Paul E. Ester's Flogger

But to take a poodle on a leash and make it a weapon — that’s a new extreme… Rest of Article

Intelligence about possible threats to federal buildings before Timothy McVeigh’s bomb exploded April 19, 1995, and information about possible conspirators that emerged afterward wasn’t always fully shared among federal agencies.


Among the incidents reported by AP and The McCurtain Daily Gazette of Idabel, Okla., over the past few years:


¥ÊFederal officials received credible threats in early 1995 that Islamic terrorists might bomb a government building but did not take steps to fortify buildings with concrete barriers.


¥ÊThe government had a TOW anti-tank missile stowed in a locker several floors above the day care center in the Alfred P. Murrah building the day McVeigh detonated his bomb, forcing a temporary delay in evacuation and rescue efforts.


¥ÊFBI headquarters officials were so worried that white supremacists in Oklahoma might launch an attack on April 19, 1995, to avenge the execution of one of their leaders that they flew a reformed neo-Nazi to Washington in late March and debriefed him about a 1980s plot to blow up the Murrah building. The information, however, wasn’t shared with officials at the building beforehand or given to FBI investigators afterward.


¥ÊJust weeks before McVeigh’s attack, Treasury Department agents planned to raid a rural Oklahoma compound after gathering intelligence that white supremacists there were discussing a possible attack on government officials. The FBI stopped the raid, unaware of the threats against the government. Evidence later surfaced that McVeigh called the compound just 14 days before his bombing.


¥ÊFBI agents investigating a string of bank robberies gathered evidence that members of a neo-Nazi gang might have assisted McVeigh or possessed evidence from the Oklahoma City conspiracy, but much of what they learned wasn’t shared with their colleagues in the McVeigh case. The information prompted the head of the FBI’s Oklahoma City investigation to call for the case to be reopened…. Rest of Article

Pictures of an illegal street party on Valentines Day 2004 @ Haight and Asbury. Brought to us by Reclaim the Streets – San Francisco. Theme of the day was “Pirate”.

Richard Perle, a chief proponent of last year’s U.S. invasion of Iraq, yesterday called for the chiefs of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency to step down because of their faulty conclusions that Saddam Hussein possessed mass-killing weapons.

Perle, a close adviser to U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said top officials made no attempt to skew the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. Instead, he implied, top policymakers relied in good faith on the conclusions of the intelligence agencies.

“George Tenet has been at the CIA long enough to assume responsibility for its performance,” Perle told reporters, referring to the director of the agency. “There’s a record of failure and it should be addressed in some serious way.”

“The CIA has an almost perfect record of getting it wrong in relation to the (Persian) Gulf going back to the Shah of Iran,” Perle said. He called for “a shakeup” in the U.S. intelligence establishment.

“I think, of course, heads should roll,” he said. “When you discover that you have an organization that doesn’t get it right time after time, you change the organization, including the people.

“I’d start with the head head,” Perle said when asked which heads should roll at the CIA. Perle said the DIA ” is in at least as bad shape as CIA (and) needs new management.”

Navy Vice-Adm. Lowell Jacoby has headed the agency since July, 2002… Rest of Article

Chippewa Falls – Warden Dan Benik says it would be inappropriate to send inmates with drug problems to a prison with “high” in its name, so he’s seeking to change the name of the planned Highview Correctional Facility.

Benik is asking the community relations board to come up with three names that can be forwarded to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections and Gov. Jim Doyle for the prison dedicated to drug and alcohol treatment.

The prison, which is to open in April, is on the grounds of what used to be the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled, where Highview Hall is one of the buildings.

The board will seek opinions from the Chippewa Falls community in coming up with another name.

From Journal Sentinel staff and The Associated Press… Rest of Article