DU Digest - OUR Top Stories (hint: NOT Saddam sons)

[Stephanie]

Let's not fall for the diversionary tactics, folks. Don't lose sight of the real news. Post this week's jaw-droppers here, lest we forget. Here are just a few:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

The spies who pushed for war
Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war.

It represents the Bush administration's second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI's inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses.

This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising and contaminating its own source of intelligence.

According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. <more>


http://www.nynewsday.com/news/ny-uscia0722,0,2289800.story?coll=nyc-topnews-short-navigation
Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative
By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce
Washington Bureau
July 21, 2003, 9:48 PM EDT

Washington -- The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."

Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.

Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's employment, said the release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration intelligence failures.

"It's a shot across the bow to these people, that if you talk we'll take your family and drag them through the mud as well," he said in an interview.<more>



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3079927.stm
Blair under pressure over Kelly death
Last Updated: Saturday, 19 July, 2003, 13:12 GMT 14:12 UK

Prime Minister Tony Blair has faced intense questioning over the death of Iraq weapons expert Dr David Kelly, but says judgment must wait until an inquiry is complete.
He was asked if he had "blood on his hands" during a press conference in Tokyo, where he was meeting his Japanese counterpart on the first leg of a tour of the Far East.

Mr Blair said an independent judicial inquiry into the affair was due to be held and "we should make our judgement after we get the facts".

He called for "respect and restraint" until the full circumstances were known.

Police confirmed on Saturday that a body found at an Oxfordshire beauty spot on Friday is that of Dr Kelly, a Ministry of Defence adviser. <more>

[Bushfire]

1. Excellent Post!!!

:kick:

[Stephanie]

2. Bush Adviser Apologizes Over Iraq Claim

Don't get sucked in by the circus! Follow the REAL stories:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&e=2&u=/ap/20030722/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_iraq_criticism
Bush Adviser Apologizes Over Iraq Claim
14 minutes ago Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!


By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Stephen Hadley, President Bush (news - web sites)'s deputy national security adviser, on Tuesday became the second administration official to apologize for a role in allowing a tainted intelligence report on Iraq (news - web sites)'s nuclear ambitions to find its way into Bush's State of the Union address.

Hadley, in a rare on-the-record session with reporters, said that he had received two memos from the CIA (news - web sites) and a phone call from agency Director George Tenet last October raising objections to an allegation that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore from Africa to use in building nuclear weapons.

As a result, Hadley said the offending passage was excised from a speech on Iraq the president gave in Cincinnati last Oct. 7. But Hadley suggested that details from the memos and phone call had slipped from his attention as the State of the Union was being put together.

"The high standards the president set were not met," Hadley said. He said he apologized to the president on Monday. <more>

[Stephanie]

3. Cheney Energy Task Force Documents Detail Iraqi Oil Industry

See?!? I'M so distracted I almost forgot this one! RESIST the hypnotic lure of the Saddam Sons:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92372,00.html
Cheney Energy Task Force Documents Detail Iraqi Oil Industry
Friday, July 18, 2003

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force appeared to have some interest in early 2001 in Iraq's oil industry, including which foreign companies were pursuing business there, according to documents released Friday by a private watchdog group.

Judicial Watch (search), a conservative legal group, obtained a batch of task force-related Commerce Department papers that included a detailed map of Iraq's oil fields, terminals and pipelines as well as a list entitled "Foreign Suitors of Iraqi Oilfield Contracts."

The papers also included a detailed map of oil fields and pipelines in Saudi Arabia and in the United Arab Emirates and a list of oil and gas development projects in those two countries.

The papers were dated early March 2001, about two months before the Cheney energy task force completed and announced its report on the administration's energy needs and future energy agenda.<more>

[newsguyatl]

4. excellent post stephanie!

thanks...

mind if i put some of these stories on a blog?

[Stephanie]

5. Blog these stories, PLEASE!

WHY are we talking about the Saddam Sons?!? We are taking the bait!

[Stephanie]

6. I can see from some posts that the diversions are working

and some people have missed these stories! So a kick.

:kick: