Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Wondering why the Bush administration only "significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar" this spring, The New Republic interviewed Pakistani security officials. One member of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence said, "The Pakistani government ...
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Peter Bergen, a professor of international studies and author of a recent book about Osama Bin Laden, takes a look at Laurie Mylroie of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), whose theory that Iraq was behind Al Qaeda exerted strong influence on the Bush administration's decision for war. "She is a conspiracy theorist whose political conceits have consistently been proved wrong," Bergen says.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
In our book, Weapons of Mass Deception, we wrote that the famous toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue, a moment that seemed to symbolize victory for U.S. troops in Iraq, was staged by the U.S. army. Now the army has admitted it.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
U.S. military censors are vetting video and audio footage of Saddam Hussein's Baghdad trial, according to Variety. Some of the edited footage provided to U.S. news networks might have come from Defense Department cameras, the only ones allowed to record sound.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"Perhaps no list of reporters has commanded such attention in Washington since Richard Nixon compiled his enemies list more than thirty years ago," writes Douglas McCollam, discussing the reporters whose names and phone numbers appear in a confidential July 2002 memorandum from the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The memo lists 108 news stories that were influenced by INC-supplied defectors.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Cold War hawks are resurrecting a decades-old group to lobby for a harder line against terrorist organizations and rogue states," reports The Hill. The Committee on the Present Danger will see its third incarnation (it was established in 1950 and re-formed in 1976) as a Washington DC-based lobby group, headed by PR pro and former Reagan adviser Peter Hannaford.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The "handover of power" to Iraq is "a publicity stunt and has almost no substance to it," says Middle East history professor Juan Cole. "Gwen Ifill said on US television on Sunday that she had talked to Condaleeza Rice, and that her hope was that when something went wrong in Iraq, the journalists would now grill Allawi about it rather than the Bush administration. (Or words to that effect.) Ifill seems to me to have given away the whole Bush show. That's what this whole thing is about. It is Public Relations and manipulation of journalists. Let's see if they fall for it."
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"A private British firm that won a $293 million contract from the Pentagon for coordinating security in Iraq is headed by a retired British commando with a reputation for illicit arms deals in Africa and for commanding a murderous military unit in Northern Ireland," reports Charles M. Sennott. The firm is owned by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former British military officer.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
A leaked memo by Republican advisor Frank Luntz advises GOP politicians to avoid the words "preemption" and "war in Iraq" when talking about the Bush administration's pre-emptive war in Iraq. "To do so is to undermine your message from the start," he advises.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The White House and Fox News are spinning furiously in response to the 9/11 commission's recent report, which contradicts one of the administration's key arguments for war with its finding that there was no working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
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