Infinite Unknown

The White House, announcing the meeting with Mr Olmert, gave little indication that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions would be at the top of the agenda

President Bush is to hold White House talks with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday after publication of a nuclear watchdog’s report this week showing that Iran may have stockpiled enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency believes that Iran has amassed 630kg of low enriched (=useless) uranium, up from 480kg in late August. Some experts believe this is enough to produce the weapons-grade material needed for a crude nuclear device similar in size to that which America used to destroy the city of Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.

Sean McCormack, the US State Department spokesman, said: “It’s concerning. This is a matter that will be taken up next week at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting.” Asked if Tehran now had sufficient material to build a bomb, he suggested that there were different opinions. “Some said it was enough; others said it was not enough, but close,” said Mr McCormack. “In any case, you don’t want Iran to get close.”

In its report, the IAEA said that Iran was working hard roughly to double its number of operating centrifuges. European diplomats say that Iran might have 6,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by the end of the year - and plans to install another 3,000 early next year.

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Tags: Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Ehud Olmert, George Bush, IAEA, Iran, Israel, Middle East, nuclear bombs, Nuclear weapons, Politics, Robert Gates, U.S., uranium

An investigation by the agency’s inspector general finds that officials covered up details of the 2001 incident over Peru that killed two Americans and wounded three other people.

Reporting from Washington — An internal investigation by the CIA found that agency officials engaged in a cover-up to hide agency negligence in the downing of a private airplane over Peru in 2001 as part of a mistaken attack on an aircraft suspected of carrying illegal narcotics.

Excerpts of an internal CIA report released Thursday accuse agency officials of lying to members of Congress and withholding crucial information from criminal investigators and senior Bush administration officials.The disclosure could lead to the reopening of a probe into whether agency officials committed crimes in the attack on the aircraft, which was transporting American missionaries, and then covering it up.

The attack killed Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter and injured three others, including Bowers’ husband and young son. It was carried out by a Peruvian warplane working with CIA surveillance craft.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, described the revelations as “a dark stain” on the CIA and called for information to be shared with the Justice Department to determine whether reopening the investigation is warranted.

“To say these deaths did not have to happen is more than an understatement,” said Hoekstra, who added that the agency’s inspector general had uncovered “continuous efforts to cover the matter up and potentially block criminal investigation.”

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Tags: Bush administration, CIA, Condoleezza Rice, Congress, Crimes, Drugs, Government, Justice Department, Michael Hayden, Politics

WASHINGTON - Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials.

Mr. Bush’s top advisers held a series of meetings at the White House this summer after a Supreme Court ruling in June cast doubt on the future of the American detention center. But Mr. Bush adopted the view of his most hawkish advisers that closing Guantánamo would involve too many legal and political risks to be acceptable, now or any time soon, the officials said.

The administration is proceeding on the assumption that Guantánamo will remain open not only for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency but also well beyond, the officials said, as the site for military tribunals of those facing terrorism-related charges and for the long prison sentences that could follow convictions.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, DHS, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Government, Guantánamo, Homeland Security, John McCain, Politics, Robert Gates, terrorism, U.S.

A paper trail on the use of waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques by the CIA is emerging in the US

The Bush administration sent two secret memos endorsing the use of waterboarding against al-Qaida suspects, according to today’s Washington Post. They were prompted by worries within the CIA that the administration might later distance itself from the way suspects were interrogated, the paper reports.

Officials told the paper that the then CIA director George Tenet asked for written approval for secret interrogations, in June 2003. A few days later he got a “brief memo conveying the administration’s approval for the CIA’s interrogation methods”.

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Tags: Abu Ghraib, Bush administration, CIA, Condoleezza Rice, George Bush, George Tenet, Government, interrogation, Politics, U.S., White House

Afghan National Army soldiers raise their rifles as they train in Kabul Sept. 21, 2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence agencies conclude in a draft report that Afghanistan is in a downward spiral and they doubt whether the Kabul government can stem the Taliban’s rise, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The classified report says corruption inside President Hamid Karzai’s government and an increase in attacks by militants operating from Pakistan have accelerated the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan, the Times said, citing U.S. officials familiar with the document.

Asked to comment on the intelligence report, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had not seen it herself but she confirmed that intelligence agencies had been asked to have a close look at Afghanistan.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Condoleezza Rice, David Petraeus, Government, Military, Pakistan, Pentagon, Politics, Taliban, U.S.

The observer of a helicopter of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) sits on the back door during a flight from Feyzabad to Kunduz, north of Kabul, September 24, 2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two NATO helicopters fired upon by Pakistani forces on Thursday were U.S. military aircraft operating inside Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.

“They were U.S. helicopters,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters at a briefing. “The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan.”

A Pakistani military spokesman said the helicopters had crossed the border into Pakistani territory, while Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, denied troops had shot at the helicopters, insisting that only warning flares had been fired.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Asif Ali Zardari, Condoleezza Rice, Government, Military, NATO, Pakistan, Pentagon, Politics, U.S.

A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving President Bush authority to wage war in late 2002 said Vice President Cheney misled him by saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, CIA, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, FBI, George Bush, George Tenet, Government, Guantánamo, Iraq, John Ashcroft, Justice Department, Karl Rove, Military, Politics, Saddam Hussein, Surveillance, War, warrantless wiretapping program

Ron Paul

US Congressman Ron Paul says the United States is in Georgia not for democracy but to protect an oil pipeline bypassing Russia.

“We are not for democracy there - we are there to protect a pipeline. And that is tragic for me,” he said.

The remarks came as the US Senate Committee on Armed Services held a hearing to cast Moscow as an aggressor in the 5-day conflict in the Caucasus region but a rift among the members hampered decision making.

Another US congressman has accused Georgia of triggering the conflict despite the Bush administration’s taking side with Tbilisi.

“The recent fighting in Georgia and its breakaway region was started by Georgia. The Georgians broke the truce, not the Russians! And no talk of provocation can change that fact,” said Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

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Tags: Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, Georgia, Military, Oil, Politics, Ron Paul, Russia, U.S.

Mr Medvedev said he hoped lessons would be learned from August’s events

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia as Russia’s 9/11.

He said the world had learnt lessons from the attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 and hoped the same would happen after events in the Caucasus.

Reports say Russian troops are showing signs of preparing to pull back from inside Georgia.

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Tags: 9/11, Abkhazia, Condoleezza Rice, Dmitry Medvedev, France, Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, Military, Nicolas Sarkozy, OSCE, Politics, Russia, South Ossetia, U.N., U.S.

*Kakistocracy is government by the very worst, least principled, and most incompetent people. You will be forgiven for thinking that the word, kakistocracy, perhaps derives from the word, “caca”, itself derived from the Latin, “cacare”. In fact, kakistocracy derives from the Greek, kakos, meaning “bad”.)

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