Important Stories Hidden By The Election

How Labour used the law to keep criticism of Israel secretExclusive: Concern over nuclear arsenal removed from Iraq dossier

The full extent of government anxiety about the state of British-Israel relations can be exposed for the first time today in a secret document seen by the Guardian.

The document reveals how the Foreign Office successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier. At the heart of it was nervousness at the top of government about any mention of Israel's nuclear arsenal in an official paper accusing Iraq of flouting the UN's authority on weapons of mass destruction.

The dossier was made public this week, but the Foreign Office succeeded before a tribunal in having the handwritten mention of Israel kept secret.

The FCO never argued that the information would damage national security. The Guardian has seen the full text and a witness statement from a senior Foreign Office official, who argued behind closed doors that any public mention of the candid reference would seriously damage UK/Israeli relations. In the statement, he reveals that in the past five years there have been 10 substantial incidents and 20 more minor ones relating to Israeli concerns about attitudes to their government within Whitehall...

Along with unfavourable references to the US and Japan, the reference to Israel was written in the margin by someone commenting on the opening paragraph of the Williams draft. It was written against the claim that "no other country [apart from Iraq] has flouted the United Nations' authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction".

In statement to the tribunal, Neil Wigan, head of the FCO's Arab, Israel and North Africa Group, said he did not know who had referred to Israel in the margin. He went on: "I interpret this note to indicate that the person who wrote it believes that Israel has flouted the United Nations' authority in a manner similar to that of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein."

Miliband admits US rendition flights stopped on UK soil

Britain acknowledged today for the first time that US planes on "extraordinary rendition" flights stopped on British soil twice.

The admission came from the foreign secretary, David Miliband, who apologised to MPs for wrong information given by his predecessor Jack Straw and former prime minister Tony Blair.

Quote:

Miliband admits US rendition flights stopped on UK soil

Britain acknowledged today for the first time that US planes on "extraordinary rendition" flights stopped on British soil twice.

The admission came from the foreign secretary, David Miliband, who apologised to MPs for wrong information given by his predecessor Jack Straw and former prime minister Tony Blair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/ciarendition.usa

Meaning, they lied through their phucking teeth.

Don't sack Musharraf, US and UK warn election victors

Thursday, 21 February 2008

The US and Britain are pressing Pervez Musharraf's victorious opponents to drop their demands that he resign as president and that the country's independent judiciary be restored before forming a government.

In a strategy some Western diplomats admit could badly backfire, the Bush administration has made clear it wishes to continue to support Mr Musharraf even after Monday's election in which the Pakistani public delivered a resounding rejection of his policies. "[The US] does not want some people pushed out because it would lead to instability. In this case that means Musharraf," said one Western diplomat

The document, amended in the margins, makes no mention of Saddam Hussein being capable of launching weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, a false claim later used in another government dossier to make the case for going to war.

Satellite Hit Boosts Missile Defense

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 21, 2008
Filed at 6:21 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The stunning image of a Navy missile streaking into outer space at 6,000 mph to obliterate an orbiting spy satellite boosts the credibility of missile-defense advocates. Yet questions remain whether that success could be duplicated against a surprise, real-world attack.

The idea, whether the target is an unarmed satellite or an enemy missile, is basically the same: fire a guided missile into the path of the moving target and smash it to bits by the force of impact. In theory, the collision could render harmless even a nuclear- or chemical-armed missile, an idea that evolved from President Reagan's ''star wars'' program of the 1980s.

In the case of the spy satellite, a Navy SM-3 missile launched from a cruiser in the Pacific not only hit the U.S. satellite but apparently struck precisely where its operators had aimed: a titanium-encased tank of fuel that officials said could pose a health hazard to humans on re-entry.

Henry Cooper, who was the Pentagon's ''star wars'' chief from 1990-93, said the outcome bodes well for the Navy and prospects for adding to its missile defense repertoire.

These phucks just have no godamn credibility left at all. Now, of course, they pump out the propaganda in precisely the manner they previously denied was relevant or the purpose of the shoot-down...

Controversial Pentagon Official Resigns
By Paul Kiel - February 25, 2008, 6:47PM
Last week, Col. Morris Davis, the former prosecutor told reporters that he'd had a conversation with the Pentagon's general counsel William Haynes, during which Haynes had said about the Gitmo tribunals that "We can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions."

It made Haynes, already a controversial figure because of his role crafting the Pentagon's interrogation policies, even more controversial. Davis said that he resigned when he was put under Haynes' chain of command.

And now Haynes is gone.

GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mails

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 27, 2008; Page A02

After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday.

The move increases the likelihood that an untold number of RNC e-mails dealing with official White House business during the first term of the Bush administration -- including many sent or received by former presidential adviser Karl Rove -- will never be recovered, said House Democrats and public records advocates.

The RNC had previously told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it was attempting to restore e-mails from 2001 to 2003, when the RNC had a policy of purging all e-mails, including those to and from White House officials, after 30 days. But Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed during a hearing yesterday that the RNC has now said it "has no intention of trying to restore the missing White House e-mails."

Army Official: Yes, Waterboarding Breaks International Law
By Paul Kiel - February 27, 2008, 2:16PM
With the parade of administration officials who've testified about waterboarding in the past several weeks -- that it was once legal, but is not anymore (though it could be found legal again); that it may "feel like" torture, but that doesn't mean it is torture; that as the U.S. practices it, it bears no relation to the technique used by the Spanish Inquisition (it's more in line with the Khmer Rouge way of doing things) -- you can be excused for feeling more than a little confused.

And you may have despaired of ever seeing a clear, unequivocal exchange on the topic with a government official. Like this one from today's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, with Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:

No, he didn't, did he really? Quite a feat, controlling time and another's aging process.

blatham wrote:

No, he didn't, did he really? Quite a feat, controlling time and another's aging process.

No, I heard this somewhere and assume it is a joke.

New High In U.S. Prison Numbers
Growth Attributed To More Stringent Sentencing Laws

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 29, 2008

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more, according to a report released yesterday.

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.

Mukasey's Paradox
By Paul Kiel - March 4, 2008, 6:17PM
Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington, writing today in The Los Angeles Times:

Quote:

The recent decisions of Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey to block any prosecution of Bush administration officials for contempt and to block any criminal investigation of torture led to a chorus of criticism. Many view the decisions as raw examples of political manipulation of the legal process and overt cronyism. I must confess that I was one of those crying foul until I suddenly realized that there was something profound, even beautiful, in Mukasey's action.
In his twisting of legal principles, the attorney general has succeeded in creating a perfect paradox. Under Mukasey's Paradox, lawyers cannot commit crimes when they act under the orders of a president -- and a president cannot commit a crime when he acts under advice of lawyers....

When reduced to its purest form, Mukasey's Paradox is that government officials cannot violate the law -- but that because executive privilege is also a law, it's sometimes necessary to violate the law in order to uphold the law.