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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Thursday said Congress should examine Countrywide Financial Corp's mortgage loans to Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd and Kent Conrad. "My view is that these allegations should be considered by the appropriate bodies, and I understand that the Senate Ethics Committee has already begun to look into the matter," Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement.

DUE TO operational security issues, specifics of some tactics, techniques and procedures involved in protective services detail training are not discussed. CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait — The 40th Expeditionary Signal Battalion doesn’t have an 0-6 — that’s a colonel. But protecting the commander and command sergeant major is important enough for the unit to have a 16-soldier protective services detail. Being a member of the detail entails more than just acting as a stationary or walking escort, carrying a weapon and looking around. If for some reason the commander — Lt. Col. Linda Jantzen — or Command Sgt. Maj. John Womble...

How upset are you over the CIA “secret prison scandal”? Maybe you said, “What scandal?”, or maybe you’ve glanced at stories about it carried in the back pages of your newspaper. Here in Europe, it’s the giant screaming front page headline story on every paper you pick up from England to Germany. The Europeans are in a state of high emotional froth over CIA “renditions” of Moslem terrorists seized in one of their countries and taken to a “secret prison” in Poland or elsewhere. The Euroweenies are far more concerned with the “human rights” of the terrorists than they are...

Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity The Buried Story Behind PlamegateBy Fedora Introduction Since Robert Novak mentioned Valerie Plame’s CIA background in July 2003, the media has focused on trying to trace the leak of Plame’s name to the White House, but has devoted less follow-up to another newsworthy angle in Novak’s original story. Novak wrote: The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. . . Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife,...

Before we put Plame "leak" story to bed once and for all, I want to reiterate out what I first posited almost two years ago, which now seems to be more true than ever. It was almost certainly Mr. Joseph C. Wilson IV who "outed" his wife as a CIA officer. And he probably did this in early May 2003 at after meeting with top level Democrats and around the time he began to work for the John Kerry for President campaign.Let's run through the chronology.January 28, 2003: President George W. Bush gave his State of the Union speech.February 6,...

In this week's episode of Rome (a superb HBO series which increasingly reminds me of the Nation's Capital), Servilia, whose son was killed in a power grab, knelt before the door of manipulative Attia, mother of Octavian and lover of Marc Anthony, the two men responsible, calling out in a haunting cry, "Attia of the Julii, I call for justice." She did so because the unavailing legal system was broken, and curses (which were taken seriously in those days) were the one remaining way most people had to redress grave wrongs. I call for justice for Scooter Libby because he...

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Servicemembers: Many of you may know that since June 2006, I have served as co-civilian counsel, along with Neal Puckett who is lead counsel (and Of Counsel to my law office), for SSgt Frank Wuterich, USMC. Frank is now facing multiple counts of murder for the events arising from the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha, Iraq on November 19, 2005. He was the squad commander for the 3/1 that tragic day. This is a highly unusual case for me. Other than the dozen or so military courts-martials I handled back in 1999-2000 dealing with...

Judge Walton, at the end of yesterday's "festivities" culminating in the mental breakdown of the lead prosecutor, indicated that they would resume at 9:30 Eastern. In anticipation of that, I am setting up this thread even though I don't as yet see any FDLers gathered in the court room.

Mr. Gates, it turns out, is a hawk. In just the last two weeks, he has supported deepening the American military commitment in Iraq, spoken approvingly of sending more troops to Afghanistan and, after dispatching a second American aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, declared that negotiations with Iran right now would be futile. But a hawk may not be all he is. His favorite quotation from history, he told reporters traveling with him this week for meetings with allies and commanders in Europe and the Middle East, is from Frederick the Great, the 18th century Prussian monarch and gifted...

Dec. 5. 2006 - In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

Who is Paul Pillar? By Michelle Malkin   ·   September 27, 2006 11:14 AM Drip, drip, drip? In its original report leaking details of the National Intelligence Estimate on the Iraq war, the New York Times relied on anonymous, unnamed leakers to spin its contents and embarrass the White House. Today, the Times includes comments from some named sources. Pay attention to this one: What was most remarkable about the intelligence estimate, several experts said, was the unremarkable nature of its conclusions. “At one level it is unsurprising stuff,’’ said Paul Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the...

YOUR DISMISSAL of comparing President Bush and Hitler as ``hyperbole" (``Loose lips sink history," editorial, Aug. 31) is a gravely wrong and dangerous reading of history, Bush's program, and our responsibilities today. Nazism's horrors didn't emerge the moment Hitler took power in 1933, but over 12 years, driven by the logic of empire and war. No analogy is exact, but the Bush administration has already invaded two countries, guided by an official doctrine of global dominance and illegal preemptive war. It now threatens Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons. It has committed war crimes through torture, rendition, and illegal detention --...

Goodfellow’s BedfellowsWho’s in Bed with the Washington PostBy Fedora Introduction I. A Radical Education: Boston University and Cambridge-Goddard II. Vietnam Roots: Indochina Resource Center A. Luce at International Voluntary Services B. Luce and Cornell’s Hanoi for Lunch Bunch C. Luce’s Tiger Cages and the Indochina Mobile Education Project D. Luce and Branfman: The COLIFAM Connection E. Luce, Branfman, Winter Soldier, and Project Air War F. The Indochina Resource Center: Branfman, Luce, and Goodfellow G. The IRC and the Indochina Peace Campaign: The Hayden-Fonda Link III. Post-Vietnam Transition: Campaign for a Democratic Foreign Policy and Coalition for a New Foreign and...

Andrew Sullivan says the man who heckled Rummy was Not some crazed lefty. The man who demanded that Rumsfeld answer the questions we all want to have answered turns out to be the man who gave former president George H. W. Bush his daily intelligence briefing. And he was right in the exchange; and Rummy was factually wrong. Yep: Rumsfeld lied. Quelle surprise. No not some crazed lefty. The man was Ray McGovern, who Sweetness and Light noticed was part of Daniel Ellsberg's Truth Telling Project. Here's the relevant blog entry from the Belmont archives: Sweetness and Light has...

Protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday and one man, a former CIA analyst, accused him of lying about Iraq prewar intelligence in an unusually vociferous display of anti-war sentiment. "Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?" asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst, during a question-and-answer session. "I did not lie," shot back Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern from the hall at the Southern Center for International Studies. With Iraq war support remaining low, it is not...

This weekend some interesting developments appeared to rip some holes in the Wilson Gambit and further erode Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s credibility. David Corn of The Nation magazine and VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) have pushed nonsensical claims that Valerie Plame was a nonofficial cover agent (NOC), supplying the necessary predicate for an Agee Act (Intelligence Identity Protection Act) prosecution. While I could find scant reporting in the pre-indictment period poking holes in this ridiculous notion, Saturday’s Chicago Tribune carried five stories doing just that. In two of the most significant articles, the paper showed how easy it was...

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Connie Julian, 917-449-9064, Janet Yip 212-941-8086 or commission@nion.us News Advisory: From: International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration WHEN: January 10, 2006 at 1:30 p.m. WHERE: The White House, Walk-in Gate, across from Lafayette Park WEBSITE: http://www.bushcommission.org An unprecedented series of indictments alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, in five separate areas, on moral, political, and legal grounds, will be delivered by a citizens' tribunal to President Bush at the front gate of the White House this Tuesday, January 10th. Named in the indictments are: President of...

AUSTRALIAN investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie that could cost George W. Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them. A television report by Pilger aired on British screens overnight said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat. But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US "must move...

Nigergate: All Ambassador Wilson’s lies Ambassador Wilson has a lot of strange friends: people that know and reveal top secret information to the foreign media, collaborators of foreign secret services and, last but not least, a number of disgruntled ex Cia officers. Once again Chiocci and Sechi at Il Giornale hit the nail on the head, this time round it’s Ambassador Wilson’s turn to be put under the spotlight. The following article, published Sunday, examines the Ambassador’s interesting ties to the French secret services and the anti-Bush cabal of ex Cia officers that go by the name of ‘VIPS’. Note...

Earlier this afternoon, I had a very unpleasant conversation with Mr. Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer who is now out and about defending Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. Johnson, in my interview with him, confirmed some things, left some open, but revealed something startling: the defense of Joe Wilson is apparently being run from inside the CIA. Johnson came up on the scope when he accused Gens. Paul Vallely and Tom McInerny of falsely attacking Wilson. Vallely, you may recall, said last week on John Batchelor's ABC radio show that Wilson -- husband of CIA employee Valerie Plame --...

Transcriber's introduction:The following outline and transcript, created by the poster, are based on an audio recording of Joseph Wilson's evening keynote lecture to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) on June 14, 2003, delivered several weeks prior to Wilson's New York Times op-ed of 7/6/2003 which preceded the controversial Robert Novak article mentioning Valerie Plame's CIA background. Wilson's speech was immediately preceded by that of the other keynote speaker, Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. After their individual speeches Wilson and McGovern held a joint question-and-answer session. Other participants in the forum and their respective topics...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A small group composed mostly of retired CIA officers is appealing to colleagues still inside to go public with any evidence the Bush administration is slanting intelligence to support its case for war with Iraq. Members of the group contend the Bush administration has released information on Iraq that meets only its ends -- while ignoring or withholding contrary reporting. They also say the administration's public evidence about the immediacy of Iraq's threat to the United States and its alleged ties to al-Qaida is unconvincing, and accuse policy-makers of pushing out some information that does not meet...

Since learning in April that their son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, had been killed in Iraq, life has been everything but normal for the Sheehan family of Vacaville. Casey's parents, Cindy and Patrick, as well as their three children, have attended event after event honoring the soldier both locally and abroad, received countless letters of support and fielded questions from reporters across the country. "That's the way our whole lives have been since April 4," Patrick said. "It's been surreal." But none of that prepared the family for the message left on their answering machine last week, inviting them to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fired CIA agent, who a newspaper says told superiors in 2001 that Iraq had abandoned part of its nuclear program, is asking the FBI to investigate allegations that the spy agency dismissed him for refusing to falsify intelligence. A July 11 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller from the former agent's attorney suggests CIA officials may be guilty of criminal violations involving intelligence he produced on weapons of mass destruction in 2000 that contradicted an official agency position. The former agent's attorney, Roy Krieger, said his client initially asked the CIA's inspector general to investigate charges...

Providing security for distinguished U.S. visitors in Baghdad is necessary, Army Cpl. Fred Senethavilay pointed out, because the Iraqi capital city "is not a safe place." Senethavilay, 22, said he and his partner, Staff Sgt. Barry D. Gumaer, are infantrymen deployed to Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard's 111th Engineer Battalion, which has its headquarters in Abilene. Both soldiers work personal security details at the Joint Visitors Bureau here. The two machine-gun-toting, Kevlar-clad soldiers participated in an American Forces Press Service interview in Baghdad July 27 during Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's recent trip to Iraq. Senethavilay said he...

(CNSNews.com) - The leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity is the result of "partisan madness" that is undermining U.S. security during a time of war, a panel of former CIA operatives told a group of congressional Democrats on Friday. "For the first time in the history of the United States, by any administration, a political operative [Bush adviser Karl Rove] went after an active intelligence officer and leaked her name for petty, trivial political reasons, and at the end of the day, has caused terrific damage to the United States," former CIA analyst Larry Johnson said at the forum...

It was a dark and stormy night. I was sitting back in the Mad Mammoth study, reviewing the latest threads on Free Republic, when my MSN Messenger icon barked that I had an email waiting. I went to my InBox. What did I find? I had a very angry email from some schnook called 'lcjohnso' taking me to task for some long forgotten post I made on FR. Called me out. Wanted my address. Wanted to visit me with a bunch of his pals "anytime, anyplace", I'm wondering to myself "WTF is this nonsense?" So I responded in a fairly...

Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence Monday, March 17, 2003 WASHINGTON — Invoking the name of a Pentagon whistle-blower, a small group of retired, anti-war CIA officers are accusing the Bush administration of manipulating evidence against Iraq in order to push war while burying evidence that could show Iraq's compliance with U.N demands for disarmament. The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the...

Uncovered: The War on Iraq Directed by Robert Greenwald Cinema Libre, opens August 20 Anybody who tries to deconstruct the new American empire erected by the Bush regime's schnooks and crooks winds up babbling to himself and others, "You can't make this shit up." But then you have to get your hands dirty and mold it into something that's interesting to look at. That's something Michael Moore did in Fahrenheit 9/11, but which Robert Greenwald doesn't do in Uncovered: The War on Iraq. Moore created a movie; Greenwald gives us a cinematized blog. His vast made-for-TV experience (The Burning Bed,...

Since midsummer, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been attempting to solve the biggest mystery of the Iraq war: the disparity between the Bush Administration’s prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and what has actually been discovered. The committee is concentrating on the last ten years’ worth of reports by the C.I.A. Preliminary findings, one intelligence official told me, are disquieting. “The intelligence community made all kinds of errors and handled things sloppily,” he said. The problems range from a lack of quality control to different agencies’ reporting contradictory assessments at the same time. One finding, the official went...

It's not an if, it's a when. Pentagon officials have indicated that they plan to send as many as 15,000 more troops to Iraq during the first four months of 2005, and President Bush continues to insist that ''we will stay the course'' until Iraq is stabilized. Where will the additional troops come from? The Bush administration insists that there will be no draft, but the ''backdoor draft'' that has kept so many from the Reserve and National Guard on active duty has backfired, as quotas for new enlistments have not been met. So plans are already advanced for fully...

A group of former intelligence officers is pressing Congressional leaders to open an immediate inquiry into the disclosure last summer of the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame. Their request, outlined in a letter on Tuesday to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and others, reflects discontent and unrest within the intelligence services about the affair, along with concern that a four-month-old Justice Department investigation into the matter may never identify who was behind the disclosure. The syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who first identified Ms. Plame as a C.I.A. officer in a column last July, has identified his sources only...

<p>Media organizations prepared Tuesday to oppose any efforts by the Justice Department to subpoena journalists and their notes to learn who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent to columnist Robert Novak.</p> <p>Subpoenas could be challenged on the basis of First Amendment guarantees of freedom of the press, said Bill Felber, editor of The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury and freedom of information chairman for the Associated Press Managing Editors. But they could also be challenged, he said, if they were too broad or if the information could be obtained in other ways.</p>

A GROUP of former US intelligence officials has written to President Bush claiming that the US Congress and the American public were misled about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war. The group’s members, most of them former CIA analysts, say that they have close contacts with senior officials working inside the US intelligence agencies, who have told them that intelligence was “cooked” to persuade Congress to authorise the war. The manipulation of intelligence has, they say, produced “a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions”. They write in the letter to Mr Bush: “While there have been occasions...

Bush targeted by leftist 'intelligence professionals' Gerard Jackson BrookesNews.Com Monday 21 July 2003 A group calling itself the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity sent President Bush a letter demanding that Cheney resign over the issue of Saddam's WMDs. Now who or what is VIPS? This is a question that many have been asking. The answer is simple. It is a front for the notorious Marxist-Leninist Washington-based IPS (Institute for Policy Studies). This is what Brian Crozier (a highly respected commentator on intelligence matters and a fellow of the prestigious Institute for the Study of Conflict) had to say about the...

WASHINGTON, April 17 (AFP) - The US government should be "embarrassed" over the apparent failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, retired intelligence officials who opposed the war said Thursday. "It's going to be very embarrassing when it turns out they have nothing to declare," said Eugene Betit, a former defense intelligence analyst who belongs to Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), formed in January to speak out on the use of intelligence to justify the war. Another, former CIA station chief Ray Close, said: "I'm hoping they will be embarrassed into acknowledging a role for some independent...