Paul E. Ester's Flogger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials should give up the “delusional hope” that Iraq (news – web sites) has weapons of mass destruction so they can move forward with reform, David Kay, who once led the U.S. hunt for banned weapons, said on Wednesday…. Rest of Article

At least 13 relatives of Osama bin Laden, accompanied by bodyguards and associates, were allowed to leave the United States on a charter flight eight days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to a passenger manifest released Wednesday.

One passenger on the flight, Omar Awad bin Laden, a nephew of the al-Qaida leader, had been investigated previously by the FBI because he had lived with Abdullah bin Laden, a leader of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, which the FBI suspected of being a terrorist organization.

The passenger list was made public by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who obtained the manifest from officials at Boston’s Logan airport. Lautenberg’s office was given the document in recent weeks and released it Wednesday in advance of Thursday’s issuance of the final report of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Though much was already known about the so-called “bin Laden flight,” Lautenberg provided additional details, including the information that the plane, a 727 owned by DB Air and operated by Ryan International, began in Los Angeles and made stops in Orlando, Dulles and Boston before continuing on to Gander, Newfoundland, Paris, Geneva and Jeddah. The aircraft, tail number N521DB, has been chartered frequently by the White House for the press corps that travels with President Bush.
… Rest of Article

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s quixotic presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him, approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his behalf, more than meeting the requirement.
… Rest of Article

“I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d’etat. We need to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Brown said. “Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, ‘Get over it.’ No, we’re not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world.”

At that point, Buyer demanded that Brown’s words be “taken down,” or removed the debate’s permanent record.

The House’s presiding officer, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, ruled that Brown’s words violated a House rule.



“Members should not accuse other members of committing a crime such as, quote, stealing, end quote, an election,” Thornberry said…. Rest of Article

Though he went to some lengths to make himself untraceable technically, past altercations between Tereshchuk and the company made him the prime suspect from the start, according to court records. The clearest sign came when he issued the seventeen million dollar extortion demand, and instructed the company to “make the check payable to Myron Tereshchuk.”
… Rest of Article

“I can’t really tell you some of the more specific details that would make your eyebrows even raise higher,” Roberts said.

Rockefeller questioned whether Feith overstepped legal bounds with a unit he oversaw, the Office of Special Plans, created to analyze intelligence.

“There’s always the question whether or not he was running a secret intelligence operation that bypassed the entire intelligence community. And the law says you’ve got to inform the intelligence community of anything that you’re doing,” Rockefeller said.

The allegation is contained in a supplement to the 511-page report.

A Pentagon spokeswoman contacted by CNN had no response to the comments.

The Pentagon has argued that the Office of Special Plans did not gather intelligence but rather assessed existing intelligence…. Rest of Article