Sunday news dump
If i had all these leaks, i'd be phoning the Polish plumber straight away :
Leak reveals official story of London bombings
· Al-Qaeda not linked, says government
· Internet used to plan 7/7 attack
The official inquiry into the 7 July London bombings will say the attack was planned on a shoestring budget from information on the internet, that there was no 'fifth-bomber' and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan.
The first forensic account of the atrocity that claimed the lives of 52 people, which will be published in the next few weeks, will say that attacks were the product of a 'simple and inexpensive' plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom.
Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet. Their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds, according to the first completed draft of the government's definitive report into the blasts...
Read-more
From the Grauniad comment section :
We don't do assassinations. But we need an ethical code
During the Falklands conflict in April 1982, a call came through to the Whitehall office of John Nott, Margaret Thatcher's defence secretary.
At that time the British military task force was still steaming southwards through the Atlantic and the eventual outcome of the hostilities could not be predicted.
But this call came directly from the Argentine-occupied islands themselves, from an SAS unit secretly at work close to Port Stanley. "We are looking straight at General Menendez in the cross hairs of our rifles," the SAS caller whispered. "Do you want us to take him out?"
Back in London there was a hasty high-level discussion about what to do with this opportunity to remove the head of the Argentine forces on the Falklands. But the response was unanimous and quick. Don't kill him, the SAS were told. We don't do assassination.
Britain's record, in war and even in peace, does not bear out that claim as neatly as this anecdote might suggest. Remember Death on the Rock? But nor does the record show that, in the name of the security threat, anything goes.
We should accept that, faced with real danger, from jihadist terrorism, there is a divergence between the more aggressive and permissive approach of the US and Britain's more cautious and restrictive one.
That does not mean the British approach is perfect or unproblematic - or the US approach unworthy of any defence at all - but it does mean that ours is distinctive, and better...
More
Ahhhh those nice luverly caring sharing people from the M.O.D :
MoD to cut war widows' pensions if they sue over husbands' deaths
The Ministry of Defence will cut war widows' pensions if they successfully sue the Government over the death of their husbands on the battlefield.
Widows of servicemen killed in Iraq have received written warnings from the MoD that their pensions would be reduced if they received compensation in relation to the death of their husband.
The policy could mean that widows and relatives of dead servicemen could lose tens of thousands of pounds in pension payments if they force the MoD to pay compensation for negligence...
Murdoch_rag
It was them wot dunnit :
'Forgers' of key Iraq war contract
TWO employees of the Niger embassy in Rome were responsible for the forgery of a notorious set of documents used to help justify the Iraq war, an official investigation has allegedly found.
According to Nato sources, the investigation has evidence that Niger’s consul and its ambassador’s personal assistant faked a contract to show Saddam Hussein had bought uranium ore from the impoverished west African country....
timesonline
That's what we call 'passing the buck' :
Lawyer: Bush Left Leak Details to Cheney
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.
Bush merely instructed Cheney to ``get it out'' and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said...
Full-story
I made a bet with a colleague that Shrub goes down this year :
A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic
Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story
As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.
Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign.
Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV....
Wapo
I sense i really should publish Karel's phone number, it would save a lot of aggro :
US leak of Zarqawi letter riles Israelis
ISRAELI military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bush’s administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command, writes Uzi Mahnaimi.
Israel passed the letter — in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq — to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity.
Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site...
timesonline
Israel to Declare Sharon 'Incapacitated'
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for three months, will be declared permanently incapacitated Tuesday, a decision that signals the official end of his reign, the Justice Ministry said Sunday.
Sharon, 78, was declared temporarily incapacitated after he lapsed into a coma following a stroke Jan. 4. Ehud Olmert stepped in for him immediately as acting prime minister, but under Israeli law he can only serve in that capacity for up to 100 days before an official replacement for Sharon has to be named...
More
Leak reveals official story of London bombings
· Al-Qaeda not linked, says government
· Internet used to plan 7/7 attack
The official inquiry into the 7 July London bombings will say the attack was planned on a shoestring budget from information on the internet, that there was no 'fifth-bomber' and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan.
The first forensic account of the atrocity that claimed the lives of 52 people, which will be published in the next few weeks, will say that attacks were the product of a 'simple and inexpensive' plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom.
Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet. Their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds, according to the first completed draft of the government's definitive report into the blasts...
Read-more
From the Grauniad comment section :
We don't do assassinations. But we need an ethical code
During the Falklands conflict in April 1982, a call came through to the Whitehall office of John Nott, Margaret Thatcher's defence secretary.
At that time the British military task force was still steaming southwards through the Atlantic and the eventual outcome of the hostilities could not be predicted.
But this call came directly from the Argentine-occupied islands themselves, from an SAS unit secretly at work close to Port Stanley. "We are looking straight at General Menendez in the cross hairs of our rifles," the SAS caller whispered. "Do you want us to take him out?"
Back in London there was a hasty high-level discussion about what to do with this opportunity to remove the head of the Argentine forces on the Falklands. But the response was unanimous and quick. Don't kill him, the SAS were told. We don't do assassination.
Britain's record, in war and even in peace, does not bear out that claim as neatly as this anecdote might suggest. Remember Death on the Rock? But nor does the record show that, in the name of the security threat, anything goes.
We should accept that, faced with real danger, from jihadist terrorism, there is a divergence between the more aggressive and permissive approach of the US and Britain's more cautious and restrictive one.
That does not mean the British approach is perfect or unproblematic - or the US approach unworthy of any defence at all - but it does mean that ours is distinctive, and better...
More
Ahhhh those nice luverly caring sharing people from the M.O.D :
MoD to cut war widows' pensions if they sue over husbands' deaths
The Ministry of Defence will cut war widows' pensions if they successfully sue the Government over the death of their husbands on the battlefield.
Widows of servicemen killed in Iraq have received written warnings from the MoD that their pensions would be reduced if they received compensation in relation to the death of their husband.
The policy could mean that widows and relatives of dead servicemen could lose tens of thousands of pounds in pension payments if they force the MoD to pay compensation for negligence...
Murdoch_rag
It was them wot dunnit :
'Forgers' of key Iraq war contract
TWO employees of the Niger embassy in Rome were responsible for the forgery of a notorious set of documents used to help justify the Iraq war, an official investigation has allegedly found.
According to Nato sources, the investigation has evidence that Niger’s consul and its ambassador’s personal assistant faked a contract to show Saddam Hussein had bought uranium ore from the impoverished west African country....
timesonline
That's what we call 'passing the buck' :
Lawyer: Bush Left Leak Details to Cheney
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.
Bush merely instructed Cheney to ``get it out'' and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said...
Full-story
I made a bet with a colleague that Shrub goes down this year :
A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic
Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story
As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.
Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign.
Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV....
Wapo
I sense i really should publish Karel's phone number, it would save a lot of aggro :
US leak of Zarqawi letter riles Israelis
ISRAELI military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bush’s administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command, writes Uzi Mahnaimi.
Israel passed the letter — in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq — to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity.
Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site...
timesonline
Israel to Declare Sharon 'Incapacitated'
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for three months, will be declared permanently incapacitated Tuesday, a decision that signals the official end of his reign, the Justice Ministry said Sunday.
Sharon, 78, was declared temporarily incapacitated after he lapsed into a coma following a stroke Jan. 4. Ehud Olmert stepped in for him immediately as acting prime minister, but under Israeli law he can only serve in that capacity for up to 100 days before an official replacement for Sharon has to be named...
More
posted by Damiel | 11:50 AM
2 Comments:
Nice and Impressive blog.
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