A-Changin' Times (ACT)
Born in the aftermath of 9/11, ACT has become as political as the times.
Now a blog for alternative news, views and rants offered with a twist, a song and a smile. Fair and balanced.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize [sic] with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
 — Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan Copyright 1963
(1991 Special Rider)

"A-Changin' Times: taking the best from the past to make the most of the present and to create a better future."

"What marching through the streets was to the Sixties, walking through the halls of Congress is now."

 — Marianne Williamson

You're visiting a website that incorporates a blogging feature, not "just" a blog.

Blog entries follow, most recent entries at the top

Saturday, February 07, 2004

	:: DUG853		2/07/2004 02:15:00 PM

TENET EXPOSES BUSH'S MISLEADING ON WMD

In a stunning blow to the president's credibility, CIA Director George Tenet said this morning that intelligence "analysts never said there was an imminent threat" from Iraq before the war.

His comments are consistent with various warnings sent to the White House from the intelligence community that specifically told the president his claims that Iraq definitely had chemical/biological and nuclear weapons were unsubstantiated.

Tenet's comments call into question whether the Bush Administration was knowingly ignoring intelligence and misleading the country by claiming definitively that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was therefore an "imminent," "immediate," "urgent" and "mortal" threat to the American people.

Though the White House has claimed it never said Iraq was an imminent threat, the record proves otherwise.

When White House communications director Dan Bartlett was asked before the war whether Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, he responded, "Of course he is."

When White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked why NATO (and thus the United States) should support Turkey's request for defensive troops, he responded, "This is about an imminent threat."

When White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether the invasion of Iraq was because Iraq was an imminent threat, he responded, "Absolutely."

The president also used other language aimed at misleading Americans into thinking that U.S. intelligence definitively knew Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that threatened America - even though the intelligence community told the president it had no such evidence.
The president said before the war that Iraq was an "urgent threat" and a "grave threat" to "any American." In his speech informing Americans that the invasion had started, the President said Iraq "threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
These comments were echoed by other top Administration officials.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on September 19, 2002 that "no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."

And Vice President Cheney called Iraq a "mortal threat," and said "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction...to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

And Secretary of State Colin Powell, in pressing for U.N. support, said definitively that Iraq possessed "deadly weapons programs" that "are real and present dangers to the region and to the world."

Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. --> <

SOURCE

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Thursday, February 05, 2004

	:: Nora		2/05/2004 06:33:00 PM

"The story that won't go away" - no matter how desperate they are to put a lid on it!


Howard: Blair should resign over WMD claim

Michael Howard today called on Tony Blair to resign, accusing him of failing to ask basic questions before committing Britain to war. The Tory leader's comments come after Mr Blair revealed to MPs yesterday that he was unaware that the intelligence that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes referred only to battlefield munitions, not any missile capability. Source

CIA backs WMD analysis

The head of the CIA has denied that his organisation ever claimed before the war that Iraq posed an imminent threat. In his first public defence of pre-war intelligence, George Tenet said analysts had varying opinions on the state of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes -- differences which were spelled out to the White House. Source

BBC governors spurned legal advice

BBC governors spurned their lawyers' advice that Lord Hutton's report was legally flawed and instead offered the fulsome apology that Downing Street demanded, it emerged last night.

A 135-page confidential document, leaked to The Independent, accuses Alastair Campbell, the former Downing Street communications chief, of making 'false' statements to Parliament over his role in drawing up the September 2002 dossier.

The BBC's lawyers also suggested that Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, misled MPs over disquiet within the intelligence community over the dossier, the main plank in the Government's case for war. They go on to outline 12 main areas Lord Hutton ignored in his report, delivered eight days ago, and say his findings were 'wrong' in law.

Full text

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Tuesday, February 03, 2004

	:: Nora		2/03/2004 04:26:00 PM

Smile Awhile ...

The Washington Post's Style Invitational asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are some recent winners:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
10. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
11. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
12. Glibido: All talk and no action.
13. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
14. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:
17. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole

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	:: Nora		2/03/2004 03:53:00 PM

SOMETHIN'S HAPPENIN' HERE -- U.S. or World News or Commentary

Blair caves in

In what the Times describes as a 'complete u-turn', the UK prime minister has caved in and agreed to hold an inquiry into why no WMDs have been found in Iraq. It seems he was taken aback by the speed with which George Bush acceded to demands for a similar inquiry.

Quoting Jon Snow of Channel 4:

"The team is essentially an expanded version of the safe old Commons Intelligence Committee including its chair Ann Taylor, Colonel Michael Mates and several other dependable intelligence-related Knights and Lords. Ann Taylor's Intelligence Committee is, like this inquiry, appointed by Blair, accountable to him and reporting to him. Their report into the very issue of WMD and intelligence was, shall we say, er ... safe and very mildly critical of government.

"Crucially, it concluded that the claim that Iraq had been trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger was TRUE... we shall be talking to Ambassador Joe Wilson from the US, who investigated the claim and found it to be fraudulent. Former head of Defence Intelligence Sir John Walker says the remit of this inquiry is too narrow and that the reasons why Britain went to war need to be explored together with whether it was LEGAL. "

* WMD inquiry is forced upon Blair
* The final reckoning
* Times: Ten key questions that will have to be answered
* Independent: Blair caves in to calls for WMD inquiry

In Blair's words:

'[Saddam's] weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not working'
September 24 2002

'I have got no doubt either that the purpose of our challenge from the UN is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, it is not regime change'
November 18 2002

'Not only do we know that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, we also know he is capable of using them'
November 30 2002

'We are now asked to accept that in the last few years, contrary to all history and all intelligence, he decided unilaterally to destroy the weapons. Such a claim is palpably absurd'
March 18 2003

'Tonight, British servicemen and women are engaged from air, land and sea. Their mission: to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction'
March 20 2003

'Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a little bit. I remain confident that they will be found"
April 28 2003

'I am absolutely convinced that and confident about the case on weapons of mass destruction ... you and others will be eating some of your words"
April 30 2003

Source

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John Pilger:

"In the wake of the Hutton fiasco, one truth remains unassailed: Tony Blair ordered an unprovoked invasion of another country on a totally false pretext, and that lies and deceptions manufactured in London and Washington caused the deaths of up to 55,000 Iraqis, including 9,600 civilians.

"Consider for a moment those who have paid the price for Blair's and Bush's actions, who are rarely mentioned in the current media coverage. Deaths and injury of young children from unexploded British and American cluster bombs are put at 1,000 a month. The effect of uranium weapons used by Anglo-American forces -- a weapon of mass destruction -- is such that readings taken from Iraqi tanks destroyed by the British are so high that a British Army survey team wore white, full-body radiation suits, face masks and gloves. Iraqi children play on and around these tanks. British troops, says the Ministry of Defence, 'will have access to biological monitoring'.

"Iraqis have no such access and no expert medical help; and thousands are now suffering from a related catalogue of miscarriages and hair loss, horrific eye, skin and respiratory problems ...

"Blair has, as ever, followed Bush. In announcing at the weekend his own inquiry into an 'intelligence failure', Bush hopes to cast himself as an innocent, aggrieved member of the public wanting to know why America's numerous spy agencies did not alert the nation to the fact, now confirmed by Bush's own weapons inspector, David Kay, that there were no weapons of mass destruction ... "

Full text at Information Clearing House

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Sunday, February 01, 2004

	:: DUG853		2/01/2004 08:45:00 PM

Under Pressure Bush Will Accept Probe of Prewar Intelligence


Bush OK's Independent Probe of Prewar Intelligence
By Dana Milbank and Dana Priest
The Washington Post
Saturday 31 January 2004


President Bush has agreed to support an independent inquiry into the prewar intelligence that he used to assert that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, Republican and congressional sources said today.

The shift by the White House, which had previously maintained that any such inquiry should wait until a more exhaustive weapons search has been complete, came after pressure from lawmakers in both parties and from the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq.

There was no official confirmation from the White House today, but several sources in the government said Bush's announcement of support for an independent commission is imminent. Vice President Cheney has begun to call lawmakers on the intelligence committees, who have encouraged the administration to proceed with an inquiry.

Bush's shift in position represents an effort to get out in front of a potentially dangerous issue that threatens to cloud his reelection bid. An independent commission would not necessarily absolve Bush politically, congressional officials said, but it could quiet the current furor and delay calls for top-level resignations at the CIA and elsewhere until after the election, diluting the potency of the issue for Democrats.

Kay, who resigned his post nine days ago, testified Wednesday that "we were almost all wrong" about Iraq's weapons programs. He said it was unlikely that stockpiles would be found in Iraq.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said today that convening a blue-ribbon panel is important because "we're in danger now of seeing the politicization of the whole intelligence issue."

The panel, Roberts said, would have to be bipartisan and include only recognized experts whose recommendations could "leapfrog" over the current debate and quickly tackle the issue of how to fix intelligence deficiencies. "It would be helpful not only politically, but also for the nation," Roberts said. Sources said Bush intends to endorse a commission in the coming days while remaining publicly agnostic on the accuracy of the intelligence that the administration used to take the nation to war in Iraq. Though some in the White House favor a frank admission that the intelligence was wrong -- something lawmakers and inspectors have given -- Bush and his aides have so far concluded that would only increase the pressure on them.

The details about the commission are not yet firm, including how much authority it would have to investigate not just the intelligence gathering apparatus but also how the administration used the intelligence it was given.

CONTINUE

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