Administration Withdraws Pledge - will not seek warrents

April 30, 2007
Administration Withdraws Pledge - will not seek warrents

WASHINGTON, May 1 — Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency's domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.

But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.

Tenet: CIA warned of 'anarchy' in Iraq, Knew Powell was Lying About WMD

April 27, 2007
Tenet: CIA warned of 'anarchy' in Iraq, Knew Powell was Lying About WMD

For the first time, Tenet offers an account of his own view of a historic moment in the run-up to war: Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 speech before the United Nations, with Tenet sitting just behind him.

"That was about the last place I wanted to be," Tenet recalls. "It was a great presentation, but unfortunately the substance didn't hold up," he says of the performance, in which Powell charged Iraq had WMD stockpiles.

"One by one, the various pillars of the speech, particularly on Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs, began to buckle," he writes. "The secretary of state was subsequently hung out to dry in front of the world, and our nation's credibility plummeted."

Bush Mired in Stealth, Lies and Cover-Ups

April 26, 2007
Bush Mired in Stealth, Lies and Cover-Ups

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration will do, say and spend anything to maintain its façade of command and control.

To hear them tell it, the administration would be winning the war, if only those traitorous Democrats would stop pointing out that they aren't. Everything would be fine at Walter Reed Army Hospital and likewise New Orleans, if only the locals weren't wasting money. Those fired U.S. attorneys? Mishandled maybe, but they were properly let go "for performance-related reasons.''

Two of the most disgraceful attempts to replace the truth with propaganda were brought to vivid light on Tuesday at a congressional inquiry into the death of Corporal Pat Tillman, killed by friendly fire in 2004, and the capture of Private Jessica Lynch.

In the interest of their own PR machine, which has spent more than a billion dollars on propaganda, the Pentagon shamed itself by lying about what really happened to these two heroic patriots, who need no government flackery to make them so.

Administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys

April 27, 2007
Administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys

WASHINGTON - Congressional sources who have seen unedited internal documents say the Bush administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys before paring down its list to eight late last year. The four who escaped dismissal came from states considered political battlegrounds in the last presidential election: Missouri, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The latest revelation could provide new evidence to critics who contend that politics, not performance, played the determining role in the firings. The White House and the Justice Department have repeatedly denied that politics played any role.

Put Bush's 'puppy dog' terror theory to sleep

April 25, 2007
Put Bush's 'puppy dog' terror theory to sleep

Does the President think terrorists are puppy dogs? He keeps saying that terrorists will "follow us home" like lost dogs. This will only happen, however, he says, if we "lose" in Iraq.

RICHARD CLARKE: The puppy dog theory is the corollary to earlier sloganeering that proved the President had never studied logic: "We are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to face them and fight them in the streets of our own cities."

Remarkably, in his attempt to embrace the failed Iraqi adventure even more than the President, Sen. John McCain is now parroting the line. "We lose this war and come home, they'll follow us home," he says.

How is this odd terrorist puppy dog behavior supposed to work? The President must believe that terrorists are playing by some odd rules of chivalry. Would this be the "only one slaughter ground at a time" rule of terrorism?

Tenet Says WH Lied About 'Slam Dunk' Remark

April 27, 2007
Tenet Says WH Lied About 'Slam Dunk' Remark

WASHINGTON (AP) - When CIA Director George Tenet uttered the now-infamous phrase ``slam dunk" at a 2002 White House meeting, he says he was referring broadly to the case that could be made against Saddam Hussein - not his alleged weapons of mass destruction.

"We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant," Tenet said, explaining his remark for the first time in an interview to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes." Short excerpts were released Thursday.

The phrase "slam dunk" was associated with Tenet after it was leaked by a senior administration official to author and journalist Bob Woodward. According to Woodward's book "Plan of Attack," Bush turned to Tenet during the meeting and asked if the information he had just presented on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was the best Tenet had.

White House Falsely Claims Iraq Study Group Supports Escalation Strategy

January 29, 2007
White House Falsely Claims Iraq Study Group Supports Escalation Strategy

The Iraq Study Group did say a "short-term redeployment" of more troops into Baghdad could be
part of a larger military, economic, and diplomatic plan. But both American Enterprise Institute's
Fred Kagan — the architect of the escalation plan — and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno — the
new U.S. ground commander in Iraq — have said the escalation could last anywhere between
18 months and 3 years. That's hardly "short-term."