DHS Takes Seriously Claim Militias May Collaborate with al-Qaeda on Bio Attack

According to The Washington Times, U.S. counterterrorism officials have “authenticated” a video by a supposed al-Qaeda recruiter who claims he has the ability to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border. In the video, Abdullah al-Nafisi also suggests that al-Qaeda might want to collaborate with “members of native U.S. white supremacist militias who hate the federal government.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” document conflates “white supremacists” with the militia movement, advocates of the Second Amendment, activists opposed to illegal immigration, and other loosely defined “antigovernment” groups. The Strategic Analysis Group, Homeland Environment and

Threat Analysis Division of the DHS created the document during the Bush administration and it was revived by the incoming the Obama administration. Veterans in particular took exception to the report because it claims “returning military veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have joined extremist groups.”

The Abdullah al-Nafisi “recruitment” video first surfaced on the Arabic news network Al Jazeera in February and was later posted on several web sites. It was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the notorious disinformation outfit linked to Israeli intelligence. Mossad and the IDF are infamous for planting stories in the media and engaging in psychological warfare.

MEMRI concentrates primarily on discrediting Palestinian and Arab nationalists and was co-founded by the neocon Meyrav Wurmser (married to David Wurmser, Cheney’s Principal Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs) and Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence. “Besides Carmon, several MEMRI staffers are former Israeli intelligence specialists. Especially troubling are suspected links between MEMRI and the current Israeli intelligence establishment,” Lawrence Swaim of InFocus wrote in 2007.

“MEMRI is a main arm of Israeli propaganda,” explains professor Norman G. Finkelstein, a well-known scholar on Israel and Palestine. It is “a Mossad operation pretending to be a media translation service.” Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA case officer, says “they (MEMRI) are selective and act as propagandists for their political point of view, which is the extreme-right of Likud.”

The group receives funding from the usual neocon suspects, including the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Randolph Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation. In addition to the MEMRI propaganda effort, these foundations also fund the American Enterprise Institute, the Project for the New American Century, and importantly the Council on Foreign Relations. MEMRI has threatened to use “SLAPP” (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against critics, most notably the journalist Juan Cole.

Sean Smith, a spokesman for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said the U.S. takes the Abdullah al-Nafisi “recruitment” video seriously. “We can never stop being vigilant while there are individuals who seek to do harm on the American people,” he said.

“In the US, there are more than 300,000 white militia members, who are calling to attack the federal government in Washington, and to banish the Arabs, the Jews, and the negroes [sic] from the US. These are racist people. They are called ‘rednecks.’ The Ku Klux Klan. They are racists,” al-Nafisi declares in a MEMRI translation. “These militias even think about bombing nuclear plants within the US. May Allah grant them success, even though we are not white, or even close to it, right? They have plans to bomb the nuclear plant at Lake Michigan. This plant is very important. It supplies electricity to all of North Africa [sic]. May Allah grant success to one of these militia leaders, who is thinking about bombing this plant. I believe that we should devote part of our prayers to him. We should pray that Allah grants him success, so he can complete this mission, and we will be able to visit him and congratulate him, Allah willing.”

Abdallah al-Nafisi’s ludicrous assertion that militia members plan to bomb U.S. nuclear plants echoes the DHS claim that the militias are dangerous and recruiting returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to engage in “antigovernment” violence by playing on “several emergent issues,” including a racist hatred of “the first African American president” and a faltering economy.

A Google search of al-Nafisi’s claim that “white supremacists” allegedly aligned with the militia movement plan to blow up U.S. nuclear plants does not return any results.

The Arab newspaper Al-Ahram has connected al-Nafisi to the Muslim Brotherhood. The “Muslim Brotherhood was created, infiltrated, or at least promoted by British Intelligence,” writes Peter D. Goodgame (The Globalists and the Islamists: Fomenting the “Clash of Civilizations” for a New World Order). In addition, the CIA funded the Muslim Brotherhood as a wedge against Arab nationalism, specifically against Gamal Abddul Nasser’s nationalist policies in Egypt (see Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, and Robert Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam).

It is now a well-documented fact that al-Qaeda is a western intelligence operation. For a detailed explanation on how the CIA, in collaboration with Pakistan’s ISI, created the al-Qaeda myth, see Norm Dixon’s How the CIA created Osama bin Laden. The current president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, told NBC’s David Gregory last month that Osama bin Laden was an “operator” for the United States. Zardari’s claim was all but ignored by the corporate media.

“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida,” said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. “And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US.”

In January of 2008, the al-Qaeda myth expanded to include the cooked up specter of a “white al-Qaeda.” According to the Scotsman, al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen have converted white non-Muslims. “The trend is well established in the United States. American-born Adam Gadahn is one of the FBI’s top 10 most-wanted terrorists after converting to Islam and rising through al-Qaeda’s ranks to become a prominent spokesman.” Fox News amplified this phony threat. “If they can recruit a Scandinavian, that’s the holy grail for them.” Mike Baker, a former CIA agent and professional counter-terrorism expert, told Fox. “They need people who can move around freely and do their bidding.”

Now we are told al-Qaeda may collaborate with “white supremacists” and unleash an anthrax attack on the White House lawn. It remains to be seen if the lunatic ravings of Abdullah al-Nafisi — a probable intelligence asset — will be incorporated in the emerging DHS fairy tale designed to discredit and criminalize legitimate activism in the United States.

Fox has launched a propaganda campaign on the phony threat (see video above). Glenn Beck says he has talked about the “threat” supposedly posed by “white supremacist militias” for some time. In late 2007, Beck and guest David Horowitz — a virulent Muslim hater and Zionist shill — characterized “Ron Paul supporters, libertarians and the anti-war left as terrorist sympathizers and inferred that the U.S. military should be used to silence them, parroting a talking point that traces back to a September 2006 White House directive,” according to Paul Joseph Watson. “I think it’s very significant he (Ron Paul) chose Guy Fawkes as an image,” said Horowitz. Ron Paul never made the comparison.

If the comments of DHS spokesman Sean Smith are to be taken at face value, the government is already in the process of rolling MEMRI’s blatant propaganda into the effort to characterize activism as a dire threat to the homeland.

SOROS is CIA/MI6, CHANG and McKINNEY...

SOROS is CIA/MI6, CHANG and McKINNEY...

In May 2009, we read an article by Cynthia McKinney, who was the Green Party candidate for president, of the USA.

The Economy, From Soros and Greenspan to Napoleon's Waterloo, And a Tip of the Hat to Haiti, Too

Cynthia McKinney refers to the theory that a group of "Shadow Money-Lenders", including George Soros and Alan Greenspan, is trying to destabilize the world economy and install a "one-world government".

McKinney quotes Matthias Chang author of "The Shadow Money Lenders" :

"A policy of 'controlled chaos' will be implemented and we will witness in major cities of the USA, UK and Europe ... street battles, orchestrated by the Intelligence Services, between the white folks and the immigrant population.

"In the USA it will be against the Latinos and then the blacks . . .

"In the UK and Europe, it will be against mainly immigrants from Turkey, the Northern Mediterranean states and Pakistan and they are essentially Muslims.

"There is therefore, the added fuel of Islamic radicalism, which in the first place, was the creation of the Western intelligence services."

Matthias Chang, author of "The Shadow Money Lenders", is a Malaysian lawyer who was an adviser to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Mahathir's made a famous speech in 2003, in which 'he accused the Jews of world domination'.

Chang was behind a visit of a delegation of "9/11 truth" advocates to Malaysia in 2006.

The delegation was led by Michael Collins Piper, who has claimed that Israel was behind the JFK assasination.

Matthias Chang wrote:

"This War on Terror is the greatest military sideshow that distracted the American people from the financial rape and plunder of their economy and the destruction of their Constitution."

The Shadow Money Lenders: The Real Significance of The Fed's Zero.

The USA would be fine if it copied a country like Malta; or Switzerland.

The Maltese and Swiss are generally happy and do not waste money on wars.

The Maltese produce interesting beer and the Swiss make interesting cheese.

But, the USA has allowed itself to be run by people with names like Kissinger and Rockefeller.

What do they make?

Drive out the money lenders.

Matthias Chang, at Global Research, 26 December 2008, wrote: The Shadow Money Lenders: The Real Significance of The Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy (ZIRP)

Among the points made (and this is a very rough paraphrase):

1. There are people we shall call the shadow money lenders, who make their money from lending money.

Wars, including the 'War on Terror', are launched to preserve the shadow money-lenders' political and military power.

The shadow money lenders are involved in financial manipulation.

They control the political leaders.

2. Central bankers can create money and this gives them power.

When there is large spending on armies and wars, lots of money is involved.

But there is always a danger that the system will collapse if people think that the dollars or pounds they hold have become worthless.

In the 1960s, the Vietnam War led to a fall in the value of the dollar.

3. In the early 1970s, Henry Kissinger got the Saudis and other Arab states to push up the price of oil.

The deal was that the oil had to be bought in dollars and the oil profits invested in the USA.

The dollar was saved for the time being.

4. In the 1980s, it was clear that US manufacturing had been neglected and that the Japanese and the Koreans were often more efficient at making things.

The shadow money lenders decided that industries could move to China and that the profits would be invested in bonds in the USA.

This propped up the dollar.

5. From the 1990s onwards, the shadow money lenders encouraged people to borrow vast sums of money and get deeper and deeper into debt.

Various fancy financial schemes were devised to make things look good.

It was like a giant pyramid scheme or ponzi scheme or 'fraud'.

Some bankers became very, very rich.

A lot of people owed too much money, considering their low incomes.

Imagine a family earning $400 a month and having to pay $500 a month in interest.

6. The bubble has now burst.

7. The interest now paid on US government bonds is almost zero.

So the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans and Arabs who have put vast sums of money into US government bonds are earning virtually no interest and they are seeing the possibility of a big fall in the dollar.

The low interest rate also encourages more borrowing and debt.

8. "The Shadow Money-Lenders and its military partner will impose martial law...

"Soon it will be the nationalization of the big corporations like GE, GM, Ford and Chrysler, all too big to be allowed to fail."

9. Henry Kissinger and others have talked of a New World Order.

10. "The shadow money lenders are in a desperate situation and they will start a world war to avoid the collapse of their system."

.

German American Bund 1938

Many of our top people are crooks.

Many are as evil and destructive as Hitler.

Many support a cruel form of feudalism.

It has taken some time for the mainstream media to reveal even a small part this situation.

What is going on?

Are most of our leaders paid for by the CIA?

German American Bund parade in New York City 1939.

scunnert-nation.blogspot/ drew our attention to John Pilger's article, 28 may 2009, entitled: THE DEPTH OF CORRUPTION

Among the points made by John Pilger (our comments in italics):

1. In the UK, there is currently a scandal concerning Members of Parliaments' tax evasion and fake mortgages.

This hides a deeper corruption which is linked to the politics of the USA.

2. British parliamentary democracy has been gradually destroyed.

As in the USA, the two main parties have almost identical policies

(eg support for the CIA, the Pentagon, Israel, American corporations, American Imperialism)

3. Many politicians are now revealed as personally crooked.

Their accomplices have been certain journalists and editors.

The public has been deceived by dishonest journalism and by opinion polls based on absurdly small samplings.

4. The lawless attack on Iraq, in 2003, was backed by the two main parties and by most of the media.

BBC journalist Andrew Marr (reportedly an agent of MI6) told BBC viewers that Blair had "said they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right."

5. "When Blair’s army finally retreated from Basra in May, it left behind, according to scholarly estimates, more than a million people dead, a majority of stricken, sick children, a contaminated water supply, a crippled energy grid and four million refugees.

"As for the 'celebrating' Iraqis, the vast majority, say Whitehall’s own surveys, want the invader out."

6. "And when Blair finally departed the House of Commons, MPs gave him a standing ovation – they who had refused to hold a vote on his criminal invasion or even to set up an inquiry into its lies, which almost three-quarters of the British population wanted."

7. Blair committed the crime of deliberately planning the invasion of a country.

This is 'the supreme international crime' for 'which the Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was hanged at Nuremberg after proof of his guilt was located in German cabinet documents.'

In February 2009, Britain’s 'Justice' Secretary, Jack Straw, blocked publication of crucial cabinet minutes from March 2003 about the planning of the invasion of Iraq.

8. Parliament, the police and journalists are involved in the anti-democratic process.

On 9 April 2009, the BBC’s Newsnight programme "promoted the guilt of 12 'terrorists' arrested in a contrived media drama orchestrated by the Prime Minister himself."

All were later released without charge.....

Political storms more like Tsunamis...to come

Google search suggestions say it all about men and women (US version, run the UK ones for yourself)


"Netanyahu wants some sort of trade-off that links his concessions to the Palestinians to the U.S. dropping their soft line towards Iran," Dahlia Golan, professor of Government at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, told Xinhua.

"But she noted that Netanyahu and Obama's meeting in Washington made it very clear that Obama was not willing to agree to any trade-offs."

According to the correct and focused Chinaview, 29 May 2009-05-29, US-Israeli interests in the Mideast are mostly aligned

Obama and Netanyahu: Storm Clouds Ahead? ......NO way, it's pure fabrications and lies for the gullible......

"US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are mulling over a plan to impose sanctions against Israel if the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu implements its long-sought policy of countering Iran's nuclear activities by taking military action against the country." - US to abandon Israel over Iran?

US-Israel relations sink to new low



One Bilderberg attendee stated that, "Equity losses in 2008 were worse than those of 1929,” and that, “The next phase of the economic decline will also be worse than the '30s, mostly because the US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt. Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage." - Investigative Author, Daniel Estulin Exposes Bilderberg Group Plans / The Bilderberg Plan for 2009: Remaking the Global Political Economy

The CIA is Destabilizing Pakistan, according to Col. (Retd.) Shuja Khanzada, writing in the Pakistan Daily, on 29 April 2009.

Among the points made:

1. Various forces are causing trouble in Pakistan, and these forces include the CIA.

2. The CIA is assisted by RAW (Indian intelligence), MI6 and Mossad in Balochistan.

3. Former Russian KGB people are involved, as they have scores to settle with both ISI (Pakistan intelligence) and the CIA.

4. The region is infested with a variety of Taliban, CIA Taliban, Mullah Omer Taliban, KGB Taliban, Punjabi Taliban, ISI Taliban, warlords of the Mujahideen, drug cartels, 'al Qaeda' terrorist CIA groups, extreme religious Saudi financed fanatics, mercenaries and foreign troops all interlinked to one another, each trying to rule, plunder, loot and kill...

5. The CIA dominates Pakistan's and Lebanon's ruling class....for decades.....

Secret Iraqi prisoner 'rape' photos Obama wants blocked

U.S. Military Investigator Confirms Women and Children Were Raped At Abu Ghraib

Active and retired top military brass met to discuss what really happened on 9/11

World Markets Freak Out After Treasury Yields Spike

Sotomayor's Jewish ties

Arab+Muslim Politicking.....

Among many major misconceptions pertaining to Arabs and Muslims is the common belief that they are a weak-willed, irrelevant collective, easily influenced and effortlessly manipulated. This mistaken assumption underscores the very ailment that has afflicted United States foreign policy in the Middle East for generations.

As media pundits and commentators began their drum-rolling in anticipation of US President Barack Obama's speech in Egypt on Thursday, very few paid attention to the fact that Arabs and Muslims are not so naive as to be wooed by mere rhetoric, but that they are significant players in their own affairs, capable of resistance and change.

To begin with, it's underhanded and foolish to speak of one Arab and Muslim polity, as if geography, class, language and politics, among many other factors, are irrelevant attributes which are easily overlooked. Why is there an insistence on addressing Arabs and Muslims as one unified body - that is, the so-called "Muslim world" - that behaves according to specific rationale; predisposed to respond to the same stimuli? True, various groups within the Arab and Muslim collective share common history, language and religion, but even the same groups differ in historic interpretations, dialects and religious sects and frames of reference.

Why the reductionism? Is it true that a struggling North African immigrant in a French slum carries the same values, expectations and outlook on life as an wealthy, SUV-driving Arab in the Gulf? Does a poor Egyptian, grappling for recognition within a political body that has room for only the chosen few, relate to the world the same way as does a Malaysian Muslim with a wide range of opportunities, civic, economic and political?

Even within the same country, among the same people, adhering to the same religion, does the world mean the same, and will Obama's words in Egypt represent the unifying lexicon that will meet every Arab or a Muslim man or woman's aspirations? Can one lump together those who collaborated with those who resisted; those who exploited others and those who were exploited; those who had plenty and those who had none?

As the countdown to Obama's visit nears the highly anticipated day, pundits and polls are pouring in. A recent survey conducted by Shilbey Telhami and Zogby International was carried out in six Arab countries, each representing unique collective experiences that cannot be compared. The poll declared that Obama is popular among Arabs, yet Arabs are still skeptical of the US. It was learned that Iraq matters the most, followed by the Arab-Israeli conflict.

There is no denial that Arabs in various countries have major perceptions and expectations in common. But who is to say that there are not more commonalities between the poor of Egypt and Mexico, than the elites of Egypt and Pakistan? However, such assertion would be irrelevant for one main reason: Arabs and Muslims have been demonized collectively, targeted collectively and at times, victimized collectively. In other words, it's US foreign policy towards various Arab and Muslim collectives that largely explains the constant lumping of all Arabs and all Muslims into one single category.

Arabs and Muslims seem only relevant as a collective whenever the US is interested in carrying out a rhetorical policy shift, a war, a self-serving "democracy" campaign, and so forth. They are available as a collective to be duly demonized as "terrorist" or readily shunned for subscribing to the "wrong" religion.

David Schenker, writing for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy website was honest enough in explaining the significance of Obama's speech in Cairo. He pointed out that Iran is a major issue that Obama and moderate Arabs have in common. His explanation is straightforward: "Tehran's progress toward a nuclear weapon and its provision of material and ideological support for moqawama, or resistance, across the region is of grave concern to Washington and its moderate Arab allies."

According to the poll cited above, only a fraction of Arabs surveyed seem concerned by the Iranian nuclear program. This leaves Iran posing one major "threat", its support of resistance.

It's ironic that resistance, which is a universal right for any oppressed individual or collective, is being dealt with as a "grave concern". This explains, in part, the lingering illusion that continues to mar US foreign policy, and also highlight the common strength that Arab and Muslim masses continue to wield, their ability to resist. Amid the democracy programs that have appeared and disappeared in recent years - George W Bush's Middle East democracy project being one - none was an outcome of genuine and collective movements in Arab and Muslim nations. Such genuine movements, although in existence, are unpopular in Washington, for they seem inconsistent with US interests.

This leaves one last aspect of collective self-expression, again, resistance, in all of its manifestations. It's the root causes of Arab and Muslim resistance that are most deserving of analysis and understanding, as opposed to mere dismissal on the grounds that it's a "grave concern".

If Obama continues to approach Arabs and Muslims as one single collective, ready to be manipulated and wooed with bogus promises, fancy rhetoric and impressive body language, then he will surely be disappointed. Highly politicized, skeptical and, frankly, fed-up societies refuse to be reduced to a mere percentage in some opinion poll that can be swayed this way or that, whenever the US administration determines the time and place.

It's that incessant lack of depth that has caused the US so much grief in the Middle East, and will cost it even more if such imprudence persists. ......

Humint Intelligence and Art

Wired magazine recently highlighted Kryptos, the James Sanborn sculpture sitting in the middle of the CIA (see the image on the right). While most intel professionals are very familiar with the story behind Kryptos, the article got me thinking again about intelligence and art. I don't mean to suggest anything as highbrow as "intelligence art" and certainly am not talking about the largely meaningless discussions that tend to revolve around the question "Is intelligence an art or a science?" I mean the resonance I feel with a certain piece of art when I look at it and contemplate the profession I study. Probably the most direct example of this is the work of Mark Lombardi. Lombardi is famous for his hand-drawn link diagrams of real events and supposed connections (see the image on the left). It is hard to look at his pieces and not sense that, at least for a while, you have been walking the same path together. He reportedly committed suicide due to the depression and anger he felt after one of his creations was destroyed when the sprinkler system unexpectedly went off in his apartment (a sentiment shared by any Mercyhurst students who have ever lost their link diagram to a bad flash drive or a computer crash...). Similar in some ways to the work of Lombardi are the intricate and wholly abstract three dimensional artworks of Janice Caswell. I love the way her work flows across walls and corners. It is almost as if she has developed an intricate analysis of all of the connections represented by some real world event and then removed the names of all of the actors and actions. Her work (see an example on the right) goes directly to a point I try to teach my students, though. We tend to hyperfocus on the facts and assumptions and logic -- the hard data -- inherent in whatever we are attempting to analyze. Whenever we try to visualize that information and analysis, however, we are also tapping into the nonlinear and largely inarticulate parts of our brains. Why did you put that in the center of your diagram? Why is his picture so large? Most of the connections seem to go around the sides of your nodes. Is that significant? Caswell validates, for me, the potential importance of listening to that subconscious voice, to try to hear what the quiet parts of my brain are trying to tell me. (By the way, if you like Caswell's art as much as I do, you should check out the 57 other artists featured at VisualComplexity.com). Another artist whose sculptural art echoes some of my own emotions when working on intelligence products are the paper-cut models of Jen Stark. These are really quite amazing constructions using nothing more than colored paper, patience and enormous creativity. I think I find them appealing because of the intricate layering and the odd angles and turns her works take (see an example to the left). The relationship of the last two artists, Paula Scher and Timothy Hutchings, to intel is easy to see -- its geographic. Scher, who I first saw at The Serious Play Conference last year, does these magnificent renderings of geography that are both very close and very distant to what it is that I study. To get a sense of this tension, I suggest that you take a look at some of the closeups of her work (see the map of South America on the right). Hutchings, on the other hand, does many different things with all sorts of materials (much of it abstract). The parts of his work that draw me closest, however, are the very familiar terrain tables (see an example below) he builds. It is hard to imagine, for most old Army guys like me, that the humble terrain table can be a work of art but Hutchings, in my mind, has done just that....

58th Bilderberg meeting to be held in Greece, May 14-17

58th Bilderberg meeting to be held in Greece, May 14-17

The 2009 Bilderberg Group Conference will be held at the five-star Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, Greece, May 14-17, according to author Daniel Estulin.

Insiders have told Estulin that rooms have been booked and flight plans made. He has also confirmed the location and dates with sources in Greece.

Estulin is the world’s foremost investigative authority on this annual secretive and exclusive assembly, having investigated and infiltrated their meetings for over 10 years. His books and reporting have helped to bring the powerful group out of the shadows, even directly affecting the very conduct and timing of the meetings . . . and encapsulating them in an even deeper shroud of secrecy.

The Bilderberg Group started meeting in 1954, with funding from the CIA, to gather together the top Western bankers, politicians, media barons, corporate CEOs and European royalty in annual gatherings for frank discussions on important issues of the day.

Promoting the first edition of his best-selling book, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, Daniel came to the United States in the fall of 2007 and told audiences about the upcoming housing mess and resulting financial turmoil, with many homeowners owing far more than their properties were worth. On a similar tour in the spring of 2008, he announced that we were just a few months from financial calamity. These predictions were based upon his understanding of the international maneuvers of the Bilderberg Group. Though the people responded, the press was largely a no-show.

The same press then “failed” to report the year’s largest gathering of elites: the royalty, bankers, CEOs, media bigwigs and high government officials at the 57th annual Bilderberg meeting in June 2008. Daniel’s coverage of that meeting provides additional material for the new North American Union edition of The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, which has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide in 48 languages.

According to Estulin’s sources, here are a few of the talking points and concerns for this year’s meeting:

• The future of the US dollar and US economy: The plan is for the Bilderberg Group players, through their allies in Washington and Wall Street to continue to deceive millions of savers and investors who believe the hype about the supposed up-turn in the economy. They are about to be set up for massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead. The bank “stress tests” now being conducted by Washington are little more than a shameless hoax based on the irrational assumption that the economy won’t get as bad as it already is!

• US unemployment: Solutions and assumptions. (Stated as such in the pre-meeting booklet sent out to attendees.)
  
  Bilderberg is quietly assuming that US unemployment numbers will hover around 14 percent by the end of this year, far higher than the official numbers released by the US government.

• Depression or a prolonged stagnation? (Stated as such in the pre-meeting booklet sent out to attendees.) Bilderberg is looking at two options: Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline, and poverty . . . or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.

• There will be a final push for the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, pending on the Irish voting YES on the treaty in Sept or October. One of their concerns is addressing and neutralizing the anti-Lisbon treaty movement, called “Libertas,” led by Declan Ganley. One of the Bilderberger planned moves is to use a whispering campaign in the US media suggested that Ganley is being funded by arms dealers in the US linked to the US military.

9/11 Sequential Timeline

9/11 Sequential Timeline

View this document on Scribd

General Staff denies any link with unearthed munitions

Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ held a press conference yesterday, discussing the hidden stockpiles of munitions that have been discovered during the course of the Ergenekon investigation. Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ has denied any possible link between the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and various caches of munitions that have been found in shanty houses or buried underground since the start of the investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine group charged with plotting to overthrow the government. At a press conference he called yesterday at General Staff headquarters, Başbuğ said the ammunition and weapons unearthed so far in a number of cities do not belong to the TSK. “None of the weapons and ammunition found in excavations as part of a probe being conducted by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office are registered in the TSK’s weapons’ inventory,” he stated. Since the start of the Ergenekon investigation in July 2007, hand grenades, explosives, light anti-tank weapons (LAW), rocket launchers, Kalashnikov rifles, assault rifles, thousands of bullets and various other munitions have been discovered in secret depots or buried underground in various cities, including Eskişehir, Ankara and İstanbul. The latest discovery came when caches of arms were uncovered last week in İstanbul’s Poyrazköy area during excavations to uncover more ammunition and weapons as part of the Ergenekon investigation. Claims emerged that these weapons and munitions were taken out of the arms depots of the TSK. Başbuğ, however, strongly denied the claims yesterday, saying that the TSK does not even have the slightest relation with the weapons and munitions discovered, adding that it has not buried any munitions underground since 1986, when a General Staff decision banned such practices. “We started to move our weapons and munitions buried under the ground to arms depots in 1986 and completed the task in 1999. The TSK has no arms caches buried underground,” he remarked. Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ held a press conference yesterday, discussing the hidden stockpiles of munitions that have been discovered during the course of the Ergenekon investigation. Başbuğ also stressed that security forces unearthed five already-used LAWs during the excavations in Poyrazköy. “What would anyone do with used LAWs? No LAW or any other munition can be reused once it is used. So, who buried these used LAWs in the ground? Why did they do so? We are also wondering,” he said, but did not, however, comment on around 20 ready-to-use LAWs discovered during other excavations. TSK’s position on Ergenekon probe Following an explanation on the munitions unearthed, the chief of general staff responded to various questions directed by members of the press who attended the briefing. The questions asked largely dealt with the ongoing Ergenekon probe and retired and active duty military members who have been either detained or arrested for suspected links to the clandestine group. When asked what members of the TSK think about the investigation, Başbuğ expressed the military’s commitment to democracy and the regime. “Among the fundamental values of democracy are the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. Everyone should refrain from any act that may damage our judicial system. The TSK is extremely careful in respecting the rule of law and the judicial process,” he said. However, he criticized press organs for news reports portraying certain TSK members as culprits in the Ergenekon case. “We respect the principle that everyone is innocent until they are found guilty. Does everyone respect this principle? You don’t have the right to declare anyone guilty unless they are found guilty by the court. So who will repair the damage caused to these individuals? And a second point is respect for the confidentiality of the judicial process. Do all of you respect this principle? You see, heavy responsibility falls on the shoulders of press members in this sense,” he noted. Gen. İlker Başbuğ said yesterday that ammunition and weapons recently unearthed in a number of cities do not belong to the TSK. No investigation launched into coup plotters Upon a question by a journalist, the chief commander also commented on alleged coup plots by active and retired members of the army. He said there is no individual within the TSK who may be engaged in any act against the democratic regime in the country and dismissed the prospect of a military investigation into individuals who are accused of planning to overthrow the government. Başbuğ was short and to the point when addressing retired Adm. Özden Örnek’s private journal in which the admiral allegedly noted down past plans to stage two military coups. “The General Staff has no documents regarding such claims. Örnek previously stated that the journal does not belong to him,” Başbuğ said. Başbuğ not open to contact with DTP members The chief of general staff stressed that the TSK will not have any contact with members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) unless the party distances itself from the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and terrorist activity. “The TSK does not aim to protest any political party or group. We will not, however, share the same platform with that party [the DTP] unless they clarify their ties with the terrorist PKK. I am the head of an army, nine members of which were martyred by the terrorist group early this morning. That party cannot distance itself from terrorism,” Başbuğ stated. Nine Turkish soldiers were killed early yesterday morning when a remote-controlled mine exploded in the Lice district of southeastern Diyarbakır province. Başbuğ also denied any link between the TSK and the transfer of Ergenekon suspects to the Gülhane Military Academy of Medicine (GATA), which recently became the subject of harsh criticism for accepting several ex-generals indicted in the Ergenekon trial, solely to save them from being imprisoned during the trial and ultimately to get away with the crimes they allegedly committed. He also added that the military has no plans at the moment for paid military service. General Staff refutes claims on discrimination against Cihan reporter Başbuğ also refuted all claims about an army general who refused to bring a Cihan news agency reporter down from a mountain with a military helicopter in freezing cold weather because the journalist did not have press accreditation from the General Staff. “What we know about the issue is the helicopter in question was carrying TSK equipment and was forbidden to take anything or anyone else on board. And contrary to reports, it was around 13 degrees Celsius when the incident occurred; there was no risk of freezing for any individual. Besides, there were nearly 400 other people on the mountain in addition to the reporter in question, all of whom reached their destination by their own means. A Turkish soldier never leaves anyone in a risky situation,” he said. Başbuğ’s explanation, however, did not satisfy Cihan. Abdülhamit Bilici, Cihan’s general manager, demanded an investigation into the general who had allegedly refused to allow the reporter to board the helicopter. “The explanation by Başbuğ on the issue is very different from how the incident occurred according to our reporter. Our reporter [Lütfi Akyurt] said he was not allowed to board a military helicopter by a general who said they could not carry a civilian. However, a reporter from the Doğan news agency was on board. In any case, we are pleased that the General Staff offered an explanation of the incident,” Bilici told Today’s Zaman.

A Pulitzer price winner investigation that will go unreported by the network news

A Pulitzer price winner investigation that will go unreported by the network news

April 21, 2009 “Salon.com” — The New York Times‘ David Barstow won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize yesterday for two articles that, despite being featured as major news stories on the front page of The Paper of Record, were completely suppressed by virtually every network and cable news show, which to this day have never informed their viewers about what Bartow uncovered. Here is how the Pulitzer Committee described Barstow’s exposés:

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

By whom were these “ties to companies” undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as ”analysts”? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox — the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow’s story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon’s secret collaboration with these ”independent analysts” shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called ”independent analysts” the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow’s story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.

And even now that Barstow yesterday won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting — one of the most prestigious awards any news story can win — these revelations still may not be uttered on television, tragically dashing the hope expressed yesterday (rhetorically, I presume) by Media Matters’ Jamison Foser that “maybe now that the story has won a Pulitzer for Barstow, they’ll pay attention.” Instead, it was Atrios’ prediction that was decisively confirmed: “I don’t think a Pulitzer will be enough to give the military analyst story more attention.” Here is what Brian Williams said last night on his NBC News broadcast in reporting on the prestigious awards:

The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and the arts were awarded today. The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting. Las Vegas Sun won for the public service category for its reporting on construction worker deaths in that city. Best commentary went to Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who of course was an on-air commentator for us on MSNBC all through the election season and continues to be. And the award for best biography went to John Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, for his book “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.”

No mention that among the five NYT prizes was one for investigative reporting. Williams did manage to promote the fact that one of the award winners was an MSNBC contributor, but sadly did not find the time to inform his viewers that NBC News’ war reporting and one of Williams’ still-featured premiere “independent analysts,” Gen. Barry McCaffrey, was and continues to be at the heart of the scandal for which Barstow won the Pulitzer. Williams’ refusal to inform his readers about this now-Pulitzer-winning story is particularly notable given his direct personal involvement in the secret, joint attempts by NBC and McCaffrey to contain P.R. damage to NBC from Barstow’s story, compounded by the fact that NBC was on notice of these multiple conflicts as early as April, 2003, when The Nation first reported on them.

Identically, CNN ran an 898-word story on the various Pulitzer winners — describing virtually every winner — but was simply unable to find any space even to mention David Barstow’s name, let alone inform their readers that he won the Prize for uncovering core corruption at the heart of CNN’s coverage of the Iraq War and other military-related matters. No other television news outlet implicated by Barstow’s story mentioned his award, at least as far as I can tell.

The outright refusal of any of these “news organizations” even to mention what Barstow uncovered about the Pentagon’s propaganda program and the way it infected their coverage is one of the most illuminating events revealing how they operate. So transparently corrupt and journalistically disgraceful is their blackout of this story that even Howard Kurtz and Politico – that’s Howard Kurtz and Politico — lambasted them for this concealment. Meaningful criticisms of media stars from media critic (and CNN star) Howie Kurtz is about as rare as prosecutions for politically powerful lawbreakers in America, yet this is what he said about the television media’s suppression of Barstow’s story: ”their coverage of this important issue has been pathetic.”

Has there ever been another Pulitzer-Prize-winning story for investigative reporting never to be mentioned on major television — let alone one that was twice featured as the lead story on the front page of The New York Times? To pose the question is to answer it.

UPDATE: Media Matters has more on the glaring omissions in Brian Williams’ “reporting” and on the pervasive impact of the Pentagon’s program on television news coverage. Williams’ behavior has long been disgraceful on this issue, almost certainly due to the fact that some of the “analysts” most directly implicated by Barstow’s story are Williams’ favored sources and friends.

On a different note, CQ’s Jeff Stein responds today to some of the objections to his Jane-Harman/AIPAC/Alberto-Gonazles blockbuster story — quite convincingly, in my view — and, as Christy Hardin Smith notes, the New York Times has now independently confirmed much of what Stein reported.

UPDATE II: For some added irony: on his NBS News broadcast last night suppressing any mention of David Barstow’s Pulitzer Prize, Brian Williams’ lead story concerned Obama’s trip to the CIA yesterday. Featured in that story was commentary from Col. Jack Jacobs, identified on-screen this way: ”Retired, NBC News Military Analyst.” Jacobs was one of the retired officers who was an active member of the Pentagon’s “military analyst” program, and indeed, he actively helped plan the Pentagon’s media strategy at the very same time he was posing as an “independent analyst” on NBC (h/t reader gc; via NEXIS). So not only did Williams last night conceal from his viewers any mention of the Pentagon program, he featured — on the very same broadcast — “independent” commentary from one of the central figures involved in that propaganda program.

On a related note, Howard Kurtz was asked in his Washington Post chat yesterday about Mike Allen’s grant of anonymity to a “top Bush official” that I highlighted on Saturday, and Kurtz — while defending much of Allen’s behavior — said: “I don’t believe an ex-official should have been granted anonymity for that kind of harsh attack.”

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.....

The following excerpts come from pages 261-269 of Bamford's 'A Pretext
for War' book*:

"Then Bush addressed the sole items on the agenda for his first high
level national security meeting. The topics were not terrorism--a
subject he barely mentioned during the campaign --or nervousness over
China or Russia, but Israel and Iraq. From the very first moment, the
Bush foreign policy would focus on three key objectives: get rid of
Saddam, end American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process, and rearrange the dominoes in the Middle East. A key to the
policy shift would be the concept of pre-emption.

The blueprint for the new Bush policy had actually been drawn up five
years earlier by three of his top national security advisors. Soon to
be appointed to senior administration positions, they were Richard
Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser. Ironically the plan was
orginally intended not for Bush but for another world leader, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the time, the three officials were out of government and working
for conservative pro-Israel think tanks. Perle and Feith had
previously served in high level Pentagon positions during the
presidency of Ronald Reagan. In a very unusual move, the former--and
future--senior American officials were acting as a sort of American
privy council to the new Israeli Prime Minister. The Perle task force
to advise Netanyahu was set up by the Jerusalem based Institute for
Advanced Stategic and Political Studies, where Wurmser was working. A
key part of the plan was to get the United States to pull out of peace
negotiations and simply let Israel take care of the Palestinians as it
saw fit. "Israel," said the report, "can manage it's own affairs. Such
self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a
significant lever of pressure used against it in the past."

But the centerpiece of the recommendations was the removal of Saddam
Hussein as the first step in remaking the Middle East into a region
friendly, instead of hostile, to Israel. Their plan "A Clean Break: A
New Strategy for Securing the Realm," also signaled a radical
departure from the peace-oriented policies of former Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a member of an extreme right-
wing Israeli group.

As part of their "grand strategy" they recommended that once Iraq was
conquered and Saddam Hussein overthrown, he should be replaced by a
puppet leader friendly to Israel. Whoever inherits Iraq, they wrote,
dominates the entire Levant strategically. Then they suggested that
Syria would be the next country to be invaded. Israel can shape it's
strategic environment, they said.

This would be done, they recommended to Netanyahu, by re-establishing
the principle of pre-emption and by rolling back it's Arab neighbors.
From then on, the principle would be to strike first and expand, a
dangerous and provocative change in philosophy. They recommended
launching a major unprovoked regional war in the Middle East,
attacking Lebanon and Syria and ousting Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Then,
to gain the support of the American government and public, a phony
pretext would be used as the reason for the original invasion.

The recommendation of Feith, Perle and Wurmser was for Israel to once
again invade Lebanon with air strikes. But this time to counter
potentially hostile reactions from the American government and public,
they suggested using a pretext. They would claim that the purpose of
the invasion was to halt Syria's drug-money and counterfeiting
infrastructure located there. They were subjects in which Israel had
virtually no interest, but they were ones, they said, with which
America can sympathize.

Another way to win American support for a pre-emptive war against
Syria, they suggested, was by drawing attention to its weapons of mass
destruction program. This claim would be that Israel's war was really
all about protecting Americans from drugs, counterfeit bills, and WMD--
nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

It was rather extraordinary for a trio of former, and potentially
future, high-ranking American government officials to become advisors
to a foreign government. More unsettling still was a fact that they
were recommending acts of war in which Americans could be killed, and
also ways to masquerade the true purpose of the attacks from the
American public.

Once inside Lebanon, Israel could let loose--to begin engaging
Hizballah, Syria and Iran, as the principle agents of aggression in
Lebanon. Then they would widen the war even further by using proxy
forces--Lebanese militia fighters acting on Israel's behalf (as Ariel
Sharon had done in the 80's)--to invade Syria from Lebanon. Thus, they
noted, they could invade Syria by establishing the precedent that
Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by
Israeli proxy forces.

As soon as that fighting started, they advised, Israel could begin
"striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove
insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper [emphasis in
original]."

The Perle task force even supplied Nentanyahu with some text for a
television address, using the suggested pretext to justify the war.
Years later, it would closely resemble speeches to justify their own
Middle East wars; Iraq would simply replace Syria and the United
States would replace Israel:
Negotiations with repressive regimes like Syria's require cautious
realism. One cannot sensibly assume the other side's good faith. It is
dangerous for Israel to deal naively with a regime murderous of its
own people, openly aggressive towards its neighbors, criminally
involved with international drug traffickers and counterfeiters, and
supportive of the most deadly terrorist organizations.
The task force then suggested that Israel open a second front in its
expanding war, with a focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in
Iraq--an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right--as a
means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions.

For years the killing of Saddam Hussein had been among the highest,
and most secret, priorities of the Israeli government. In one stroke
it would pay Saddam Hussein back for launching Scud missiles against
Israel, killing several people, during the Gulf War. Redrawing the map
of the Middle East would also help isolate Syria, Iraq's ally and
Israel's archenemy along its northern border. Thus, in the early
1990's, after the US-led war in the Gulf, a small elite team of
Israeli commandos was given the order to train in absolute secrecy for
an assassination mission to bring down the Baghdad ruler.

The plan, code-named Bramble Bush, was to first kill a close friend of
the Iraqi leader outside the country, someone from Hussein's hometown
of Tikrit. Then, after learning the date and time of the funeral to be
held in the town, a funeral Hussein was certain to attend, they would
have time to covertly infiltrate a team of commandos into the country
to carry out the assassination. The murder weapons were to be
specially modified "smart" missiles that would be fired at Hussein as
he stood in a crowd at the funeral.

But, the plan was finally abandoned after five members of the team
were accidently killed during a dry run of the operation.
Nevertheless, removing Saddam and converting Iraq from threat to ally
had long been at the top of Israel's wish list.

Now Perle, Feith, and Wurmser were suggesting something far more
daring--not just an assassination but a bloody war that would get rid
of Saddam Hussein and also change the face of Syria and Lebanon. Perle
felt their "Clean Break" recommendations were so important that he
personally hand-carried the report to Netanyahu.

Wisely, Netanyahu rejected the task force' plan. But now, with the
election of a receptive George W. Bush, they dusted off their pre-
emptive war strategy and began getting ready to put it to use.

The new Bush policy was an aggressive agenda for any president, but
especially for someone who had previously shown little interest in
international affairs. We're going to correct the imbalances of the
previous administration on the Mideast conflict, Bush told his freshly
assembled senior national security team in the Situation Room on
January 30, 2001. We're going to tilt it back toward
Israel. . . .Anybody here ever met Ariel Sharon? Only Colin Powell
raised his hand.

Bush was going to reverse the Clinton policy, which was heavily
weighted toward bringing the bloody conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians to a peaceful conclusion. There would be no more US
interference; he would let Sharon resolve the dispute however he saw
fit, with little or no regard for the situation of the Palestinians.
The policy change was exactly as recommended by the Perle task force's
"Clean Break" report.

I'm not going to go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon, Bush
told his newly gathered national security team. I'm going to take him
at face value. We'll work on a relationship based on how things go.
Then he mentioned a trip he had taken with the Republican Jewish
Coalition to Israel. We flew over the Palestinian camps. Looked real
bad down there, he said with a frown. Then he said it was time to end
America's efforts in the region. I don't see much we can do over there
at this point, he said.

Colin Powell, Secretary of State for only a few days, was taken by
surprise. The idea that such a complex problem, in which America had
long been heavily involved, could be simply brushed away with the
sweep of a hand made little sense. Fearing Israeli-led aggression, he
quickly objected.

He stressed that a pullback by the United States would unleash Sharon
and the Israeli army, recalled Paul O'Neill, who had be sworn in as
Secretary of the Treasury by Bush only hours before and seated at the
table. Powell told Bush, the consequences of that could be be dire,
especially for the Palestinians. But Bush just shrugged. Sometimes a
show of strength by one side can really clarify things, he said.
Powell seemed startled, said O'Neill.

Over the following months, to the concern of Powell, the Bush-Sharon
relationship became extremely tight. This is the best administration
for Israel since Harry Truman, said Thomas Neuman, executive director
of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs "JINSA" a pro-
Israel advocacy group. In an article in the Washington Post titled
"Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Middle East Policy," Robert G.
Kaiser noted the dramatic shift in policy.

For the First time, wrote Kaiser, a US administration and a Likud
government in Israel are pursuing nearly identical policies. Earlier
US administrations, from Jimmy Carter through Bill Clinton's, held
Likud and Sharon at arm's length, distancing the United States from
Likud's traditionally tough approach to the Palestinians. Using the
Yiddish term for supporters of Sharon's political party to the new
relationship between Bush and Sharon, a senior US government official
told Kaiser, "The Likudniks are really in charge now."

With America's long struggle to bring peace to the region quickly
terminated, George W. Bush could turn his attention to the prime focus
of his first National Security Council meeting; ridding Iraq of Saddam
Hussein. Condoleezza Rice led off the discussion. But rather than
mention anything about threats to the United States or weapons of mass
destruction, she noted only that Iraq might be the key to reshaping
the entire region. The words were practically lifted from the "Clean
Break" report, which had the rather imperial-sounding subtitles: "A
New Strategy for Securing the Realm."

Then Rice turned the meeting over to CIA Director George Tenet, who
offered a grainy overhead picture of a factory that he said "might" be
a plant "that produced either chemical or biological materials for
weapons manufacture." There were no missiles or weapons of any kind,
just some railroad tracks going to a building; truck activity; and a
water tower--things that can be found in virtually any city in the US.
Nor were there any human intelligence or signals intelligence reports.
There was no confirming intelligence, Tenet said.

It was little more than a shell game. Other photo and charts showed US
air activity over the "no fly-zone," but Tenet offered no more
intelligence. Nevertheless, in a matter of minutes the talk switched
from a discussion about very speculative intelligence to which targets
to begin bombing in Iraq.

By the time the meeting was over, Treasury Secretary O'Neill was
convinced that "getting Hussein was now the administration's focus,
that much was already clear," But, O'Neill believed, the real
destabilizing factor in the Middle East was not Saddam Hussein but the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict--the issue Bush had just turned his back
on. Ten years after the Gulf War, said O'Neill, "Hussein seemed caged
and defanged. Clearly, there were many forces destabilizing the
region, which we were now abandoning."

The war summit must also have seemed surreal to Colin Powell, who said
little during the meeting and had long believed that Iraq had not
posed a threat to the United States. As he would tell German Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer just a few weeks later, "What we and other
allies have been doing in the region, have succeeded in containing
Saddam Hussein and his ambitions. . . .Containment has been a
successful policy."

In addition to the "Clean Break" recommendations, David Wurmser only
weeks before the NSC meeting had further elaborated on the way the
United States might go about launching a pre-emptive war throughout
the Middle East. America's and Israel's responses must be regional not
local, he said. Israel and the United Staes should adopt a coordinated
strategy, to regain the initiative and reverse their region-wide
strategic retreat. They should broaden the conflict to strike fatally,
not merely disarm, the center of radicalism in the region--the regimes
of Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, Tripoli, and Gaza. That would re-
establish the recognition that fighting with either the US or Israel
is suicidal. Many in the Middle East will then understand the merits
of being an American ally and of making peace with Israel.

In the weeks and months following the NSC meeting, Perle, Feith and
Wurmser began taking their places in the Bush administration. Perle
became chairman of the reinvigorated and powerful Defence Policy
Board, packing it with like-minded neoconservative super-hawks anxious
for battle. Feith was appointed to the highest policy position in the
Pentagon, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. And Wurmser moved into
a top policy position in the State Department before later becoming
Cheney's top Middle East expert.

With the Pentagon now under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and
his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz--both of whom had also long believed that
Saddam Hussein should have been toppled during the first Gulf War--the
war planners were given free reign. What was needed, however, was a
pretext--perhaps a major crisis. Crisis can be opportunities, wrote
Wurmser im his paper calling for an American-Israeli pre-emptive war
throughout the Middle East.

Seeing little reason, or intelligence justification, for war at the
close of the inaugural National Security Council meeting, Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill was perplexed. Who, exactly, was pushing this
foreign policy? He wondered to himself. And "why Saddam, why now, and
why [was] this central to US interests?"

The following excerpts come from pages 318-322 of Bamford's 'A Pretext
for War' book*:

"Hadley and Libby were part of another secret office that had been set
up within the White House. Known as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG),
it was established in August 2002 by Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card,
Jr., at the same time the OSP (Office of Special Plans) was
established in Feith's office. Made up of high-level administration
officials, its job was to sell the war to the general public, largely
through televised addresses and by selectively leaking the
intelligence to the media.

In June 2002, a leaked computer disk containing a presentation by
chief Bush strategist Karl Rove revealed a White House political plan
to use the war as a way to "maintain a positive issue environment."
But the real pro-war media blitz was scheduled for the fall and the
start of the election season "because from a marketing point of view,
you don't introduce new products in August," said Card.

At least once a week they would gather around the blonde conference
table downstairs in the Situation Room, the same place the war was
born on January 30, 2001, ten days into the Bush presidency. Although
real intelligence had improved very little in the intervening nineteen
months, the manufacturing of it had increased tremendously. In
addition to Hadley and Libby, those frequently attending the WHIG
meetings included Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, communications gurus
Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; and legislative
liaison Nicholas E. Calio.

In addition to ties between Hussein and 9/11, among the most important
products the group was looking to sell as Labor Day 2002 approached
were frightening images of mushroom clouds, mobile biological weapons
labs, and A-bomb plants, all in the hands of a certified "madman." A
key piece of evidence that Hussein was building a nuclear weapon
turned out to be the discredited Italian documents purchased on a
street corner from a con man.

The WHIG began priming its audience in August when Vice President
Cheney, on three occasions, sounded a shrill alarm over Saddam
Hussein's nuclear threat. There "is no doubt," he declared, that
Saddam Hussein "has weapons of mass destruction." Again and again, he
hit the same chord. "What we know now, from various sources, is that
he . . . continues to pursue a nuclear weapon." And again: "We do
know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system
to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build
a nuclear weapon."

Facing network television cameras, Cheney warned, "We now know that
Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. . . . Among
other sources, we've gotten this from firsthand testimony from
defectors, including Saddam's own son-in-law." The relative was
Hussein Kamel, who defected to Jordan in 1995 with a great deal of
inside information on Iraq's special weapons programs, which he
managed. He was later convinced by Saddam to return to Iraq, but
executed by the ruler soon after his arrival.

But what Kamel told his interrogators was the exact opposite of what
Cheney was claiming he said. After numerous debriefings by officials
from the United States, the UN, and Jordan, he said on August 22,
1995, that Saddam had ended all uranium-enrichment programs at the
beginning of the Gulf War in 1991 and never restarted them. He also
made clear that "all weapons --biological, chemical, missile, nuclear--
were destroyed." Investigators were convinced that Kamel was telling
the truth, since he supplied them with a great deal of stolen raw data
and was later murdered by his father-in-law as a result. But that was
not the story Feith's OSP, Bush's WHIG, or Cheney wanted the American
public to hear.

At the same time that Cheney began his media blitz, Ariel Sharon's
office in Israel, as if perfectly coordinated, began issuing similar
dire warnings concerning Hussein and pressing the Bush administration
to go to war with Iraq. Like those from Cheney, pronouncements from
Sharon's top aide, Ranaan Gissin, included frightening "evidence" ---
equally phony --- of nuclear, as well as biological and chemical,
threats.

"As evidence of Iraq's weapons building activities, " said an
Associated Press report on the briefing, "Israel points to an order
Saddam gave to Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission last week to speed up
its work, said Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin. 'Saddam's going to be able
to reach a point where these weapons will be operational,' he
said. . . . Israeli intelligence officials have gathered evidence that
Iraq is speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical
weapons, Gissin said."

It was clear, based on the postwar reviews done in Israel, that
Israeli intelligence had no such evidence. Instead, the "evidence" was
likely cooked up in Sharon's own Office of Special Plans unit, which
was coordinating its activities with the Feith/Wurmser/Shulsky Office
of Special Plans. The joint get-Saddam media blitz would also explain
the many highly secret visits by the Israeli generals to Feith's
office during the summer..

"Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike
against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel
Minister said Friday," the AP report continued. " "Any postponement of
an attack on Iraq at this stage with serve no purpose,' Gissin told
the Associated Press. 'It will only give him [Saddam] more of an
opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass
destruction.'"

As expected. Sharon's callw as widely publicized and increased
pressure on Congress, which often bows to Israel's wishes, to vote in
favor of the Bush war resolution. "Israel To U.S.: Don't Delay Iraq
Attack," said a CBS News headline. "Israel is urging U.S. officials
not to delay a military strike against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, an aide
to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday," said the report.

The story also made the news in London, where the Guardian newspaper
ran the headline: "Israel Puts Pressure on US to Strike Iraq." It went
on, "With foreign policy experts in Washington becoming increasingly
critical of the wisdom of a military strike, and European governments
showing no willingness to support an attack, the Israeli prime
minister, Ariel Sharon, wants to make it clear that he is the US
president's most reliable ally."

It was as if the Feith-Wurmser-Perle "Clean Break" plan come full
circle. Their plan for Israel to overthrow Saddam Hussein and put a
pro-Israel regime in his place had been rejected by former Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now Bush, with Sharon's support,
was about to put it into effect.

Across the Atlantic, British Prime Minister Tony Blair also
contributed to the war fever by releasing a much-hyped report that
reinforced the White House theme that Iraq was an imminent threat not
only to the United States but also to Britain. In addition to
including a reference to the bogus Iraq-Niger uranium deal, the report
-- later dubbed the "doggie dossier"--made another frightening claim.
It warned that Iraq could launch a deadly biological or chemical
attack with long-range ballistic missiles on British tourists and
servicemen in Cyprus with just forty-five minute's notice.

Only after the war would it be publicly revealed that the reference
was not to a strategic weapon that could reach Cyprus, but simply to a
short-range battlefield weapon that could not come anywhere close to
Cyprus. And because all the missiles were disassembled, even to fire
on them on the battlefield would take not forty-five minutes but days
of assembly and preparation. At least three times prior to the war,
Blair was warned by intelligence officials that the report was
inaccurate, but he made no public mention of it.. "
* The paperback edition of A Pretext for War includes new Afterword