Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Exclusive: Cheney’s admissions to the CIA leak prosecutor and FBI

Exclusive: Cheney’s admissions to the CIA leak prosecutor and FBI

By murrayw Tuesday December 23, 2008 11:14am

Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a still-highly confidential FBI report, admitted to federal investigators that he rewrote talking points for the press in July 2003 that made it much more likely that the role of then-covert CIA-officer Valerie Plame in sending her husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa would come to light.

Cheney conceded during his interview with federal investigators that in drawing attention to Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s Africa trip reporters might also unmask her role as CIA officer.

Cheney denied to the investigators, however, that he had done anything on purpose that would lead to the outing of Plame as a covert CIA operative. But the investigators came away from their interview with Cheney believing that he had not given them a plausible explanation as to how he could focus attention on Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s trip without her CIA status also possibly publicly exposed. At the time, Plame was a covert CIA officer involved in preventing Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and Cheney’s office played a central role in exposing her and nullifying much of her work.

Cheney revised the talking points on July 8, 2003– the very same day that his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller and told Miller that Plame was a CIA officer and that Plame had also played a central role in sending her husband on his CIA sponsored trip to the African nation of Niger.

http://murraywaas.crooksandliars.com/2008/12/23/exclusive-cheneys-admissions-to-the-cia-leak-prosecutor-and-fbi/

Sometime in the next 27 days, this traitor will be pardoned. You can take that to the bank.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Career Army Specialist sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, saying no evacuation order given on 9/11

Career Army Specialist sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, saying no evacuation order given on 9/11

Stephen C. Webster
Published: Wednesday December 17, 2008


A career Army specialist who survived the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, claims that no evacuation was ordered inside the Pentagon, despite flight controllers calling in warnings of approaching hijacked aircraft nearly 20 minutes before the building was struck.

According to a time-line of the attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration notified NORAD that American Airlines Flight 77 had been hijacked at 9:24 a.m. The Pentagon was not struck until 9:43 a.m.

On behalf of Spc. April Gallop, who served in the Network Infrastructure Services Agency as an administrative specialist, California attorney William Veale has filed a civil suit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and former US Air Force General Richard Myers, who was acting chairman of the joint chiefs on 9/11. It alleges they engaged in conspiracy to facilitate the terrorist attacks and purposefully failed to warn those inside the Pentagon, contributing to injuries she and her two-month-old son incurred.

"The ex-G.I. plaintiff alleges she has been denied government support since then, because she raised 'painful questions' about the inexplicable failure of military defenses at the Pentagon that day, and especially the failure of officials to warn and evacuate the occupants of the building when they knew the attack was imminent" said Veale in a media advisory.

more...

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/911_survivor_blasts_Rumsfeld_Cheney_No_1217.html

Fantastic! I wonder who the John Does could be. Ed Eberhart? Marc Grossman?



Legal minds respond to landmark 9/11 civil suit against Rumsfeld, CheneyStephen C. Webster
Published: Thursday December 18, 2008


On behalf of Spc. April Gallop, who served in the Network Infrastructure Services Agency as an administrative specialist, California attorney William Veale on Monday filed a civil suit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and former US Air Force General Richard Myers, who was acting chairman of the joint chiefs on 9/11.

The suit alleges they engaged in conspiracy to facilitate the terrorist attacks and purposefully failed to warn those inside the Pentagon, contributing to injuries she and her two-month-old son incurred. Additional, unnamed persons with foreknowledge of the attacks are also named.

snip

According to the Sterns & Walker Web site, the firm represents survivors of aircraft and other major accidents and catastrophes. The firm "has been involved in almost every major air carrier accident case, and hundreds of other cases involving claims against major defendants," including the United States of America.

"We have already had a precursor of this, which unfortunately for the plaintiff, spells out what will happen to her case. Ex-CIA agent, Valerie Plame, whose cover was deliberately blown by Cheney and probably others at the White House, in retaliation for the unkind remarks her husband made after his investigation concerning the Bush claim that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase raw material for a weapon of mass destruction from a country in Africa, filed a damage suit against Cheney and others for destroying her career," said Sterns.

more...

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Legal_minds_respond_to_landmark_911_1218.html

I fear Sterns is right. But I admire the hell out of Gallop for her efforts.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Confirmed: Cheney's Role in Approving Torture

Confirmed: Cheney's Role in Approving Torture

On Monday of this week, George W. Bush's scowling sidekick and secretive Svengali, Dick Cheney, emerged from his hiding place to speak with ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl. In his interview with the American TV network, Cheney acknowledged his approval of the torture methods the Bush-Cheney gang has employed in its hapless "war on terror."

Notes commentator Matthew Duss in Britain's Guardian: "The notion that the presidency of George [W.] Bush has been a disaster for the U.S. approaches the level of self-evident truth. It has actually become quite difficult to find anyone who isn't a personal friend of the president who will argue otherwise. But...Dick Cheney isn't sorry about any of it." In his ABC News interview he "betrayed no second thoughts - and certainly no remorse - about the policies pursued by the administration that he both served and, according to some, led. Watching Cheney's brusque dismissal of concerns about his methods in the [so-called] war on terror, you'd be forgiven for coming to the mistaken impression that these methods have worked. There is no evidence that they have."

Duss points out that, in the interview, when "pressed" by reporter Karl "on concerns" about the military jail at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, "where suspects are held indefinitely as 'illegal combatants,' Cheney claimed that many of them 'have been released back to their home countries.' He then insisted: 'What we have left is the hard core.' But, of course, Cheney has always insisted that those held in Guantánamo were the hard core - the 'worst of the worst,' as former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it - while ignoring evidence that many were falsely imprisoned there, and assiduously working to quash efforts to ascertain their actual guilt or innocence. Confronted with criticisms of the Bush administration's torture policy, Cheney simply lied, saying: 'We don't do torture. We never have.'" However, later in the ABC News interview, "Cheney bluntly admitted that he had supported the waterboarding of al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Waterboarding is, of course, torture, devised by torturers as a method of torture, an inconvenient fact...Cheney [had earlier] dealt with by simply declaring waterboarding [to be] 'not torture,' and then finding a lawyer or two willing to go along" with that assertion.


Agence France Presse, also referring to the ABC News interview, reports: "According to Cheney, some 30 detainees who were released from Guantánamo 'ended up back on the battlefield again, and we've encountered them a second time around. But they've either been killed or captured in further conflicts with our forces.'" Of the waterboarding to which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected, Cheney said: "I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do....And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it...." Agence France Presse notes: "ABC asked him if, in hindsight, he thought the tactics went too far. 'I don't,' Cheney said."

more...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=33714

Nothing shadowy about Dick Cheney's shadow government anymore. What's to cover up when there's no accountability? That's how brazen and arrogant Cheney and the rest of the misadministration have become. The operative rationale for any questioning of this criminality is "So what?"

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Who's really responsible for Mumbai? Dick Cheney doesn't want you to know.

As the news trickles in regarding the one terrorist captured alive in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, the finger of suspicion continues to be pointed at two prime suspects: the organization Lashkar-e-Toiba and international criminal Dawood Ibrahim.


Police: Mumbai suspect admits Pakistan link

Maria identified the suspect as Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, from the Faridkot village in the Okara district of Pakistan's Punjab province. He is the son of Mohammed Amir Kasab, the police commissioner said.

snip

Maria said Kasab spent the past 18 months training at various camps run by Lashkar-e-Tayyiba -- a Pakistan-based terror group allied with al Qaeda. Kasab told police he joined the group, known by its acronym LeT, six months before he began training.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/03/india.attacks/index.html

Is 'the most dangerous man in the world' behind the Mumbai attacks?

Security officials in India believe that an Indian citizen once called 'the most dangerous man in the world' masterminded the well orchestrated string of terror attacks that left at least 174 people dead in India's financial capital of Mumbai last week.

The man, Dawood Ibrahim, is believed to be hiding in Pakistan. Ibrahim is wanted in India for his suspected role in the 1993 bombings in Mumbai, in which more than 250 people died in a string of 13 coordinated bombings.

snip

The connection to Ibrahim was established during the questioning of one of the attackers,
Amir Kasab, 21, who told the Indian authorities that he had been sent to Mumbai by Ibrahim after having undergone training in Pakistan.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042197.html

I'm not sure if Mumbai Joint Police Commissioner of Crime Rakesh Maria is being short-sighted, if MSM is being oblivious, or both, but one inconvenient truth being ignored is that both LeT and Dawood Ibrahim have used various means of receiving financing through the same method: A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network. The connections between Khan and LeT is something I discovered four years ago in the 1st edition of American Judas:



Lashkar-e-Toiba - or LET is a terrorist group of Pakistan, consisting of Pakistani, Afghan and Arab cadres, headed by Pakistani office-bearers, with its headquarters at Muridke near Lahore. Its annual conventions at Muridke are attended, amongst others, by serving and retired officers of the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, by serving and retired scientists of the Pakistani nuclear and missile establishment and by political leaders.

Amongst those, who regularly attend its annual conventions, are Lt. Gen. (retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen.(retd) Javed Nasir, both former Directors-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),Dr. Abdul Qadir Khan, the self-styled father of the Pakistani atom bomb, Dr.Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the former scientist of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission who was recently detained by the Pakistani authorities under US pressure for being in contact with bin Laden and Mohd.Rafique Tarar, former President of Pakistan.(http://www.saag.org/papers4/paper381.html )

To finance its day-to-day activities, the LeT leverages its contacts in Saudi Arabia as well as launches donation campaigns with overseas Pakistanis, especially middle class and wealthy Punjabis in Britain, Australia and the Middle East. According to Jane's Terrorism & Insurgency Centre, Osama bin Laden has also financed LeT activities until recently. The LeT, under its new name JuD, uses its outreach networks including schools, social service groups and religious publications to attract and brainwash recruits for jihad in Kashmir and other places.(http://www.crikey.com.au/politics/2004/05/18-0003.html )

Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) has been showing increasing interest in taking jihad to the Muslims of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. The LET is very close to the ISI and it would not have taken its initial moves to explore the possibility of using Sri Lanka as a clandestine base for its activties and for creating sleeper cells there without the knowledge and prior clearance of the ISI.(http://www.saag.org/papers11/paper1026.html )


http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2007/01/american-judas-1st-edition.html


Then there's Dawood Ibrahim. His connection with A.Q. Khan starts with a little organization that might be familiar to John Kerry fans called BCCI:

Right from its inception, the clandestine nuclear and missile projects in Pakistan were treated as a top secret intel op of the ISI to ensure deniability. All payments to the foreign suppliers were made not from the accounts of the Govt of Pakistan, but from private accounts in the BCCI, which collapsed in 1991, and other Dubai and Geneva based banks. These accounts were opened by the Gokul brothers of Geneva, one of whom was jailed for cheating in the UK after the collapse of the BCCI; Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan’s present Finance Minister, who was working in the Gulf for the Citibank in the 1990s; Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader who was designated by the US as an intl terrorist in Oct; Dubai-based Pakistani smugglers, and AQ Khan and other trusted Pakistani scientists.(http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/nuclearjihad.html)

Ibrahim is also connected to the network through B.S.A. Tahir:

B.S.A. Tahir - The recent investigations into the clandestine nuclear proliferation activities of A.Q.Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistan atom bomb, have revealed that Bukhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan Tamil Muslim of Indian origin, married in Malysia and with business interests in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, was one of the external kingpins of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear procurement network. In a speech at the National Defence University of Washington DC in February last, President Bush had described this Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslim as the "chief financial officer and money-launderer" of A.Q.Khan's clandestine operations.

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2007/01/american-judas-1st-edition.html

* Tahir's family was closely connected with Dawood Ibrahim, the Indian mafia leader living in Pakistan, who had helped the nuclear and missile establishments of Pakistan in their clandestine procurement and shipping activities. The Dawood group is well-entrenched in Singapore and Malaysia. Its activities in Singapore include: Investment in real estate; a shipping company (name not known) and hawala operations to South India. Among the hawala operators of Singapore allegedly associated with Dawood is a company called the Abdul Gafoor and Company. Before Musharraf visited India in 2001 for the Agra summit, the ISI secretly sent away Dawood to Malaysia through Singapore with the help of one Rakesh Tulshiyan and Shahid Sohail. He stayed in Malaysia as a guest of Tahir's family. He returned to Karachi later. Dawood is believed to have extensive mining interests in Malaysia from where he and his group indulge in the smuggling of silver into India via Nepal.

http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded_files/paper931.html

There is one other area where I feel Mumbai Joint Police Commissioner of Crime Rakesh Maria is being short-sighted: his focus doesn't seem to extend beyond Pakistanis.

Maria said all 10 attackers were Pakistanis, something that Pakistani officials have denied, blaming instead "stateless actors."

The band of gunmen attacked 10 targets in Mumbai last Wednesday night, sparking three days of battles with police and Indian troops in the heart of the city that is the hub of India's financial and entertainment industries. Most of the 179 deaths occurred at the city's top two hotels, the Oberoi and the Taj Mahal.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/03/india.attacks/index.html

There is evidence suggesting otherwise. Here are two eyewitness accounts:

Then, the "foreign looking, fair skinned" men, as Mr Mishra remembers them, simply carried on killing.

snip

Gaffar Abdul Amir, an Iraqi tourist from Baghdad, says he saw at least two men who started the firing outside the Leopold Cafe.

He was returning to his hotel from the seaside with a friend when he saw two men carrying bags and brandishing AK-47s walking in front of them, shooting.

"They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed," says Mr Amir.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7752625.stm

Perhaps Pakistanis, perhaps not. There is more evidence of Russian, perhaps Chechen fingerprints on this operation:

Mumbai terrorists used Chechen tactics
The terrorists in the Indian city of Mumbai, who killed more than 150 people and injured over 300, used the same tactics that Chechen field militants employed in the Northern Caucasus, says Russian counter terrorism presidential envoy Anatoly Safonov.

In towns of the Northern Cauasus in 1990s, terrorists seized homes and hospitals and took numerous hostages.

"These tactics were used during raids by militant Chechen field commanders Shamil Basayev and Salman Raduyev against the towns of Buddyonnovsk and Pervomaiskoye. For the first time in history the entire towns were terrorized, with homes and hospitals seized. The Mumbai terrorists have learned these tactics well," Safonov told Russian news agency Interfax on Thursday.


http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/33921

Terror mail routed through Pakistan's Lahore
2 Dec 2008, 0407 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: Indian agencies tracing the source of the email sent by an outfit calling itself Deccan Mujahideen to a TV channel claiming
responsibility for the terror attacks on Mumbai have found that the text was routed through Lahore in Pakistan before travelling to different locations through anonymous "remailer" service.

Though other locations are yet to be traced, the experts — who took help of different foreign agencies — found that the terrorists used a Russian server to avail the remailer service which is the most secure and least traceable way to send emails.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Terror_mail_routed_through_Pakistans_Lahore/rssarticleshow/3781555.cms

I would like to give credit to Michael Ruppert for examining the possibility of Chechen involvement. Visit Act 2: From the Wilderness' Peak Oil Blog for more information: http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/

The purpose of examining this possibility is not to set up a false dichotomy of either Blame Pakistan or Blame Chechnya. It is to understand that we are dealing with a network that is global in its outreach to a degree that our intelligence agencies have yet to completely comprehend:


BLACK MARKET BUSINESS

Khan, an admired figure in Pakistan, was arrested in January 2004 for his central role in the black market that sold Pakistani nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya and offered technology to Iraq and perhaps other countries.

Although officially pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf, Khan remains under house arrest.
After Pakistan acted against Khan, President George W. Bush declared that the network had been shut down.
But the IISS report said that "at least some of Khan's associates appear to have escaped law enforcement attention and could, after a period of lying low, resume their black market business."

It also concluded that "the few prosecutions and light sentences that have been imposed to date (on Khan and his accomplices) are not commensurate with the scale of the proliferation that the Khan network abetted
."


http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-in-the-press/press-coverage-2007/may-2007/cia-did-not-focus-enough-on-khan-network



This is where Dick Cheney comes in. To quote directly from the 2nd edition of American Judas:

In the two and a half years since the research from “The Plame Indictment Threads” inspired me to write American Judas, much has happened regarding the investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame that has validated our findings. Though some were wary of the source reporting that one aspect of Plame’s work involved tracking the nuclear smuggling network of A.Q. Khan, this fact was corroborated by the research of Larisa Alexandrovna in 2006 that while Plame’s team was focused on Iran, they “would have come in contact with A.Q. Khan’s network”. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Outed_CIA_officer_was_wor... Her research was confirmed in a report on MSNBC. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/MSNBC_confirms_Raw_St... The OUTING THE CIA papers by Mark G. Levey thoroughly document how and when Plame was tracking the Khan network. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/1/183411/6866, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/7/112015/2282 Through the ongoing trial of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, we have seen evidence presented that Cheney was deeply involved in the leak of Plame, even going so far as to write out what his former Chief of Staff Libby should say to Time reporter Matt Cooper. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16771573 / Libby learned about Plame from Cheney http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_di... and even told an FBI agent that he may have talked of outing Plame with Cheney. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2... / In addition to this criminal trial, there is the upcoming civil suit by Joseph and Valerie Wilson against Dick Cheney, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Karl Rove, Dick Armitage and John Does 1-9. http://www.wilsonsupport.org / Much has been publicized in the mainstream media about Armitage being the first to leak the identity of Valerie Plame to a reporter, Bob Woodward. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek / Whether Armitage engaged in malicious or oblivious gossip is almost of secondary importance; our research proves Cheney was the ringleader who helped to instigate such a poisonous environment against the Ambassador, who publicly contradicted the WMD intelligence that helped mislead the nation into war, and his wife, who secretly tracked WMD proliferation, that by the time the dust settled, the leak of a CIA operative and her Counter-Proliferation Division (CPD) cover company could be reduced to such a trivial and tawdry affair that someone as high up the ladder as a Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Karl Rove, could feel comfortable saying to MSNBC reporter Chris Matthews that Wilson’s wife is “fair game”. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek / This poisonous environment was created initially through the machinations of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) and the Office of Special Plans (OSP).

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2007/03/american-judas-2nd-edition-investigate.html


Let me clear: I'm not saying Dick Cheney orchestrated the Mumbai attacks. It's not that simple. By destroying the cover of Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings and Associates, Cheney destroyed one of the few sources through which the CIA was able to monitor Khan's proliferation network, impairing their capacity for up to ten years. So whenever this hydra-headed monster strikes, Cheney and the rest of the Vulcans get to have their cake and eat it too: they maintain plausible deniability while ensuring that future generations will continue to fight the Frankenstein they created, cementing "the war that will not end in our lifetime". But never forget, they are responsible.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Cheney, Gonzales indictments dropped

Cheney, Gonzales indictments droppedRAW STORY
Published: Monday December 1, 2008



A judge in Raymondville, Texas has dropped indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Judge Manuel Banales, after surviving a motion to have him removed from the case, threw out eight of the indictments brought by Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra, including those against two special prosecutors, two district judges, and a district clerk.

Judge Banales ruled the grand jury returned the indictments against Cheney and Gonzales unlawfully. Banales also tossed an indictment for corruption against State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr., a Democrat.

Charges were brought against Vice President Cheney and former AG Gonzales for blocking the investigation into a prisoner's murder in a private prison in Raymondville.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Cheney_Gonzales_indictments_dropped_1201.html

Oh well, it looked like a long shot. Doesn't change the fact they'll get pardoned before January 20 anyway.