3 April 2006
In the UK, SOCA, the Serious Organized Crime Agency, kicks in today. It is "intelligence driven", and is headed by a former MI5 chief.
And it will take the fight against drugs to its sources ..... in the Middle East. (British Channel 4 News at 7pm)
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Brit sidekick Jack Straw have paid a surprise visit to Iraq.
They are apparently returning to the UK.
British petro-imperialist puppet Defence Secretary John Reid has said the Geneva Convention needs reconfiguration to meet the needs of the 21st century. In this, he echoes his neo-Nazi American masters.
The jury has unanimously found "twentieth 9/11 hijacker" Zac Moussaoui guilty of something-or-other, which makes him "eligible" for the death penalty.
5 April 06
Hundreds of British farmers are to participate in "Operation Hawthorn", a bird-flu "paper" exercise.
Later ...
Amazing! The H5 strain of bird flu has been "discovered" in a wild swan at Cellardyke, Fife, Scotland. Adding to the "coincidence", a "Hawthorn"-related "exercise" was going on in the area, which was "cancelled" as soon as it was discovered.
A 3-kilometre "protection zone" and a 10-kilometre "surveillance zone" have been set up, centred on the coast where the swan was "discovered".
This is getting monotonous. "Drills" in aircraft crashes on 9/11, cancelled when the real thing occurred. "Paper exercises" in terrorist attacks on the London Underground, at some of the stations where the real ones occurred, on the same day and same time of day as they occurred ...
Oh yes, we can probably add the "N1" to the "H5". And it's on the cards that a "human outbreak" will follow, with restriction of the public, just at the time that Iran is invaded.
6 April 06
The EU's laboratory at Weybridge, England, has indeed confirmed the Scottish bird-flu case as H5N1.
A 1000-square-kilometre "wild bird risk area" has been added outside the "protection" and "surveillance" zones.
7 April 06
Bombers disguised as women killed 70 people in a Baghdad mosque.
Britain Rolls Out Bird Flu Crisis Plan
David Stringer, Associated Press, Washington Post online, 7 April 06
'... Alex Thierman, the Paris-based head of the avian influenza team at the OIE, said ... "[bird flu] could become a risk in the United States by next fall" ...'
Warrantless [Domestic] Wiretaps Possible in U.S.
Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 7 April 06, p.A03
'Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States — a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency [NSA] surveillance program.
'In response to a question from Rep[resentative] Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales suggested that the administration could decide it was legal to listen in on a domestic call without supervision if it were related to al-Qaeda.
'"I'm not going to rule it out," Gonzales said. ...
'In yesterday's testimony, Gonzales reiterated earlier hints that there may be another facet to the NSA program that has not been revealed publicly, or even another program that has prompted dissension within the government. ...'
9 April 06
Several UK Sunday papers have reported a "leaked" letter (written by Sir Liam Donaldson) dealing with government contingency plans for a human bird-flu outbreak, which allow for up to 700,000 deaths.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, has reiterated allegations of Iranian support, in the forms of munitions and money, for guerrilla fighters in Iraq.
(British Channel 4 News, 9 April 06 at 7:45 pm, interview with Khalizad)
10 April 06
The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh has repeated petro-cabalistic psyman about airstrikes, nuclear attacks and regime change for Iran. He got his "information" from "former" intelligence agents, etc.
Can we not expect the invasion to occur at the same time as a "human bird-flu pandemic" — the "necessary counter-measures" for which, the petro-cabal hopes, will stifle the popular resistance that would otherwise be engendered?
Meanwhile, in the story of the century :-) ...
[US] Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability
Thomas E Ricks, Washington Post, 10 April 06, p.A01
'The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officers believe may have overstated his importance [there's a rumour, too, that Big Brother overstated the importance of Emmanuel Goldstein] and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks [but, surely, they wouldn't want to portray him as a CIA asset].
'The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. ...
'For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the "U.S. Home Audience" [we hope you enjoyed the show, folks] as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.
'... Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan[sas], last summer.
'In a transcript of the meeting, Harvey said, "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature [and here he gets down to the root of it: Zarqawi is a caricature to start with], made him more important than he really is, in some ways."
'The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends," said Harvey [my emphasis] ...
'There has been a running argument among specialists in Iraq about how much significance to assign to Zarqawi, who spent seven years in prison in Jordan for attempting to overthrow the government there. After his release he spent time in Pakistan and Afghanistan before moving his base of operations to Iraq. He has been sentenced to death in absentia for planning the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan. U.S. authorities have said he is responsible for dozens [!] of deaths in Iraq and have place a $25 million bounty on his head. ...
'... there were direct military efforts to use the U.S. media to affect views of the war. One slide in the same briefing, for example, noted that a "selective leak" about Zarqawi was made to Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter based in Baghdad. Filkins's resulting article, about a letter supposedly written by Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq, ran on the Times front page on Feb. 9, 2004.
'Leaks to reporters from U.S. officials in Iraq are common, but official evidence of a propaganda operation using an American reporter is rare. [My emphasis.] ...
'The Zarqawi program was not related to another effort, led by the Lincoln Group, a U.S. consulting firm, to place pro-U.S. articles in Iraq newspapers, according to the officer familiar with the program, who spoke on background because he is not supposed to speak to reporters. [I.e., the Zarqawi program was additional to the "Lincoln effort"; and, it may be added, complementary with it.] ...
'The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal military documents. "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response," one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed three methods: "Media operations," "Special Ops (626)" (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite military unit assigned primarily to hunt in Iraq for senior officials in [Saddam] Hussein's government) and "PSYOP," the U.S. military term for propaganda work.
'One internal briefing, produced by the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, said that [Brig. Gen. Mark] Kimmitt ['the U.S. military's chief spokesman when the propaganda campaign began in 2004'] had concluded that, "The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information [sic] campaign to date."
'Kimmitt is now the senior planner on the staff of the Central Command that directs operations in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.
'In 2003 and 2004, he coordinated public affairs, information operations and psychological operations in Iraq — though he said in an interview the internal briefing must be mistaken because he did not actually run the psychological operations and could not speak for them. ...'
The phantom Zarqawi, like the phantom-in-chief Osama himself, is probably dead, or possibly in a CIA prison. These are the only way of ensuring these CIAberspace avatars conform to their ideal roles of popinjays for oil empire.
11 April 06
Iran claims to have enriched low-grade uranium for the first time. This is 3.5% U-235 concentration, suitable for nuclear reactors (bombs require 80% enrichment).
America has said Iran is taking the wrong path.
12 April 06
Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
[US] Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary
Joby Warrick, Washington Post, 12 April 06, p.A01
'On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."
'The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true. ...
'A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq — not made public until now — had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
'The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert the trailers were weapons factories. ...'
14 April 06
British Court Voids Anti-Terrorism Provision Allowing House Arrests
Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post, p.A12
'LONDON, April 13 — A High Court judge ruled Wednesday [12 April 06] that a key provision of British anti-terrorism law, one that allows a form of house arrest for suspected terrorists, is "conspicuously unfair," an "affront to justice" and incompatible with European and British human rights law.
'The sharply worded decision by Judge Jeremy Sullivan was the second time in 18 months that the judiciary has rebuked Prime Minister Tony Blair's government over laws passed following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. ...
'The Home Office, which oversees domestic security, said in a statement that it would appeal the decision ...
'In December 2004, the Law Lords, Britain's highest appellate authority, rejected the government's policy of holding some terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial. The decision forced the government to release eight suspects, all Muslim men who had been held for up to 3 1/2 years.
'They were immediately placed under restrictions known as "control orders." These variously limit movement, require daily check-ins with the police, impose curfews and allow officers to enter homes unannounced. Eleven people are currently subject to the orders, a Home Office spokesman said.
'In Wednesday's ruling, Sullivan deemed control orders to be illegal. He said that people subject to the orders are essentially denied access to a fair hearing in court because the government can impose the orders without explaining why or disclosing any evidence. He accused the government of using them to place a "thin veneer of legality" on its anti-terrorism policies. ...'
Six former US generals have now called for the dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary. They include Batiste, the former commander of US forces in Iraq.
15 April 06
My usenet posting ""Moussaoui mocks victims, says 9/11 wasn't enough""
Today (Easter Saturday) I discovered I was unable to upload a piece on "7 July suicide-bomber leader" Mohammed Sidique Khan and MI5, in spite of several attempts from different systems and to different websites.
"Banana's" allegations on usenet groups ...
"All UK broadsheets print a deliberate war-mongering mistranslation", uk.politics.misc (etc)
Without checking, "banana's" allegations seem a bit "broad".
Two questions ...
(1) Is the IRNA English translation a toned-down version of a Persian original?
(2) Are the Anglo-Saxon media reports based on a different (/variant) Ahmadinejad speech?
Britain took part in mock Iran invasion
Julian Borger, The Guardian (UK), 15 April 06
'British officers took part in a US war game aimed at preparing for a possible invasion of Iran, despite repeated claims by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, that a military strike against Iran is inconceivable.
'The war game, codenamed Hotspur 2004, took place at the US base of Fort Belvoir in Virginia in July 2004.
'A Ministry of Defence spokesman played down its significance yesterday. "These paper-based exercises [which immediately puts me in mind of that other "paper exercise", carried out at at least some of the London Underground stations close to the actual July 7 attacks, on the same date and roughly at the same times] are designed to test officers to the limit in fictitious scenarios. We use invented countries and situations using real maps," he said. ...
'The senior British officers took part in the Iranian war game just over a year after the invasion of Iraq. It was focused on the Caspian Sea, with an invasion date of 2015. Although the planners said the game was based on a fictitious Middle East country called Korona, the border corresponded exactly with Iran's and the characteristics of the enemy were Iranian.
'A British medium-weight brigade operated as part of a US-led force.
'The MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which helped run the war game, described it on its website as the "year's main analytical event of the UK-US Future Land Operations Interoperability Study" aimed at ensuring that both armies work well together. The study "was extremely well received on both sides of the Atlantic".
'According to an MoD source, war games covering a variety of scenarios are conducted regularly by senior British officers in the UK, the US or at Nato headquarters. He cited senior military staff carrying out a mock invasion of southern England last week and one of Scotland in January.
'However, Hotspur took place at a time of accelerated US planning after the fall of Baghdad for a possible conflict with Iran. That planning is [!!] being carried out by US Central Command, responsible for the Middle East and central Asia area of operations, and by Strategic Command, which carries out long-range bombing and nuclear operations.
'William Arkin, a former army intelligence officer who first reported on the contingency planning for a possible nuclear strike against Iran in his military column for the Washington Post online, said: "The United States military is really, really getting ready, building war plans and options, studying maps, shifting its thinking." ...'
19 April 06
Karl Rove, President Bush's "brain", has given up his policy advisory role.
20 April 06
The bird-flu restricted zone around Cellardyke in Scotland is to be lifted from tomorrow night.
21 April 06
Is this the start of staged border incidents serving as the appetizer for Iran invasion?
Iran Bombs Kurdish Camp in Iraq
Reuters, ABC News (US)
'ARBIL, Iraq — Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish rebel positions inside mountainous northern Iraq on Friday [today] to repel an attack, an Iraqi Kurdish official said.
'"This morning Iranian Kurdish fighters infiltrated the border into the Iranian side and the Iranian army bombed the area and repelled them. The shelling hit Iraqi land at Sidakan," said Saadi Pira, an official in Iraq's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party. ...
'There was no word on the shelling from Iraq's Defense Ministry. [And apparently Reuters didn't think it worth mentioning the Iranians at all.] ...'
The Iraqi Kurds are of course America's buddies ...
22 April 06
Four US soldiers have been killed in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad. (UK Sky News)
23 April 06
Al-Jazeera has broadcast another "bin Laden" audiotape, threatening new attacks on American soil soon.
24 April 06
Anthrax on a Welsh farm near Cardiff, two cows confirmed dead of it, another four cows dead. There was an outbreak on this farm 35 years ago.
Bombs in another tourist town in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. 10-100 fatalities.
John Kerry (the horse who lost a fixed race) has criticised the US administration for "allowing Bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora".
Don't read too much into this; he's playing the petro-imperialists' game of pretending Islamist Goldstein is alive.
UK Secretary of Defence John Reid has complained of the British media comparing the government's methods to those of 20th-century dictatorships.
Reid has visited British troops in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
25 April 06
A video of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has appeared on a website, in which he (assuming it is him) says he has been demoted.
26 April 06
Iran's spiritual leader Khamenei has promised to return double any blows America inflicts on Iran, and in this case to attack US interests throughout the world. British Channel 4 News at 7pm BST)
According to the same programme, Saudi intelligence officials have said Iran's Revolutionary Guards (Pasdars, Pasdaran) are already helping the resistance in Iraq.
Assuming Channel 4 News's claim is true, this is like Poland attempting to stave off its invasion by helping Germany with stories (or rather, repeating Germany's own stories) against Czechoslovakia.
A strain of bird flu, believed to be H7, has been found at a poultry farm at Dereham, Norfolk, UK. This strain too can infect both birds and humans.
... so, once more, an affirmation that the Iran invasion is not far away.
27 April 06
1,000 secret CIA flights revealed
Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian (UK)
'The CIA has operated 1,000 secret flights over EU territory in the past five years, some to transfer terror suspects in a practice known as "extraordinary rendition", an investigation by the European parliament said yesterday.
'The figure is significantly higher than previously thought. EU parliamentarians who conducted the investigation concluded that incidents where terror suspects were handed over to US agents did not appear to be isolated. They said the suspects were often transported around Europe on the same planes by agents whose names repeatedly came up in their investigation.
'They accused the CIA of kidnapping terror suspects and said those responsible for monitoring air safety regulations revealed unusual flight paths to and from European airports. The report's author, Italian MEP Claudio Fava, suggested some EU governments knew about the flights. ...
'"After 9/11, within the framework of the fight against terrorism, the violation of human and fundamental rights was not isolated or an excessive measure confined to a short period of time, but rather a widespread regular practice in which the majority of European countries were involved," said Mr Fava. ...
'Mr Fava referred to the alleged abduction of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar by CIA agents in a Milan street in 2003, to Khalid al-Masri, who was transferred from Macedonia to Afghanistan, and the transfer of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, from New York to Syria, among other incidents. ...
'Mr Fava's committee did not report on secret prisons, but he said EU parliamentarians intended to visit Romania and Poland where, it is suspected, the CIA had secret interrogation camps. ...
'Extraordinary rendition would breach European human rights legislation and British domestic law.'
28 April 06
As a 30-day (non-binding!) Security-Council deadline for Iran expires (see March 2006 diary, under 30 March 06), the International Atomic Energy Authority, the IAEA, publishes its report on Iran's nuclear programme, saying it has (surprise surprise) not halted its activities, but speeded them up.
A poultry worker at the Dereham farm (see above, under 26 March 06) has contracted the bird-flu virus there, confirmed as H7N3. This is not as "deadly" as H5N1 ... <
US charges ex-[head of interrogations] at Abu Ghraib ...
BBC News online, 28 April 06
'The US [army] has charged the former head of the interrogation centre at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison over the abuse of Iraqi detainees.
'Lt-Col Steven Jordan has been charged with seven offences including maltreatment of prisoners.
'He is the highest-ranking officer to face criminal charges over events at the prison. ...'
30 April 06
"False Flag", the last episode of the current run of the BBC TV police-fiction series Raising the Dead, was shown tonight. The episode's title refers to the use of terrorist organizations (the IRA in this case) by the "security"/"intelligence" services as a mask for their own black operations. In this case, blowing up the Home Secretary — the "reason" being the British government would have launched a military coup if it had lost the elections.
You have to laugh at the thought of MI5/6 being at odds with the government! The latter have been the willing, indeed eager, puppets of the former.
Nevertheless, is this another stage in the use of fiction (on the BBC, no less) to spotlight the Anglo-Saxon world's empire-building terrorism?
How long will it be before the Elephant-In-The-Living-Room emerges into a fully factual treatment on mainstream media?
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