Weapons of Mass Destraction

Dennis Kucinich

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Federal Reserve Secrets and Lies

Dees Illustration

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog

The Federal Reserve has been a clandestine organization since its inception.  It is not really part of the federal government; it is merely a subcontractor for monetary policy.  The Fed is basically a cartel of both U.S. and European banks.   It has pulled the levers in the economy from behind a curtain of secrecy since 1913 and has always enjoyed a certain degree of respect and admiration.  All that changed when the economy melted down in 2008.  The respect and admiration of the Federal Reserve is being shredded right along with its veil of secrecy.

The Fed allowed everyone to think the cost of controlling the 2008 financial crash was just a measly $3.3 trillion.  This giant lie was exposed after Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont put a provision in last year’s financial reform bill that forced the Fed to come clean on $9 trillion in additional emergency loans and bailout money.  The Fed funneled cash to foreign banks and companies right along with American banks and companies.  It basically rewarded reckless and illegal behavior of  greedy Wall Street bankers that caused the mess we are in now.

Missing Iraq money may be as much as $18 billion

Photo Credit - Raw Story

David Ferguson
Raw Story

In 2004, the Bush administration flew twenty billion dollars of shrink-wrapped cash into Iraq on pallets. Now the bulk of that money has disappeared. The funds flown into the war zone were made up of surplus from the UN's oil-for-food program, as well as money from sales of Iraqi oil and seized Iraqi assets. Recent estimates had the amount of missing money at about $6.6 billion, but according to Al Jazeera, Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi says the figure is closer to three times that amount.

Officials were supposed to distribute the money to Iraqi government ministries and U.S. contractors tasked with the reconstruction of Iraq, but it now appears that the bulk of the cash was stolen in what may be one of the largest heists in history.

The Iraqi government argues that U.S. forces were supposed to safeguard the cash under a 2004 agreement, making Washington responsible for the money's disappearance. Pentagon officials claim that given time to track down the records they can account for all of the money, but the U.S. has already audited the money three times and no trace of what happened to it can be found.

Al Jazeera says that it has been unable to find any documents whatsoever accounting for the money's disappearance. Some believe that U.S. officials absconded with the money, but it's more likely, sources say, that corrupt Iraqi officials used the funds to line their own pockets.

To date, it's estimated that the Iraq War has cost the United States more than a trillion dollars.

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Ex-spy says US officials went after Iraq critic: report

Juan Cole, pictured in 2006
© AFP/Getty Images/File Alex Wong

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Officials in the George W. Bush administration may have tried to use the CIA to dig up information on an Iraq war critic in order to discredit him, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Glenn Carle, who served as a top counterterrorism official in the Central Intelligence Agency, told the Times that officials twice sought to investigate Juan Cole, a professor and widely read blogger.

Cole, a Middle East expert and history professor at the University of Michigan, was a strident critic of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, which he wrote about extensively on his "Informed Comment" blog.

Irked Iraqis Ridicule Notion of Paying US for Invading

Rep. Rohrabacher Has 'No Regrets' After His Delegation Is Asked to Leave 

Baghdad - Wiki Image

Jason Ditz
AntiWar.com 

A Congressional delegation led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA) has earned the ignominious distinction of being such a nuisance that the Iraqi governmentactually asked them to leave on Friday,following public comments from Rohrabacher and an apparent dust-up with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over his treatment of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK).

By far the most attention was given to Rohrabacher’s comments suggesting that once Iraq was “rich and prosperous” they should start sending the US reparation money to compensate for the inconvenience of America’s 2003 invasion and near decade-long occupation.

Faced with massive unemployment and shrill demands from the Obama Administration to sign off on additional years of occupation, Rohrabacher’s comments have managed to simultaneously bemuse and enrage many Iraqis.

April deadliest month for US in Iraq since 2009

11 US troops have died in Iraq in April
© AFP Ahmad al-Rubaye

AFP

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The killing on Friday of an American soldier made April the deadliest month for US forces in Iraq since 2009, according to figures compiled by AFP.

The soldier "was killed April 29 while conducting operations in southern Iraq," a US military statement released on Saturday said, without giving further details.

The death brought to 11 the number of US troops to have died in Iraq in April, according to an AFP tally based on data compiled by independent website www.icasualties.org.

US Baghdad embassy will double in size: envoy

Editor's Note: The U.S. embassy in Iraq is already the largest and most expensive in the world, reportedly costing over $1.5 billion -- Now it seems safe to double that plus some inflation.

The US embassy complex in Baghdad
© AFP/File

AFP

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US Embassy in Baghdad, already the largest in the world, is expected to double its staff after American forces pull out of the country later this year, Washington's envoy said on Friday.

"We'll be doubling our size if all of our plans go through and if we receive the money from Congress in 2011 and then again in 2012," James Jeffrey, the US ambassador in Iraq, told reporters.

He said the staff would increase "from 8,000 plus personnel that we have now to roughly double that by 2012," adding that US forces would make up only a very small part of that number.

Dozens Of Major Military Contractors Granted Legal Immunity

Marcus Baram
Huffington Post

NEW YORK -- Taxpayers may be on the hook if U.S. military contractors in Iraq incur liability while carrying out their work.

More than 120 military contracts include indemnification clauses -- essentially, promises that the Pentagon will pick up the tab if contractors are sued. The information was disclosed on Thursday in response to an inquiry by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who was concerned that contractor Kellogg Brown Root was granted indemnity amid a lawsuit claiming that the Halliburton subsidiary knowingly exposed soldiers to cancer-causing chemicals in Iraq, as previously reported by The Huffington Post.

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Tony Blair 'to be called back' to Iraq war inquiry to answer questions about 'gaps' in his evidence

Daily Mail

Tony Blair is to be recalled by the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War to answer new questions about 'gaps' in the evidence he gave earlier this year.

The former Prime Minister is likely to be asked to clarify the political build-up to the 2003 American-led invasion.

He is also expected to further explain the legality of Britain's participation in the controversial war.

Sir John Chilcot will write to Mr Blair next month to ask him to attend a public hearing in early 2011, reported The Times.

During his six-hour testimony earlier this year, Mr Blair mounted a vigorous defence of the invasion and insisted he had no regrets over removing Saddam Hussein.

He denied he took the country to war on the basis of a 'lie' over the dictator's supposed weapons of mass destruction.

At the end of his session one member of the audience shouted: 'What, no regrets? Come on' while others heckled 'You are a liar', 'And a murderer'.

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Gen. Hugh Shelton: Clinton Official Suggested Letting U.S. Plane Be Shot Down To Provoke War With Iraq

Jason Linkins
Huffington Post

In the publicity sheet that St. Martin's Press has been sending out to spur interest in General Hugh Shelton's new memoir, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, the last highlight is a doozy: "A high-ranking cabinet member suggests intentionally flying an American airplane on a low pass over Baghdad so as to guarantee it will be shot down, thus creating a natural excuse to reltaliate and go to war."

Turns out the incident took place during the Clinton administration, and Shelton's response to the suggestion...well, let's just say it more than lives up to the title of the memoir. Over at Salon's War Room,

The hair on the back of my neck bristled, my teeth clenched, and my fists tightened. I was so mad I was about to explode. I looked across the table, thinking about the pilot in the U-2 and responded, "Of course we can ..." which prompted a big smile on the official's face.

"You can?" was the excited reply.

"Why, of course we can," I countered. "Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go."

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