The Intelligence Community

Bush says West Bank belongs to Israel

In a historic policy shift, President Bush on Thursday endorsed Israel's plan to hold on to part of the West Bank in any final peace settlement with the Palestinians. Bush also ruled out Palestinian refugees returning to Israel, bringing strong criticism from the Palestinians.
AP News

Skull and Bones loses some cache

Tim Russert: "You both were members of Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale. What does that tell us?"
Kerry: "Not much, because it's a secret."
Tim Russert: "You were both in Skull and Bones, the secret society?"
Bush: "It's so secret we can't talk about it."

Indeed, a serious political discussion might examine the meaning of both presidential candidates maintaining an inherently undemocratic affiliation and refusing to address an important aspect of their university lives.
Skull and Bones has produced some odd bedfellows. "I am a liberal Democratic criminal defense attorney who voted for George Bush, and I will vote for him again," said Bush's fellow Bonesman Donald Etra, an Orthodox Jew who lives in Los Angeles and was appointed by Bush to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
Etra, who called himself "a strong Zionist," said one of his closest Bones friends is a Jordanian-born Muslim. "Most of us," he said, "put friendship first and politics a far, far second."
Whether the president and his challenger are influenced by their Skull and Bones associations is, in a general sense, a matter of record. Both men have close friends and political contributors who are Bonesmen. Bush's early forays into business were helped along by older Bonesmen. Bush has appointed several of his clubmates to government positions, including William H. Donaldson, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Pioneer Press

Bush Conceals Names of U.S. Firms That Paid Kickbacks to Saddam

Saddam Hussein siphoned off $10.1 billion from Iraq's oil-for-food program through illegal oil contracts and kickback deals with private suppliers of food and medicine, a congressional agency said Wednesday.
John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Bush administration can identify the private business firms that cut kickback deals with Saddam Hussein, but intends to keep the names secret.
Capitol Hill Blue

Powell admits Iraq evidence mistake

It is the first time Mr Powell has acknowledged key evidence he used to make the case for war may have been wrong, says the BBC's Jannat Jalil in Washington.
BBC
"One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities"
-Colin Powell addressing the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003

Mutilated Foreigners 'Strung Up Like Sheep' in Iraq

Jubilant Iraqis yanked the bodies of four foreign contractors – one a woman, at least one an American – out of their burning cars today, dragged the charred corpses through the streets, and hung two of them from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.
Elsewhere, five American soldiers died in a roadside bombing nearby on one of the bloodiest days this year for the coalition governing Iraq.
Scotsman
NY Times
AP

Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.
The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.
Washington Post

Rice Rejecting Calls for Public Testimony

Rice said in a TV interview that she wants to meet with the families of the Sept. 11 victims because she knows they are disappointed she cannot testify publicly. "Nothing would be better ... than to be able to testify," Rice told CBS's "60 Minutes."
"Condi Rice would be a superb witness. She is anxious to testify. The president would dearly love to have her testify," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters. "But the lawyers have concluded that to do so would alter the balance if we got into the practice of doing that."
AP

'THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PEACE RALLY OF THE YEAR' ENJOYS LARGEST PROTEST EVER IN CRAWFORD TEXAS

March 20 Crawford, TX- Texas' beautiful hill country and its inhabitants provided a surreal backdrop to the largest protest ever held in "The Homeland" of the "Western White House". Presidential candidate Ralph Nader, along with award winning talk show host, film maker and author Alex Jones gave speeches that electrified protesters - including those that didn't support either Nader's or Jones' right to attend the rally. Because of the controversy surrounding both Nader's and Jones' appearances, political performance art group, The Intelligence Community, was forced to procure a separate permit for Nader and Jones that began at 5 p.m.

Bush Pushes Broadband Rollout by 2007

President Bush on Friday proposed 2007 as the goal for universal availability of high-speed Internet access to keep America competitive and innovative.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has pushed an agenda to reduce the regulations on telephone companies, which in the past have had to share their networks with rivals because of their dominance in serving homes.
AP

National Security Adviser Rice Will Sit Out 9/11 Panel Hearing in Washington

Starting tomorrow, the most important 9/11 Commission hearings yet will scrutinize counterterror efforts of two presidential administrations -- but a star witness will not be there. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice refuses to testify under oath, insisting that presidential advisers need not answer to legislative bodies.
Even Republican members, such as former Navy Secretary John Lehman, complained about the stonewalling.
Miami Herald