of George W. Bush.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Iraq MPs gather votes to force US withdrawal

May 12, 2007
Iraq MPs gather votes to force US withdrawal

Iraqi MPs are gathering votes to force their government to set a deadline for US forces to withdraw from the country and think they have a majority, a leading Shiite politician said on Friday.

Baha al-Aaraji, a supporter of radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, told AFP that 144 members of the 275-seat national assembly had signed a draft law that would set a departure timetable for US troops.

However, other legislators said the bill would probably be watered down before becoming a non-binding petition, and that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would martial enough support to renew the US mandate next month.

Labels: ,

May 12, 2007
Gen. Montano: Iraq Straining National Guard

WASHINGTON -- The National Guard isn't as strong as it should be because of the war in Iraq and American communities will suffer as a result, retired Air Force Gen. Melvyn Montano said Saturday.

Delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address, Montano said the strain means it will take longer for Greensburg, Kan., to recover from a devastating tornado that leveled the town a week ago.

"Crucial equipment used by the Guard for disaster relief is now in Iraq instead of standing ready to respond to crises here at home," said Montano, who was once adjutant general of the New Mexico National Guard.

Labels: ,

May 12, 2007
Gonzales lacks the ability or the moral compass to do his job

Consider Mr. Gonzales's performance the other day before the House Judiciary Committee, where the chairman, John Conyers Jr., framed the questioning with admirable simplicity: who made up the list of prosecutors to be fired, and why? That should not be a hard question. The nine prosecutors who are now known to have been purged — it was eight until the case of Todd Graves of Missouri came to light this week — are nearly 10 percent of all United States attorneys. It defies belief that an attorney general would allow so many top officials to be fired without being well aware of the reasons.

Yet that was just what Mr. Gonzales claimed. He delegated, he was not informed, he just could not recall. None of it was believable. When asked by Representative Robert Wexler who decided to fire David Iglesias, the United States attorney in New Mexico, Mr. Gonzales flatly stated that President Bush and Vice President Cheney did not. He said he did not know who chose individual prosecutors to be fired, but he was certain that it was not his bosses.

Labels:

Governors worry about depleted National Guard

May 13, 2007
Governors worry about depleted National Guard

TAMPA, Fla. — With repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan leaving state National Guards without nearly half of their required equipment, some governors are loudly questioning whether they will be able to handle the next hurricane, wildfire or terrorist attack at home.

"We are not going to be able to continue to rely on the National Guard as a full-time operational force," North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said.

Easley said his state has about half the equipment it needs and could probably respond adequately to a hurricane, but "a pandemic or something like that may be a different question."

Labels:

FBI probes Nevada governor for corruption

May 11, 2007
FBI probes Nevada governor for corruption

The key facts are familiar. A politician gets a fancy vacation and perhaps other lucrative benefits. And a defense contractor gets multi-million-dollar government contracts. The question now: Was any of it criminal?

The new governor of Nevada, Jim Gibbons, is being investigated by the FBI because of alleged gifts and payments from Warren Trepp, a defense contractor whose Nevada firm received tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

The FBI wants to know if Gibbons, while a member of Congress, improperly used his influence to help Trepp get those contracts.

Sources close to the investigation say a key focus is a lavish week-long Caribbean cruise in March 2005 by Gibbons, his wife and son, and Trepp, who paid for almost everything. In photos obtained by NBC News, Gibbons is seen hamming it up — kicking back with a drink and posing with his wife, Dawn, Trepp and Trepp's other guests.

Labels: ,

May 12, 2007
Momentum builds against GOP candidates

The week had the feel of 1974. Republican members of Congress marched to the White House to deliver a frank message to an embattled president: You are a liability.

Three decades ago, it was Watergate. Now, it's Iraq.

President Bush's meeting with the 11 Republican House members grew out of a sudden decline in the party's fortunes that has recently come into sharp relief.

The evidence of the trend is anecdotal and quantifiable: Public opinion polls show that the electorate has shifted to the left since the 2004 elections, with the war a leading drag on Republicans.

Labels:

U.S. study finds billions of Iraqi oil missing

May12, 2007
U.S. study finds billions of Iraqi oil missing

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billions of dollars' worth of Iraq's declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for, possibly having been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, The New York Times said on Saturday.

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels of Iraq's daily output of roughly 2 million barrels is missing, it said, citing a draft report prepared by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and government energy analysts which is expected to be released next week.

The discrepancy was valued between $5 million and $15 million daily, using a $50 per barrel average, the report said. That adds up to billions of dollars over the four years since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.


Labels:

May 12, 2007
Hub judge scolds Gonzales for misconduct case pace

The chief federal judge in Boston sent a scathing letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday, accusing his office of dragging their feet by taking more than six months to provide records in the investigation of misconduct by a federal prosecutor.

Mark Wolf freed notorious Mafioso Vincent Ferrara in 2005 after he discovered federal prosecutor Jeffrey Auerhahn withheld a statement from a witness disputing Ferrara's role in a murder.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Wolf's decision, calling Auerhahn's actions "egregious," "outrageous," "feckless," and "painting a grim picture of blatant misconduct," Wolf wrote in his new letter to Gonzales, mailed yesterday.

Labels: ,

May 12, 2007
New Charges Against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo - Former CIA Official

New charges have been filed alleging that a former top CIA official pushed a proposed $100 million government contract for his best friend in return for lavish vacations, private jet flights and a lucrative job offer.

The indictment, returned Thursday, replaces charges brought in February against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who resigned from the spy agency a year ago, and Poway-based defense contractor Brent Wilkes. The charges grew from the bribery scandal that landed former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in prison.

The pair now face 30 wide-ranging counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.


Labels: ,

CBS News Fires Gen. Batiste

May 11, 2007
CBS News Fires Gen. Batiste

Last night, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann." Batiste has been a CBS News consultant, but last night it was disclosed that he has been asked to leave that position due to his participation in an ad criticizing President Bush. Says Batiste in the ad: "Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril."

CBS News Vice President, Standards and Special Projects Linda Mason confirmed to me that Batiste was asked to vacate his position.

"When we hire someone as a consultant, we want them to share their expertise with our viewers," she said. "By putting himself front and center in an anti-Bush ad, the viewer might have the feeling everything he says is anti-Bush. And that doesn't seem like an analytical approach to the issues we want to discuss."

Labels: , ,

Iraq President asks US troops to stay for two more years

May 12, 2007
Iraq President asks US troops to stay for two more years

Iraq's president asked America to keep its troops in Iraq for up to two more years after the US Congress voted to limit funding for the war.

Speaking at the Cambridge Union Society, Jalal Talabani said Iraqi forces would not be prepared to take charge of security for "one or two years".

"We are concerned and we hope that Congress will review this decision and help the American army to stay until the Iraqi army will be ready," he said.

Labels:

May 13, 2007
Why Wolfowitz should have been out on his ear

Now he is under pressure from European shareholders in the bank to resign: they are horrified that he is hanging on to power while the institution continues to lecture developing countries about the need for good corporate governance. Wolfowitz might have quit by now, but the US administration is trying to persuade him to stay to avoid losing face. He is, after all, an American appointment. But therein lies the problem. The bank's credibility would be better served if its president were selected by an independent body with power to hire and fire. If that were the case, he would have been shown the door weeks ago.

Labels:

May 12, 2007
US general asks for more troops in northern Iraq

The commander of US forces in northern Iraq said yesterday that he did not have enough troops to bring stability, sharpening the debate in America about the effectiveness of George Bush's war plan.

Major General Benjamin Mixon told a video press conference that his region was a haven for militants fleeing a crackdown by US forces in Baghdad, and that the local Iraqi authorities were virtually non-functioning. "I am going to need additional forces in Diyala province to get the situation there to an acceptable level," he said. There are 3,500 troops in the region.

Labels:

Climate change to force mass migration

May 14, 2007
Climate change to force mass migration

A billion people - one in seven people on Earth today - could be forced to leave their homes over the next 50 years as the effects of climate change worsen an already serious migration crisis, a new report from Christian Aid predicts.

The report, which is based on latest UN population and climate change figures, says conflict, large-scale development projects and widespread environmental deterioration will combine to make life unsupportable for hundreds of millions of people, mostly in the Sahara belt, south Asia and the Middle East.

Labels:

May 13, 2007
More troops' call as Iraq murders soar

he US military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in the victims of death squads in Baghdad.

In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies - men murdered by death squads - dumped around the capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of 25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive next month.

Labels:

May 9, 2007
Paul J. McNulty, Fourth Justice Department official resigns

What a morning it's been for devotees of the U.S. Attorney scandal. While former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about ghoulish behavior on the part of then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General himself was throwing under the bus his former deputy, Paul J. McNulty, who resigned under fire yesterday from the Justice Department. Got that? The guy who should be Attorney General was highlighting the backhanded way in which the current Attorney General operated back in 2004. And Gonzales, the guy who has kept his job thanks to blind loyalty on the part of President Bush, was unable and unwilling to show any measure of fealty to his own subordinate, savaging him less than 24 hours after McNulty decided to go.

Labels: ,

Gonzales blames his deputy for firings

May 15, 2007
Gonzales blames his deputy for firings

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday he relied on his outgoing deputy to determine which federal prosecutors should be fired last year.

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, submitted his resignation to Gonzales on Monday, the department announced.

"The recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names," Gonzales said while responding to questions at a forum on the Justice Department's Safer Communities Initiative.

Labels: ,

Former DOJ Official: Gonzales and Cheney Staff Subverted Warrantless Wiretapping Program

May 15, 2007
Former DOJ Official: Gonzales and Cheney Staff Subverted Warrantless Wiretapping Program

The former second-in-command at the Justice Department from 2003 through 2005 on Tuesday detailed a March 2004 incident in which top members of the Bush administration, including Alberto Gonzales and members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff, worked to subvert a legal certification process for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. One Republican senator compared the episode to President Richard Nixon's efforts to disrupt the Watergate investigation.

James Comey was the Deputy Attorney General first under Attorney General John Ashcroft, and briefly under Alberto Gonzales. He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday as part of continuing oversight pertaining to the firing of US Attorneys by the Bush administration.


Labels: ,

White House recertified counterterrorism program without DoJ backing

May 15, 2007
White House recertified counterterrorism program without DoJ backing

At the heart of the story is what Comey viewed as the White House's efforts to circumvent his refusal to sign off on the recertification of a controversial counterterrorism program.

To achieve that goal, Alberto Gonzales — the former White House chief counsel and current attorney general — and former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card visited the bedside of an ill John Ashcroft, who at the time was attorney general, to get him to overrule Comey's decision. Comey, who was the acting attorney general and was on the same page with Ashcroft regarding the decision, had informed the White House that DoJ would not back recertification of the program.

Labels: ,

Terror suspect claims CIA tortured him

May 15, 2007
Terror suspect claims CIA tortured him

WASHINGTON — A Pakistani terrorism suspect denied any connection to al-Qaida and said he was tortured and his family was hounded by U.S. authorities, according to a transcript released Tuesday by the Pentagon.

Majid Khan, in a lengthy written statement, said the CIA and the Defense Department tortured him after his capture in Pakistan as well as when he was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

"I swear to God this place in some sense worst than CIA jails. I am being mentally torture here," said Khan in a statement read by his personal representative about his time in Guantanamo. "There is extensive torture even for the smallest of infractions."

Labels: ,