Mention it to anyone and they'll already have heard it; that crazy conspiracy theory that claims that members of the Bush administration deliberately conspired to deceive the world into believing that Saddam had WMDs and thereby provide justification for an illegal invasion of Iraq. But all right-thinking people know better than to allow themselves to be suckered into believing such claptrap. All 'sane' individuals KNOW that Saddam posed a clear threat to the US and the American people and that he was 'in' with Osama bin Laden, the evil mastermind of the September 11th attacks. And how do they know this? Why, because we were TOLD as much by our elected representatives. There is, of course, only one problem with this belief and it centers around last week's testimony of the British Attorney General which is only now being reported in the US mainstream press.

As we reported at the time, the British Attorney General stated quite categorically that the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was, in his own words, "being fixed around the policy." Which is simply another way of saying that Bush and Co were LYING about the threat from Saddam.

Taken in isolation, this fact, while shocking to those members of the world public who have always believed that their leaders would never lie about something of such import, is not really surprising to those of us who have long ago understood and accepted the corrupting nature of politics and power. Bubbling below the surface of this duplicitous chapter in the history of American foreign and domestic policies however, is a matter of much more gravity.

The fact is, the Iraq invasion and the reasons for it, which have now been revealed as outright lies, cannot be divorced from the overall "war on terror" and that which gave rise to it - the 9/11 attacks. We are told by the British Attorney General that members of the Bush administration were brewing the lies that would lead to the Iraq invasion in the Spring of 2002. Yet documents posted on the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) web site make it clear that the plan for an Iraq invasion was first conceived of by leading NeoCons as far back as 1997, four years before the events of 9/11 that provided the casus belli for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

While no one can now reasonably dispute the fact that the Bush administration knowingly lead America to war on false pretences, many will still argue that, while they may have lied about the threat from Saddam, the NeoCons simply took the opportunity to capitalise on the "freak event" that was 9/11. As Winston Curchill said, "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened".

Given the fact that the Iraq war was planned up to 6 years before it actually occurred and four years before 9/11, and the fact that it has now been categorically proven that the Bush administration lied to the entire world about the existence of Saddam's WMD threat to America, it seems logical to us to at least consider the possibility that members of the Bush administration also played a part in stage managing the 9/11 attacks which created the essential atmosphere of a terrorist threat - the breeding ground in which the lies about Saddam's WMDs could take root?

Few will deny that, regardless of who the real perpetrators are, the 9/11 attacks generated the public appetite for revenge and war that was instrumental in facilitating the Iraq invasion. Considering that the Washington NeoCons had been planning an attack on Iraq for 6 years prior to 9/11, and remembering that it has now been proven that these same people lied to the world about Saddam's WMDs, is it not reasonable to suggest that the official story of how and why 9/11 happened is simply more NeoCon lies and that the perpetrators of the WTC and Pentagon attacks and the architects of the phony claims that lead to the Iraq war are one and the same?

To answer our own question. It is indeed an eminently logical supposition and one that has nothing to do with crazy conspiracy theories but rather very real evidence of a very real conspiracy to con the world's population into accepting a "Novus Ordo Seclorum"

Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was "being fixed around the policy," according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street.

"Military action was now seen as inevitable," said the notes, summarizing a report by Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, British intelligence, who had just returned from consultations in Washington along with other senior British officials. Dearlove went on, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

"The case was thin," summarized the notes taken by a British national security aide at the meeting. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

The notes were first disclosed last week by the Sunday Times of London, triggering criticism of Blair on the eve of the May 5 British parliamentary elections that he had decided to support an invasion of Iraq well before informing the public of his views.

The notes of the Blair meeting, attended by the prime minister's senior national security team, also disclose for the first time that Britain's intelligence boss believed that Bush had decided to go to war in mid-2002, and that he believed U.S. policymakers were trying to use the limited intelligence they had to make the Iraqi leader appear to be a bigger threat than was supported by known facts.

Although critics of the Iraq war have accused Bush and his top aides of misusing what has since been shown as limited intelligence in the prewar period, Bush's critics have been unsuccessful in getting an investigation of that matter.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has dropped its previous plan to review how U.S. policymakers used Iraq intelligence, and the president's commission on intelligence did not look into the subject because it was not authorized to do so by its charter, Laurence H. Silberman, the co-chairman, told reporters last month.

The British Butler Commission, which last year reviewed that country's intelligence performance on Iraq, also studied how that material was used by the Blair government. The panel concluded that Blair's speeches and a published dossier on Iraq used language that left "the impression that there was fuller and firmer intelligence than was the case," according to the Butler report.

It described the July 23 meeting as coming at a "key stage" in preparation for taking action against Iraq but described it primarily as a session at which Blair favored reengagement of U.N. inspectors against a background of intelligence that Hussein would not accept them unless "the threat of military action were real."

During the July 2002 time frame, Bush was working to build support in the United States for a war against Hussein, while a U.S. base in Qatar was being expanded and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz was trying to get Turkey to assist in potential military action against the Iraqi leader.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington said he would not comment on the substance of the document.

Blair's senior advisers at the July 2002 session decided they would prepare an "ultimatum" for Iraq to permit U.N. inspectors to return, despite being told that Bush's National Security Council, then headed by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with the U.N. route," according to the notes. "The prime minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."

Although Dearlove reported that the NSC had "no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record," the Blair team soon set in motion preparation of the public dossier on Iraq, which was published in late September 2002.

Another piece of the British memo has relevance now, as the United States battles an insurgency that some say was exacerbated by faulty planning for the post-invasion period. "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action," the notes say, without attributing that directly to Dearlove.

The "U.S. has already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime," the British defense secretary reported, according to the notes. Although no final decision had been made, "he thought the most likely timing in U.S. minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the U.S. congressional elections."

As it finally worked out, the Bush administration's public campaign for supporting a possible invasion of Iraq began the next month, in late August, with speeches by Vice President Cheney, followed by a late October vote in Congress to grant the president authority to use force if necessary. Later in October, the British and the Americans introduced their resolution on Iraq in the U.N. Security Council and it passed in early November, shortly after the Nov. 2 elections.

Critics of Bush call them proof that he and Blair never saw diplomacy as an option with Hussein.

LONDON — Reports in the British press this month based on documents indicating that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had conditionally agreed by July 2002 to invade Iraq appear to have blown over quickly in Britain. [...]

The leaked minutes sum up the July 23 meeting, at which Blair, top security advisors and his attorney general discussed Britain's role in Washington's plan to oust Hussein. The minutes, written by Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide, indicate general thoughts among the participants about how to create a political and legal basis for war. The case for military action at the time was "thin," Foreign Minister Jack Straw was characterized as saying, and Hussein's government posed little threat.

Labeled "secret and strictly personal — U.K. eyes only," the minutes begin with the head of the British intelligence service, MI6, who is identified as "C," saying he had returned from Washington, where there had been a "perceptible shift in attitude. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

Straw agreed that Bush seemed determined to act militarily, although the timing was not certain.

"But the case was thin," the minutes say. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." [...]

Excerpts from the paper, which Smith provided to the Los Angeles Times, said Blair had listed conditions for war, including that "efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine crisis was quiescent," and options to "eliminate Iraq's WMD through the U.N. weapons inspectors" had been exhausted.

The briefing paper said the British government should get the U.S. to put its military plans in a "political framework."

"This is particularly important for the U.K. because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action," it says.

In a letter to Bush last week, 89 House Democrats expressed shock over the documents. They asked if the papers were authentic and, if so, whether they proved that the White House had agreed to invade Iraq months before seeking Congress' OK.

"If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of our own administration," the letter says.

This was a long time coming, but apparently it could not be proven until another "incident" occurred. So thanks to two completely incompetent "pilots" who strayed into the no-fly zone over the White House two days ago - it is now official! According to the White House spokesman, the president was not notified of the potential "threat" because "The situation didn't require a presidential decision." That - it turns out is a true statement!

The duties of the Commander in Chief were modified on June 1, 2001 internally, by traitors, who sought to undercut the chain of command and remove Bush from any responsibility whatsoever - in the event of an attack of this kind upon this nation.

"Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction CJCSI 3610.01A (dated 1 June 2001) was issued to provide "guidance to the Deputy Director for Operations (DDO), National Military Command Center (NMCC), and operational commanders in the event of an aircraft piracy (hijacking) or request for destruction of derelict airborne objects." This new instruction superseded CJCSI 3610.01 of 31 July 1997."

This means that the president of the United States of America, from that day forward, was no longer responsible for attacks of this nature - upon the USA. Executive decisions, in this regard are now to be made by Donald Rumsfeld the US Secretary of Defense. The AWOL pretender in the White House has no real responsibility now - for protecting this country from attacks like 911 - and he did not have that responsibility on September eleventh 2001. All that has happened since those attacks has been nothing but the continuation of a massively criminal act. Bush was never intended to be allowed to be the man who could make decisions - so he was removed from the loop - thereby rendering his position as the president: Meaningless!

These actions further underscore the Bush administrations more recent efforts to remove the president from all executive responsibility for national intelligence as well: in his request for, and the congressional compliance that he got, to create the office of National Intelligence Director (NID). That responsibility has always belonged only to the President of the United States. That was made clear when Harry S. Truman made the wartime office of the OSS into the CIA. Part of Truman's justification for this intrusion into the lives of Americans was that the office of the president would always have the final word on whatever intteligence information came to his desk. "The Buck Stops Here" probably refers to that "presidential" responsibility.

On June 1, 2001 - all of that changed. This "president" is nothing but an imposter, in title, as well as in his pretensions to leadership: because without authority or responsibility he is nothing but a mask for all "official" treachery committed by this administration from 911 to this moment.

Perhaps the most egregious crime of all was that none of this was remotely considered in the any of the 911 "investigations." That omission had to be purposeful, and it was compliant with the takeover of the government begun by the Supreme Court decision of 12-12-2000 - the decision that in effect appointed George W. Bush as the President of the United States!

When you see the fake cowboy with the prancing stride or whenever you are subjected to the torture of his grinning snear, you'll know what he knows: that the joke is on us, because what he's saying to the world is "Hey - I got away with it!"

This charge should be taken seriously and followed up - but those responsible for bringing the charges that should be leveled now - were and are still part of all of everything. Only outrage from the public can now force them to act.

I was an air traffic controller, who worked with ground control intercepts for four long years in the Air Force, both in NORAD and in PACAF, back in the fifties. The taxpayers of the USA have spent tens of trillions on the air defense system that was to protect this nation from something like 911, and it would have, if these Pirates hadn't changed the chain of command and eliminated the office of the president from any responsibility for the decisions that they knew (months before 911) would have to be made on that day of imfamy.

This was PLANNED, and carried out by traitors to this country. We know this now because of two imbecilic "pilots" in a private plane that were completely inattentive when they violated the no-fly zone over Washington D.C. just the other day. That folly, created a panic that led to the evacuation of government buildings. When the public finally demanded answers from the White House about the whereabouts of Bush and why he was NOT TOLD - that forced the simple truth that brought all this to light.

The country has waited overlong for this accidental test - an accidental proof of all that really happened - when we allowed traitors to take this country from its people. By constitutional design the people were to be the rightful owners of the government, but "the people" haven't cared enough to question anything. So we have lost control of this rabid and feral beast that now runs roughshod over the planet - creating chaos with their every move.

The irony of ironies in this is that amid this administrations firestorm of unending lies: when they actually tell the truth - JUST ONCE - what was revealed by the White House press secretary could hang them all!

Maybe now there will be hearings, maybe even demonstrations - but that will only happened when people finally come to see what really happened to us - when we allowed this nightmare to take complete control of everything we say we cared about!

CANNES, France (Reuters) - A British documentary arguing U.S. neo-conservatives have exaggerated the terror threat is set to rock the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, the way "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred emotions here a year ago.

"The Power of Nightmares" re-injected politics into the festival that seemed eager to steer clear of controversy this year after American Michael Moore won top honors in 2004 for his film deriding President Bush's response to terror.

At a screening late on Friday ahead of its gala on Saturday, "The Power of Nightmares" by filmmaker and senior BBC producer Adam Curtis kept an audience of journalists and film buyers glued to their seats and taking notes for a full 2-1/2 hours.

The film, a non-competition entry, argues that the fear of terrorism has come to pervade politics in the United States and Britain even though much of that angst is based on carefully nurtured illusions.

It says Bush and U.S. neo-conservatives, as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are exaggerating the terror threat in a manner similar to the way earlier generations of leaders inflated the danger of communism and the Soviet Union.

It also draws especially controversial symmetries between the history of the U.S. movement that led to the neo-cons and the roots of the ideas that led to radical Islamism -- two conservative movements that have shaped geopolitics since 1945.

Curtis's film portrays neo-cons Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld as counterparts to Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in the two respective movements.

"During the Cold War conservatives exaggerated the threat of the Soviet Union," the narrator says. "In reality it was collapsing from within. Now they're doing the same with Islamic extremists because it fits the American vision of an epic battle."

ILLUSORY FEAR OF TERROR

In his film, Curtis argues that Bush and Blair have used what he says is the largely illusory fear of terror and hidden webs of organized evil following the September 11, 2001, attacks to reinforce their authority and rally their nations.

In Bush's government, those underlings who put forth the darkest scenarios of the phantom threat have the most influence, says Curtis, who also devotes segments of his film to criticize unquestioning media and zealous security agencies.

He says al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has a far less powerful organization than feared. But he is careful to avoid suggestions that terror attacks won't happen again. Included are experts who dismiss fears of a "dirty bomb" as exaggerated.

"It was an attempt at historical explanation for September 11," Curtis said, describing his film in the Guardian newspaper recently. "Up to this point, nobody had done a proper history of the ideas and groups that have created our modern world."

But Curtis said there were worlds of difference between his film and Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the "Golden Palm" and gave the festival a charged political atmosphere that prompted this year's return to a more conservative program.

"Moore is a political agitprop filmmaker," he said. "I am not. You'd be hard pushed to tell my politics from watching it."

"The Power of Nightmares" was a three-part documentary aired in Britain and won a British film and television industry award (Bafta) this year.

Lies Run Big, Facts Small in U.S. Media

NEW YORK--One year ago the American media was pushing the Pat Tillman story with the heavy rotation normally reserved for living celebs like Michael Jackson. Tillman, the former NFL player who turned down a multi-million dollar football contract to fight in
Iraq and Afghanistan, became a centerpiece of the right's Hamas-style death cult when he lost his life in the mountains of southeastern Afghanistan. To supporters of the wars and to many football fans, Tillman embodied ideals of self-sacrifice and post-9/11 butt-kicking in a hard-bodied shell of chisel-chinned masculinity on steroids.

Tillman's quintessential nobility, we were told, was borne out by the story of his death--a tale that earned him a posthumous Silver Star. Whether you were for or against Bush's wars, Americans were told, Tillman's valor showed why you should support the troops. Young men were encouraged to emulate his praiseworthy example.

Several thousand mourners gathered at Tillman's May 3, 2004 memorial service to hear marquee names including Arizona Senator John McCain called upon all Americans to "be worthy of the sacrifices made on our behalf." "Tillman died trying to save fellow members of the 75th Ranger Regiment caught in a crush of enemy fire," the Arizona Republic quoted a fellow soldier addressing the crowd. Tillman, said his friend and comrade-at-arms, had told his fellow soldiers "to seize the tactical high ground from the enemy" to draw enemy fire away from another U.S. platoon trapped in an ambush. "He directly saved their lives with those moves. Pat sacrificed his life so that others could live." It was, as the Washington Post wrote, a "storybook personal narrative"--one recounted on hundreds of front pages and network newscasts.

It was also a lie.

As sharp-eyed readers learned a few months ago from single-paragraph articles buried deep inside their newspapers, Pat Tillman died pointlessly, a hapless victim of "friendly fire" who never got the chance to choose between bravery and cowardice. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Washington Post now reports that
Pentagon and White House officials knew the truth "within days" after his April 22, 2004 shooting by fellow Army Rangers but "decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after" the nationally televised martyr-a-thon.

It gets worse. So desperate were the military brass to carry off their propaganda coup that they lied to Tillman's brother, a fellow soldier who arrived on the scene shortly after the incident, about how he died. Writing in an army report, Brigadier General Gary Jones admits that the official cover-up even included "the destruction of evidence": the army burned Tillman's Ranger uniform and body armor to hide the fact that he had died in a hail of American bullets, fired by troops who had "lost situational awareness to the point they had no idea where they were."

"We didn't want the world finding out what actually happened," one soldier told Jones. A perfect summary of the war on terrorism.

The weapons of mass destruction turned out to be a figment of Donald Rumsfeld's imagination. The Thanksgiving turkey Bush presented to the troops turned out to be plastic, as much of a staged photo op as the gloriously iconic and phony toppling of Saddam's statue in Baghdad by jubilant Iraqi civilians--well, actually a few dozen marines and CIA-financed operatives. So many of the Administration's "triumphs" have been exposed as frauds that one has to wonder whether that was really Saddam in the spider hole.

We shouldn't blame the White House for producing lies; that's what politicians do. But we expect better from the media who disseminate them.

Case study: the Washington Post's dutiful transcription of the Jessica Lynch hoax. Played up on page one and running on for thousands of words, the fanciful Pentagon version had the pilot from West Virginia emptying her clip before finally succumbing to a gunshot wound (and possible rape) by evil Iraqi ambushers, then freed from her tormentors at a heavily-guarded POW hospital.

Like the Pat Tillman story, it was pure fiction. Private Lynch, neither shot nor sexually violated, said she was injured when her vehicle crashed. She never got off a shot because her gun jammed. As she told reporters who were willing to listen, her Iraqi doctors and nurses had given her excellent care. She credited them for saving her life. In a weird sort of prequel to the shooting of an Italian journalist, they had even attempted to turn her over at a U.S. checkpoint but were forced to flee when American troops fired at them.

In all of these examples, editors and producers played corrective follow-up stories with far less fanfare than the original, incorrect ones. To paraphrase "X-Files" character Fox Mulder, the truth is in there--in the paper, on TV. It's just really, really hard to find.

Readers of the American press and viewers of American radio and television are likelier to see and believe loudly repeated lies over occasionally whispered truths told once or twice. As a result of the reverse imbalance between fact and fiction, the propaganda versions of the Tillman and Lynch stories, the staged Saddam statue footage, and the claim that Iraq had WMDs are all believed by a misled citizenry that votes accordingly.

For journalists supposedly dedicated to uncovering the truth and informing the public, this is exactly the opposite of how things ought to be. Corrections and exposés should always run bigger, longer and more often than initial, discredited stories.

FOLLOW-UP: Readers who contacted their elected representatives in response to my column two weeks ago about the two 16-year-old Muslim girls detained by Homeland Security because one wrote an essay about suicide bombings (she was against them) have gotten results. Such pressure has prompted the feds to release the girl from Guinea, who has returned to her high school in New York City. But Bush Administration officials have decided to orphan her by deporting her father. The other girl, from Bangladesh, is also being released from prison but HomeSec plans to deport her along with her entire family. While the two girls' release obviously belies the government's claims that they are "an imminent threat to the security of the United States," your letters and phone calls to your Congressperson and/or Senator could help reverse these continuing acts of injustice.

WASHINGTON - The Senate Armed Services Committee has recommended a further $50 billion be set aside to fund U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S.-declared global war on terrorism.

The proposed new war spending for fiscal 2006, which starts Oct. 1, would push the cost of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath toward $250 billion, far ahead of initial expectations voiced by the Bush administration.

Officials advocating the invasion played down the financial cost. Then White House budget director Mitch Daniels predicted Iraq would be "an affordable endeavor."

The recommendation for fresh emergency spending was sent to the full Senate on Thursday night as part of a bill that also would authorize $441.6 billion in regular defense spending in fiscal 2006, a 3.1 percent real increase over last year's authorized sum.

Three days ago Congress gave final approval for an $82 billion emergency war-spending bill, of which about $76 billion would go to war-fighting.

Even with such a large, emergency funding measure, the
Pentagon has said more money would be needed as early as October. By 2010, war costs could top $500 billion, some experts have projected.

Comment: So now the Pentagon is planning on staying in Iraq for at least another five years??

The White House Office of Management and Budget did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The additional $50 billion for war spending had bipartisan support on the committee.

"I am particularly pleased that the bill will authorize $50 billion to support the day-to-day military operations of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq," Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat, said in a statement. [...]

ROME - Italian troops were sent to Iraq to secure oil deals worth 300 billion dollars, and not just for post-war humanitarian purposes, an Italian television report by RAI claimed on Friday.

The 20-minute report, broadcast by RAI News 24, the all-news channel of the Italian state-owned network, is based on interviews and official government documents.

In it, the Silvio Berlusconi administration is accused of picking the Nasiriyah area to safeguard a 1997 deal signed by Italy’s largest energy producer, ENI, and former dictator Saddam Hussein.

A government report compiled months before the war broke out recommends that Italy, in case of conflict, should secure the region of Nasiriyah and the nearby area of Halfaya, south of Baghdad, so as to secure “a deal worth 300 billion dollars”.

Both areas are known for its vast oil fields.

According to Benito Livigni, a former manager of ENI and the United States’ Gulf Oil Company, Iraqi’s oil reserves are estimated at 400 billion barrels, far more than the known figure of 116 billion.

If true, this would make Iraq the largest oil producer in the world, ahead of Saudi Arabia, the report says.

Images shown on the report by Sigfrido Ranucci and called “In the name of oil”, show previously unreleased footage of Italian soldiers busy protecting a refinery and a local pipeline in Nasiriyah.

The Italian government has always insisted that it chose to send 3,000 troops to Iraq for purely humanitarian reasons.

A total of 19 Italians, most of them soldiers, died in November 2003 in a suicide bombing against Italy’s base in Nasiriyah.

Another four U.S. Marines have died in action in Iraq during fierce battles being waged on the Syrian border.

The military announced the deaths Saturday. The four died Friday after their assault amphibian in which they were traveling struck an improvised explosive device. The bombing took place during 'Operation Matador' a major assault by U.S. forces on insurgents west of the country in Karabilah, near the Euphrates Valley town of al-Qaim.

A large contingent of U.S. forces are involved in heavy fighting in the area to seek out supporters of Al-Zarqawi. The operation involves helicopters and warplanes which have been bombing selected targets.

Frightened residents retreated indoors as a large convoy of mainly Marines, backed by tanks redeployed several miles from Rommana to Obeidi, on the northern bank, according to The Associated Press.

"Shelling began several hours later, damaging a house in the old part of this village and wounding five people," said Obeidi hospital doctor Saadallah Anad. He said he did not know if U.S. weapons fire hit the house but said helicopters were hovering over the area.

"We are living in a catastrophic situation. We don't have medicines or equipment and we are worried that when our ambulances go out the Americans could strike at them," he told Associated Press.

The number of U.S. troops killed since the announcement of Iraq's government a little more than two weeks ago, on April 28, is now approaching fifty.

BRASILIA, Brazil -- South American and Arab leaders opened an unprecedented summit yesterday to usher in new cooperation aimed at undercutting the international influence of the United States.

With 9,000 soldiers posted around the city and helicopters overhead, 16 heads of state and top officials from 34 South American, Middle Eastern and North African nations gathered for the first Summit of South American-Arab Countries.

"Today, we are facing a historic opportunity to build the foundation for a bridge of solid cooperation between South America and the Arab world," said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

He said the leaders must band together to ensure that free trade helps the developing world's masses, instead of only rich countries and multinational corporations.

He singled out agricultural subsidies developed nations give their farmers, saying they must be slashed to ensure "poor countries receive the benefits of globalization."

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who heads the Arab League, said the two regions, while far apart, have a combined population of more than half a billion people and share strong cultural links. About 10 million South Americans are of Arab descent.

"More than 600 million people are looking with hope to the summit of hope, the Brasilia summit," he said.

The summit started with the biggest show of security in the Brazilian capital since Mr. da Silva was sworn into office two and a half years ago as the first elected leftist leader of Latin America's largest country.

Police said four pistols were confiscated from U.S. security guards for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani ahead of the summit because paperwork had not been filled out for them to carry the weapons.

The leaders will hold two days of talks, and are expected to join forces by signing a "Declaration of Brasilia."

In the draft declaration, the leaders pledge to support sweeping political and economic efforts to tighten links between their regions.

The stronger ties to counter U.S. dominance in the global political arena reflect a key policy goal of Mr. da Silva, who proposed the summit during a 2003 trip to the Middle East. The gathering comes at a time when Washington is pressuring Arab nations to relax their mostly authoritarian systems of government.

The draft summit declaration also condemns Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory and denounces terrorism but asserts the right of people to resist foreign occupation, according to the document approved by foreign ministers Monday.

In the statement, the two regions demand that Israel, whose biggest ally is the United States, disband settlements in Palestinian areas, including "those in East Jerusalem," and retreat to its borders before the 1967 Middle East war.

They also lash out at U.S. economic sanctions against Syria and denounce terrorism. But they assert the right of people "to resist foreign occupation in accordance with the principles of international legality and in compliance with international humanitarian law."

Brazil has become the first country to reject AIDS funding from the U.S., citing its unwillingness to play by Washington's ideological rules.

Brazil has rejected $40 million in U.S. funds for fighting AIDS because of demands that it condemn prostitution, a key participant in its flagship AIDS program. The move is seen by some observers as a rejection of Washington's head-in-the-sand linkage of neo-con morality and foreign aid.

''Biblical principles [are] their guide, not science," Pedro Chequer, director of Brazil's AIDS program told media outlets on Wednesday. "This premise is inadequate because it hurts our autonomous national policy."

Acting in accordance with a 2003 federal law, U.S. Congress demanded that Brazil publicly condemn prostitution before accepting the funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Prostitution is a legal industry in Brazil and a key civic player in fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The Leadership Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 refuses government aid to organizations that do not explicitly oppose sex trafficking and prostitution. But bowing to those demands, say experts like Jodi Jacobson of the U.S.-based Center for Health and Gender Equity, would mean contradicting crucial civic cooperation undergirding Brazil's AIDS program, considered a model by international health organizations.

Jacobson said Brazil's sex industry plays a crucial role in the battle against AIDS in part through its role in helping the government review donation assistance. Sex workers are also a key target for the government's AIDS education effort.

"Brazil has taken cutting practical approaches and they were not going to adopt an approach based on ideology," Jacobson said in an interview on Friday.

The U.S. government globally seeds its conservative ideology with tools such as the so-called global gag rule, a measure that blocks U.S. family planning assistance to foreign NGOs that perform abortions in cases other than a threat to the woman's life, rape or incest.

But Jacobson says that unlike the the global gag rule, the demands relating to prostitution appear to be applicable to domestic organizations, such as U.S.-based charities with international operations.

And Washington's response?

A USAID spokesperson referred questions to a statement made by U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

"We think it is fully consistent with the purposes that we're working on together, and that's to save people from AIDS and to slow down the spread of AIDS or stop the spread of AIDS among a population that's very vulnerable," said Boucher during a press briefing on Wednesday. "We don't dictate in what manner they have to implement this commitment or this policy. We don't specify how they have to express this in action. We just want to know that they're as committed as we are to fighting AIDS, but also to fighting prostitution and stopping prostitution and sex trafficking, which had been part of the spread of AIDS."

Brazil, which claims a third of Latin America's HIV cases, has reaped international praise for its two-pronged approach of providing free condoms to citizens and free medication cocktails to impoverished AIDS sufferers. The Ministry of Health distributes 20 million free condoms each month, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based research group.

Brazil also recognizes a constitutionally based right of each citizen to receive AIDS medication despite their ability to pay. That recognition has driven officials in Brasilia, the capital, to go toe-to-toe with drug firms seeking to charge poor countries brand-name prices for AIDS medications.

Over the years the Brazilian government has effectively negotiated price cuts for some drugs using a negotiation strategy based on tiered or differentiated pricing. It has also funded domestic national laboratories that produce generic versions of other drugs. And in March, government officials threatened to use a World Trade Organization agreement on intellectual property as legal justification to break four antiretroviral drug patents.

Observers say another key to Brazil's success has been its willingness to nurture and include civic groups in the AIDS fight. Non-profit groups, including associations of sex workers, have flourished over the last decade, from 120 registered groups in 1992 to 500 in 1998, according to the World Bank. Moreover, NGOs have been granted high level involvement in government policy, specifically the right to serve on Brazil's National AIDS Council, which oversees the nation's AIDS policies.

That robust civic network has been used to funnel money to the grassroots. Between 1993 and 1997, just over $18 million in World Bank money to combat AIDS flowed through 175 implementing organizations to fund 427 NGO activities, according to the World Bank.

The funds led to the distribution of more than 1 million condoms and educational materials to more than 500,000 people. It also provided "specialized orientation to more than 200,000, and trained 2,000 community health agents," according to the World Bank.

But Brazilian officials have stressed that Brazil's government has borne the majority of costs. From 1997 to 2001, only 10 percent of the total investment in STD and AIDS programs originated from external financial sources such as the World Bank.

Kelly Hearn is a former UPI staff writer who lives in Washington D.C. and Latin America. His work has appeared in several U.S. publications and web sites including the Christian Science Monitor, American Prospect and High Country News.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is re-imposing quotas on three categories of clothing imports from China, responding to complaints from domestic producers that a surge of Chinese imports was threatening thousands of U.S. jobs.

The administration action will impose limits on the amount of cotton trousers, cotton knit shirts and underwear that China can ship to this country. American retailers say that will drive up prices for U.S. consumers.

In announcing the decision Friday, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said a government investigation had found that a surge in shipments from China since global quotas were eliminated on Jan. 1 was disrupting the domestic market.

The decision was made by the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements, an interagency group led by the
Commerce Department.

"Today's action by CITA demonstrates this administration's commitment to leveling the playing field for U.S. industry by enforcing our trade agreements," Gutierrez said in a statement.

Comment: It was US industry in the first place that, with the help of friendly politicians, outsourced so many jobs to countries like China. The damage has already been done. Sure, a few jobs might be saved due to the quotas, but the beneficial effects will be far outweighed by increasing product prices that most Americans simply can't afford. Thus, the new quotas not only worsen the US economic situation, but they also place the blame for America's economic woes on China.

The action will mean that shipments in the three categories will be permitted to increase this year by just 7.5 percent, compared with shipments over a 12-month base period.

U.S. retailers had fought against the re-imposition of quotas on China, arguing that it will mean higher costs for American consumers.

Laura Jones, executive director of the United States Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel, said the administration was going ahead with the action even though the latest trade data showed that clothing and textile imports from China actually declined in March after surging in January and February. She said the administration chose to ignore all the comments filed by U.S. retailers arguing against the action.

"Clearly, the government did not consider the facts," she said. "To make a decision affecting billions of dollars in business less than four days after a public comment period closes only shows how little regard there is for our business."

Comment: Note that while businesses will suffer, the Bush gang is ensuring that there is more than enough money for the continuing operation in Iraq and for highly paid mercenaries to help conduct the war on terror.

In its announcement, the administration said four other petitions the industry filed last year seeking re-imposition of quotas in other clothing categories could be acted upon soon because the public comment period has now ended in those cases.

Jones predicted the administration will quickly process all the cases it has pending, including several cases the industry filed last month. She said the domestic industry was "trying to recreate the quota system."

But domestic textile and clothing makers argued that they faced the prospect of losing thousands of jobs unless something was done to stem the flow of products from China. [...]

The next president of the United States was on the road last week, throwing red meat about "moral issues" to a baying crowd of Bushist Party faithful while simultaneously trying to cut off medical support for a six-year-old girl his agents had previously tried to kill.

Yes, it was Jeb Bush, governor of the ruling family's Florida dominions, pounding the pulpit, er, podium at a Republican conclave in Georgia. Jeb told the flock that the party must stand for "absolute truth" something previously associated with religious cults if they want to maintain their "ascendancy" over the nation, Associated Press reports. "There is such a thing as right and wrong," he declared. Whipped into a frenzy by this blazing revelation, the crowd responded with cries for Bush to ascend to his brother's throne in 2008.

But even as Jeb basked in the bootlicking adulation, his peculiar sense of "right and wrong" was on vivid display in a Florida courtroom. There, his minions are fighting to stop state aid for young Marissa Amora four years after they sought a court order to let her die following a savage beating, the Palm Beach Post reports. What's more, these same minions the Department of Children and Families could have prevented the beating, which left Marissa permanently disabled.

In late 2000, as Jeb was ensuring the "ascendancy" of his brother by among many other tricks deliberately slashing thousands of eligible African-American voters from the rolls, Marissa was hospitalized for a month. Doctors and nurses saw telltale signs of past beatings and witnessed her neglectful mother abusing her in the hospital. They pleaded for DCF to intervene. But the agency perhaps mindful of Jeb's fierce public championing of "family values" declined to step in.

Then came the inevitable: a few weeks later, Marissa was back in the hospital, beaten nearly to death, with severe injuries to her brain and liver and several broken bones. Now the DCF took an interest: they rushed to court to obtain a "Do Not Resuscitate" order for the mangled two-year-old. For God's sake, don't let her live, the DCF told Marisa's doctors, because she might "potentially" be left "in a vegetative state."

But the doctors disagreed with the Bushists' expert diagnosis. And so Marissa is still alive today brain-damaged, crippled, fed through a stomach tube, but alert, talkative, happy, with a new foster mother. Indeed, she would seem to be a shining example of the "culture of life" that we hear so much about these days from certain pulpit-pounding politicians. But to Jeb and the DCF, she's just a "useless eater," a budgetary burden, a mistake to be flushed away. Without state aid, her new family will sink beneath the staggering cost of Marissa's treatment and the decent life that she's clawed back from the hellhole Jeb left her in years ago will wither on the vine.

'Tis passing strange. After all, this is the same agency the same governor that just fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the long brain-dead Teri Schiavo existing in a very real "vegetative state." Jeb even found himself lauded on the front page of the New York Times for "cementing his political stature" in the case, with his maneuvers "rooted" in a "deeply-held" religious faith "rather than in political posturing." Yet he was perfectly willing even eager to pull the plug on Marissa Amora, and is still trying to destroy her life.

How can this be? For one who lives solely by the "absolute truth," what could possibly be the difference between a crippled, abused, neglected little black girl with no money or connections, and a nice white woman whose case was promoted world-wide by the maniacal, filthy-rich extremist factions that form the base of his brother's "ascendancy"? Since we know from the highest authority that Jeb would never stoop to mere "political posturing," the apparent hideous hypocrisy in his behavior must forever remain an ineffable mystery, like the Trinity, or the 2000 Florida election results.

But then, Jeb has always been the most mysterious of the Kennebunkport Klan. Like the two Georges, he trawled murky waters indeed to make his fortune. One of his business partners, Camilo Padrera, was indicted for drug-dealing, gun-running and embezzlement; but the charges were dropped when the Bush family firm the CIA told the FBI that Padrera was their man, fronting covert ops. Padrera then worked Jeb's Washington contacts to steal millions of federal dollars intended to provide housing for the poor. He was convicted of fraud in 1989.

Jeb then hooked up with Miguel Recarey, an associate of Miami mob boss Santo Trafficante Jr., Mother Jones reports. Federal investigators called Recarey's company, IMC, "a criminal enterprise interlaced with intelligence operations." It was in fact yet another front, this time for the Reagan-Bush gang's illegal terrorist war in Nicaragua. Recarey also milked Jeb's Washington connections, diverting millions of Medicare dollars intended for needy patients into the IMF-CIA slush fund. Recarey later fled the country to avoid fraud charges.

In yet another scam, Jeb and a partner used a frontman to wangle a $4.5 million federal loan to buy an office building. When their shill went belly-up, Daddy's federal government obligingly revalued the prime Miami real estate at $500,000. Jeb and pal coughed up that chump change --and kept the building for themselves: $4 million of pure gravy.

Now with just one more step, this mobbed-up, money-grubbing absolutist will have the whole world in his hands. "Right and wrong" mean nothing to such big-time operators; power is their only truth, their only god.

Chris Floyd is a columnist for The Moscow Times and a regular contributor to CounterPunch. His new blog of political news and commentary can be found at Empire Burlesque.

I once visited the "map room" of Philip II, King of Spain, and ruler of the (more or less known) world in the second half of the 16th century. Wandering this large chamber filled with maps from Philip's time in his grim, crusader palace-monastery, El Escorial, I found myself trying to imagine how he might have conceived of the New World his soldiers had claimed for him. Somewhere, thousands of miles beyond his sight, beyond what could possibly be imaginable in a 16th century Spanish castle, untold numbers of the Indian inhabitants of his New World realms were dying the grimmest of deaths - and this, not so long after Catholic thinkers had been arguing over whether such beings even had souls capable of conversion from heathenism. Mine was, of course, an impossible exercise, but the rulership of that one man, of that one mind locked within those stone walls and his limited universe, must even then have been an exercise in fiction, no matter that the results were painfully real.

Perhaps in a way all rulership has to be a kind of fiction. The difference is that Philip's equivalent today, the head of the globe's "lone superpower", is at the center of a vast machine for the creation of fiction, a kind of ever-growing assembly line for its production. I suppose the truth is that the human ego - whether that of the man who "runs" America (and desires to run much of the [known] world) or the chief executive officer of any globe-spanning transnational corporation - only has so much expandability. Even a single megalomanic ego, an ego stretched to the limits, would have no way of taking in, no less governing, such a world. Not really. Perhaps this is why, increasingly, the president of the United States has himself become a kind of fiction.

Though we elect a single being to govern us, who, in a never-ending political campaign, pretends to hold certain beliefs and policies sacrosanct, and though a man named George W Bush now inhabits the White House, sleeps in a bed there, watches TV there, entertains foreign dignitaries or Republican funders there, and does myriad other things, including traveling the globe and nervously driving a 1956 vintage Volga beside Vladimir Putin for the cameras in Moscow, "he" and "his" acts and policies are, in fact, a curious creation.

Of course, we read in the paper or hear on TV every day that the president does endless newsworthy things. Just the other day, for instance, there was a little note at the bottom of the front page of my hometown paper announcing that "Bush Gives a Lecture to Putin". The piece inside, "Bush Tells Putin Not to Interfere With Democracy in Former Soviet Republics" by Times White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, began: "President Bush used the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat to warn President Vladimir V Putin of Russia on Saturday that 'no good purpose is served by stirring up fears and exploiting old rivalries' in the former Soviet republics on his borders." Just as Bumiller's piece the day before had begun: "President Bush stepped into the middle of an escalating feud between Russia and the Baltic nations on Friday night as he arrived here in the capital of Latvia at the start of a five-day trip to Europe." Just as, in fact, a thousand other pieces in papers or on radio and TV news programs would begin almost any day of the year.

The president "does" this or that. It is, I suspect, a strangely comforting thought. Only the other night, I spent a couple of minutes listening to two experts discuss "the president's" strategy in his meetings with Putin on Charlie Rose. Would he rebuke the Russian president in their private meeting - and do so in a serious way - for his undemocratic rule? Would he follow the State Department "points" prepared for him, or would he just say a word or two about democracy and move on? And either way, would the meeting between the two men be a "success" as both their PR staffs promptly rushed to announce? And yet George Bush's "rebuke" of Putin was, as we all also know, written by someone else. Essentially, while George spends his life enacting his presidency, he just about never speaks his own, unadulterated words. To shape them, after all, he has Karl Rove, a bevy of pollsters, and a staff of advisers, speechwriters, spinners, and quipsters hired to do the job.

It was, for instance, then-speechwriter David Frum who took credit for one of the president's signature phrases, that "axis of evil" line in his 2002 State of the Union speech. ("States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.") Or rather, it seems that Frum's wife claimed credit for him; then Frum claimed that he had only come up with the line "axis of hate", amended to "axis of evil" possibly by then-White House chief speechwriter Michael Gerson. Later yet, Frum suddenly recalled that the president himself had scratched out "hate" and scribbled in "evil", which was probably a polite lie. If he actually did so, that would be strange indeed. After all, just about nothing the president says is really "his".

In fact, the president is surrounded by a vast coterie of handlers, speech writers, advisers, gag writers, freelancers, pollsters, public relations experts, spinmeisters, strategists, footmen, front men, guards, and valets of every sort, along with, as we all know, Rove, who more or less created his world - and continues to have a large hand in creating him for the world. Whatever Bush himself may be, he is significantly an actor whose role of a lifetime is ... to play a sometimes shifting collage of traits, policies, and beliefs called George Bush. He is firm before Evil. He rebukes Putin and lectures or hectors the world. He exudes optimism under pressure. He chops wood on his ranch in front of the cameras, being a westerner; or, being a warrior, he dons a specially created military jacket with "commander in chief" stitched across his heart in front of thousands of troops roaring "hoo-ah"; or, being a regular guy, he hits his lines just folksy enough at a rally for his followers to know that he is indeed the real man they believe he is, the sort of character any of them might like to sit down and have a beer with; or, as commander-in-chief of a victorious war, he lands dramatically on the deck of an aircraft carrier all togged out as a flier against a banner saying "Mission Accomplished"; or ... well, you can fill in most of this.

If some of this wasn't "him", he probably couldn't do it so well. And in none of this is he a simple alien in presidential history. Such a fictional universe has been a long time in coming, but the Bush people have pushed it to a post-September 11 extreme. The president notoriously lives and campaigns in a bubble world where everything - from his informal words to the make-up of any crowd at any rally or "town meeting" - is smoothed and polished, vetted and reformatted for ... well, certainly political advantage and comfort and ease, but that doesn't quite cover the matter, does it?
As with his life and domestic travels, so in the president's international travels, he and his entourage - including, as in a previous European trip, American escort vehicles as well as the president's official car (known to insiders as "the beast"), 200 secret service agents, 15 sniffer dogs, a Black Hawk helicopter, snipers, five cooks, 50 White House "aides", and the vast press corps that reports on "him" - move inside an enormous bubble, a kind of dream world. All around him the central cities of the planet he's passing through are swept clear of life in order to create a Potemkin Earth just for his pleasure and safety. For Bush & Co, all life is increasingly lived inside that bubble, carefully wiped clean of any traces of recalcitrant, unpredictable, roiling humanity, of anything that might throw the dream world into question. In a sense, George's world has been well stocked with James Guckert clones. (Guckert is, of course, the "journalist" who, using the alias Jeff Gannon, regularly attended presidential news conferences and lobbed softball questions the president's way.) And George himself, whoever he may be (or may once have been), is a kind of Gannon, when you think about it. A character. A creation.

I'm not normally much on post-modern tropes, but this figure we think of, and the media insistently reports on, as an individual (even while we're all fascinated by endless tales about ways in which everything around him is managed) is a kind of composite being, a recombinant man, who travels the planet and lives "his" life not just in a bubble of delusion but as a kind of bubble of delusion. He's a shape-shifting, fictional "individual" imposed on and meant to harness the vastness and complexity of reality. It's a phenomenon so strange that there are, in a sense, no words to describe it.

Laura softens the president's image, reinvents herself

A small incident involving the president's wife brought this home to me recently. On the night of April 30 - as no one in the world cannot know by now - Laura Bush "interrupted" her husband, took the mike in front of a crowd of reporters and celebs at a dim and dreary annual Washington event, the White House Correspondents' Association dinner ("crab hush puppies, steak, asparagus, warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and berries"), and in a well-scripted and rehearsed routine roasted her husband, his family, Dick and Lynne Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and assorted others. "She" was promptly hailed for her sense of humor, her timing, her ribald jokes, and her political savvy, or as the ubiquitous Elisabeth Bumiller put it: "[T]he popular first lady accomplished two things. She brought down a very tough house, and she humanized her husband, whose sagging poll numbers are no match for her own." (No match, in fact, by nearly 40 percentage points.) Bumiller added that "her zingers showed how much the White House relies on her to soften her husband's rough edges at critical moments, much as she did with her extensive travels and fund-raising in the 2004 campaign". (Indeed, Laura is a monster fundraiser. Just a couple of days earlier, between West coast drop-ins on Jay Leno and a center for reformed gang-bangers, she scarfed up US$400,000 for the Party with an hour's stay at an "intimate" little Republican National Committee do.)

The press raves on her brief comic performance came pouring in, repetitively so. She had undergone a "metamorphosis", claimed James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News. Via her comedy routine and by "entertaining more frequently and ha[ving] hired a new chief of staff, new social secretary and new press secretary, she has emerged,"