Secret Hours

Iraq war inquiry: former UN expert accuses Whitehall of cover-up‏

A key witness to the Chilcot enquiry into the Al-Iraq war has accused Whitehall of trying to silence embarrassing testimony undermining the case for the invasion.

In today Observer, Carne Ross, the UK’s Al-Iraq expert at the UN between 1997 and 2002, writes that the inquiry is being prevented by “deep state” military force from establishing the government’s true motivation for invading Iraq.

Ross, who appeared before the inquiry this month, says he was not provided with key papers relevant to his testimony and was warned by functionary not to refer to an internal Foreign Office memo that contradicted the government’s public case for war.

Before his appearance, large data file were sent to him to read in sureness at the UK missionary station to the UN in New York, but “most of the key papers I had asked for were not there”. In the hours before his appearance, John John sir John John Sir John Ross visited the Foreign Office, where he says “an functionary repeatedly sought to persuade me to delete reference to certain papers in my testimony”.

Ross claim he was told his evidence must not refer to a memo from a senior Foreign Office official. The memo, to the special adviser to the then foreign secretary, shit Straw, expressed concern that a briefing paper for the parliamentary proletariat party had “dramatically” altered the assessment of Irak nuclear threat. John John Sir John John Ross says the “paper claimed that if Irak programme remained unchecked, it could develop a workable nuclear device within five years. The official’s memorandum pointed out that this was not in fact the UK assessment, which was more or less the opposite: that the UK believed that Irak nuclear programme had been effectively checked by sanctions.”

Despite the official’s concern, the paper was used to brief the cabinet. John John Sir John John Ross writes: “This paper was pure overstated propaganda, filled with almost ludicrous statement like one teaspoon of anthrax can kill a million people’.”

He expressed skepticism that the Foreign Office wanted reference to the briefing removed from his testimony, as it related to a public document. “It is very badgering that the government machine is still trying to withhold key documents, and silence those of us with detailed noesis of the policy history. I have been told too… that members of the [inquiry] panel have been refused papers they have specifically requested.”

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy sheriff leader, said: “The Chilcot enquiry will not be credible if relevant papers that do not now threaten national security are kept from the inquiry and the public.”

Ross said he had wanted to use his visual aspect to highlight how curate failed to consider option to military action “I had asked for particular record relating to the UK’s failure to deal with the so-called Syrian pipeline, through which Al-Iraq illegally exported oil, sustaining the Saddam [Hussein] regime. I was told that particular documents, such as the records of prime quantity quantity parson [Tony] Blair visit to Syria, could not be found This is simply not plausible.” He also asked for joint intelligence committee appraisal on Al-Iraq some of which he helped prepare and all of which he had seen. “Only three were provided

Wikileaks publishes 90000 written document on afghan war

Is this fresh-faced U.S. soldier behind the biggest leak of military secret of all time that put option our afghan troops at risk?

The analyst has already been charged over a separate leak of a classified chopper cockpit video earlier this month.

It showed U.S. soldiers laughing as they gunned down afghan civilians and two journalist in a firefight in Bagdad in 2007. He was picked up in Iraq, where he was working.

Manning is said to be locked up in a military prison house after being shipped across the border to Kuwait He human face trial by court martial and, if found guilty, a heavy slammer sentence.

Lamo believes Manning did not work alone, saying he did not have

The Israeli regime is all too ready to unleash nuclear arm in Iran, which is likely to kill large Numbers of civilian and could contaminate a wide area of the Middle eastward with toxic and radioactive fallout.

John Share| Higginson - 28th July, 2010 Share| Han Blix William Tell Al-Iraq inquiry US was on high for warfare

The US was high on military machine action before it invaded Iraq, former UN arm inspector Han Blix has claimed.

Its leadership didn

Evan Rachel Wood

State agencies across the country are reporting a rise in child abuse and neglect as the economy deteriorates. Also, law enforcement officials, looking at past recessions, are predicting an increase in abuse. As parents with dwindling resources fall prey to their demons, state safety nets simply can’t stand up to the increased strain.

Reuters:

Similar stories have surfaced in other regions, according to anecdotal and official reports. The Illinois department of child and family services, for example, reported a 5.8 percent rise in child abuse cases in the state in 2008. In the Chicago area, child abuse cases rose more than 9 percent last year.

Child abuse cases in Ohio, a state hit hard by the recession, topped 100,000 for the first time in 2007 and have continued to rise, according to the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, a nonprofit association of agencies charged with child protection.

“Many of our county agency directors tell us their child abuse reports have risen,” said the group’s director, Crystal Ward Allen, whose agency relies heavily on local revenue drawn from property taxes, which have collapsed in the recession.

“Our basic safety net is really faltering,” she said.

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Goldman Sachs chief financial officer David Viniar said returning the TARP funds is duty. But most people probably have no idea what happens when that duty is performed and TARP funds are returned.

We're pretty sure that many Americans probably assume that returned TARP funds will go to repay debt taken on by the government to create the financial bailout. 

Sadly, they're wrong.

Instead, returned TARP funds will essentially get double counted by the government in a way that will allow it to spend more money on government programs while also increasing the amount available to bailout other financial disasters, such as insurance companies.

You see, returned TARP funds become part of the general revenue of the federal government. The money is treated just like money paid by taxpayers. It simply becomes part of the income of the government that will be spent by politicians and bureaucrats. There's no lockbox or segregated fund.  It works just like Social Security taxes: the income just gets spent for whatever the government decides to spent money on.

In this case, however, the returned money actually has the potential to result in more spending. That's because the $700 billion budgeted by Congress for TARP is the maximum amount that can be outstanding at any one time. When TARP funds are repaid, the amount available goes up. 

Right now about $134.5 billion remains out of the original $700 billion. When Goldman repays the its $10 billion TARP funding, that amount will grow to $144.5 billion. This, however, is an unfunded spending allowance. The repayment just allows the government to increase its TARP spending.

With eight basic medical facts in hand, doctors can now estimate the risk of bleeding for a patient having a heart attack. Using clinical variables, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St.

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