It's not just veterans
who are suffering from GWS. Another tragic result of the war,
according to independent researchers, is the shocking number of
children with severe birth defects born to Gulf War vets.July 7, 2003
July 14, 2003
No paper - cost cutting vacation this week.
July 21, 2003
July 28, 2003
Top U.S. Officials Discuss Expanding ‘Terror War' to Iran, Beyond
A secret, quiet meeting in Kuwait between some of Washington's top war hawks could signal that Iran is next on the chopping block.
The next day a Hercules transport landed at Kuwait's international airport. From it emerged a group of pale-faced, middle-aged men in drill shirts and chinos. They carried laptops and bulky briefcases.
To a casual observer they were just another delegation from Washington involved in post-war Iraq. But these men were the forward planners for the next war—the one against Iran.
Within an hour of installing themselves in their palatial surroundings—securely guarded by U.S. forces—they had unloaded their maps of Iran, downloaded their computer images of its terrain and set about planning "Target Iran."
Secure communications lines had been established and tested with Washington. One was to the CIA, another to the Pentagon. Down those lines and on to their secure computers, the Kuwaiti task force would receive the latest intelligence from inside Iran.
Some of that intel would come from Israel—from Mossad deep cover agents in Tehran.
They will ensure that "Target Iran" being planned in that royal complex would lack nothing in information. The men based there are a Pentagon think tank for the next war.
They are some of the "neo-cons"—a new breed of "conservative" intellectuals who are determined to steer the Bush administration toward an even more aggressive, go-it-alone posture. They are headed in Washington by the hard-liner, John Bolton, the under-secretary of state for arms control.
The day the "neo-cons" landed in Kuwait, Bolton, a political mirror image of Rumsfeld, had issued a new warning about a supposed nuclear threat posed by Iran.
Bolton did so in a speech to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington. His theme was the nuclear dangers "this administration intends to confront once the war with Iraq is over."
He concluded: "In the aftermath of Saddam, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance to dealing with the threat that North Korea continues to pose."
His powerful audience—many of them key lobbyists for Israel on Capitol Hill—gave him a standing ovation. This was what they had come to hear. After Iraq—Iran.
They knew that Bolton, a grey-suited saturnine man with a colorless speaking style, was there as the front man for other powerful men in the Bush administration. They include Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. They are the most senior Pentagon officials after Rumsfeld.
Other members of this group include Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams, in charge of Middle East policy at the National Security Council. All are key supporters of Israel. They also form the very core of advocacy for Bush's "muscular democracy." This is dedicated to attacking America's "enemies" head on.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey, in a recent speech in Los Angeles, said: "The Iraq campaign is really just the start of the Third World War and one that may well last for decades."
The neo-cons in their Kuwait redoubt had brought with them to the hot desert sands a list of targets. They included Pakistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Cuba, North Korea and eventually China.
In their briefcases was a copy of what has become their leitmotif: the briefing paper CIA Director George Tenet prepared for Bush on overall global strategy.
"By 2015 China will have deployed many missiles with nuclear warheads targeted against the United States, mostly more-survivable land and sea mobile missiles," states the paper.
To prepare for the attack on Iran—expected in early 2004, less than a year from now—the team of analysts, logisticians and support specialists gathered in the Kuwait holiday complex. They have been ordered to get their plans for an assault on Iran up and running.
"Target Iran" will follow the same ruthless, all-consuming path as the destruction of the Saddam regime.
IRAQI BASES
Already, in the plans to rebuild Iraq, the Pentagon has earmarked Saddam's military airfields for its use against Iran.
U.S. bases in Afghanistan will provide the most powerful air force in the world with the ability to launch a pincer air attack.
This will be supported by U.S. carriers and missile-launching battleships in the Gulf.
Turkey will be dragooned into allowing its air space to be used for northern air attacks.
The neo-cons estimate that Iran can, in the words of Bolton, be "rolled-over" in double quick time, "probably quicker than it took to wrap up Saddam."
The mullahs of Tehran are, in comparison to Iraq, poorly equipped. Their aircraft, in modern terms, are nearly vintage. They have nothing to match America's F-18s or its tank-busters.
True, on the ground it can put into the field a substantial army. But again, it is ill equipped to fight a modern tech-war.
The neo-cons press on—ignoring the warning of seasoned diplomats in the State Department.
Two of Secretary of State Colin Powell's advisers wrote a memo to him stating there was a growing risk that the policies advocated by Bolton and his group are "spreading growing resentment around the world."
A copy was faxed to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. It would not have influenced her. She is the hard-liner closest to Bush. She is the soft-spoken and articulate voice of the architects of American military might.
In the early days of the Bush administration, she kept the peace between Rumsfeld and Powell.
In a memorable phrase about this part of her work, she said: "my job is to let Colin talk people to death while allowing Donald to say he is going to hit him over the head if they didn't listen."
But now she is firmly in the Rumsfeld corner. Powell, for all his brave words about the war in Iraq being essential, is still becoming increasingly marginalized. His personal relationship with Rice has been reduced to frosty smiles at cabinet meetings.
At the meetings Bolton holds with his key Pentagon officials, with Rumsfeld sometimes sitting in, Powell is excluded.
The key element of their plotting is that Iraq is the natural "road map" to dealing with Iran.
Which road will Bush finally take? The answer almost certainly lies in the Washington calendar for action.
Another U.S. election year approaches. The all-powerful Israeli lobby in the United States will press hard for action so that Iran can no longer pose a threat to Israel.
And just as hard-line Zionists like to say, "next year
in Jerusalem," so its hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
has started to murmur "next year in Tehran — God and
Mr. Bush willing."
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The man in the street may have heard about the deformed Iraqi children, born following the first Persian Gulf war. But Americans remain largely unaware about the shocking number of children with horrifying birth defects born to U.S. vets who returned home after the war ended in 1991.
American veterans of the 1991 war in Iraq, who reported suffering a wide array of debilitating illnesses now known as Gulf War Syndrome (GWS), have had an allarming number of children born with severe birth defects, according to several independent researchers. The Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), however, have refused to acknowledge a direct relationship between those who served in or around Iraq during the war and the increase in birth defects among their offspring.
On Jan. 17, 1991, the United states attacked Iraq to expel the country's forces from Kuwait after it was invaded in 1990. Some 697,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors participated in the war, which barely lasted a month-and-a-half.
At first, U.S. war planners were applauded for keeping U.S. casualties to a minimum. But after the war officially came to close on Feb. 28, 1991, veterans began reporting illnesses doctors were at a loss to explain.
Veterans reported suffering a wide range of symptoms, including chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, headaches, memory loss, depression, unexplained rashes and sleep disturbances. This wide array of ailments came to be known collectively as GWS.
Despite the evidence, the government still refuses to link the war with illnesses suffered by vets.
The VA disputes reports on GWS. Saying it "is a non-scientific label that has frequently been used to describe those veterans with unexplained illnesses."
VA officials argue that veterans are actually suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, "an anxiety disorder commonly diagnosed in individuals exposed to extraordinary stress or trauma, such as that associated with military combat."
But, 12 years after the war has ended, more and veterans have reported their illnesses getting worse. According to some independent researchers, Thousands of Gulf War I vets have died from illnesses related to GWS.
It's not just veterans
who are suffering from GWS. Another tragic result of the war,
according to independent researchers, is the shocking number of
children with severe birth defects born to Gulf War vets.
"Sixty-seven percent of babies born to the 400,000 vets who suffer from Gulf War Syndrome have birth defects," said Joyce Riley, a former nurse who flew in Iraq and the founder and spokesperson of the American Gulf War Veterans Association. "But the Department of defense and Veterans Affairs do not want America to know the number of sick, dead and deformed kids that vets are having. It's another cover-up.
Mrs. Riley served in the Gulf War as a captain in the Air Force Reserve and flew C-130 missions with a medical team in support of the war.
"A lot of the babies are being born with organs out of place - kidneys in the wrong place, hearts out of the body," Riley told AFP. "The most common birth defect is failure to thrive, where they could not keep weight on and just didn't make it."
Though the government refuses to acknowledge that many children of vets are suffering, Mrs. Riley says the evidence linking the ghastly birth defects to Iraq is over whelming.
"One nurse who served over there - all three of her children were born autistic," she said. "We've also seen a lot of what is known as "Goldenhar Syndrome,' that is where there is a missing left eye and left ear. It's very strange. A lot of people believe this has something to do with the radiological problem related to the use of depleted uranium."
"Goldenhar Syndrome is a congenital birth defect which involves deformities of the face," reports the National Craniofacial Association (NCA), a non-profit organization based in Tennessee that assists families of children born with facial deformities. "It usually affects one side of the face only. Characteristics include: a partially formed or totally absent ear; the chin may be closer to the effected ear; one corner of the mouth may be higher than the other; or a missing eye."
According to NCA, the causes of Goldenhar Syndrome are a bit of a mystery. It is not caused by anything the mother does while pregnant. However, certain factors, such as the environment, play a part.
The group is specifically looking into a link between the Golf War and an increase in this type of birth defect.
There does seem to be an increased incidence of Goldenhar among the children of Gulf War veterans," reports NCA.
The NCA along with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the Association of Birth Defect Children, Inc., have initiated a study into the relationship between Gulf War vets and Goldenhar. The groups are trying to locate all children with Goldenhar syndrome who were born subsequent to July 1, 1991, and who had a parent who served in the U.S. military between 1990 and 1991.
The reasons remain puzzling as to why so many children with birth defects have been born to veterans.
Some believe it is due to the vast number of highly toxic depleted uranium rounds fired into Iraq by U.S. forces. Others contend that it is due to the many vaccines given to troops working in the area. Still others argue that it is the result of the demolition of Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
As more veterans come forward, researchers are confident that a link will be established and GWS sufferers and their children will finally get the justice they deserve.
For more information on this human tragedy, please visit
gulfwarvets.com,
a site sponsored by Gulf War veteran and nurse Joyce Riley.
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Big business and Big Brother want to know everything about you - including your car, razor and underwear.
Computer chips the size of grains of Sand will soon be used by manufacturers to track items big and small for "marketing studies." The federal government is researching such chips to track individuals from the boardroom to the bathroom.
The chips can fix the exact location of virtually any consumer product and the people who wear and carry the items.
The radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips now in mass production are affixed to labels the size of postage stamps. Merchandisers, led by Wal-Mart, will soon use them to track items inside the store. Shelf antennae will alert staff to restock items or turn on surveillance cameras if shoplifting is suspected.
The concept has "enormous implications," according to a statement by the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the leading research organization on RFIDs.
"Put a tag - a microchip with an antenna - on a can or Coke or a car axle, and suddenly a computer can ‘see' it," MIT said. "Put tags on every can of Coke or every car axle, and suddenly the world changes: No more inventory counts. No more lost or misdirected shipments. No more guessing how much material is in the supply chain or how much product is on the store shelves."
MIT is developing an Internet tool "that will make it possible for computers to identify any object anywhere in the world instantly. This network will not just provide the means to feed reliable, accurate information into existing business applications; it will usher in a whole new era of innovation and opportunity."
ID tags can be attached to people and just about anything else, including underwear, identification cards, airline tickets, cigarettes, drugs, auto parts, cars, trucks, razor blades, soft drinks and military equipment. Gillette plans to use the chips on its razor blades, and Benetton, an Italian clothing manufacturer, says it plans to implant "smart labels" on its underwear products.
The poser is of obvious concern to civil liberties advocates, who fear that the Big Brother technology attacked to clothing and other items will follow customers and be used to track people through the products they buy.
The Department of Homeland security is already using the chip, imbedded on identification cards, to expedite border crossings. In Persian Gulf War II, the chips were embedded in the wristbands of wounded soldiers and records as they moved through field hospitals.
Active Wave said its RFID system could aid national security
by real-time tracking of airline passengers by their airline tickets
and airport employees working in secure areas by their identification
cards. The technology also offers X-ray vision capable of reading
personal items in briefcases, handbags and pockets. Soon, industry
experts say, the smart tags will be available for pennies each,
and people will stand naked before Big Government and Big Business.
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The following contains excerpts from an open letter by the American Gulf War Veterans Association (AGWVA) calling for the resignation of secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
In response to questioning by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, (D-W.V.), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied any knowledge that the United States had shipped biological weapons to Iraq during the 1980s.
Rumsfeld was addressing the Armed services committee, when he stated that he "had no knowledge of any such shipments and doubted that they ever occurred."
There is no disputing the evidence that the United States provided bacteria and viruses as evidenced by Senate Report 103-900, "United States Dual-Use Exports To Iraq And Their Impact On the Health of the Persian Gulf War Veterans," dated May 25, 1994, chaired by Sen Donald Riegle (D-Mich.) of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. This senate report was available to all senators and listed among other items, bacillus anthracis, (anthrax) clostridium botulinum, and West Nile Fever virus as pathogens that were shipped to Iraq in the 1980s with full knowledge of the Department of Commerce and the Centers for Disease control.
There is no question that the secretary of defense must be informed and up to date with information about a potential military enemy and his military capabilities. Mr. Rumsfeld's statements demonstrate that this is clearly not the case.
If our secretary of defense is unaware of the sales of biological materials to Iraq, or if he is in denial over the fact that these sales occurred, the AGWVA believes that he represents a clear and present danger to the lives of our military, our country and the American people, and his continuance in office should be considered a very serious threat to the national security.
It is for this reason that the AGWVA calls for his resignation
and removal from office.
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Is Big Brother bugging you in the name of "national Security"?
AFP has learned that a "black operation" owns it own Silicon Valley plant where it produces the Petrie chip, a custom integrated circuit (IC) designed to look like an ordinary computer component.
Petrie chips copy all data processed in a computer, then transmits the data in short bursts of "noise" (through even telemetry resistant Trusted shield technology designed to protect supposedly secure computers) to specially tuned transponders that amplify the signal and send it to satellites or other receivers.
The stolen data is coordinated by the super-secret SVC Special Collections, also known as Division D, for the CIA, the NSA and, of course the United States "special Ally," Israel.
Petries are planted by "technicians,' or by black bag burglars who break into offices, embassies, homes or other locations of interest to intelligence groups.
CLIPPER CHIP
This is not the first example of the government promoting technology to facilitate its snooping. News of a previous computer component called the "Clipper Chip," which afforded intelligence agencies a "back door" into people's computers, was exposed almost 10 years ago by privacy groups.
The Clipper chip is a device that was promoted by the government in the late 1990s.
Its purported advantage was that it provided a standard for
encoding private voice communications for security purposes. However,
with Clipper, government officials had the opportunity to obtain
the "keys" to decrypt any message that they wanted to
read.
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America's top spy catcher quit in the midst of a secret investigation into how Saddam and Osama bin Laden obtained state-of-the-art U.S. spy software.
America's top spy-catcher, Paul Redmond, has suddenly resigned in the middle of his secret investigation into how Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden obtained state-of-the-art U.S. computer software.
The software is claimed to enable the two most wanted men in the world to avoid capture because it can pin-point their every move.
Redmond's departure last week was accepted "without discussion" by President Bush—the man who had brought the spy catcher out of retirement to conduct the investigation.
Hours after Redmond had cleared his desk, Bush ordered a $25 million bounty on Saddam's head.
He wants Saddam "dead or alive." And the same for bin Laden.
Bush has agreed that either man, if caught, would not receive a trial and would be shot after interrogation.
The official reason given for Redmond's abrupt departure from his wide-ranging investigation reaching deep into the Bush administration was "health reasons."
But stunned colleagues in the Homeland Security Department in Washington, where Redmond had his office, insist the former associate director of the CIA was in perfect health.
Redmond's abrupt departure has led to intense speculation that he may have begun to uncover embarrassing details of how the software came into the hands of Saddam and bin Laden.
Documents obtained by the respected International Currency Review, a London based newsletter for the financial community, allege that the software was provided to Saddam on the authority of President Bush's father when he was in the White House—a time when relations between Iraq and Washington were close, during Baghdad's war with Iran.
The Review's publisher, Christopher Story, a former financial adviser to Lady Margaret Thatcher, operates from offices near Buckingham Palace.
"The documents are extremely sensitive and raise some very serious questions," was all Story would say.
He confirmed they had originally been in the possession of Barzan al-Takriti, Saddam's half-brother, when he was managing Saddam's fortune, which has been estimated to be anywhere from $2 billion to more than $40 billion.
A Paris intelligence source said the documents were copied by operatives of DGSE, the French intelligence service, earlier this year when al-Takriti made a visit to several banks in Geneva.
He is now in American hands—one of the key names on the famous "deck of cards" list.
Shortly after the documents reached Washington on the eve of the war with Iraq, Bush brought Paul Redmond out of retirement.
Redmond was a legendary CIA spy catcher who helped unmask some of the most infamous spies before his 1998 retirement.
He was told to investigate how Robert P. Hanssen, the renegade FBI computer specialist who was a long-time Soviet agent, had handed over a copy of the software—known as Promis — to his KGB controllers for $2 million.
Hanssen, now serving a life sentence for his treachery, has yet to reveal all he knows about how the KGB sold a copy of the software to bin Laden for $4 million shortly before the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
"But until Redmond's abrupt resignation, increasingly the documents relating to Saddam's use of Promis — and his relationship with President Bush's father—were what Redmond had begun to focus on," said a source close to the departed spy catcher.
Originally developed by a small company in Washington called Inslaw, there are now a number of versions of the software.
One version was installed by Britain's MI6 early in the 1990s. After Hanssen's arrest, the software was removed.
Germany's intelligence service, BND, did the same to its version of the software—supplied by the CIA in 1993.
William Hamilton, the president of Inslaw, said that top Bush aides and FBI Director Robert Mueller had met to discuss the "implications" of Redmond's investigation.
"Redmond has said that Hanssen did hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage. I have been told that Redmond's health is fine and there is a much more important reason for his resignation," said Hamilton.
Like Story, Hamilton did not want to elaborate. But both men
conceded that Redmond's investigation could have caused embarrassment
to Bush and his family.
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A quiet gathering of the media's top elites to discuss mergers, with a keynote address by the head of the CIA, escaped mention in the mainstream press.
Each year, at the posh ranch of investment banker Herbert Allen Jr., the world's media elites meet to discuss strategy, possible mergers and editorial policy. It can only be called a media version of bilderberg as government, corporate and media officials are meeting in secret, behind the usual wall of security.
As always, for all of these meetings that actually matter, leftist protests are strangely nonexistent, even though it is summertime and colleges are largely empty.
This year is a bit different, given that the keynote speaker is none other than CIA Director George Tenet
Tenet's attendance has been likened to the "smoking gun" that researchers have been looking for, proving the institutional link between finance, media, government and business.
Like all meeting of this type, it is off limits to reporters, however ironic it might be for a media confab. The world's media, whose bosses are attending the gathering, have not bothered to mention the CIA connection this year. Likely the firs time the world's premier intelligence gathering service has been invited to this media gathering.
One of the main issues this year is the buying up of French media giant Vivendi, currently run by Jean Bernard Levy (aka Jean Marie Fourtou, among other names), which controls Universal Studios, according to The New York Post.
Making bid are Edgar Bronfman, Jr. And Sumner Redstone.
Redstone also has made noises that he is interested in buying CNN.
Bronfman and Barry Diller have held high executive posts in the French conglomerate in the past, but are now using their connections to buy up the majority of shares, though some media reports deny that Diller is interested.
Some have speculated that the "French" corporation is merely another front for Bronfman and Zionist interests.
Bronfman is the founder of the World Jewish Congress, an organization that also includes Vladimir Guzinsky who owns the media MOST corporation in Russia, with major shares being owned by a CIA-conduit, The Washington Post.
CNN founder and billionaire Ted Turner, strangely, was not present, though it might be noted that in 2002, Turner, in an interview with the British Guardian newspaper, said "Israel practices terrorism" and the "bombers are all the Palestinians have."
Major corporate sponsors included Starbucks coffee (with several others remaining secret) and the Wednesday arrival of Tom Hanks, Candace Bergen and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proves that this is not merely a secretive place to make deals, but is the very canvas where the American Anti-culture is painted.
Bloomberg's presence is important, for, as mayor of the most powerful city in the world, he brought in ex-CIA spy David Cohen to become his deputy commissioner of intelligence, creating a link between the CIA, Bloomberg and this media conference.
What makes this year different is that the mergers, as mentioned by Redstone in a recent speech at the confab, is that the FCC has relaxed its acquisitions laws, as well as the presence of U.S. intelligence.
Of course, Tenet would not have attended unless there is an extant link between the CIA, mass media and corporate America.
Tenet's presence is not mentioned in any CIA document or press release, nor is any newspaper reporting it except American Free Press. The only major mention of Tenet's presence was a brief July 9 statement on Headline News, a CNN/Bronfman property found on most cable providers.
The same is said for Starbucks and as yet unnamed other corporate sponsors of the event. Only in that brief report were they mentioned, dropping out of sight thereafter.
In 1998, when CNN did a story on the United States using nerve gas on antiwar GIs during Vietnam, CIA operatives made them pull the story.
CNN had turned the story over to several long-time clandestine operatives, including former head of operations Ted Price. Price's successor was David Cohen.
On Nov. 11, 2001, The New York Times uncovered a ploy by the Bush administration to set up "round the clock" "news bureaus" to control the "message of the day."
Additionally, the same article reported that several dozen major Hollywood executives met with Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, to find "common ground on how the entertainment industry can contribute to the war effort, replicating in spirit if not in scope the partnership formed between film makers and war planners in the 1940s."
Gen. Tommy Franks stated at a press conference on March 25, 2003, that "the media is a weapon of war."
For many who have never heard of Allen's gatherings, the full institutional formation of intelligence, business, banking, media and government links is to control the information that reaches the global public.
Allen's conferences remove such linkages from the realm of "conspiracy theory" into the realm of real journalism. Not surprisingly, such reports have yet to surface in the mainstream media.
M. Raphael Johnson is the editor of The Barnes Review and
is the author of The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism &
Orthodoxy.
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The mass media and the official 9-11 commission are seemingly complicit in concealing the truth - while writing the history - about the worst terrorist attacks ever to take place in America.
The facts about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are unlikely to emerge from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The integrity of the so-called independent 9-11 commission is compromised by, among other things, the connections of its politically appointed staff and key members with the globalist Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), the White House, and domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.
The Mainstream media has reported that the official commission's investigation has been hampered by the failure of the executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and Justice Department, to provide requested documents and testimony.
The heads of the commission recently reported that federal agencies under the president's control were not cooperation quickly of fully.
The commission also complained about the fact that, like Iraq, the U.S. government requires an agency "minder" to be present during interviews with officials. The commission's chairman. Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, said the presence of an agency "minder" amounted to "intimidation of the witnesses.
The fact that key members and staff of the commission belong to globalist groups and secret societies that have un-American agendas has not been reported in the controlled press.
Kean and Vice chairman Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, are both longstanding members of the CFR, as is commission member Jamie Gorelick and Philip Zelikow, its executive director.
Zelikow is also a member of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), an appendage of British intelligence.
Members of the CFR, IISS and the Yale secret society Skull and Bones are found like threads running through the cloth of 9-11.
Peter G. Peterson, chairman of the CFR and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, announced that his Blackstone Group had purchased, in October 2000, the mortgage on 7 World Trade Center, the 47-story building built by Larry Silverstein in 1987.
Silverstein obtained 99-year leases on the twin towers shortly before 9-11 and insured the property and its future income against terrorism. He is seeking $7.2 billion.
WTC 7 mysteriously collapsed at 5:25 p.m. on 9-11, in what appears to have been a controlled demolition.
John Wholihan, a firefighter with Rescue 5 from Staten Island, was near WTC 7 when it collapsed. Wholihan told American Free Press that he heard "many explosions" just before the building collapsed neatly with in the perimeter of it foundation.
Silverstein received some $441 million in insurance money for WTC 7 although the cause of the collapse remains officially unexplained. Peterson co-founded the Blackstone Group with Stephen A. Schwarzman, a member of the CFR and Skull and Bones. Both George W. Bush and his father are also "Bonesmen," as is John F. Kerry, a Democrat presidential candidate.
Commission spokesman Alvin Felzenberg and commission member Fred Fielding served on the Bush transition team in 2001. Felzenberg was executive director of the President's Commission on the Federal Appointments Process.
Most of the commission's work is done behind closed doors; it has only held three open sessions. The third session,"Terrorism, al Qaeda and the Muslim World," on July 9, concluded with Steven Emerson, the self-styled terrorism "expert" whose anti=Muslim rants appear often in the controlled press, particularly on Fox News and NBC News, where he is a consultant.
Intriguing testimony was heard during the commission's second open session, on May 23, when officials from the Department of Transportation and the Air Force appeared.
CHENEY IN CHARGE
The testimony of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta on May 23 about Vice President Dick Cheney's actions on Sept. 11, 2001, is revealing.
Mineta said he arrived at the Presidential Emergency Operating Center (PEOC) at 9:20 a.m. where he observed the vice president taking charge:
Mineta: "There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, ‘The plane is 50 miles out...the plane is 30 miles out.' And when it got down to , ‘The plane is 10 miles out,' the young man also said to the vice president, ‘Do the orders still stand?'
"And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, ‘Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?' Well at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And...."
Hamilton: "The flight you're referring to is the..."
Mineta: "The flight that came into the Pentagon."
After some discussion of whether Cheney's orders meant shooting down the hijacked aircraft approaching the Pentagon, it became clear that there were no such orders to do so, which raised the question of what "the orders" were:
Hamilton: "But there were military planes in the air in position to shoot down commercial aircraft."
Mineta: "That's right. The planes had been scrambled, I believe, from Otis at that point."
Mineta is referring to two F-15 fighter jets from the 102 Fighter Wing at Otis Air National Guard base, near Cape Cod, Mass.
As the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) responded to the hijackings, these planes reportedly flew to New York City in order to intercept the two planes that had been hijacked after leaving Boston's Logan Airport. There are many unanswered questions about the actions taken by NORAD aircraft and why they failed to intercept any of the hijacked passenger planes.
HOW FAST IS FAST?
The two F-15s were scrambled at Otis Air National Guard Base (ANGB) at 8:46 a.m. as the first tower of the World Trade Center was struck. By 8:52 they were airborne and, according to one of the pilots, flying at full speed to New York City.
Told, "This looks like the real thing," Lt. Col Timothy Duffy jammed the F-15's throttles into afterburner and the two planes flew the 153 miles to New York City at "supersonic speeds," according to an Aviation Week & Space Technology (AW) article of June 3, 2002. "It just seemed wrong. I just wanted to get there. I was in full blower all the way." Duffy said.
The F-15 Eagle is capable of flying at speeds up to 1,875 mph and has a range of 3,000 nautical miles. At full speed the Otis F-15s should have reached New York city in about five minutes. By 8:58 a.m. The armed fighter jets would then have been in position to intercept the second hijacked plane, which struck the south tower at about 9:02 a.m.
The F-15s from Otis were "cocked and loaded, and even had extra gas on board," according to Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) commander Col. Robert K. Marr.
Air Force Capt. Wes Ticer, spokesman for Air Combat Command, told American Free Press that an F-15 fighter jets are said to be 71 miles, "about eight minutes out," from the World Trade Center at 9:02 when the second tower was struck. This indicates the fighters had traveled only 83 miles in some nine minutes, flying about 550 mph. Scott told the commission that the interceptors, which would have been flying at less than 30 percent of their full speed, were "going very fast" - and nobody questioned it.
Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, commander of the Continental U.S. NORAD Region (CONAR) at Tyndall Air force Base, in Florida, was informed by Marr about the suspected hijacked aircraft shortly after 8:40 a.m.
Arnold, who then headed the 1st Air Force for Air Combat Command, was in Air Operations Center preparing for another day of a major NORAD counter terrorism exercise that morning called "Vigilant Guardian."
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, Va., a branch of the military intelligence community that operates the nation's spy satellites, was engaged in a similar exercise, in which a passenger jet leaving the nearby Dulles Airport would crash into the NRO building.
"I told him to scramble; we'll get clearances later," Arnold said. On Sept. 11 a time-consuming bureaucratic procedure was required before scrambling defensive interceptor jets.
FAA officials had to contact the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and request Pentagon air support. The NMCC then had to call NORAD's command center and ask about availability of aircraft and finally approval had to come from the Defense Secretary - Donald H. Runsfeld - before launching fighters. This procedure was the result of a co-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff instruction dated June 1, 2001.
CANADIAN COMMANDERS?
However, rather than getting approval from Runsfeld, two Canadian officers, serving as NORAD directors on the morning of 9-11, approved the fighters' launch, according to the Aviation Week article.
Capt. Michael H. Jellinek, a British-born Canadian officer, was serving as NORAD command director, and another Canadian, Maj. Gen. Eric A. Findley, was NORAD's director of operations.
Findley, positioned at NORAD headquarters in Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain Air Force station for the Vigilant Guardian exercise, "quickly approved the fighters' launch," according to Aviation Week.
NORAD has been faulted for its failures on 9-11. It should be noted that it was the Canadian officer Jellinek who was NORAD's "director of plans, requirements and readiness" on Sept. 11, 2001.
American Free Press has filed a written request with NORAD asking for clarification of who was in the chain-of-command, and who actually approved the launching of the fighter jets on 9-11, and why foreign officers were making decisions during a national crisis in the United States. A NORAD spokesman said that an answer would not be readily available.
A year after 9-11, Arnold told ABC News that when he heard of the hijacking, ‘The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Is this part of the exercise? Is this some kind of screw-up?'"
In a Sept. 23, 2001 interview with Mike Taibbi of Dateline NBC, Arnold said the F-15s from Otis were traveling about 1,200 mph.
Arnold: "In the meantime, our pilots were coming at about Mach 1.5 which is, you know, somewhere around 1,100 or 1,200 mph.
Taibbi: "And they know where tey're going at that point? The first..."
Arnold: "They're coming to New York. They're coming to New York. That's exactly right."
Because of the different reports concerning the speed of the Otis F-15s bound for New York City, American Free Press sent a written inquiry to NORAD requesting clarification of their velocity. Sgt. Gary Carpenter told AFP that, "based on the nature of the questions," NORAD's responses would take a considerable time.
The secretary of defense was supposed to approve the launching of interceptor jets. However, while the vice president was in the PEOC monitoring the approach of the aircraft that stuck the Pentagon, Runsfeld told ABC News' Sam Donaldson shortly after 9-11 that he had been completely unaware of the approaching plane.
Donaldson: "On Tuesday I am told the FAA notified someone in the Pentagon that there was a rogue plane apparently headed toward Washington. But you didn't know it, am I correct, until it hit?"
Rumsfeld: "I was in the Pentagon and felt the shock of the attack, and..."
Donaldson: "What did you think it was?"
Runsfeld: "A bomb? I had no idea. I looked out the window and raced down the corridors till the smoke was too bad and then went outside, and saw the devastation and talked to an eyewitness who told me that he had seen an aircraft plow into the Pentagon between the first and second floor."
Richard Ben Veniste of the commission asked NORAD's Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley if the "concept of terrorists using airplanes as weapons was not something which was unknown to the U.S. intelligence community on Sept. 10, 2001.
McKinley did not answer the question directly, saying, "I's like the intelligence community to address that." When ben Veniste read a list of attempts to crash planes into building, including the White House, McKinley said NORAD was "not postured" for what occurred on 9-11. "Threats of killing hostages or crashing planes were left to the script writers," McKinley said.
Indeed, in early 2000 a writer working for Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV wrote a screenplay that was an uncanny premonition of what occurred on Sept. 11,2001. In the Murdoch film, a passenger airliner was hijacked remotely by computer hackers and flown into the World Trade Center. The pilot episode of The Lone Gunman, a spin-off of the popular FBI-conspiracy show, The X-Files, was broadcast on March 4, 2001 on Fox TV.
In the Murdoch-financed film, the ground-based staff of a small Washington-based independent newspaper called The Lone Gunman, is able to prevent the plane from hitting the tower at the last second by restoring manual control to the pilots who are able to avoid hitting the building by mere feet.
The "hijackers" in the film were corrupt elements in the Air Force and Defense Department who "hacked" into the plane's navigation system in order to commit a horrible "terrorist" act in order to promote weapons sales and wars against "crackpot" dictators around the world begging to be smart bombed.
Andrew Butcher, a spokesman for Fox TV, told American Free Press that The Lone Gunman was produced and financed by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
The commission's spokesman Felzenberg has also written articles
for Rupert Murdoch's magazine, The Weekly Standard. Murdoch,
the media magnate, openly used his 175 newspapers and Fox television
network to promote the war policy of President Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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The Answers behind what happened to secret software, which several governments used to snoop not only on its own citizens but also on each other, may prove to be crushing to Washington.
In the often-discordant world of secret intelligence, there is a common consensus about Promis. It is computer software like no other, a tracking program that the CIA and FBI depend on. And a lot of other spy agencies.
So why are there persistent reports - never denied - that Promis has ended up in the hands of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il, North Korea's increasingly unpredictable leader?
Intelligence agents in Britain and Europe say Promis gives the "axis of evil" invaluable insights into how the United States is trying to fight global terrorism. Yet Nobody in Washington wants to talk about just how that cam about.
This writer has spent 30 years writing about intelligence matters. But never have I encountered such a Byzantine story as that of just how Promis arrived in the hands of bin Laden and the others mentioned.
Part of the story involves the late newspaper magnate, Robert Maxwell.
Maxwell sold a version of Promis all over the world. But hi is not the man who handed over the software to bin Laden.
To understand the scandal of how that happened, it is important to understand the history of Promis.
Promis was developed by a small company in Washington called INSLAW. Its creator was William Hamilton and a small team of other computer geniuses. They created a program that the Justice Department grabbed.
The saga of what happened then has rumbled through the Washington courts with Hamilton accusing Justice of stealing the software from him.
But that is not the issue here. It is one simpler than the world of legal maneuvers. It is a question of what part Promis played in the run-up to Sept. 11 - and what role it continues to have in the hands of bin Laden and his cronies in Baghdad and North Korea.
Yet there is no sign that the group tasked with providing a full accounting of circumstances surrounding 9-11, the National Commission of Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States - whose Washington offices will be a short distance from Hamilton's modest one in INSLAW - is going to try and find the answer.
In a twist no movie producer would think twice about using, Promis was installed by the FBI in its headquarters to track terrorists. No one at the agency realized its key computer technician, Robert P. Hanssen, was a longtime Russian mole.
Hanssen stole a copy of the software and handed it over to the then-KGB. He received $2 million. The Russians used it for computer-based espionage against the United States.
How successful the KGB was in a secret over which the U.S. intelligence community has closed ranks.
But according to Britain's M16 and Germany's BND security service, Promis found its way onto the thriving Moscow black market after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Some months before 9-11, one of bin Laden's agents was approached by a redundant KGB officer. They met in a Moscow hotel room. Within hours, the agent had seen enough of the promise of Promis to pay $4 million for the software.
So runs the story in Wiesbaden, the home of the BND, and the architectural monstrosity along the banks of the Thames where M16 has its London headquarters.
Hamilton has no doubt the story is true. He wants to know why former New Jersey Gov. David H Kean, who heads the commission, has not made how Promis came into bin Laden's hands a priority for his investigation.
Could it be that the answers might cause embarrassment at the White House and the FBI?
Until now the Justice department has steadfastly denied using the Promis software - let alone that Hanssen shopped it to Russians.
But gradually - chip by microchip - the truth is beginning to surface - despite ferocious opposition from Justice about what it knows of how Promis has given bin Laden access to databases on specific targets, and the ability to monitor electronic-banking transactions, including money laundering.
M16 and the BND have both said there is credible evidence that bin Laden sold copies of Promis to Saddam and North Korea. They say he used the money to finance his alleged terror attacks on Bali and in Kenya last year.
European intelligence services say that both the CIA and FBI know how Promis has been exploited to stop U.S. efforts to track down bin Laden - and give Iraq and North Korea valuable intelligence on U.S. intentions.
Gov. Kean and his 10-man commission have the authority to subpoena witnesses and documents to determine the extent of intelligence lapses prior to Sept. 11. But he should extend his brief to try and discover how Promis, which Hamilton is not alone in saying is crucial to America's war of terrorism, fell into the hands of those who are now using it against the United States.
Gordon Thomas is the co-author of Robert Maxwell: Israel's
Super Spy and the author of Seeds of Fire: China and the
Story of the Attack on America as well as Gideon's Spies:
the Secret History of the Mossad. All can be purchased from
the First Amendment Books. For pricing and to order with MasterCard
or Visa, call toll free at 1-888-6999-6387 and speak with the
operator.
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Shortly before resigning, the top U.S. spy catcher was busily investigating President Bush's family links.
Business links - involving "the mobilization of trillions of dollars" - by President bush's father and his brother, Neil, were under investigation by Paul Redmond, when he resigned.
A well-placed Washington intelligence source has told American Free Press that Redmond quit after a White House meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
They are known as "The Enforcers" - ensuring there is no taint on the reputation of the president with the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Already, said the Washington source, the two men have ensured bush distances himself from Tony Blair's claims that the weapons will be found.
Downing Street will want to stay clear of allegations that the president's family was doing business with Saddam Hussein from 1989 up to the first Gulf War.
In a document which AFP obtained, the respected London-based International Currency Review claimed that, after a year long investigation, it had uncovered evidence "of the mobilization of trillions of dollars in 1989-91".
The document names a number of banks it alleges were "supervised by the Bush Sr. White House" in the alleged transactions.
The banks identified in the document include the British Royal Family bankers, Coutts; Morgan Guaranty Trust and chase Manhattan, New York; Banco Exterior de Espana, Spain; First International Bank of Denver in the United States.
Christopher Story, the publisher of Currency Review said the documents are "taken from a portfolio of papers" which was made available to him last July.
"What will cause astonishment is the provenance of some of these compromising documents," said Story. "For many months we considered carefully whether they could be forgeries, and whether it could be credible that an intelligence organization or a private gang of blackmailers and counterfeiters could replicate the precise behavior of an obsolescent IBM computer to produce output identical to those images shown with this analysis. We checked these possibilities...and also consulted banking sources. The outcome of these investigations was unequivocally that the documentation is genuine."
President Bush's father and Neil are know to have a close involvement in the Texas oil industry.
Story claimed that the documents were leaked by the Iraqis
to "discredit" President George H.W. Bush as Saddam
began to realize that President Bush was preparing for war against
Iraq.
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The mainstream media remained silent, but distinguished scientists support earlier AFP reports about depleted uranium's devastating effects on innocent civilians.
The Nuclear Policy Research Institute has called on the U.S. government to halt the use of depleted uranium (DP) because of its devastating, often fatal effects on innocent children and other civilians.
"The debate over depleted uranium has increasingly become politicized and polarized," said Helen Caldicott, M.D., in releasing the institute's report, Depleted Uranium: Scientific Basis for Assessing Risk, in Washington on July 8.
The institute "compiled this report in order that policymakers and the public become more fully informed on the medical effects of depleted uranium," she said. "The Pentagon cannot justify the use of depleted uranium when science indicates there is a risk of childhood cancers, birth defects and long-term health damage.
The study found the health effects of DU are substantially understated by government officials, "who in some cases have made public statements that directly contradicted the results of their own research.
"The Pentagon statements contradict their own research," said Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the institute. He called for "the U.S. government to immediately halt the use of DU, initiate a plan for cleanup of contaminated areas and support further research."
In January 1993 the General Accounting Office found DU poses a cancer risk. In 1995, the Army Environmental Policy Institute said: "if DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences," citing how "uranium concentrates in the bones, kidneys and liver."
"Despite this research," the institute's study found
"Final Report: Presidential Advisory Committee of Golf
War Veterans Illnesses, released in 1996, stated: ‘It
is unlikely that health effects reports by Gulf War veterans today
are the result of exposure from depleted uranium in the Gulf War."
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The chaos, death and suffering that have befallen the Iraqi people as a result of the destruction of their nation's vital infrastructure by coalition forces is a non-story for the plutocratic controlled media.
As an increasing number of Americans lose their lives in "post-war" Iraq, the mainstream press sees fit to report only the essential facts. Clearly, most of the happenings in the war-torn nation are deemed unworthy for the network nightly news. Kept out of the news reports, and off the television screens, is the urgent and widespread humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, which has resulted from the coalition bombing of essential infrastructure.
"Desperation" and "chaos" are words frequently used to describe the living conditions in which most of Iraq's 25 million people struggle to survive after the Anglo-American invasion.
What is meant by "chaos," however, and what it means in human terms, and how it came to Iraq is apparently a non-story for the controlled media.
On the network news, one occasionally hears an Iraqi voice clamoring for "services." "Services" refers to electricity, water, communication and sanitation. However, those essential services have ceased to exist in much of Iraq since the U.S.-British occupation began.
The failure by the occupying powers, Britain and the United States, to provide these basic services has taken a huge toll on Iraqis.
Electricity is crucial in Iraq because without electricity to run the water treatment plants there is no clean water.
In Baghdad, the capital, there is electricity for only two to four hours a day, according to The Guardian (UK) of July 11. "There is no warning of it going off. Most of the wealthier households have generators. Baghdad's water system is powered by electricity. No power, no water."
As a result the number of Iraqi children dying from diarrhea, the No. 1 killer of infants, has more than doubled since last year, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). While the ailment "may sound trivial, in Iraq it kills," said the agency's spokesman, Geoffrey Keele.
"We've recorded a 2.5-fold increase in the number children contracting diarrhea, some chronically, compared to May last year. It means that 72 percent of the children we surveyed had diarrhea," Keele said.
Cholera was also on the rise, with scores of confirmed cases identified in Basra, in southern Iraq.
Other diseases such as dysentery and typhoid, which are spread through contaminated water and food, are "becoming a real problem for children," Keele said.
The "viceroy of Iraq," Lewis Paul Bremer III, the Yale graduate who until recently served as managing director of Kissinger Associates, places the blame for the health crisis squarely on the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.
"We need to undo the enormous economic damage that has been done here over the last 30 years," Bremer said recently about Iraq's lack of electricity. "This is a problem we inherited from a regime that for 35 years under-invested in every aspect of this country."
According to UNICEF, however, 85 percent of the Iraqi population and 96 percent of the urban population had safe drinking water as recently as February 2002, one year before the Anglo-American invasion.
Prior to the Gulf War of 1991, more than 90 percent of the Iraqi population had safe drinking water. In 1990, the Iraqi people enjoyed on of the highest standards of living in the Middle East. Iraq was then the only Arab country in which the vast majority of the population had access to clean water.
Prior to Gulf War I in 1991, Iraq had a high standard of living, with the majority of the population in a relatively wealthy "middle-class" status.
With low infant mortality and high levels of education and widespread access to potable water and sanitation, Iraq ranked 67th on the UN Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Index in 1990. After the first Anglo-American assault and 10 years of sanctions, Iraq had fallen to 125 on the UNDP Human Development Index.
How did Iraq fall? Targeted bombings during two wars and 12 years of sanctions paved the way.
"The sanctions against Iraq are the most comprehensive, total sanctions that have ever been imposed on a country," Marc Bossuyt of the UN's Economic and Social council wrote in June 2000. "The situation at present is extremely grave. The transportation, power and communication infrastructures were destroyed during the (first Gulf War, and have not been rebuilt owing to the sanctions. The industrial sector is also in shambles, and agricultural production has suffered greatly. But most alarming is the health crisis that has erupted since the imposition of the sanctions."
ENERGY FACILITIES CRIPPLED
During the first gulf war, the allies, Britain and the United States, flew 215 sorties against Iraq's electrical plants, according to The Washington Post. "At least nine of the allied attacks targeted transformers or switching yards, each of which U.S. analysts estimated would take about a year to repair - with Western assistance. In some cases, however, the bombs targeted main generator halls, with an estimated five-year repair time," the Post reported.
A team from Harvard, which visited Iraq's 20 generating plants, said that 17, 11 were judged total losses. Four months after the war, Iraq's electrical generation reached on 20 to 25 percent of its prewar capacity of 9,000 to 9,500 megawatts.
Pentagon analysts said Iraq had been reduced to the generation capacity it had in 1920.
"The reason you take out electricity is because modern societies depend on it so heavily," an officer involved in planning the air campaign told the Post.
"People say, ‘Your didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage,'" the planning officer told the Post. "Well, what were we trying to do with sanctions - help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions."
Col. John A. Warden III, Then deputy director of strategy, doctrine and plans for the Air Force, said on purpose of destroying Iraq's electrical grid was to impose "a long-term problem on the leadership that it has to deal with some time."
Lt. Gen. Charles A. Horner, who had overall command of the
air campaign in 1991, said that a "side benefit" was
the psychological effect on ordinary Iraqi citizens of having
their lights go out.
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The following contains excerpts from a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report on living conditions in Iraq.
Collection of refuse and wastes in Baghdad municipality nearly stopped during and after the war leading to an accumulation of large amounts of garbage. This created a health hazard, particularly in areas around hospitals where hospital wastes - from activities such as immunizations, diagnostic tests, medical treatments and laboratory tests - accumulated in large amounts.
Approximately 20 percent of waste generated by healthcare activities is considered hazardous material that may be infectious, toxic or radioactive. Healthcare waste is a reservoir of potentially harmful microorganisms that can infect hospital patients, healthcare workers and the general public.
The incidence of cholera in Iraq is typically higher from April to November and rural areas are especially affected. The first case of cholera in Iraq this year was confirmed at the beginning of May. Since then, there have been 102 confirmed cases in Iraq, but the true number of cases is likely to be much greater.
The most important risk factor for cholera is lake of safe water and poor sanitation - people are infected as a result of drinking contaminated water, eating food (fruits and vegetables) contaminated through water, feces or during preparation; eating contaminated seafood or from their unclean hands.
Bloody diarrhea and typhoid fever are also public health problems in Iraq, due to the lack of safe water, the lack of proper sewage disposal as well as poor environmental sanitation.
Acute upper respiratory infections constituted another 22 percent of the total consultations. Acute respiratory infections are the leading cause of death in children in Iraq.
The reported increase in the number of cases, particularly
among infants and pre-school children, of measles, whooping cough,
mumps and diphtheria may indicate a failure in vaccination coverage
due to the interruption of immunization activities.
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Most Americans have heard of the deck of card depicting former
Iraqi leaders from which some crafty U.S. businessmen have been
selling for a hefty profit. Now, a 55-year-old high-school teacher
has come up with her version showing pictures of President Bush
as the ace of spades, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as the ace of
clubs and others, along with quotes questioning the rationale
for the war in Iraq. The backs of the playing cards show a 1983
photograph of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand. Kathy Eder
says she's sold some 3,000 decks and has placed an order for 5,000
more.
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The United States is fast becoming a balkanized nation where the primary "loyalty" of "citizens" belongs to other countries.
Manuel de la Cruz is the first U.S. citizen to win a seat in Mexico's Congress. And his main mission is to make America a Mexican electoral district.
But such duality is not without precedent: the late Rabbi Meir Kahane became a citizen of Israel, won a seat in the Knesset, or parliament, but would fly back to his native Brooklyn and vote in U.S. elections.
There are at least 10 million "dual citizens" - people who hold U.S. citizenship and that of another country. American Jews can apply for and obtain Israeli citizenship without forfeiting U.S. citizenship.
It is not always with evil intent. If an American soldier in Europe marries a girl from Paris he is, under French law, a citizen, whether he likes it or not. Many countries, Argentina, for example, retain citizenship for native-born people who have obtained U.S. citizenship - again, whether or not they like it.
But the problem of dual citizenship and balkanization lies heavily with American citizens who obtain citizenship elsewhere and remain "citizens" of the United States. How do they divide or decide their loyalty? Is it possible to be 100 percent loyal to two nations? Where are they when the interests of both their nations collide? No two nations always share the same interests - Japan, for example, was a U.S. ally in World War I but an enemy in World War II.
Most Mexican immigrants - citizens, legal and illegal aliens - delight in making their primary loyalty to their fatherland obvious. They drive around Los Angeles with bumper stickers proclaiming that California is part of Mexico. They boo the American flag at sporting events and cheer for the Mexican "home team" in soccer contests with U.S. teams.
De la Cruz is no exception. He was born in Mexico but is a longtime resident of Norwalk, Calif. He is one of sex Mexican-Americans who ran for the Mexican Congress. A second may have been elected on July 6, pending the count of a close vote.
Two Million Mexican-Americans are "citizens" of both countries. In all, 10 million Mexicans living in the United States can vote in Mexican elections.
"I am a Mexican, but I will always live in California, fighting for the emigrant Mexicans who live here," de La Cruz told The Washington Times. Many Mexicans come here legally or illegally to feed in the taxpayers' welfare trough. De la Cruz has the usual laundry list of demands: amnesty for illegal aliens, open borders, etc.
Mexico has a system for national elections that divides the country into five districts, where votes are supposedly counted and then totaled up. De la Cruz wants the United States to be Mexico's "sixth voting district." He envisions a "virtual Mexico" north of the border.
De la Cruz and the five other "Americans" ran under
the banner of the left-wing Party of Democratic Revolution. The
party has official committees in California and four other states.
It plans to raise the yellow-and-black party banner in eight more
states this year. Eventually, it hopes to be in all 50 states
- "all the way to Hawaii."
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