Flyby News
"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"
Reopen911.org * Access TV * Billions Stolen
13 February 2006
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.
In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains
seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all
must be most aware of change in the air - however slight -
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
William O Douglas1) Reopen911.org - Confronting the Evidence
2)- Media Action Alert - Help Save Public Access TV
3) Billions Stolen From Iraq- - Bush ignored CIA advice on Iraq, says former spy
- - Libby: White House 'Superiors' OK'd Leaks
- - CIA chief sacked for opposing torture
- - US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites
- - Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn
Editor's Notes:The momentum is building for either our worst fears to be realized or our greatest dreams. Item 1 is a critical tool to use in a positive campaign to get beyond being controlled by fear. The more we confront the evidence surrounding the events of September 11, 2001, the more we honor those fallen, on that day and afterwards. Item 2 contains time sensitive information from Democracy Now to save community access television. The deadline for this is the end of Monday, February 13. Item 3 begins with a powerful segment of "Sixty Minutes" on CBS TV. The corruption is becoming too obvious to ignore.
Please pass the word on this issue; take action for local independent media,
order the free Reopen911.org DVD, and help change the present course
of chaos, madness, and greed, for truth, peace, integrity, and justice.
1) Reopen911.org - Confronting the Evidence- - Media Action Alert - Help Save Public Access TV
Reopen 911 - Confronting the Evidence
Reopen911.org is a web site, and group of individuals encouraging a real investigation
into the the tragic events of September 11, 2001. This organization was founded and
underwritten by Jimmy Walter, an extraordinary individual who has generously
given his time and resources to work in a positive and meaningful way.
Flyby News highly recommends this film:
"Confronting the Evidence:
A Call to Reopen the 911 Investigation."
- Order your free DVD -
Reopen911.org
WARNING
The material in this DVD is extremely disturbing,
but sharing it can make all the difference in the world!
For other FN recommended films and DVDs, see:
Films that Make a difference
2) Media Action Alert - Help Save Public Access TVFrom Democracy Now!
DEADLINE FOR THIS ACTION
IS THE END OF THE DAY,
Monday, February 13, 2006:
File a comment with the FCC
Cable TV and the major telecom companies, while competing for your business, are united in trying to do away with local public access television and the right of cities and towns to negotiate fair deals with these companies. These multi-year deals, called franchises, are the basis of the PEG system - the Public, Educational and Government channels that these cable/telecom companies must provide to cities where they do business.
Companies like Verizon, AT&T (formerly SBC Global), Comcast and Time Warner hope to hike their profits while at the same time doing away with any public interest or pubic access obligations to the cities and towns where the operate.
Choose a link below and follow the simple instructions - the deadline for comments is for the end of Monday February 13.
Keep Community Media Local!
For cable access organizations, producers and access supporters there are three excellent sites available to choose from:
Access organizations =
www.alliancecm.orgAccess producers & friends =
http://mnn.org/saveaccess/nprmhowto.htmlGeneral public & other allies =
www.freepress.net/fcc/comment.php?d=05-311- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ABOUT DEMOCRACY NOW!
Democracy Now! airs on over 350 radio and TV stations, including Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite TV stations; on the World Radio Network's European Service and on the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia service; as a "podcast", automatically downloaded to your computer or portable audio player; and streams live M-F at 8am EST at DemocracyNow.org
3) Billions Stolen From Iraq- - Bush ignored CIA advice on Iraq, says former spy
- - Libby: White House 'Superiors' OK'd Leaks
- - CIA chief sacked for opposing torture
- - US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites
- - Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn
From CBS News - Billions Stolen From Iraq?Some $8.8 billion dispersed for reconstruction efforts in Iraq
is unaccounted for, says the U.S. official in charge of tracing it.
02/09/06 "CBS" -- -- For a report broadcast on "Sixty Minutes"
Sunday, February 12, 2006 at 7 p.m. ET/PT,
60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft investigates the billions spent on reconstruction-related work, particularly money paid
to a contractor, Custer Battles, now being sued for fraud.
Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, says $8.8 billion is unaccounted for because oversight on the part of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the entity governing Iraq after the war, "was relatively nonexistent."
The former number two man at the Coalition's transportation ministry, Frank Willis, concurs. "I would describe [the accounting system] as nonexistent." Without a financial infrastructure, checks and money transfers were not possible, so the Coalition kept billions in cash to pay for its multitude of projects. "Fresh, new, crisp, unspent, just-printed $100 bills. It was the Wild West," says Willis.
Such an atmosphere made it possible for billions to go missing and companies to defraud the Coalition. Custer Battles, a company quickly formed after the war to get reconstruction contracts, goes on trial next week, accused in a whistleblower suit by an ex-employee of bilking the U.S. government out of $50 million.
"[Custer Battles] wanted to open fraudulent companies overseas and inflate their invoices to the U.S. government," says the ex-employee, Robert Isakson. He says he refused to go along with the scheme and "two weeks later, apparently I heard they began exactly the fraud they described to me," he tells Kroft.
Willis remembers Custer Battles, which was formed by former Army Ranger Scott Custer and a failed congressional candidate, Mike Battles, who claimed to be active in the Republican party and have connections to the White House. "They came in with a can-do attitude, whether they could or not," he says. "They were not experienced. They didn't know what they were doing," says Willis.
They nevertheless got contracts and their work quickly drew complaints. "They failed miserably," says Col. Richard Ballard of a $16.8 million contract Custer Battles got to secure the Baghdad Airport. Col. Ballard, the inspector general for the Army in Iraq at the time, says the company failed to provide the X-ray equipment required by the contract.
"These were multi-million-dollar devices for which they received a considerable cash advance so that they could procure them, and then they never procured this equipment," says Col. Ballard. On a bomb-sniffing dog and trainer Custer Battles did procure, Col. Ballard says, "I think it was a guy and his pet, to be honest with you," he tells Kroft. The Colonel noted that the dog "would refuse to sniff the vehicles."
In a memo obtained by 60 Minutes, the airport's director of security wrote to the Coalition: "Custer Battles has shown themselves to be unresponsive, uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war profiteers. Other than that, they are swell fellows."
Instead of removing Custer Battles, the Coalition praised them and continued to give them contracts. One of those contracts involved procuring trucks for moving cash around the country - some of which were inoperative and had to be delivered via tow truck. "I don't really know [how they got away with it]," says British Col. Philip Wilkinson, to whom the trucks were delivered. "The assumption that we had was that they had to have high political top cover...," Col. Wilkinson tells Kroft.
Custer and Battles are now under federal investigation and declined to be interviewed. But in taped depositions, they disavowed any knowledge of fraudulent invoices outlined in the lawsuit.
By Ira Rosen ©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Also posted:
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11856.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Bush ignored CIA advice on Iraq, says former spyby Julian Borger in Washington
Published February 11, 2006 by The Guardian
The CIA official in charge of intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of ignoring assessments that sanctions and weapons inspections were the best way to deal with Saddam Hussein, and that an invasion would have a "messy aftermath".
In an article in the next edition of the bimonthly journal, Foreign Affairs, Paul Pillar, has become the highest-ranking CIA official from the prewar period to accuse the White House of manipulating the intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The allegations contradict the findings of two official inquiries into the intelligence debacle, which have largely blamed the CIA and absolved the administration. They also emerged on the day it was reported that Lewis Libby, a former aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney, had told a grand jury that he had been "ordered" by "his superiors" to leak classified WMD information to the press to bolster the case for going to war.
Article Truncated, for complete article see:
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1707520,00.html= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Libby: White House 'Superiors' OK'd LeaksBy TONI LOCY
02/10/06 "AP" -- -- A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that his superiors authorized him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq, according to court papers.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in documents filed last month that he plans to introduce evidence that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, disclosed to reporters the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate in the summer of 2003.
The NIE is a report prepared by the head of the nation's intelligence operations for high-level government officials, up to and including the president. Portions of NIEs are sometimes declassified and made public. It is unclear whether that happened in this instance.
In a Jan. 23 letter to Libby's lawyers, Fitzgerald said Libby also testified before the grand jury that he caused at least one other government official to discuss an intelligence estimate with reporters in July 2003.
"We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors," Fitzgerald wrote.
Article truncated, for the complete AP article, see:
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11858.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - CIA chief sacked for opposing tortureBy Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith
02/12/06 "The Times" (UK) -- Washington -- The CIA's top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as "water boarding", intelligence sources have claimed.
For complete article link, see:
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036182,00.htmlor
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11886.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior
Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months.
For complete article, see:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/12/wiran12.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/12/ixnewstop.htmlor
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11879.htm= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warnBy Bryan Bender
Globe Staff
02/12/06 "Boston Globe" -- WASHINGTON -- Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists.
For article, see:
www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/02/12/iran_is_prepared_to_retaliate_experts_warn?mode=PFor
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11881.htm
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