Monday, Jul 01st
Last update06:38:08 AM GMT
War Glance
He said that Mr Straw had been incorrect to suggest, in 2002, that UN weapons inspectors were not being allowed access to certain sites.
"He did not focus at all on what I had said about the increased Iraqi co-operation," he said, explaining: "he focused upon - say - that the Iraqis are not allowing you to interview people and they are stopping you from getting to sites. That was not true," he said.
A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year's Gaza war.
The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as "means and intentions" – whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon – as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter.
A SENIOR Welsh MP said last night he knew “for certain” Tony Blair and George Bush struck a deal to invade Iraq at their notorious Crawford Ranch meeting in 2002 – a year before war was declared.
Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru’s parliamentary leader, said he had seen a confidential memo to that effect, although he would not divulge its exact contents.
A secret plan to foster an internal coup against Saddam Hussein was drawn up by the Government two years before the invasion of Iraq, The Independent can reveal.
The document, headed "confidential UK/US eyes", was finalised on 11 June 2001 and approved by ministers. It has not been published by the Iraq inquiry but a copy has been obtained by The Independent and can be revealed for the first time today. It states: "We want to work with an Iraq which respects the rights of its people, lives at peace with its neighbours and which observes international law.
TVNL Comment: this is a 9/11 conspiracy smoking gun! This shows that the Bush cabal needed the events of 9/11 to take place in order to achieve their planned goals! Their plans hinged on just such an event, as outlined in the PNAC plan (i.e. their "new Pearl Harbor!" This is just one of many 9/11 smoking guns!
More...
The last chance for victims of the bloody Nisoor Square shootings to have their day in court may rest on a Charlotte firm's lawsuit accusing Blackwater of reckless conduct in Iraq.
Mohammed Kinani, an Iraqi businessman whose 9-year-old son died in the 2007 shootings, said the North Carolina-based security firm has threatened him and offered him $20,000 to stop asking questions. "I said I don't want anything," Kinani said. "All I need is for the Blackwater president to apologize for killing of my son. They refused to apologize."
Tony Blair opened himself up to a charge of misleading Parliament today when he told the Iraq inquiry that by any objective analysis the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons programme had not increased after 9/11.
That statement directly contradicted Mr Blair's warning to MPs in September 2002 – six months before the invasion – that Saddam's weapons programme was "active, detailed and growing".
TVNL Comment: Hey troops, and families of dead troops...how do you feel about that? That means George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and your hero Colin Powell also lied...but we knew that already!
The Obama administration plans to ask Congress to increase spending on the U.S. nuclear arsenal by more than $5 billion over the next five years as part of its strategy to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually rid the world of them.
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