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Brig. Gen. Terryl Schwalier was stunned when he read the account of the June 25, 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that appeared in my recent book, Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran. I was writing many years after the fact, drawing on sources from inside Iranian intelligence but also on published U.S. government reports. It was those U.S. reports that prompted General Schwalier to contact me a few months ago. “You paint a picture of significant government awareness that “Iran was up to something” in the months prior to the Khobar Towers attack,” he wrote...

Lawmakers in Canada appear to be paving the way for "deep integration" with the U.S. and Mexico with a proposed measure that advances the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America promoted by the Bush administration, notes WND columnist Jerome Corsi. It's an issue Corsi has fully investigated for his newest book, "The Late Great USA." The conservative minority government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pressing for "The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement", which would enable a Canadian company to challenge laws in provinces that block the North American Free Trade Agreement. Murray Dobbin, a Vancouver author...

DUBAI DUETS Late Friday, Department of Justice lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel were attempting to determine if former President Bill Clinton had registered as an "Agent of a Foreign Principal." Federal statute requires that anyone -- even a former President -- doing political or public affairs work on behalf of a foreign country, agency or official must register with the Department, and essentially update his status every six months. It was not clear the Clinton had done so. If his status is less clear, here is what we do know: If Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not know...

Paul Pillar Speaks, Again The latest CIA attack on the Bush administration is nothing new. by Stephen F. Hayes 02/10/2006 4:15:00 PM IN A BREATHLESS front-page, above-the-fold article in today's Washington Post, Walter Pincus reports that a former senior CIA official named Paul Pillar accuses the Bush administration of "misusing" intelligence to take the country to war in Iraq. According to the Post account, Pillar uses a forthcoming article in Foreign Affairs to claim that the Bush administration "politicized" the intelligence on Iraq. Bush administration policymakers did this subtly, Pillar says, by repeatedly asking the CIA questions about Iraq, its...

WILLIAM COHEN: They found that terrorists are determined to intimidate and prevent the United States from pursuing our worldwide national security interests, and they will continue to tenaciously look for exposed seams in our force protection armor. Their fundamental conclusion is that we must view terrorists as a relentless enemy and, "confront the terrorists with the same intensity and discipline that we have used in the past to defeat conventional antagonists." Now, I agree with this conclusion. As our conventional superiority increases, we must pay greater attention to combating asymmetric threats, including terrorism. Every night, all of us sleep under...

  THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY:HOW DECADES OF CLINTON DOUBLE-DEALING COMPROMISED OUR NATIONAL SECURITY by Mia T, March 8, 2006     ld habits die hard. Bill and hillary and their fixers in the press and DC are up to their old tricks.1 The clintons trade our national security for their power and treasure2 while old media and the DC establishment--pre-9/11, 20th-century relics all--do nothing.3 But this time the betrayal is happening in real time, right before our very eyes. Aided and abetted by the usual useful-idiot suspects in the press, allowed to operate with impunity by a Congress cowered...

ETROIT, Aug. 29 — For nearly a year, the three foreigners picked up at an apartment here a week after the Sept. 11 attacks seemed like just another group of Arab men caught up in the government dragnet. They languished in prison while facing charges that seemed minor; federal agents had actually been looking for the previous occupant when they raided the apartment.But at least one thing appears to have separated the Detroit trio from hundreds of other Arabs swept up by the government in the last year: a cooperative witness. A fourth Arab man who once lived with...

The Talk Shows Sunday, August 14th, 2005 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalil-zad. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Khalilzad; Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. THIS WEEK (ABC): Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong; Khalilzad; former Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Thomas Hoving. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; Khalilzad; Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres; Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa; former Defense Secretary William Cohen; former Secretary of...

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation...is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks...

It is rare to have books exploring the legacy of a presidential administration still in its first term. It is rarer still to have the number of insider accounts that Americans have access to in 2004. “These books appear to be painting history before our eyes,” said Charlotte Abbott, news editor of Publishers Weekly. “No one in the industry of publishing can remember a time since Watergate when so many political books have come out and the public has been interested – and a lot of those Watergate titles came out after.” One of the reporters who first exposed Watergate,...

"Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves." http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/1997/t042897_t0428coh.html DoD News Briefing Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen Monday, April 28, 1997 - 8:45 a.m. EDT

...Duncan Hunter, ...the House Armed Services Chairman, is refusing to join the Beltway stampede to pass, in a few short weeks, the most extensive changes in U.S. intelligence in 50 years. ...The Senate and House each passed bills in the heat (and panic) of the election campaign.... Mr. Hunter specifically objects to a provision that would take budget authority away from the Secretary of Defense over the intelligence agencies under his control. This is a narrow but important issue. It would potentially undercut the military's ability to obtain and act on intelligence in real time.... There are other problems with...

...The ferocious partisan dissension that has broken out at home over the war on terror dangerously subtracts from the nation's war-fighting effectiveness. • Partisan warfare at home has given credibility and confidence to America's enemies abroad.... • Partisan disunity has damaged America's alliances.... • Hyper-partisanship has weakened America's own war-fighting strength.... It's essential to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.... At home, ...Democrats will do everything they can to stop [Bush].... There are, however, some actions that might help President Bush introduce some useful bipartisanship to American foreign policy. • Listen: For months after 9/11, President Bush met once a...

BEAR ANY BURDEN Apparently Sen. John Kerry cares enough about what Sen. Ted Kennedy thinks of him that the presumptive presidential candidate called Kennedy to inform him that he would not cross the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association picket line at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Boston on Monday. Kerry was scheduled to speak at the conference, but abruptly pulled out. While a Kennedy Senate staffer said that the senior senator appreciated the courtesy call, the two men remain cool. "Kerry should have been speaking to us about the problems in Boston weeks ago," says the Kennedy staffer. "One good...

The discovery of an Iraqi artillery shell armed with nerve gas has the liberal community and mass media in a panic. The 155mm nerve gas shell was rigged to kill U.S. troops but it failed. U.S. Brig. General Mark Kimmitt confirmed the discovery during a news conference in Baghdad. Yet, the discovery of nerve gas was followed by a second revelation. A second shell, equipped with mustard gas was found two weeks ago. The mustard gas shell identified by the special WMD inspection team in Iraq appears to be one of 550 declared by Saddam to U.N. inspectors during the...

Expect terror attack - Cohen Former defense secretary speaks at UW forum By Becky Orr rep6@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle LARAMIE - Americans should expect more terrorist attacks on United States soil, a former secretary of defense says. William S. Cohen said Thursday that future attacks are inevitable given the country's size, its uncontrolled borders and other factors. "We may foil most of them," Cohen said. "(But) we have to be successful 100 percent of the time." Those plotting against America have to be successful only once, he added. "The question becomes, 'What do we do?'" Cohen is a...

Statement of William S. Cohen to The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States March 23, 2004 I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Commission to discuss counterterrorismefforts of the Defense Department and the Interagency during my tenure asSecretary of Defense.You have posed several questions, which I will address to the best of my ability, althoughI should note that in preparing this statement I have not had access to any non-publicrecords with regard to events that took place during this period three to eight years agoand not all public records are easily accessible despite the internet. I...

<p>March 26, 2004 -- DAYS of public hearings into the 9/11 attacks have given us a few unambiguous answers to important questions.</p> <p>Did the Clinton and Bush administrations do enough to stop the 9/11 attacks? The answer is no - for the simple reason that the attacks took place. The only way either administration could have "done enough" is to have acted to pre-empt those attacks.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- It is only March but the 2004 Chutzpah of the Year Award can be safely given out. It goes to Richard Clarke, now making himself famous by blaming the Bush administration for 9/11 -- after Clarke had spent eight years in charge of counterterrorism for a Clinton administration that did nothing.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — Impassioned and incredulous, Bob Kerrey held little back in criticizing both the Clinton and Bush administration for the way they dealt with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida before Sept. 11. It was a big mistake, said the commissioner on the federal panel investigating the attacks, not to use military force against a terrorist organization already suspected in attacks against U.S. interests since the early 1990s. The former Democratic senator from Nebraska did not spare high-ranking officials from either administration who testified over two days of public hearings on Capitol Hill. "I just want to say for the...

WASHINGTON - Two former cabinet members denied yesterday that former President Bill Clinton's attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq in 1998 were "Wag the Dog" distractions from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "Under no circumstances did President Clinton ever call upon the military and use that military in order to serve a political purpose," said former Defense Secretary William Cohen. Madeleine Albright, who was Secretary of State when the cruise missiles were launched at Afghanistan and Iraq, said the attacks were based solely on "actionable intelligence. I believe we acted appropriately." In testimony before the 9/11 commission, Albright said the actions were...

This was heard at 1:45 today: David Anser to Wolf Blitzer: "Now, I should mention to you that this afternoon..ah..I know a little more than I'm allowed to say due to the embargo rules. Ah.. there will be some interesting news this afternoon when the subject will be military..ah..on the subject on the hunt for Bin Laden. So those who are interested in that will want to stay tuned for what's going to be happening this afternoon." Wolf: "Ok David. You've whetted our appetite. Certainly we will be watching when the former Sec. of Defense, Richard Cohen and Current Sec....

For Bush administration, help from an unlikely source BY KEN FIREMAN WASHINGTON BUREAU March 23, 2004, 8:54 PM EST WASHINGTON -- When it really needed it, the beleaguered Bush administration found some succor Tuesday from an unlikely and potentially dangerous source: the commission investigating the 9/11 terror attacks. Just as the administration was launching a frantic effort to fend off the allegations of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that it failed to take al-Qaida seriously before 9/11, the commission delivered a couple of priceless gifts. The first was a new staff report revealing that the previous administration --...

Public Hearing September 11 Commission National Cmsn. on Terrorist Attacks 9AM EST on C-span1 Albright, Madeleine, Secretary, Department of State Cohen, William S., Secretary, Department of Defense Powell, Colin, Secretary, Department of State Rumsfeld, Donald, Secretary, Department of Defense

NATO said it won a great victory, but the war did very little damage to Serb forces. By not conceding this, the Pentagon may mislead future presidents about the limits of U.S. power. A NEWSWEEK exclusive. It was acclaimed as the most successful air campaign ever. "A turning point in the history of warfare," wrote the noted military historian John Keegan, proof positive that "a war can be won by airpower alone." At a press conference last June, after Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic agreed to pull his Army from Kosovo at the end of a 78-day aerial bombardment that had...

  Iraq Resumes WMD Activities, New York Times Reports                                        Monday, January 22, 2001 Press reports that Iraq has rebuilt chemical and biological weapons plants bombed by the United States in late 1998 present newly-inaugurated President George W. Bush with a serious non-proliferation challenge. A New York Times report that Iraq has rebuilt chemical and biological weapons-capable plants at Falluja demonstrates the continued threat posed to regional stability by Saddam Hussein. A recently released Department of Defense report "Proliferation: Threat and Response: 2001" stated that Iraq "may have begun program reconstitution" of its chemical and biological weapons capabilities. The news story...