posted December 26, 2005 04:50 PM            

For those who keep insisting that Saddam had no WMD and no way of producing them, The Hague has some embarrassing news. It convicted Saddam's supplier, Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat, to 15 years for selling Saddam the chemicals used to kill at least 5,000 Kurds in Halabja, among others:

A DUTCH businessman was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for helping Saddam Hussein to acquire the chemical weapons that he used to kill thousands of Kurdish civilians in the Iran-Iraq war.

The ruling by a court in The Hague — which could have an impact on the trial of the former Iraqi dictator in Baghdad — also said that genocide had been perpetrated against Kurds in Iraq after Saddam accused them of collaborating with Iran. ...

Prosecutors accused Van Anraat of delivering more than 1,000 tonnes of thiodiglycol. It can be used to make mustard gas, which causes horrific burns to the lungs and eyes and is often fatal.

He was also accused of importing chemicals to make nerve agents. The prosecution said that the lethal cargo was shipped from America via Belgium and Jordan to Iraq. He also imported other shipments from Japan via Italy.

Over a thousand tons of thiodiglycol, nerve agent precursors -- sounds like the kind of stuff that the US and the UN demanded that Saddam produce or prove to have been destroyed. After all, we would have wanted to know that these stocks -- and these from just this one source, among many others -- had been rendered harmless in some fashion, either by destruction or dissipation (or as in Halabja, by attack). Saddam's refusal to account for these very real stocks eventually forced the US and UK into taking action against Saddam.

And if he was bluffing, he did a masterful job of it. After all, no one could ask Frans van Ansaart about what else he might have sold Saddam during the so-called "containment" period. Why not? Because as it turns out, van Ansaart lived in Baghdad since 1989 under an assumed name, after escaping detention in Italy and fleeing an American warrant for his arrest. Saddam kept him safe -- and accessible -- until the fall of Baghdad in 2003, when he fled to the Netherlands and got arrested there.

posted January 10, 2006 12:49 AM              

Iran-Editorial-Van Anraat
An Iranian daily on Sunday wrote the Dutch trader Frans Van Anraat was just a "fall guy" as he could not have sold tons of chemical materials to the Iraqi dictator without the help of Western and European states.

Van Anraat was given a 15-year sentence by the Hague Court for selling chemicals to Saddam's regime during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war against Iran.

"He was found guilty of complicity in war crimes over a 1988 chemical attack that killed more than 5,000 people, but acquitted of genocide charges," said 'Kayhan International'.

It added that the amazing thing about the verdict was that the presiding judge has said he could counter with the argument that "this would have happened even without his contribution!"
In other words, added the editorial, "the court was convinced that van Anraat had other accomplices, including Western governments and organizations that were not standing trial on similar accounts.

"Certainly these chemicals did not just appear at the gates of Baghdad's military bases through e-trade or some voodoo magic," argued the paper.

It further said "There must have been dozens of other government authorities, companies and traders involved in these perfectly legal business transactions and deliveries whose names were conveniently tippexed off the list of usual suspects."
Stressing that Van Anraat "had said his actions were legitimate business deals that were carried out through legal channels," it said the Dutch trader could have never been able to sell the chemicals to the Iraqi dictator "without the Western governments' blessings.

"What he was actually trying to say is that he was only acting as a middleman - not knowing he would be turned to a cover up and later a fall guy - for the US and European authorities," argued the article.

The existence of numerous official documents have clearly proven that it was in fact the German, American, British and French companies and governments that sold all sorts of chemicals to Saddam in the 1980s and not a fall guy under the name of Van Anraat.

"The West has used van Anraat to keep people from asking further questions about the case," said the paper adding that even putting a fall guy behind the bars could indeed "bring a sense of justice to tens of thousands of survivors in Iran and Iraq.

"It could also be a sigh of relief and a perfect conspiracy for the cunning Western governments to get away with mass murder and double-standards," it further argued.

Comparing Van Anraat's accomplices with the wolves, Kayhan International warned against further regional wars and chemical attacks against innocent civilians in the near future.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0512254680152533.htm

posted January 10, 2006 12:51 AM              

By James Cusick and Felicity Arbuthnot

THE United States edited out more than 8000 crucial pages of Iraq's 11,800-page dossier on weapons, before passing on a sanitised version to the 10 non-permanent members of the United Nations security council.

The full extent of Washington's complete control over who sees what in the crucial Iraqi dossier calls into question the allegations made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that 'omissions' in the document constituted a 'material breach' of the latest UN resolution on Iraq.

Last week, Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan accepted that it was 'unfortunate' that his organisation had allowed the US to take the only complete dossier and edit it. He admitted 'the approach and style were wrong' and Norway, a member of the security council, says it is being treated like a 'second-class country'.

Although Powell called the Iraqi dossier a 'catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions', the non-permanent members of the security council will have no way of testing the US claims for themselves. This will be crucial if the US and the UK go back to the security council seeking explicit authorisation for war on Iraq if breaches of resolution 1441 are confirmed when the weapons inspectors -- this weekend investigating 10 sites in Iraq, including an oil refinery south of Baghdad -- deliver their report to the UN next month.

A UN source in New York said: 'The questions being asked are valid. What did the US take out? And if weapons inspectors are supposed to be checking against the dossier's content, how can any future claim be verified. In effect the US is saying trust us, and there are many who just will not.'

Current and former UN diplomats are said to be livid at what some have called the 'theft' of the Iraqi document by the US. Hans von Sponeck, the former assistant general secretary of the UN and the UN's humanitarian co- ordinator in Iraq until 2000, said: 'This is an outrageous attempt by the US to mislead.'

Although the five permanent members of the security council -- the US, the UK, France, China and Russia -- have had access to the complete version, there was agreement that the US be allowed to edit the dossier on the ground that its contents were 'risky' in terms of security on weapons proliferation.

Yesterday, US President George W Bush announced that a planned trip to several African countries, scheduled for January, had been cancelled. As he gave the go-ahead to double the current 50,000 US troops deployed in the Gulf by early January, he used his weekly radio address to say that 'the men and women in the [US] military, many of whom will spend Christmas at posts and bases far from home' were the only thing that stood between 'Americans and grave danger'.

An equally pessimistic view of the immediate future came from the Vatican. Pope John Paul II promised the Catholic church would not cease to have its voice heard and would offer prayers 'in the face of this horizon bathed in blood'.

Despite the prayers, the US military isn't expecting peace. Yesterday, General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, was asked if US forces were ready if called upon immediately. General Myers simply said: 'You bet.'

posted January 10, 2006 01:27 AM              

50 Ways To Get Bin Laden

The problems hiding in a cave across the sea.
The answer is easy if you take logicly
He'll never stop in our struggle to be free
Their must be 50 ways to get Bin Laden

The president just put a bounty on his head
He doesn't care if he's alive or if he's dead
We'll send commandos there to pump him full of lead
Their must be 50 wais to get Bin Laden
50 ways to get Bin Laden

You just stab him in the back Jack
Blow up the cave Dave
Step in his veil Dail
Just listen to me

Hit him with a bus Gus
Then hit him in the gut bud
Just hang him from a tree Lee
So we can stand free

It well not greeve us here to see him in such pain
We have to stop him cuz he's totally insane
He's gonna end up with a bullet in the brian
There must be 50 ways to get Bin Laden

He thought the U.S. would give up with out a fight
Now he's gonna face the full force of our might
We'll show Osama what is wrong and what is right
There must be 50 way to get Bin Laden
50 ways to get Bin Laden

You just stab him in the back Jack
Blow up the cave Dave
Step in his veil Dail
Just listen to me

Hit him with a bus Gus
Then hit him in the gut bud
Just hang him from a tree Lee
So we can stand free

You just stab him in the back Jack
Blow up the cave Dave
Step in his veil Dail
Just listen to me

Hit him with a bus Gus
Then hit him in the gut bud
Just hang him from a tree Lee
So we can stand free

******

posted March 11, 2006 07:28 PM              

------------------
I want to turn the whole thing upside down
I'll find the things they say just can't be found
I'll share this love I find with everyone
We'll sing and dance to Mother Nature's songs

posted March 19, 2006 02:26 AM              

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 18, 2006; A11

The White House said yesterday that it will discipline two government employees who masqueraded as journalists this month while scouting locations for a presidential visit to the Gulf Coast.

A Mississippi couple whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina said two men who later identified themselves as Secret Service agents pretended to be Fox News journalists when surveying their neighborhood in advance of a March 8 visit from President Bush.

The men arrived on March 3 at the site of the beachfront home that Jerry and Elaine Akins are rebuilding in Gautier, Miss., Elaine Akins said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"They didn't show any cards or anything," Akins said. "They just came up and said they were with the media, and then they said they were with Fox. They just talked to us and asked us about rebuilding our house. Then, after everything was over with, they approached us and they were laughing, and they said: 'You know, we really weren't with Fox. We're government, Secret Service men.' "

Tom Mazur, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said he did not know who the men were but they were not Secret Service officials.

"I checked with our people down there in Mississippi who were involved in the advance, and it was not Secret Service people who identified themselves as members of the media,"

Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman, said the employees were out of bounds.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031702434_pf.html

posted June 09, 2006 10:30 PM              

It's a troublesome world. All the people who're in it
are troubled with troubles almost every minute.
You ought to be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
for the places and people you're lucky you're not!

-Dr. Seuss-"Did I ever tell you how lucky you are?"

************

9/11 Commissioner Criticizes Coulter
Jun 09 3:46 PM US/Eastern
Email this story

By PHILIP ELLIOTT
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

A member of the Sept. 11 commission on Friday lashed out at conservative pundit Ann Coulter for a "hate-filled attack" in saying the widows whose husbands died in the World Trade Center used the deaths for their own political gain.

In her latest book, Coulter criticizes the four New Jersey widows who pushed for an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11, attacks. The women also backed Democrat John Kerry's presidential candidacy in 2004.

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief- arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," Coulter wrote.

Former Rep. Tim Roehmer, D-Ind., a member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, called Coulter's "hate-filled attack on the patriotic heroes of 9/12 _ the widows of 9/11 _ reprehensible and undignified."

Roehmer urged people not to buy her book. "Americans shouldn't contribute to her profiting from these vicious remarks."

Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-Ill., said Thursday on the House floor that Coulter is a "hatemonger" and called on Republicans to denounce her: "I must ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Does Ann Coulter speak for you when she suggests poisoning not Supreme Court Justices or slanders the 9/11 ... widows? If not, speak now. Your silence allows her to be your spokesman."

Among Coulter's previous statements, she advocated the invasion of non-Christian nations after Sept. 11 and the deportation from the U.S. of "all aliens from Arabic countries." She said American Taliban John Walker should be executed to show liberals what happens to traitors. And she said the only real question about President Clinton was "whether to impeach or assassinate."

Among the most quotable Coulter:

_"To expiate the pain of losing her first-born son in the Iraq war, Cindy Sheehan decided to cheer herself up by engaging in Stalinist agitprop outside President Bush's Crawford ranch. ... After your third profile on 'Entertainment Tonight,' you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show," Coulter wrote in her TownHall.com column on Aug. 18, 2005.

_"Even if corners were cut, (Iran-Contra) was a brilliant scheme. There is no possibility that anyone in any Democratic administration would have gone to such lengths to fund anti-communist forces. When Democrats scheme from the White House, it's to cover up the president's affair with an intern. When Republicans scheme, it's to support embattled anti-communist freedom fighters sold out by the Democrats," she wrote in 2003's "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism."

_"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building," The New York Observer quoted her as saying on Aug. 20, 2002. She clarified those remarks with RightWingNews.com: "Of course I regret it. I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'"

_"After all other suitable office space in Manhattan had dried up _ and also after spending the weekend golfing at an all-white club in Florida _ Clinton announced he would take an office in Harlem. ... As one of my friends remarked, that should be nice: Having escaped a mugging on the way to work, Clinton's female employees will then have to face an accused rapist in the office," Coulter wrote on Feb. 19, 2001.

"(Liberals) are always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let's do it. Let's repress them. ... Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment," Coulter said during an Oct. 21, 2005, speech at the University of Florida.

_"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war," Coulter wrote in a column published by the National Review Online on Sept. 13, 2001.

_"The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't cowering in fear during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis," she wrote in "Treason."

_"Mostly the Witches of East Brunswick wanted George Bush to apologize for not being Bill Clinton," she wrote in "Godless." She was referring to the New Jersey town where two of the Sept. 11 widows live.

_"We need somebody to put rat poison in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said in a Jan. 27 appearance at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., regarding Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. She later explained she was joking about the justice, whose votes have upheld Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision legalizing abortion.

_"You want to be careful not to become just a blowhard," she said in The Washington Post on October 16, 1998.