Picture of the Day

Toile
©2004 Pierre-Paul Feyte

Zionism: A Conspiracy Against Jews

Bankers Backed Nazism And Zionism

By Henry Makow Ph.D
6-27-4

In 1935 the steamer "Tel Aviv" made its maiden voyage from Nazi Germany to Haifa with Hebrew letters on its bow and a Nazi flag fluttering from its mast. The Captain of the Zionist-owned ship was a member of the Nazi Party. A passenger described the spectacle as a "metaphysical absurdity." Actually it made perfect sense. The ship transported German Jews who had taken advantage of the "Haavara" program, which allowed them to exchange their money for its value in German products in Palestine. As a result, the fledgling Jewish colony received about 70,000 highly educated German Jews and 140 million Reichmarks worth of German industrial equipment. This laid the foundation of Israel's economic infrastructure. The arrangement also boosted the Nazi economy at a time when Jews worldwide were boycotting German goods. (My source here is "The Secret Contacts" by Klaus Polkehn a prominent German journalist. It is included in Olivia O'Grady's The Beasts of the Apocalyse, 2001, 421- 447.)

Why retell this story of Zionist-Nazi cooperation? Because "Jewish" leaders have been exploiting their "lesser brethren" for a long time, and are doing so today. Ordinary Jews pay the price and this price could rise. In my opinion, Zionism is a movement to deceive Jews into advancing the objectives of British imperialism. (See, "The Jewish Conspiracy is British Imperialism")

Of course, Zionists who have built their lives on a false premise naturally will reject this view. Specifically, Jews helped the British-Jewish elite colonize the oil-rich Middle East under the pretext of Jews needing a national home. Despite the appearance of neutrality, the British (and Americans) financed, trained and equipped the Jews. (John Coleman, Diplomacy by Deception p. 107.)

The "British" are really the London-based international banking cartel associated with names like Rothschild and Rockefeller. It doesn't answer to any government. Its goal is to colonize the world and everyone in it. Jews are a means to this end. As seen in Iraq, Zionists (a.k.a Neocons) play a major role in the colonization of the Middle East.

The important thing to remember is that Israel is the creation of this cartel; both Israel and the US are its tools. Iraq is only a phase in the emerging New World Order, which represents a continuation of the goals of "British" imperialism. John Kerry will take up in Iraq where George Bush leaves off. Democracy is a charade.

NAZIS MADE TO MEASURE FOR ZIONISM

In 1925, Germany's 500,000 Jews were overwhelmingly indifferent or actively hostile to Zionism. The German Zionist movement had only 9000 members. The "Central Union of Germans of the Jewish Faith " represented most German Jews and favored active participation in German life. Its main focus was on combating anti-Semitism.

Zionists, on the other hand, welcomed the Nazis' anti Semitic policies. Like the Nazis, they believed in race-based national character and destiny. Like the Nazis, they believed Jews had no future in Germany. The Zionists did not protest Nazi persecution such as the removal of 2000 Jewish scholars and scientists from German universities in 1933. The Nazis rewarded this "restraint" by allowing the Zionists to go about their work unhindered.

All other Jewish and anti fascist organizations were disbanded and their members imprisoned. The Nazis required all Jews to join the Zionist-led "Reich Union" whose goal was emigration. Jews were to be converted to Zionism at any cost. The Zionists were able to publish books and newspapers critical of the Nazis so long as the audience was restricted to Jews.

The cooperation extended to political and economic spheres. Adolph Eichmann set up agricultural training camps in Austria to prepare young Jews for Kibbutz life. He visited Palestine and conferred with Zionist leaders who confessed their true expansionist goals. There was even talk of a strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and Jewish Palestine.

His report is in Himmler's Archives. (440-447) [For more on Zionist-Nazi cooperation, see online Lenni Brenner "Zionism in the Age of Dictators" http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner Also, Lenni Brenner, 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration With the Nazis (2002)] The cooperation may have extended to the Jewish Holocaust and explain why most Jews passively accepted their fate. In his book, "The Holocaust Victims Accuse" Rabbi Moshe Shonfeld claims that Zionist- led Jewish Councils ("Judenrats") collaborated with the Nazis and deceived non Zionist Jews. See my "Zionism: Compulsory Suicide for Jews." http://www.savethemales.ca/091202.html

Europe's Jews were worth more dead than alive to Zionists and their financial sponsors. The Holocaust provided a political and moral rationale for the establishment of the Jewish state.

WHO WAS HITLER?

Hitler was sponsored by the banker oligarchy, and may have been their pawn. Certainly the Nazis received millions of dollars from New York and London. Ernst ("Putzi") Hanfstaengl was close to both the bankers and Hitler and funnelled money to the Nazis during their formative years. http://www.reformation.org/roosevelt-and-hitler.html See also Antony Sutton "Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler" Chapter Eight http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-hitler.html

But when Hitler began to print his own money, he may have alienated these sponsors. See "Rothschild Conducts Red Symphony" http://www.savethemales.ca/000275.html The bottom line is that both Nazism and Zionism were sponsored by the same banking cartel and had complementary goals. The rise of anti Semitism in Europe served to create the State of Israel, which President Assad of Syria described as a "dagger in the heart of the Arab nations." (Ed: And we note that anti-semitism is still used by Sharon to futher his goals)

THE BANKSTER AGENDA

All money is created in the form of debt to the privately owned banking cartel. Imagine if you could create money out of thin air. Imagine you have the credit cards of all the nations in your pocket. Your first impulse is to lend money to your nominees so they can buy most of the world's real wealth for you.

Your second impulse is to establish a totalitarian system ("world government" globalization) to prevent any nation from challenging this system or defaulting on their "debt" to you. To make them accept "world government," you need to weaken them by having them fight among themselves, run up huge debts for armaments (which you will sell them), kill off the cream of their manhood, and become demoralized and decadent.

You accomplish this through your ownership of politicians and the press and your control of MI-6, CIA who will carry out assassinations and acts of terror. This is the real history of the last 300 years. "World government" is really about using debt to enslave us; it is an international loan collection agency. Naturally you will shroud this with talk about tolerance, human rights and preventing war.

A quote from a 1924 edition of the American Banker's Association Digest sums up what is currently happening:

"When, through the process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well known among our principal men who are now engaged in forming imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance. " http://www.members.shaw.ca/theultimatescam/The%20Bank%20of%20Canada.htm

Now consider the words of an Illuminati defector, Svali. "The conflict in the Middle East is only to the advantage of the Illuminists. They HATE Israel, and hope one day to see it destroyed, and are biding their time. One of the olive branches offered by the UN when it takes over is that they will prevent war in the Middle East, and this will be greeted with joy by many. At the same time, the Illuminati covertly supply guns and funds to BOTH sides to keep the conflict fuelled. They are very duplicitous people...These people love the game of chess, and see warfare between nations as creating an order out of chaos." In a personal email, she added: "I have always wondered this, though, why some of the highest ranking financial families in the group (Baron Rothschild of France is one of the 13 European lords, or "kings" that run the group in Europe, and sits on the World Council) are Jewish, yet the group espouses hatred of their own race." http://www.savethemales.ca/141002.html

CONCLUSION

Ben Hecht said that reading the daily news to understand current events is like telling the time by looking at the second hand. You have to look at the decade and century hands to see what is really going on in the world. The Rothschild-Rockefeller banking cartel is behind most political (and cultural) trends and its goal is to destroy the nation state, true democracy, religion, culture, marriage and family, in order to degrade humanity to animal status in advance of totalitarianism.

In the "war on terror," they have created a boogeyman to justify a system of repression that will be necessary when they call in their "loans." I used to be a Zionist and believed that Jews needed a homeland because of anti Semitism. I realize now that, like most of history, this view was mostly contrived. Anti Semitism is caused because many Jews serve (consciously or unconsciously) the bankers' harmful agenda. Zionism and Communism are examples.

Most Jews are now totally identified with Israel, which is a tool of the Rothschilds' demented megalomania. If past is preface, this cannot end well for Jews or anyone.

Comment: We have been alluding to the above for almost a year now. We have consistently stated that the ordinary Jews are being set up. What Makow does not answer in the above is, why do these so called Jews seem to hate Jewish people? This is a question that we hope to answer very shortly...

Click here to comment on this article

Bin Laden Aimed To Link Plot to Israel

By Marc Perelman
June 25, 2004

In an interim staff report released last week, the presidential commission investigating the September 11, 2001, attacks shed new light on the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Al Qaeda's worldview.

The disclosures seem to weaken Israeli claims that the issue was only a secondary priority for Osama bin Laden, and they could rekindle the debate about whether U.S. support for Israel is hindering national security.

In a 20-page report titled "Outline of the 9-11 Plot," the commission, which is to issue a final report at the end of July, describes bin Laden's willingness to time the attacks against America with two visits by Prime Minister Sharon, one in Jerusalem and one in Washington.

The report claims that Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, or KSM, the alleged mastermind of the attacks who was arrested in March 2003 in Pakistan, told his U.S. captors that bin Laden "wanted to punish the United States for supporting Israel."

This is why, according to KSM, bin Laden asked him to conduct the attacks "as early as mid-2000" in response to the outcry prompted by the visit of then-opposition leader Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the report states. Even though the Al Qaeda hijackers had barely arrived in the United States to take flight lessons, the Saudi renegade allegedly argued that it would be enough if they smashed planes to the ground without hitting specific targets. The report claims that KSM talked him out of the plan.

Bin Laden, however, reportedly asked him again a year later to hasten the preparations of the plot when he learned that Sharon, now prime minister, would visit the White House in June or July 2001, according to the report. [...]

It noted that Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the plot, chose the second week of September to ensure that Congress, "the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel" would be in session. Atta, who lived in Germany with several other hijackers, "denounced what he described as a global Jewish movement centered in New York City which, he claimed, controlled the financial world and the media."

In a chilling detail, the report also mentions that KSM indicated that Mullah Omar, the former Taliban leader in Afghanistan, "opposed [Al Qaeda's plan to attack] the United States for ideological reasons but permitted attacks against Jewish targets."

"Bin Laden, on the other hand, reportedly argued that attacks against the United States needed to be carried out immediately to support the insurgency in the Israeli-occupied territories and to protest the presence of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia," according to the report.

Comment: Are we seeing some preemptive damage limitation here? How could Israel be implicated in the 9/11 attacks when Israel itself was on bin-Laden's "most wanted list"? Israel is a victim of not just Palestinian "terror" but al-Qaeda "terror" too, see?

The truth is that Israel is not in the sights of Bin Laden, but the 9/11 commission (controlled by Zionists) and their supporters in the US media, like the author of this article Marc Perelman, are attempting to convince us that it is. Note also that the commission is attempting to tie Osama and al-Qaeda to the IDEA of a global Jewish movement centered in New York City which, Osama's henchman Mohammed Atta claimed "controlled the financial world and the media."

The evidence points to the likelihood that there is indeed a global Jewish movement centered in New York City which controls the financial world and the media, but by associating this outrageous truth with Atta, the powers the be ensure that it will be rejected out of hand. Conversely, the equally outrageous lie that Bin Laden was factoring Israel into his attack plans, will be taken as truth because it fits into the entirely false idea of a "war on terror".

Click here to comment on this article

Gaza Militants Blow Up Israeli Army Post

By Nidal al-Mughrabi
27/06/2004

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants blew up an Israeli army post in the Gaza Strip Sunday, wounding at least six soldiers in the explosion from a huge bomb hidden in a tunnel beneath.

Israeli Channel 10 Television said one soldier was believed dead, but emergency services were uncertain there had been fatalities. They said one soldier had been trapped in the rubble after the blast near a Jewish settlement.

The attack was certain to fuel argument in the Jewish state over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate troops and settlers from the territory by the end of 2005.

Rescue efforts were hampered by Palestinian gun and mortar fire directed toward the scene, on the route to the Gush Khatif settlement bloc. The militant Islamic Hamas movement and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group in President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed joint responsibility.

They called it retaliation for Israel's assassination of two top Hamas leaders earlier this year as well as the killing of a leader of the al-Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank city of Nablus Saturday.

The factions said 1,500 kg of explosives were hidden at the end of a 350 meter (yard) tunnel under the post.

Cheering crowds of tens of thousands of Palestinians filled the streets of Gaza City in celebration. Gunmen fired in the air and youths set off pipe-bombs.

"God pleased our hearts. An eye for an eye," they chanted.

Violence has surged in Gaza since February, when Sharon announced the plan to quit the desert territory, which many Israelis see as a costly liability.

The cabinet approved his initiative in principle on June 6 despite opposition from pro-settler right-wingers. They say it would be "a victory for Palestinian terror" and are against ceding land captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Militants sworn to destroying Israel want to portray any withdrawal as a success for their efforts, while the army is determined to smash them before pulling out of the strip.

A Palestinian policeman and a teen-ager were shot dead by Israeli troops shortly after the explosion at the army post, medics and witnesses said. An Israeli army commander at the scene said troops fired toward gunmen.

Scores of Palestinians were killed in a huge raid into Gaza last month following the deaths of 13 Israeli soldiers in ambushes.

Israeli forces Sunday ended their deadliest raid in the West Bank for months after killing the commander of the al-Aqsa Brigades militant group.

Israeli security sources said Nayef Abu Sharkh, 38, was responsible for numerous attempts to dispatch suicide bombers to Israel. A senior Fatah official said Abu Sharkh had been at odds with Arafat over empowering new leaders within the movement and ending corruption.

Click here to comment on this article

Gaza rockets kill two in Israel

Monday, 28 June, 2004

Palestinian rockets have slammed into an Israeli town killing two people - one of them a three-year old child.

At least nine other people were injured in the southern town of Sderot after two rockets launched from the nearby Gaza Strip landed near a kindergarten.

Militants often fire rockets into Israel from Gaza, but this is the first time they have killed Israelis.

Israeli security sources said two rockets landed near a Sderot school and shopping centre.

A man was killed as well as the three-year-old boy. The child's mother was among the injured.

Television footage from the scene showed a child's shoes lying in a pool of blood in the street. [...]

Palestinian militant groups Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades both separately claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they were avenging the deaths of leaders and activists killed by Israel, including seven militants shot dead in the West Bank over the weekend.

Comment: It is not surprising that Hamas, as an Israeli asset, can be relied on to carry out attacks against the IDF, when and where Sharon needs them. In playing both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Sharon essentially neutralises any real Palestinians resistance. What do you do when your adversary is prepared to kill his "own people" in order to justify further attacks against you? Is anyone going to believe you if you make such a claim?

In this way Sharon can feel confident that the outcome of the Middle East crisis will not be complicated by the threat of peace. When Sharon feels that his plans needs a boost, he can simply drop his guard, and allow his own personal "Palestinian terrorists" (aka Hamas) to infiltrate Israeli territory or an Israeli target and carry out an attack. Sharon cannot claim this tactic as his own however, it is well known in the world of international politics, and has been used often to great effect, most notably in New York City, the day before September 11th 2001...

Click here to comment on this article

Flashback: Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted

Curtis L. Taylor and Sean Gardiner STAFF WRITERS
September 12, 2001

The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday.

Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed. [...]

Click here to comment on this article

Israel: Fence in north has cut terror penetrations to zero

By Haaretz Service
27/06/2004

Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim said Sunday that terrorist infiltrations had been reduced to "zero" in areas in which the West Bank separation fence had been built.

Boim was speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting Sunday to discuss construction and evaluation of the barrier.

He said 200 kilometers of the barrier along the Seam Line border with the West Bank had been operating for 10 months. "It has gone from a situation of 600 terrorist operations and criminal activities a year, to zero. It saves lives, and creates quality of life." [...]

The cabinet is to hear reports on the three major sections of the fence, beginning with the northern sector, which includes areas near the militant focus of Nablus.

In the southern sector, from the Tunnels Road in Bethlehem area, south along the Hebron-Be'er Sheva highway, work is to be completed by the end of next year.

Construction of the central sector, a 106-kilometer stretch from Elkana settlement to Jerusalem, has been stalled by demonstrations and petitions to the High Court of Justice over the route, which in many areas cuts eastward from the pre-1967 war Green Line border, effectively placing many Palestinians and much of their land on the "Israel" side of the fence.

Comment: How easy it is for Israel to again create "facts on the ground" by ordering its private "terrorist organisation, Hamas, to stop the suicide bombings, thereby creating the appearance that the wall is working.

Click here to comment on this article

Captive US marine faces execution in Iraq

Monday 28 June 2004

A US marine captured by a purported Iraqi resistance group is to be decapitated unless certain prisoners held in occupation prisons are released.

In a video broadcast by Aljazeera on Sunday, the Islamic Retaliation Movement/Armed Resistance Wing said US marine Hassoun Wassef Ali would be beheaded if detainees in US-led occupation prisons were not freed.

The group claims to have taken Ali - of Pakistani origin - captive after "infiltrating a US military base in Iraq".

The video received by Aljazeera shows a kneeling, blindfolded, moustached man in camouflage military garb. A hand holding a long sword is seen standing behind Ali.

US occupation forces acknowledged that a US marine had been reported missing.

US marine corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun has been missing in Iraq since last Monday, a spokesman for the US Marine Corps confirmed in Baghdad late on Sunday.

"Although we can't confirm that he has been taken hostage, we can confirm that that he has been absent from his unit since June 21," Major Douglas Powell said.

Hassoun was attached the the First Marine Expeditionary Force, and his unit was operating west of Falluja, Powell said.

Pakistani driver seized

Just hours earlier, an unidentified group of purported Iraqi fighters threatened to behead a Pakistani driver working for a US-occupation contractor within three days.

The captors also urged Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to shut down his country's embassy in Iraq.

The second captive was named as Yusuf Amjad, an employee of US contractor Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR).

KBR is a subsidiary of the giant Halliburton company which was once headed by US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Like other contractors for the US-led occupation, it has suffered mounting attacks on its staff.

"This man was taken after an attack on a US base in Balad," said one of the masked fighters on a tape obtained by Al-Arabiya.

"You must release our prisoners held near the US base in Balad, in Dujail, in Yathrib, in Samarra and near Abu Ghraib. You have three days from the date of this recording and after that we will behead him. We have warned you."

Comment: Think for a moment, of the actual results of the spate of hostage taking in Iraq by so-called "militants". To date NOTHING has been achieved by the "militants". Not ONE of their demands have been met, yet they seem unconcerned and determined to continue. Indeed, it seems that it is recognised in 'official' circles that there is no hope that the acts of kidnap and beheading will ever achieve the stated demands of the "militants".

For example, CNN military analyst David Grange has this to say about the taking of hostages in Iraq:

"Well, there’s not going to be any compromise, so it doesn't matter how many more are taken. The U.S. government and most of the other coalition governments will not give in."

On the other hand, we notice that these kidnappings and beheadings have achieved a very definite result on the thinking of the average westerner, particularly the average American. The more conservative message boards and news sites are awash with condemnation of these killings, with commentators lambasting the crazy Arab fundamentalists and calling for their extermination, while at the same time using the killings to laud America as the great democracy. The problem is that, in the mind of the average uneducated, ethno-centric American, images and accounts of the beheadings tend to be interpreted as representative of the natural inclination of all Arabs. The US and Israel have made no secret of their intentions to "reform" the Arab world, after all, Israel will benefit greatly from it. The demonisation of all Arabs, by way of staged killings of westerners which are then attributed to Arabs, is a very effective way for the US government to garner support from the western public for its long term plan to sow widespread death and destruction in the Middle East, while claiming to be spreading freedom and democracy.

With the twisted logic understandable only by a mind obsessed with its own self importance and possessed by cravings for power, the directors of these policies actually believe that they are working for the good of the masses. They see their actions as creating order out of chaos, or better said, control out of free will. It appears also that they fully accept that many people will have to die before "order" (control) can be restored to their planet.

Five key questions raised by the murder of Nick Berg are:

1) Are American intelligence teams killing other Americans in Iraq, specifically U.S. soldiers, to maintain the illusion of continued violence?

2) Why is it necessary to create the illusion of a crazed, violent, implacable enemy in the Middle East? What is the real situation?

3) Are all the stories we see on network news manufactured illusions, or just the important ones?

4) Are all Islamic terrorists American agents, or just some of them?

5) Besides Nick Berg, how many Americans have been murdered by their own government to create nation-rattling news events since the appointment of
George W. Bush to the presidency? 3, 300, 3000?

Click here to comment on this article

Iraq handover of sovereignty completed

Low-key ceremony comes two days early

Monday, June 28, 2004 Posted: 1356 GMT

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Members of Iraq's interim government took an oath of office Monday just hours after the United States returned the nation's sovereignty.

Led by Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, each member of the new government placed a hand on the Koran and promised to serve with sincerity and impartiality. Iraqi flags lined the wall behind them.

Allawi called national unity "a sacred duty" and called for the international community, including Arab nations, "to work together to handle problems in the area in a civilized manner."

"We will not forget who stood by and against us," Allawi said at the swearing in ceremony, a clear warning to insurgents trying to topple the government.

But, he said, "the transformation from dictatorship to civil society" is "a major task" likely to take many years.

The handover of sovereignty took place earlier in the day, at 10:26 a.m. Baghdad time. The transfer of power came two days before the June 30 deadline previously announced by the U.S.-led coalition.

Some Iraqis dismissed the event as meaningless as long as U.S. troops occupy the nation and some said the handover was a step in the right direction. (Full story)

The preparations for the possibility of an early transfer were started a week ago, according to a senior U.S. official.

The low-key transfer ceremony happened inside the Coalition Provisional Authority's "Green Zone" headquarters in Baghdad.

Coalition Administrator Paul Bremer -- now the former administrator -- read his letter contained in the transfer document:

"As recognized in U.N. Security Council resolution 1546, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist on June 28th, at which point the occupation will end and the Iraqi interim government will assume and exercise full sovereign authority on behalf of the Iraqi people. I welcome Iraq's steps to take its rightful place of equality and honor among the free nations of the world. Sincerely, L. Paul Bremer, ex-administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority."

Bremer handed the transfer document to the head of the Iraqi Supreme Court, who then gave it to President Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and the deputy prime minister also attended.

"This is a historic and happy day for us in Iraq," al-Yawar said. "It is a day that all Iraqis have been looking forward to. This is the day that we take our country back into the international community.

"We want a free and democratic Iraq, and we want a country that is a source of peace and stability for the whole world."

The interim Iraqi leaders expressed thanks to the coalition officials and troops, saying their sacrifices would not be in vain.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed the early handover, saying it was an attempt to "seize the initiative" over insurgents, his spokesman said. "We obviously welcome it because it's their decision and it's them taking control," the spokesman said. "What's important now is that the Iraqi people can see Iraqi leaders taking charge in Baghdad."

In Baghdad prior to his departure, Bremer -- dressed in a business suit but wearing tan combat boots -- said he was proud to have been able to return sovereignty. He said he was confident the new government was ready to meet the challenges ahead.

Bremer boarded a helicopter less than an hour later to begin his trip out of Iraq after 14 months as the administrator, according to coalition military spokesman Mark Kimmett. Within two hours, he was out of the country.

Asked by reporters attending the ceremony about why the handover was stepped up by two days, an Iraqi official said Prime Minister Allawi requested it because "every day matters" and they were ready to crack down on violence.

The decision to speed up the ceremony came Monday morning as Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari met with coalition leaders gathered in Istanbul, Turkey, for the NATO summit. [...]

A Reader Comments:

As explanations go, as to why the transfer happend early, that one is sort of vague. I'm seeing it differently, because of something I heard yesterday. My friend called his family in Iraq yesterday, and they were very worried. The word going around is that within the next three days or so, fighting is going to break out all over the country. I asked between who, and why. He said - everyone, the Turkmanis and the Kurds, Arabs and Americans, Arabs and Turkmanis...etc. Especially around Kirkuk.

As to the why, I said I didn't understand the whole notion of 'let's set a date, and all just go fight one another'. He answered that, it's his country and *he* didn't understand. But this fight is being "advertised" almost. The family said that the Americans were considering instituting a curfew for the country because of the word on the street. I searched yesterday night to see if word had spread to the internet, but nothing. Then I found this story this morning.

The above might explain the "Low-key ceremony" two days early. Give power away a quickly as possible, before all hell breaks loose.

Click here to comment on this article

America will wake up to the deaths of their children in Iraq

27 June 2004

Campaigning journalist John Pilger has vehemently opposed the Bush-Blair ‘war on terror’. With power due to be handed to the Iraqi people on Wednesday, Torcuil Crichton asked for his thoughts on that country’s future, and the prospects for world peace

Comment: Note that the "power" has been handed over today...

Torcuil Crichton: What do you believe is the endgame for Iraq?

John Pilger: No-one can predict these things. What I can say is that the uprising in Iraq will continue and the American public may well wake up to the deaths of thousands of its sons and daughters. And just as the mutiny of soldiers and their families and supporters hastened the end in Vietnam, so the same may well happen in Iraq.

TC: Where do you think the “war on terror” will be in 10 years’ time?

JP: The long-term prediction may, just may, be the decline of the American empire, for the same internal reasons of “overstretch” that the Soviet Union collapsed.

TC: What should Britain do with regards to its “special relationship” with the US?

JP: Britain should do what the majority of Britons want. The troops should be brought home now. They have no right to be in Iraq; their presence itself is atrocious, quite apart from the abuses we read about almost every day. The “special relationship” is a sub-imperial relationship; it has no value for the rest of us.

TC: Can the European Union act as a counter to the US’s global influence?

JP: Yes, but apart from a few bursts of pique from the French president, there is no sign of that happening in the near future.

TC: What do you think of your former employer, The Mirror, being stripped of its aggressive anti-war stance?

JP: It’s a great shame. As I understand it, Piers Morgan was working to a long- term strategy, hoping to secure a place in the market and a renewed identity for the paper similar to that which The Mirror once had. Circulation may have dropped, but I think it would have levelled out once people got used to The Mirror’s difference from other tabloids, which are in serious decline. Circulation will drop even faster if The Mirror returns to trivia only.

TC: Can journalism really make a difference?

JP: Yes, journalism can make a difference. Information is power; without it, we are immobilised. Look at the invasion of Iraq. Had the American media fulfilled its constitutional role and challenged and exposed Bush’s lies, instead of channelling and amplifying them, there would have been no invasion, and thousands of Iraqis would be alive today.

TC: Is television now more important than print?

JP: Television and print journalism are different. Television is the source of most people’s information and it has an instant impact. If newspapers complement television, rather than following it slavishly, they prosper, because people look to them to make sense of what they’ve seen on the news. Sadly, more often than not, they are disappointed.

TC: What to you is “committed” journalism?

JP: There is only one form of “committed” journalism we should value, and that is journalism that reflects a commitment not to some spurious equivalence of opposites but to the truth: to stripping away façades and blowing away smokescreens and never accepting the “official truth” of important events.

TC: Given Australian prime minister John Howard’s support of Bush and Blair, how do you feel these days about Australia? Are you ashamed at all to be Australian?

JP: Because human beings do terrible and stupid things, are you ashamed of being a human being? Why should I feel ashamed of my birthright simply because John Howard is prime minister? The problem for Australian society is a colonial mentality that endures. When Australians are moved to demand that their politicians end their obsequiousness to great power, that will be a day to celebrate.

TC: You paint a very cynical view of the world. Is it a cynical world? Or is it simply you that’s cynical?

JP: I have never painted a cynical view of the world. I wrote a book called Heroes, which pays tribute to the struggles of ordinary people all over the world. You confuse the majority of people with those in power. Too often journalists believe being cynical about their readers and viewers ordains them as journalists. It doesn’t; they should redirect their scepticism to the powerful, instead of courting them; for it is they who are truly cynical.

Comment: But surely we can rely on the British media to uphold the standards of objective reporting?...Apparently not anymore.

Click here to comment on this article

BBC to Launch Al-Jazeera Competitor

LONDON (AP - 24 June 2004) - The British Broadcasting Corp. said Thursday it will launch a 24-hour Arabic-language TV news channel to compete with the Qatar-based satellite station Al-Jazeera.

The channel will be broadcast across the Middle East and Europe.

The new channel's $50 million in annual costs will be covered by the Foreign Office, which also provides funding for the BBC World Service's radio network.

The BBC is hoping to rival Al-Jazeera, which has aired many of Osama bin Laden's speeches and has been accused of anti-Western bias.

"After discussions about the changing media scene in the Middle East, and in the light of the growing impact of regional satellite TV services in Arabic, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office asked the BBC World Service to develop a proposition for a BBC Arabic television service,'' the BBC said.

The channel will offer a mix of news, information, discussion programs and documentaries, the network said.

Most programs will be broadcast from London but the channel will have staff based across the Middle East.

The venture follows the recent launch of the U.S. government-funded Al-Hurra TV station, which has been denounced by some Muslim clerics as "propaganda.''

Click here to comment on this article

History or hyperbole?

TIM HARPER

When White House strategists drew up the last triumphal week before Wednesday's handover to an interim Iraqi government, it surely didn't look like this.

Mea culpas, a profane outburst from the vice-president, an attack on journalists and a subsequent apology from the deputy defence secretary.

Danger from an angry filmmaker, a broadside from the son of a Republican icon, the release of hundreds of documents to try to convince Americans that torture of prisoners is not official policy.

An agitated president in a confrontation with an Irish television interviewer, the questioning of the president by the FBI, the first poll numbers showing a majority of Americans believe it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq.

And more than 100 dead in five Iraqi cities in one meticulously co-ordinated day of death.
The parade had hit the ditch before anyone could cue the band.

Debate in Washington revolves around a central question: Will Wednesday become known as a day of history or hyperbole? [...]

Friday, Bush lost his patience with an interviewer on Irish television in advance of a European Union summit.

"Let me finish ... may I finish?'' Bush said, holding his finger aloft, as the interviewer tried to counter his claim that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power.

"Let me finish. Let me finish. You ask the questions and I'll answer them, if you don't mind.''

Meanwhile, Fahrenheit 9/11, director Michael Moore's 116-minute attack on Bush and his war policy has so rankled some high-ranking Republicans, party chairman Ed Gillespie said he thought Shrek 2 was more factual and one conservative group was moving to have the Federal Election Committee shut down Moore's advertising for the movie because it could be deemed election advertising.

Then Ron Reagan, the son of late president Ronald Reagan, took to the airwaves denouncing Bush and his party as a home for bigots.

"We lied our way into the war,'' Reagan said on CNN.

Bush also had to endure questioning for more than an hour by a special prosecutor probing his administration's role in illegally disclosing the name of a CIA agent, the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of the president's pre-war claims about weapons of mass destruction. [...]

American troops will also be immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts and would instead face U.S. justice.
That is particularly contentious in the wake of the abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison.

Saddam Hussein will be "legally'' under Iraqi custody, but physically, he will continue to be held by Americans, meaning, for all intents and purposes, nothing has changed and Iraqis are a long way from trying their tormenter.

While the Bush administration has gone to great pains to publicly state that an interim government has the legal right under full sovereignty to kick the troops out, Wolfowitz said last week no planning has even been done for that possibility. [...]

Pollster James Zogby, on a CNN-televised town hall meeting Friday, likened the June 30 handover to Bush's infamous May 1, 2003, "Mission Accomplished'' speech on an American aircraft carrier.

Wednesday's handover is all about selling hype and ideology over reality, but reality will again "rear its ugly head,'' he said.

Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East expert with the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies, said the Bush administration is rewriting the meaning of sovereignty.

"It is not a sovereign government if it is put into power by an occupying force,'' she said.

"They have no right to counter any of the orders of (Coalition Provisional Authority head) Paul Bremer. The U.S. political authority has given itself immunity against prosecution. The Iraqi government cannot tell the Americans not to go back in and bomb Fallujah or launch strikes in Ramadi.''

Bennis is the lead author of a study on the cost of the Iraqi war, released to coincide with the handover.

It was done, she said, because the Bush administration is trying to "masquerade'' war failures by installing an interim government.

According to the numbers she compiled, 952 coalition troops have been killed since the war began and 5,134 Americans have been wounded.

The study finds between 50 and 90 civilian workers, contractors and missionaries have been killed and 30 journalists have perished.

It also says that anywhere from 9,436 to 11,317 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the war, which Bennis says has cost U.S. taxpayers $126.1 billion (U.S.).

When committed money already in the pipeline is spent, the war will have cost every American household $3,415, Bennis says.

That money could have been used to purchase 678,200 new fire engines, pay the salaries of 3 million elementary school teachers or provide health care for 27 million uninsured Americans. [...]

Click here to comment on this article

'Saddam, US had pre-war deal'

24/06/2004 16:52 - (SA)

Moscow - Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein cut a deal with the United States before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov said in an interview published on Thursday.

"There was an understanding with the Americans, as paradoxical as it may seem," Primakov told the Russian daily Gazeta in a lengthy interview.

"Why weren't the bridges of the Tigris blown up when the American tanks approached Baghdad? Why weren't Iraqi aviation and tanks used, and where are they now?" asked Primakov, a former head of the Russian secret service and a specialist in Arab affairs who was formerly on good terms with Saddam.

"Why was there an immediate ceasefire? Why was there practically no resistance a year ago?" he added.

Primakov, who now heads Russia's chamber of trade and industry, also cast doubt on the authenticity of footage of Saddam's reported capture that circled the world on December 14.

"They showed two soldiers with guns with palm trees in the background near the hole (where Saddam was reportedly hiding). At that time of year, date palms are never in bloom," he said.

"Finally, any man can tell you that such a long beard (as Saddam had when he was reportedly caught) could not grow in seven months," he said.

"All evidence suggests that Saddam surrendered earlier and the story of the hole was invented later," he said.

Primakov, who was also Russian foreign minister, made two secret trips to Iraq at the request of President Vladimir Putin, shortly before the invasion by US and British troops.

Click here to comment on this article

Flashback: Iraqi Commander Swears he saw USAF fly Saddam out of Baghdad

Bill Dash
Alamo Christian Ministries Online
10/16/2003

Film will soon be made public of an Iraqi Army officer describing how he saw a US Air Force transport fly Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad. The explosive eyewitness testimony was shot by independent filmmaker Patrick Dillon, who recently returned from a risky one-man odyssey in Iraq. In the film, the officer, who told Dillon that he commanded a special combat unit during the battle for Baghdad airport and whose identity is temporarily being withheld, explains in detail how he watched as the Iraqi dictator and members of his inner circle were evacuated from Iraq's capital by what he emphatically insists were United States Air Force cargo planes. [...]

Dillon says his film lends major support to what many have believed for years: that Saddam was little more than an american tool, a stage-managed "evildoer", just one in a long line of useful villains bought and paid for by the United States in order to better manipulate international politics and commerce. The gutsy New York based filmmaker, who risked his life amid the chaos of postwar Iraq, says that much of the Iraqi populace believes Saddam is not dead and they worry he could still exact revenge from afar. While many Iraqi civilians initially welcomed American forces, Dillon told me most Iraqis, having now had a bitter taste of American occupation, feel enraged with the US and its soldiers. Dillon said living conditions in Iraq are horrible and that little of significance is being done to relieve the situation.

Based on what he saw during his travels, Dillon told me he's convinced the war and its sweeping devastation of the Iraqi nation is in reality a mind boggling charade. Rather than liberating Iraq, its actual purpose is to corral Iraq's huge oil reserves and to serve as a pretext for channelling tens of billions in largesse to favored American corporations like Haliburton and Bechtel. As an example, Dillon pointed to how US air strikes systematically obliterated every last Iraqi telecommunications facility from one end of the country to the other, a measure he maintains vastly exceeded all practical military necessity. Then, without even the pretense of a competitive bid, Washington gifted WorldCom, the near bankrupt US telecom giant responsible for the greatest fraud in financial history, with a huge multi-billion dollar contract to build Iraq a new nationwide state-of-the-art telephone system.

Click here to comment on this article

Iraq's missing oil billions

Monday 28 June 2004

Billions of dollars from Iraq's oil fund cannot be accounted for by the US occupation authority - which was given responsibility for the country's finances by the UN.

Reports by Christian Aid and the Liberal Democrats, Britain's third-largest political party, said there were glaring gaps in the handling of $20 billion generated by Iraq's oil.

The Christian Aid report on Sunday also said the majority of Iraq's reconstruction projects had been awarded to US companies, which charged up to 10 times more than their Iraqi equivalents.

The UN gave the US occupation authority responsibility for the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) after the fall of Saddam Hussein in May 2003.

But it stipulated that expenditure must be shown to be in the country's best interests and that all revenue should be paid into a simple fund.

However, Christian Aid and the Liberal Democrats said that no audit on the money had been carried out until April 2004.

Unaccountable spending

Christian Aid spokeswoman Helen Collison said that for an entire year it "has been impossible to tell with any accuracy what the CPA [Coalistion Provisional Authority] has been doing with Iraq's money". [...]

"The cost of reconstruction of Iraq is considerable and those countries who are being asked to contribute will want to know that Iraq's own resources are making a maximum contribution."

Christian Aid said that Iraqi companies had been awarded contracts worth a miniscule total of $500,000 since April 2004.

The report also claimed around $2 billion of Iraqi money was given to mostly US companies for poorly thought-out projects of no lasting benefit.

Click here to comment on this article

Who's on first? Who's on second? Who's really the terrorist?

Just a glimpse down the rabbit hole

By Dr. Kosmotar J. Katzspliff
Online Journal Contributing Writer

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." ¡X Samuel Adams

June 25, 2004

Unocaledonia and Conocopia You might know them formally as Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Great New Western Frontier now has assimilated these third world countries into the Bush-Cheney reorganization program for the "New World Order" and their global plutocratic policies. So without further ado or remorse, Let's have a really big welcome for Boy George Bush and his band of thieves performing their new fabulous hit that all America loves; "Everybody in my administration wants to rule the world."

If you believe Mr. Bush only wants to bring democracy and freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq you probably also believe that General Electric only sells light bulbs and toasters. Well, think again, my little Bushkins and Sheep'ziz; the proof lies in the pudding and the main "ingredient" is oil.

Who's On First?

Right after we bombed Afghanistan into the Stone Age, as Mr. Bush promised we would in retaliation to the September 11 "terror attacks, we saw a new figure emerge to lead Afghanistan, Harmid Karzai. But just who is the new Afghan president?

Harmid Karzai is a former Unocal consultant. During the Reagan administration he was a top contact for the CIA and maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George H. W. Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Service interlocutors.

After the Afghanistan war with Russia, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency's interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oily friends in negotiating Unocal's proposed Central Asian Gas Pipeline Project.

The Taliban itself is a creation of American and British politics. In the 1980s, the tribal army that produced them was funded by the CIA and trained by SAS units to fight the Russian Invaders.

The hypocrisy does not stop there. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because the Taliban mullahs were soon on their way to Sugar Land, Texas, to be entertained by executives of Enron and the oil company Unocal, with the complicity of CIA operatives on Enron's payroll. Our government, Enron and Unocal funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban for years. It goes without saying that much of the Taliban moolah went to fund and arm "al Qaeda terrorists" within Afghanistan. Again we were doing battle against a monster of our own creation.

Dick Cheney, former Halliburton CEO and now vice president, used to serve on the Kazakhstan Oil Advisory Board with executives from Chevron and Texaco.

Oddly, Chevron and Texaco merged only days before the bombs began to fall on Afghanistan. The resulting company, ChevronTexaco, will have a 45 percent interest in Kazakhstan's huge Tengiz oil field near its border with Afghanistan (ExxonMobil has a 25 percent interest). The Tengiz field is just part of the Caspian oil reserves.

This was what it was all about, the gooey, oily truth. As it has been widely reported, the Bush administration was negotiating with the Taliban early in 2001 to work out the deal for Unocal's pipeline. The administration allegedly told the Taliban it could choose between "a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs." We all know what it was in the end.

On Friday December 27, 2002, it was reported that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan signed a framework agreement for a US $ 3.2 billion gas pipeline project passing through their three countries. In a ceremony held in Pakistan at the Presidential Palace with the three leaders, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed the document that closed the long awaited deal of blood money for oil.

Who's On Second?

Daddy Bush has always been cozy with Texas oilmen and is a member of the $12 billion private equity firm, the Carlyle Group, which invests heavily among many defense contractors, including (drum roll please!) Halliburton. The Carlyle Group and Halliburton will get rich off the Iraq war and the longer it last, the richer they will become.

Also worth mentioning Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI) a major source of research and development expertise for our government owns laboratories in West Jefferson, Ohio. According to The New York Times, the laboratories are center to a top-secret defense project named "Operation Jefferson." In a September 2001 article, the Associated Press reported that an "anonymous Pentagon official," was quoted in reference to "Operation Jefferson," in which "a new and highly lethal strain of anthrax" had been developed.

Prior to the string of Anthrax attacks following 9-11, BMI hired bio-weapons researcher William C. Patrick III, who holds five secret patents in producing weapons grade anthrax, to investigate the implications of mailing powdered anthrax through the postal system. "Strangelovian Bio-Billy" or Mr. Patrick is also a consultant to the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA. Spooky, huh, Sherlock? Oh! Coincidently BMI is in partnership with Michigan-based Bioport, which holds a virtual monopoly on military anthrax vaccine production in the US. By even more coincidence, the Carlyle Group is a major shareholder in Bioport.

Wherever you look they turn up with their dirty fingers. Carlyle's influential movers and shakers include such heavyweights as former Secretary of State James Baker, ex-Secretary of Defense and ex-Deputy CIA Director CIA Frank Carlucci, former President and former CIA Director George H.W. Bush, and former British Prime Minister John Major. President [sic] Hubba Dubya Bush has also held board membership.

What is even more fascinating is the first anthrax fatality in the post 9-11 mailing was Bob Stevens, a photo editor for American Media Inc., who was in custody of two important reputed pictures of George W. Bush. One allegedly was a photo of Dubya lying in the satanic ritual coffin while engaging in homosexual acts with one of his fellow Skull & Bonesman at Yale. The other an alleged photo of him apparently drunk and/or stoned, dancing nude on a tavern bar or table.

Click here to comment on this article

Iraq War Analysis Paints Grim Picture

Jim Lobe

Unless you own a lot of stock in Halliburton or other big defence, security, or construction companies, chances are the Iraq war has turned out to be a pretty bad investment, both in human lives and taxpayer dollars, according to a new assessment by a progressive Washington-based think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

WASHINGTON, Jun. 24 (IPS) - In what it claims is the first comprehensive accounting of the costs of the war on the U.S., Iraq, and much of the rest of the world, IPS concludes that not only have U.S. taxpayers paid a "very high price for the war," they have also become "less secure at home and in the world."

Citing a number of recent studies, the report, 'Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War,' also notes that the 151.1 billion dollars that will have been spent through this fiscal year could have paid for comprehensive health care for 82 million U.S. children or the salaries of nearly three million elementary school teachers. According to one study cited in the 54-page report, the war and occupation will cost the average U.S. household at least 3,415 dollars through the end of this year. [...]

While the financial costs of the war are enormous, according to the report, the costs in blood, both for U.S. citizens and Iraqis, are by no means insignificant.

More than 850 U.S. troops have been killed since the start of the war on Mar. 19, 2003, just over 700 of them since U.S. President George W. Bush declared the end of major hostilities on May 1, 2003, making the post-combat phase of the war by far the bloodiest U.S. engagement since the Indochina conflict.

In addition more than 5,134 troops were wounded through Jun. 16, 4,593 of them since the official end of combat. Nearly two-thirds of the wounded, according to the report, received injuries serious enough to prevent them from returning to duty.

But despite precision bombing and other weapons and tactics designed to reduce "collateral damage", the toll among Iraqis has been far more dramatic, according to the report whose principal author was Phyllis Bennis, IPS' main Middle East analyst.

As of Jun. 16, it estimates that between 9,436 and 11,317 civilians have been killed as a direct result of the U.S. invasion and ensuing occupation, while an estimated 40,000 Iraqis have been injured. In addition, during "major combat" operations both during the invasion and after May 1, 2003, the report estimates that between 4,895 and 6,370 Iraqi soldiers and insurgents were killed as of mid-June. [...]

"We have played a large part in destroying this country," said Bennis, who recalled the first Gulf War and the 13 years of U.S.-backed U.N. sanctions that had already weakened much of Iraq's infrastructure before the war.

Washington's invasion and occupation have also exacted other costs for which the United States may have to pay for a very long time, according to the report, which cited a recent assessment by the conservative International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) that the Iraq war has greatly increased recruitment by al Qaeda and similar radical groups. The London-based think tank estimated al Qaeda's membership at 18,000 with 1,000 active in Iraq..

That assessment also echoes the conclusion of a new book by a top active-duty Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer to be released next week that "(t)here is nothing that (al Qaeda chief Osama) bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq." The author, "Anonymous," until recently headed the CIA efforts to track down bin Laden and is considered an expert on al Qaeda.

Washington has also dealt a serious blow to its own standing and credibility in the larger world, as well as in Arab and Islamic nations, according to the report, which cites recent surveys of public opinion in more than two dozen countries, including its closest European allies; the weakening of the United Nations and international law resulting from both the precedent created by going to war unilaterally and in the inhumane treatment of detainees in both Afghanistan and Iraq; and the alienation of the Iraqi public.

"Rather than winning hearts, U.S. actions have destroyed lives," said Anas Shallal, an Iraqi-American who founded the Mesopotamia Cultural Society and contributed to the report.

Click here to comment on this article

Majority in US now call war a mistake

26.06.2004

For the first time since the start of the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans say the US-led invasion was a mistake, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll issued on Thursday.

Amid continuing violence in Iraq and questions about the justification for the war, 54 per cent of the 1005 Americans polled say it was a mistake to send US troops into Iraq, compared with 41 per cent three weeks ago.

It was the first time since Vietnam that a majority of Americans has called a major deployment of US forces a mistake.

The poll also found that for the first time a majority also say the war in Iraq has made the United States less safe from terrorism.

Fifty-five per cent say the war has increased US vulnerability, compared to 56 per cent in a December poll.

Despite changing attitudes towards the war, the poll gave Bush a statistical dead heat with presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry. Bush edged out Kerry 48 per cent to 47 per cent. Three weeks ago, Kerry led 49 per cent to 43 per cent.

Click here to comment on this article

Don't You Dare Disrespect the Fuhrer!

Angry White House pulls RTE interview

Irish Independent
June 26 2004

THE White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with US President George Bush.

And it is believed the President's staff have now withdrawn from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to RTE this morning by First Lady Laura Bush.

It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement, scheduled for 11am today. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.

The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.

She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.

And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit.

Comment: Click here to listen to an MP3 of the recent interview with Mr Bush conducted by RTE's PrimeTime program. The file is 10.7 MB, but it's worth it to hear Bush's evasiveness.

Click here to comment on this article

Questions the Irish TV interviewer could have asked Bush:

1. What exactly happened on September 11 and at what time was President Bush informed?

2. Why was President Bush scheduled to visit a school in Florida?

3. Who scheduled the time of the visit?

4. When exactly did Bush learn about the first crash into the WTC?

5. How could he have seen that on TV?

6. Why didn't he interrupt his school meeting as soon as he learned of the first plane crash?

7. Did Bush ever wonder how Bin Laden was able to hear the first plane crash live on the radio?

8. Which radio station he was listening to?

9. Can Bush explain how Bin Laden's Home Video was found only two weeks after it was produced?

10. Why did Bush decide to release Bin Laden's Home Video?

11. What is the purpose of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) in Fort Benning, Georgia, where terrorists have been trained for undercover agents in South America? Bush stated "if any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves". So what does he think about Fort Benning?

12. What is the role of Zalmay Khalilzad (former UNOCAL) in the National Security Council ?

13. What is the current role of Zalmay Khalilzad (former UNOCAL) in Afghanistan?

14. When was Bush's last contact with anyone from ENRON?

15. Why was China admitted to the WTO on September 13 after 15 years of unsuccessful attempts?

16. Why did Bush postpone the release of Ronald Reagan's records?

17. How does Bush feel about the need to investigate the CIA's mistakes?

18. Does Bush agree with senators John McCain, Joseph I. Lieberman, Porter J. Goss, former C.I.A. clandestine case officer and a Florida Republican, Richard C. Shelby and Ron Paul, US Congressman, who want an investigation and have said "Secret government is winning out over open government"?

19. Did he know before he left his hotel that morning on the way to the school that the 1st tower had been hit? ABC news reported that morning that he was asked by reporters if he was aware of events in NYC and he answered yes. If so, why did he later say he first heard of it was when he was at the school?

20. Why did Bush continue to sit in that classroom reading to children when he should have been conferring with his advisors?

21. Why did Bush say that he and Card initially thought it was an accident involving a small plane?

22. Given all the information sources available to the POTUS and his staff how could his people not have known the kind of plane involved?

23. Why didn't they know at this point, as did the FAA and NORAD, that aircraft were hijacked? The Batallion Chief in the 9/11 video was seen and heard asking for military backup immediately after the building was hit.

24.How come the NYFD knew it was terrorism right away but the POTUS and his aides just calmly went about their business? [...]

1. Why did George Bush leave Barksdale Air Force Base aboard Air Force One and flew to an Air Force base in Nebraska on 1:48 PM on September 11 and returned to Washington at 4:30 PM?

2. What exactly did Donald Rumsfeld do that day before he arrived at the Pentagon around 3:55 PM?

3. How did Rumsfeld know at 5:30 PM on September 11 that the plane in Pennsylvania could have been headed for one of three possible targets: Camp David, the White House or the U.S. Capitol building?

4. Can he explain why early media reports told us that no squadrons of combat- ready fighter jets have been at Andrews and later changed their reports that they haven't been on high alert only?

5. Why was Air Force Lt. Col. Vic Warzinski, another Pentagon spokesman, so sure on September 11 that aircraft was coming your way?

6. What did the D.C. Air National Guard in Washington do on September 11?

7. Can he explain what those 3 fighters did from 9:40AM until 9:55AM when they finally turned towards Flight 93 and were 60 miles out at 10:06am?

8. Can he explain why Air Traffic Controllers in a Nashua Telegraph article did report an F-16 was circling Flight 93 and was in visual range at the time of crash?

9. Can he confirm a witness report that National Guard F-16's have been at Hancock field in Syracuse NY in the air early that morning before 9AM?

10. How could the hijackers know how to disable defense systems?

11. What was the official reason that fighters of the 305th Air Wing, McGuire Air Force Base, NJ did not intercept the 2nd hijacked plane in NYC? This would have been possible within 7 minutes after 8:48 AM

12. Why did none of the 459th Aircraft Squadron (Andrews AFB) fighters intercept the plane which crashed into the Pentagon? Andrews AFB is 10 miles from Washington DC.

13. Col. Ken McClellan, Air Force spokesman said on September 11, that Mohammad Atta attended the International Officer's School at Maxwell/Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, and was seen by eye-witnesses? What was McClellan doing there? Why did he later deny the report?

14. Why did he decide not to shutdown ECHELON base Bad Aibling in Germany as planned for 2002?

15. What is the reason that none of any Air Force fighters reached the hijacked plane in time?

16. Many eye- and witnesses think that the plane in Pennsylvania was shot down. What is the scientific explanation why the magazine of the airplane was found many miles away?

17. Why did Jack Kelly, idefense.com, inform USA Today only 12 minutes after the first crash (8:48AM), that terror groups using Web encryption may have been responsible? And why was he so sure before the second crash at 9:03 PM?

18. Did Kelly serve with the U.S. government where he managed several significant programs for the information warfare and intelligence communities?

19. Did Joseph J. Esposito, Chief of NYPD try to contact the Pentagon at 9:06 AM on September 11? What was their reaction?

20. Why didn't General Elwood "Pete" Quesada of the FAA inform President Bush between 8:15 and 9:05 about four simultaneously hijacked planes? Who did he inform and what was their reaction? [...]

24. How did they find a passport that just "happens" to belong to one of the hijackers in the WTC rubble and they can't locate even ONE flight recorder?

25. Why no investigative reporting of the Pentagon scene? The photos do not show much, but then photographers were not allowed, initially, to photograph the scene, if I remember correctly.

26. Why was the series of recommendations Al Gore also put together in 1996 on airport security called by Republican congress "paranoid" and too harsh. Why did the airline industry, lobbying against it, consider it too expensive and impractical.

27. Why was the Hart-Rudman report on the potential dangers of terrorism in the homeland. The results of the research ignored by Bush?

28. Why were FISA warrants disallowed by Bush?

29. Why did the US pull the plug on Muslim websites Monday September 10, 2001?

30. Why did the Saudi bin-Laden-group have a website with a PRE-SET expiration date of Sept. 11, 2001?

31. Why were the bin Ladens flown out of the U.S. on private jets the day after the 9/11?

32. Why did Cheney say that everyone in the White House started taking Cipro on September 12 when the first anthrax letter wasn't postmarked until September 18.

33. Why did Bush dissolve the Bin Laden Task Force? What would have happened had this focused and knowledgeable group been in place 9 months before 911? [...]

11. What exactly was found on Z. Moussaoui's computer after 9/11, when local agents were given a Federal Intelligence Security Act (FISA) warrant, which they had requested six weeks previously? This ties directly into the question of the administration's dealings with the Taliban, its reluctance to investigate Saudi nationals, etc.

12. Why the attack on Cynthia McKinney for asking: 1) why has there been no investigation of the 9-11 attack? and 2) did Bush/CIA/NSA know of it beforehand, and allow it to happen?

13. Why is the Bush administration so strongly against a real investigation into the events of 9-11?

15. Why did Bush toss the Hart-Rudman terror security study (developed over a 2 year period) and instead assign responsibility to Cheney and FEMA?