Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found. The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel. The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor...

Democrats are responding to President Bush's latest remarks on the war on terror, saying it'll take a new policy in Iraq to make America safe. Congressman Sherrod Brown of Ohio says the U-S-led invasion of Iraq has made the country "a training ground for terrorists and a recruiting tool for the leaders of al-Qaida." He says the war on terror should be redirected to end what he calls the "open-ended commitment in Iraq" and refocus military efforts on destroying al-Qaida. Brown, who is running for a seat in the Senate, delivered the Democrats' weekly radio address.

Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today introduced an amendment to the FY 2007 Department of Defense Appropriations bill aimed at preventing hundreds of unnecessary civilian deaths and injuries caused every year by unexploded cluster bombs. The Cluster Munitions Amendment would prevent funds from being spent to purchase, use, or transfer cluster bombs until the Department of Defense has adopted rules of engagement to ensure that cluster bomb are not used in or near any concentration of civilians.“Instead of targeting troop formations and enemy armor, unexploded bomblets target innocent civilians, seriously maiming or killing...

(AP) MILWAUKEE -- Ben Masel says his top interests include "good hash" and "getting acquitted" -- not exactly what you'd expect from a candidate for U.S. Senate. But the 51-year-old liberal activist from Madison has made a career of doing things his own way. In high school in 1969 he participated in a strike in which he says protesting students demanded and received the principal's resignation. He was arrested for his prominent role in Vietnam War protests, which he says led to his being "indefinitely suspended" from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after his freshman year in 1971. He ran for...

WASHINGTON - President Bush hopes to revive his plan to overhaul the U.S. Social Security retirement program if his Republican party keeps control of the Congress in the November midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Despite polls suggesting Democrats have their best chance in years to regain control of the House of Representatives, Bush told the newspaper in an interview he was confident a power shift was "not going to happen." "I just don't believe it," he said, adding that if Republicans prevail at the polls, next year might be a good time to reintroduce the...

Chicago activists marched 50 miles to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's house last weekend to protest congressional inaction over reforming immigration laws and what they say is his anti-immigrant stance. In Phoenix, protesters rallied at the state's Capitol, also to highlight the stalemate in Washington. Bob Johnson is equally exercised. The structural engineer from Buffalo Grove, Ill., argues the other side of 2006's Great Immigration Debate - that the US needs to send home illegal immigrants and gain better control of its borders - but he says he cannot believe Congress is punting on immigration reform. He's been writing letters to...

To Hold Senate, G.O.P. Bolsters Its Most Liberal By ADAM NAGOURNEY Published: September 10, 2006 WARWICK, R.I., Sept. 9 -- With a barrage of television advertisements and the mobilization of its get-out-the-vote machine, the national Republican Party has lined up to beat back a conservative primary challenge to the most liberal Republican in the Senate, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. The outcome on Tuesday could help determine whether Democrats have a shot at taking back the Senate. In an extraordinary pre-emptive announcement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has said it will concede Rhode Island to the Democrats should Stephen Laffey,...

CBS) When the Senate Intelligence Committee released a declassified version of its findings this past week, the Republican chairman of the committee, Pat Roberts, left town without doing interviews, calling the report a rehash of unfounded partisan allegations. Its statements like this one, made Feb. 5, 2003, by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell that have become so controversial, implying Iraq was linked to terror attacks. "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associated collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants," Powell said. But after 2 1/2 years of reviewing pre-war intelligence...

WASHINGTON–The U.S. Senate has voted to let the Army reimburse families of 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team soldiers for unusual expenses caused by their recent Iraq service extension. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said Friday he proposed the amendment at the request of the military. Stevens said Army officials were concerned they might not have the legal authority to reimburse families. They had promised to cover the cost of hotels and airline tickets that the families had bought in anticipation of the 172nd soldiers returning to Fort Wainwright. "With the 172nd coming home, those families had made plans for vacations, to...

BOSTON —Sen. John Kerry is calling on Democrats to rally around his plan to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by next July and redeploy some to Afghanistan. The Massachusetts Democrat gave a speech this morning at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. On the eve of Congressional mid-term elections, Kerry says Democrats must propose a new direction to defeat terrorism. He said Bush “pretends again and again” that Iraq is the central front on the war on terror, but Kerry said it isn’t and “never has been.” Kerry says the military commitment in Iraq weakens the United States’ ability to respond...

    "Every nation has to either be with us, or against us.  Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price."       Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York)    September 13, 2001    http://www.wavsource.com/news/20010911a.htm        "In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now -- a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.    If we fail to respond today, Saddam...

We can -- and perhaps should -- have a discussion about the value or even the morality of rendition. However, we should be clear about something right off the bat, so we are not using incorrect terminology or assertions. Terrorists, stateless actors, pirates, etc. are not covered by the Geneva Convention. It's important that we all get that right, so we are not starting out with false assertions. That said, those in our custody are being afforded **most** (albeit not all) of the considerations that would be given someone who is covered thereby. And as far as I am concerned,...

US Senate sets 200 million dollars to fund hunt for bin Laden Thu Sep 7, 6:51 PM ET The US Senate unanimously approved an additional 200 million dollars to this year's defense budget to fund an intelligence unit that would seek to hunt down top Al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden. The measure, approved by a vote of 96 to 0, would also require the US Defense Department to report to Congress every three months about progress made toward apprehending bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. The legislation was authored by Democrats Kent Conrad and Byron...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi called Friday for an urgent congressional vote to implement U.S. security upgrades. Pelosi, the leader of the minority Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, pledged in a statement that if the Democrats regained a ruling majority in the House, they would impose an "up-down" vote within the first week of the next Congress to push for implementation of the security reforms recommended by the "9/11" Commission. Pelosi, D-Calif., was seeking to counter-attack against an effective Republican strategy that is presenting the GOP to the American public as far more determined to fight terrorism than the Democrats....

Outgoing Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney hinted Thursday that she or her supporters might try again to challenge the legality of state voting laws that allowed Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary where she lost her House seat last month. McKinney, the first black woman elected to Congress from Georgia, said "malicious crossover" voting by Republicans disenfranchised black voters in her district from picking their candidate of choice, despite the fact that the winner of the primary is also black. She said the state's primary system violates the Voting Rights Act, which was first passed in 1965 to protect minority...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) warned Republicans to either accept the Senate's version of immigration reform - which includes amnesty for illegal aliens - or risk losing Congress to Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections. "If we can't get this Congress to pass fair immigration before now, we'll elect a new Congress in November that will pass it," said Kennedy to a cheering crowd at a rally supporting amnesty for illegal aliens on the National Mall. "We will pass an immigration bill in Congress that is worthy of America." Thousands of people gathered to hear Kennedy speak in support...

With virtually no questions asked, an undercover ABC News team was able to purchase a half ton of one of the world's most dangerous bomb-making materials and move it into a storage shed only a few miles from the White House and the U.S. Capitol. Despite its use in the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, there are still no federal laws restricting the purchase of ammonium nitrate, a chemical fertilizer, widely sold at farm supply stores. The ABC News undercover team made the purchases, in cash, at farm supply stores in North Carolina and Virginia and were never...

A federal investigation has been launched into the financial dealings of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez and a nonprofit agency he has helped over the years, sources said. The U.S. attorney's office has subpoenaed the agency's records pertaining to a house once owned by then-congressman Menendez, sources told NewsChannel 4's Brian Thompson. Menendez, a Democrat, has denied there was anything wrong with his renting the house to the North Hudson Community Action Corp. for more than $3,000 a month, even as he was working to obtain millions of dollars in federal grant money while he was a congressman

Ky. businessman gets 7 years for bribe to JeffersonBy MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer A Kentucky telecommunications executive who admitted paying more than $400,000 in bribes to Rep. William Jefferson was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison. Vernon Jackson, 54, of Louisville, is a key figure in the federal investigation of Jefferson, D-La., who has not been charged. But in court papers, prosecutors have alleged that they caught Jefferson on videotape taking a $100,000 cash bribe. Most of that money later turned up in a freezer in Jefferson's home. Jefferson was never mentioned by name in Friday's...

If Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Democratic colleagues are anxious to get rid of him, they gave no indication of it in their first gathering since Lieberman lost a Connecticut primary to Ned Lamont last month and launched an independent bid. “I don’t think there’s any of us out there saying ‘Goddamn, I hope Joe doesn’t win,’” said Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who has endorsed Lamont in the general election.Indeed, Democratic senators applauded Lieberman at their weekly policy luncheon, when Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asked him to brief the caucus on upcoming port-security legislation.“Welcome back,” said Reid, who was scheduled to...