Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 6. maj 2005 / Time Line May 6, 2005
Version 3.005/06/2005
International court hears anti-war claims
Lawyers for families and groups present evidence they say shows
government acted unlawfully on Iraq
By Richard Norton-Taylor
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8776.htm
"The Guardian" - - Lawyers acting for anti-war groups yesterday
presented the international criminal court with evidence which,
they say, shows that the government acted unlawfully by
participating in the US-led invasion of Iraq. They say that British
forces acted out of all proportion to the official war aim -
ridding Iraq of its banned weapons programme but not regime
change.
They also argue that British troops acted, and were ordered to act,
beyond the bounds of military necessity. British soldiers acted
unlawfully by detaining and, they allege, mistreating Iraqi
civilians, and by targeting cluster munitions on urban areas.
The submissions to the ICC, which is based in The Hague, have been
drawn up by Public Interest Lawyers, a Birmingham-based firm which
is representing the Stop the War Coalition, Peacerights, a
non-government organisation set up to promote peaceful conflict
resolution, Military Families Against the War, and relatives of
Iraqi civilians allegedly injured and killed by British
troops...
05/06/2005
IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED."
Thursday, May 5, 2005
By Greg Palast
Here it is. The smoking gun. The memo that has "IMPEACH HIM"
written all over it.
The top-level government memo marked "SECRET AND STRICTLY
PERSONAL," dated eight months before Bush sent us into Iraq,
following a closed meeting with the President, reads, "Military
action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam
through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism
and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the
policy."
Read that again: "The intelligence and facts were being
fixed...."
For years, after each damning report on BBC TV, viewers inevitably
ask me, "Isn't this grounds for impeachment?" -- vote rigging, a
blind eye to terror and the bin Ladens before 9-11, and so on.
Evil, stupidity and self-dealing are shameful but not impeachable.
What's needed is a "high crime or misdemeanor."
And if this ain't it, nothing is.
The memo, uncovered this week by the Times, goes on to describe an
elaborate plan by George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
to hoodwink the planet into supporting an attack on Iraq knowing
full well the evidence for war was a phony.
A conspiracy to commit serial fraud is, under federal law,
racketeering. However, the Mob's schemes never cost so many
lives.
Here's more. "Bush had made up his mind to take military action.
But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors,
and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or
Iran."
Really? But Mr. Bush told us, "Intelligence gathered by this and
other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to
possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever
devised."
A month ago, the Silberman-Robb Commission issued its report on WMD
intelligence before the war, dismissing claims that Bush fixed the
facts with this snooty, condescending conclusion written directly
to the President, "After a thorough review, the Commission found no
indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence
regarding Iraq's weapons."
We now know the report was a bogus 618 pages of thick whitewash
aimed to let Bush off the hook for his murderous mendacity.
Read on: The invasion build-up was then set, says the memo,
"beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections." Mission
accomplished.
You should parse the entire memo -- posted on my website -- and see
if you can make it through its three pages without losing your
lunch.
Now sharp readers may note they didn't see this memo, in fact,
printed in the New York Times. It wasn't. Rather, it was splashed
across the front pages of the Times of LONDON on Monday.
It has effectively finished the last, sorry remnants of Tony
Blair's political career. (While his Labor Party will most
assuredly win the elections Thursday, Prime Minister Blair is
expected, possibly within months, to be shoved overboard in favor
of his Chancellor of the Exchequer, a political execution which
requires only a vote of the Labour party's members in
Parliament.)
But in the US, barely a word. The New York Times covers this hard
evidence of Bush's fabrication of a casus belli as some "British"
elections story. Apparently, our President's fraud isn't "news fit
to print."
My colleagues in the UK press have skewered Blair, digging out more
incriminating memos, challenging the official government factoids
and fibs. But in the US press nada, bubkes, zilch. Bush fixed the
facts and somehow that's a story for "over there."
The Republicans impeached Bill Clinton over his cigar and Monica's
affections. And the US media could print nothing else.
Now, we have the stone, cold evidence of bending intelligence to
sell us on death by the thousands, and neither a Republican
Congress nor what is laughably called US journalism thought it
worth a second look.
My friend Daniel Ellsberg once said that what's good about the
American people is that you have to lie to them. What's bad about
Americans is that it's so easy to do.
Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy. Read the memo in its entirety at
www.GregPalast.com
05/06/2005
CONTRACTS from the United States Department of Defense
Raytheon Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $162,774,730 firm
fixed price modification to previously awarded contract
(N00024-05-C-5482) to procure 251 Evolved SEASPARROW Missiles
(ESSM), 38 shipping containers and spares for the NATO SEASPARROW
consortium. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz. (38 percent);
Andover, Mass. (10 percent); Camden, Ark. (5 percent); Minneapolis,
Minn. (1 percent); and the countries of Australia (13 percent);
Canada (7 percent); Norway (7 percent); Germany (7 percent); The
Netherlands (6 percent); Spain (3 percent); Denmark (1 percent);
Greece (1 percent); and Turkey (1 percent), and is expected to be
completed by October 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the
end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command,
Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa., is being
awarded a $27,657,416 cost-plus-fixed-fee task order for the
Persistent Littoral Undersea Surveillance Network (PLUSNET) against
Basic Ordering Agreement (N00014-05-G-0106). The PLUSNET system
concept is a semi-autonomous controlled network of fixed bottom and
inwater mobile assets, implementing environmentally and tactically
adaptive processing that enhances the detectability and tracking of
quiet, diesel electric submarines operating in shallow water
environments typical of the Western Pacific. Work will be performed
in University Park, Pa., and is expected to be completed in May
2008. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal
year. The contract was competitively procured under an Office of
Naval Research Broad Agency Announcement, with more than two offers
received. The Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Va., is the
contracting activity (Task Order 0008).
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