Italy probes US marine for murder in Iraq

ROME (Reuters) - Italian magistrates have placed a U.S. marine under official investigation for murder over the killing of an Italian agent in Iraq earlier this year, judicial sources said on Thursday.

Intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was shot dead at an improvised U.S. checkpoint on a road near Baghdad in March as he was accompanying an Italian hostage to safety.

Italy and the United States held a joint inquiry into the incident, but they failed to agree joint conclusions and instead issued conflicting reports. While the U.S. military exonerated its troops of any blame, Rome said nervous, inexperienced American soldiers and a badly executed road block were at the root of the shooting.

In the meantime, Italy's independent judiciary have pushed ahead with their own probe and have carried out forensic tests on the car Calipari was traveling in when he came under fire.

Source Reuters

Agent 'W' in 'Get Smarter' ( Must Watch Animation )

Another classic animation from Mark fiore . This time he looks at the claims of internal spying in the U.S.



You can watch it here Here

Americans ' tortured me ' Saddam claims

Saddam Hussein has been beaten and tortured by the Americans, he has alleged at his trial in Baghdad. "I have been beaten on every place of my body, and the signs are all over my body," he told the court.





A White House spokesman dismissed the accusation, calling it "preposterous", AFP news agency reported. Saddam Hussein is on trial over the killing of 148 people in the Iraqi Shia village of Dujail in 1982. He denies responsibility for the deaths.

Several times during his outburst, the sound feed to the television coverage being seen across Iraq was muted, the BBC's Quil Lawrence reports from Baghdad.

This has been seen as an attempt to keep Saddam Hussein from upstaging the testimony of the witnesses who claimed today that they were tortured at the hands of the former regime, he says.

The prosecution gave little credence to the former president's claim he had been tortured, saying he was being held in an air-conditioned room when some of Baghdad had no power.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar Mousawi said the claims would be investigated and that he would ask for Saddam Hussein to be transferred to Iraqi custody if there was any truth to them.

Iraq's former leader had appeared to accept the court proceedings in the morning after boycotting an earlier sitting, calling the court "unjust". But late in the afternoon, he delivered a lengthy, rambling statement in which he claimed he and his co-defendants had been abused by their American jailers.

Watch a video of events in the court today including Saddam making this claim Here . (Video from the BBC , windows media player required)

Source : BBC

Is President Bush a liar ? (Must Watch Video)

The 'New York Times’ eavesdropping story .

Was President Bush 'lying' then or is he 'lying' now ?

Either way it seems he is a liar.



Watch the five minute video Here (Windows media file )

Or Flash Presentation

My source : ICH

America kidnapped me

By Khaled El-Masri, KHALED EL-MASRI, a German citizen born in Lebanon, was a car salesman before he was detained in December 2003.




( LA Times ) THE U.S. POLICY of "extraordinary rendition" has a human face, and it is mine.

I am still recovering from an experience that was completely beyond the pale, outside the bounds of any legal framework and unacceptable in any civilized society. Because I believe in the American system of justice, I sued George Tenet, the former CIA director, last week. What happened to me should never be allowed to happen again.

I was born in Kuwait and raised in Lebanon. In 1985, when Lebanon was being torn apart by civil war, I fled to Germany in search of a better life. There I became a citizen and started my own family. I have five children.

On Dec. 31, 2003, I took a bus from Germany to Macedonia. When we arrived, my nightmare began. Macedonian agents confiscated my passport and detained me for 23 days. I was not allowed to contact anyone, including my wife.

At the end of that time, I was forced to record a video saying I had been treated well. Then I was handcuffed, blindfolded and taken to a building where I was severely beaten. My clothes were sliced from my body with a knife or scissors, and my underwear was forcibly removed. I was thrown to the floor, my hands pulled behind me, a boot placed on my back. I was humiliated.

Eventually my blindfold was removed, and I saw men dressed in black, wearing black ski masks. I did not know their nationality. I was put in a diaper, a belt with chains to my wrists and ankles, earmuffs, eye pads, a blindfold and a hood. I was thrown into a plane, and my legs and arms were spread-eagled and secured to the floor. I felt two injections and became nearly unconscious. I felt the plane take off, land and take off. I learned later that I had been taken to Afghanistan.

There, I was beaten again and left in a small, dirty, cold concrete cell. I was extremely thirsty, but there was only a bottle of putrid water in the cell. I was refused fresh water.

That first night I was taken to an interrogation room where I saw men dressed in the same black clothing and ski masks as before. They stripped and photographed me, and took blood and urine samples. I was returned to the cell, where I would remain in solitary confinement for more than four months.

The following night my interrogations began. They asked me if I knew why I had been detained. I said I did not. They told me that I was now in a country with no laws, and did I understand what that meant?

They asked me many times whether I knew the men who were responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, if I had traveled to Afghanistan to train in camps and if I associated with certain people in my town of Ulm, Germany. I told the truth: that I had no connection to any terrorists, had never been in Afghanistan and had never been involved in any extremism. I asked repeatedly to meet with a representative of the German government, or a lawyer, or to be brought before a court. Always, my requests were ignored.

In desperation, I began a hunger strike. After 27 days without food, I was taken to meet with two Americans — the prison director and another man, referred to as "the Boss." I pleaded with them to release me or bring me before a court, but the prison director replied that he could not release me without permission from Washington. He also said that he believed I should not be detained in the prison.

After 37 days without food, I was dragged to the interrogation room, where a feeding tube was forced through my nose into my stomach. I became extremely ill, suffering the worst pain of my life.

After three months, I was taken to meet an American who said he had traveled from Washington, D.C., and who promised I would soon be released. I was also visited by a German-speaking man who explained that I would be allowed to return home but warned that I was never to mention what had happened because the Americans were determined to keep the affair a secret.

On May 28, 2004, almost five months after I was first kidnapped, I was blindfolded, handcuffed and chained to an airplane seat. I was told we would land in a country other than Germany, because the Americans did not want to leave traces of their involvement, but that I would eventually get to Germany.

After we landed I was driven into the mountains, still blindfolded. My captors removed my handcuffs and blindfold and told me to walk down a dark, deserted path and not to look back. I was afraid I would be shot in the back.

I turned a bend and encountered three men who asked why I was illegally in Albania. They took me to the airport, where I bought a ticket home (my wallet had been returned to me). Only after the plane took off did I believe I was actually going home. I had long hair, a beard and had lost 60 pounds. My wife and children had gone to Lebanon, believing I had abandoned them. Thankfully, now we are together again in Germany.

I still do not know why this happened to me. I have been told that the American secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, confirmed in a meeting with the German chancellor that my case was a "mistake" — and that American officials later denied that she said this. I was not present at this meeting. No one from the American government has ever contacted me or offered me any explanation or apology for the pain they caused me.

Secretary Rice has stated publicly, during a discussion of my case, that "any policy will sometimes result in errors." But that is exactly why extraordinary rendition is so dangerous. As my interrogators made clear when they told me I was being held in a country with no laws, the very purpose of extraordinary rendition is to deny a person the protection of the law.

I begged my captors many times to bring me before a court, where I could explain to a judge that a mistake had been made. Every time, they refused. In this way, a "mistake" that could have been quickly corrected led to several months of cruel treatment and meaningless suffering, for me and my entire family.

My captors would not bring me to court, so last week I brought them to court. Helped by the American Civil Liberties Union, I sued the U.S. government because I believe what happened to me was illegal and should not be done to others. And I believe the American people, when they hear my story, will agree.

UK : Did Intelligence agencies have prior knowledge of 'London Underground' attack !

( The Times ) Spymasters warned Tony Blair before the July 7 suicide bombings that Al-Qaeda was planning a “high priority” attack specifically aimed at the London Tube.



A leaked four-page report by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which oversees all spying, is the first definitive evidence that the intelligence services expected terrorists to strike at the Underground.

The disclosure will fuel critics’ suspicions that Blair decided to rule out a public inquiry into the bombings last week because it could expose intelligence failings at the highest level.

The document, marked Top Secret and signed off by the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the government eavesdropping centre, was based partly on the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al-Qaeda’s then operations chief.

It stated: “The UK and its interests remain high in Al-Qaeda’s priorities . . . Plans have been considered to attack Heathrow, the London Underground and other targets.”

Ministers and senior security officials have insisted that there was no warning of an imminent attack ahead of the July 7 bombings, in which 56 people died. While technically true, the leaked document dated April, 2003, will be seized on by critics to show that ministers failed to disclose that they knew Al-Qaeda was targeting the Tube.

A statement in September 2003 by the prime minister and Sir John Stevens, the then Metropolitan police commissioner, that a suicide attack was “inevitable”, did not name the Tube as a specific target.

The performance of MI5 has already been criticised because it lost track of Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the suicide gang, whom it placed under temporary surveillance 18 months before the bombings.

Officers judged that Khan was not an immediate threat to national security and decided to stop monitoring him.

Blair ruled out a public inquiry on the grounds that it would detract from the investigation into the July 7 bombs and the failed July 21 attacks.

The report dated April 2, 2003 is entitled International Terrorism: The Current Threat from Islamic Extremists. Mohammed, who organised the 9/11 attacks, had been arrested in Pakistan the previous month.

In a key passage it states: “The UK and its interests remain high in Al-Qaeda’s priorities. Interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees confirms this. “It shows that plans have been considered to attack Heathrow, the London Underground and other targets.” The report adds that terrorist suspects with links to east Africa are under surveillance.

“We do not yet know the full nature of their activity, but they do not appear to be planning attacks here (some were questioned by the police).”

JIC documents are circulated to a small group of senior ministers. These include the home secretary, the foreign secretary and defence secretary as well as top civil servants in Whitehall.

The Tories demanded the government publish the whole JIC document and disclose what other intelligence there had been about threats to the Tube. Patrick Mercer, the party’s homeland security spokesman, said: “This leak underlines our demand for an independent inquiry.”

Cheney makes surprise visit to Iraq ( Utilizing the 'Last Throws' of his credibility ?)

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has made an unannounced visit to Iraq - his first since the 2003 US-led invasion. Mr Cheney praised Iraq's "tremendous" elections last week and was described by President Jalal Talabani as a "hero for liberating Iraq".



The visit was kept so secret that it is thought even the Talabani as a "hero for liberating Iraq".

Iraqi prime minister was not told beforehand. As one of the main advocates of the Iraq war, Mr Cheney has come under constant criticism by opponents. The trip - Mr Cheney's first since 1991 when he was defence minister in George Bush senior's administration - came on the same day that President George W Bush was to give a prime-time address on Iraq.

The vice-president flew around the Baghdad area in a pack of eight fast-moving Blackhawk helicopters with guns mounted on the sides, the Associated Press news agency reports.

It has been a difficult few months for the vice-president, culminating in the five criminal charges filed against his chief of staff Lewis Libby over the investigation into the leak of the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Add to that Mr Cheney's recent humiliating failure to stop the Senate passing new guidelines for the treatment of detainees - and the vice-president no longer looks all-powerful.

Even the Democrats see him as a weakness worth exploiting, with Senate minority leader Harry Reid saying the vice-president was involved in the "manipulation of intelligence to sell the war in Iraq" and that America could do better.

This is Mr Cheney's first visit to Iraq since the war began ....