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Iran on course for nuclear bomb, EU told

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Iran will be able to develop enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb and there is little that can be done to prevent it, an internal European Union document has concluded.

In an admission of the international community’s failure to hold back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the document – compiled by the staff of Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief – says the atomic programme has been delayed only by technical limitations rather than diplomatic pressure. “Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded,” it states.

The downbeat conclusions of the “reflection paper” – seen by the Financial Times – are certain to be seized on by advocates of military action, who fear that Iran will be able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb over the next two to three years. Tehran insists its purposes are purely peaceful.

“At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons programme,” says the paper, dated February 7 and circulated to the EU’s 27 national governments ahead of a foreign ministers meeting yesterday.

[Financial Times]

Related:
Iran president ‘ready for talks’

Bills filed in Austin to shoot first, retreat later in self-defense

AUSTIN — Castle Doctrine sounds like a medieval warning to invaders: Cross this moat and suffer the consequences.

A pair of Republican state lawmakers now want to use it to revise Texas’ modern-day self-defense laws.

Sen. Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio and Rep. Joe Driver of Garland have sponsored bills to have Texas join more than a dozen states with the so-called “Castle Doctrine,” a sort of shoot-first, retreat-later approach to defending hearth, home, truck and business.

[RawStory]

Related: Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” Bill

‘Dubious’ Intelligence Fueled Push for War

Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Feith’s office “was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,” according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith’s activities as “an alternative intelligence assessment process.”

An unclassified summary of the full document is scheduled for release today in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin chairs. In that summary, a copy of which was obtained from another source by The Washington Post, the inspector general concluded that Feith’s assessment in 2002 that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a “mature symbiotic relationship” was not fully supported by available intelligence but was nonetheless used by policymakers.

[WashingtonPost]

The “25 Most Corrupt Members of the Bush Administration”


The liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a list of the “25 Most Corrupt Members of the Bush Administration”

CREW’s website says that “The majority of the officials in the report have been convicted of crimes, are currently under criminal investigation, or are being investigated by the inspector generals of their respective agencies.”

The watchdog group also releases an annual list of most-corrupt members of Congress.

[RawStory]

Pentagon Inspector General to release investigation into secretive pre-war Iraq intelligence group

A long awaited Pentagon Inspector General’s report into the Office of Special Plans and its activities surrounding pre-war intelligence in the lead up to the Iraq war has been completed, RAW STORY has learned.

According to sources close to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the classified version of the Pentagon IG’s report will be released to committee members Friday. Two to three declassified pages may also be concurrently released to the public.

A Senate aide on the committee, while not commenting on particular questions regarding the IG’s report, confirmed that a major focal point involves former Deputy Undersecretary for Defense Policy Douglas Feith – a keystone of the Administration’s intelligence on Iraq and director of the notoriously secretive Pentagon Office of Special Plans from September 2002 to June 2003.

Feith announced his resignation in January 2005, a week after the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh accused him of working with Israeli officials to select potential targets for a preemptive Iran strike.

[RawStory]

GOP Views Clinton As Virtually Unbeatable

What many conservatives regard as the nightmare scenario — President Hillary Rodham Clinton — is increasingly seen by veteran Republican politicians and strategists as a virtual inevitability.

In GOP circles, the Democratic front-runner is seen as so strong, and the political climate for Republicans so hostile, that many influential voices — including current and former lawmakers, and veterans of President Bush’s campaigns — have grown despairing. These partisans describe a political equivalent of the stages of grief, starting with denial, then resentment and ending with acceptance…

The flagging conservative morale about beating Clinton comes at the same time many Democrats regard the New York senator as newly vulnerable because of the competition she faces from Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and skepticism she faces from activists opposed to the Iraq war. On the Republican side, there is a disconnect between grass-roots, red-state Republicans and the mostly Washington-based operatives who surround Bush. While conservative publishers and organizers have made a fortune off the loathing for Clinton among workaday Republicans, people around the president have always expressed a grudging respect for her wiles and willpower and have long warned that she would be a formidable national candidate.

Several top Republicans said the fears that Clinton could be a prohibitive favorite have contributed to overall blahs that activists feel about the GOP field. One presidential adviser said that Clinton dread was actually helping Republican leaders stomach candidates who might otherwise be unacceptable. “People are willing to sacrifice some of their ideological principles to win,” the adviser said.

[Politico]

Hackers Attack Key Net Traffic Computers

Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.

Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet’s most vital pipelines.

The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in “org” and some other suffixes, experts said. Officials with NeuStar Inc., which owns UltraDNS, confirmed only that it had observed an unusual increase in traffic.

Among the targeted “root” servers that manage global Internet traffic were ones operated by the Defense Department and the Internet’s primary oversight body (ICANN).

[AP News]

Saudi’s host summit between rival Palestinian leaders

Saudi Arabia threw its weight, wealth and prestige behind urgent efforts to end Palestinian divisions yesterday as it stepped up a diplomatic drive to challenge Iran and its regional allies and play a more muscular role across the Middle East.

King Abdullah’s mediation between Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister and leader of the Islamist movement Hamas, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, represents a high-profile attempt to defuse the crisis by steering these bitter rivals to forge a desperately needed deal on a national unity government.

The talks fit into a pattern of what analysts and diplomats see as new activism by the normally low-key Saudis, who are more used to quietly wielding chequebooks to buy influence and preserve the status quo than launching public initiatives to achieve their goals.

The oil-rich, conservative kingdom has been galvanised into action by fears about the continuing chaos and violence in Iraq, the increasingly assertive Iranian influence across the region – in Iraq, Lebanon and, most recently, in the Palestinian territories – and anxieties about a widening divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

The Saudis were horrified by last summer’s war in Lebanon, when Hizbullah seemed to be fighting Israel as part proxy for Iran, Syria and the Palestinians.

[The Guardian]

Apple’s Jobs to record labels: Unlock your music, DRM not working

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs on Tuesday called on the four major record companies to start selling songs online without copy protection software known as digital rights management (DRM).

Jobs said there appeared to be no benefit to the record companies to continue to sell more than 90 percent of their music without DRM on compact discs while selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system.

“If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies,” he said in a statement posted to his company’s Web site.

Apple has been under pressure in Europe to make iTunes music compatible with players other than the iPod. On Jan. 25 Norway’s consumer ombudsman said Apple must open access to iTunes by Oct. 1 or face legal action.

“Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies toward persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free,” said Jobs about the European action.

[CNN Money]

Click to read the full text of Job’s statement, “Thoughts on Music

Obama, Clinton May Skip Early Debates

What if the media-political complex announced a presidential debate, hired a hall, sent out invitations, lined up 200 folding chairs for the press, and then the major candidates said: “Stick it in your ear. We’re not coming.”

That could happen this year for one good reason: Major candidates are complaining that too many states are planning too many debates too early.

Early debates are helpful to second- and third-tier candidates because those candidates need publicity.

But what do front-runners get from debates? Nothing but risk. They already have publicity. To the top tier, early debates are a negative, an ordeal, a chance for the rest of the pack to nip them in their rear ends.

[Politico]

Wash. initiative would require married couples to have kids


OLYMPIA, Wash. – An initiative filed by proponents of same-sex marriage would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriage annulled.

Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. That group was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriage would be subject to annulment.

[NWCN.com]

G.O.P. Senators Block Debate on Iraq Policy


Republicans on Monday blocked Senate debate on a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq, leaving in doubt whether the Senate would render a judgment on what lawmakers of both parties described as the paramount issue of the day.

The decision short-circuited what had been building as the first major Congressional challenge to President Bush over his handling of the war since Democrats took control of Congress last month, and left each party blaming the other for frustrating debate on a topic that is likely to influence the 2008 presidential and Congressional races.

At issue is a compromise resolution drawn up chiefly by Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, that says the Senate disagrees with President Bush’s plan to build up troops and calls for American forces to be kept out of sectarian violence in Iraq.

The deadlock came after Democrats refused a proposal by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, that would have cleared the way for a floor fight on the Warner resolution in return for votes on two competing Republican alternatives that were more supportive of the president.

[NYTimes]

U.S. Set to Begin a Vast Expansion of DNA Sampling

The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected.

The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents.

The goal, justice officials said, is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents, including illegal immigrants. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons.

[NYTimes]

US war objector pleads not guilty at court-martial

A U.S. Army officer who refused an order to deploy to Iraq, pleaded not guilty on Monday to several charges at a court-martial that calls into question the right of officers to speak out against the war.

First Lt. Ehren Watada, 28, faces a charge of missing movements when he refused to ship out to Iraq with his brigade last summer, and two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer for statements criticizing the war as illegal and immoral.

Watada, whose supporters say he is the first Army officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq, could face up to four years in prison if he is found guilty on all charges.

“I had no other choice but to refuse the order,” he said.

[Reuters]

Bush and Cheney’s dirty secrets


The former Chief of European Operations for the CIA official blows the whistle on bogus intelligence, covert kidnappings and the alleged torture of terror suspects in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.
Some excerpts:

…never before have I seen the manipulation of intelligence that has played out since Bush took office. As chief of Europe I had a front-row seat from which to observe the unprecedented drive for intelligence justifying the Iraq war.

The administration wanted to make the case for war with Iraq. They needed a tangible thing — they needed the German stuff. They couldn’t go to war based just on the fact that they wanted to change the Middle East. They needed to have something threatening to which they were reacting.

From the perspective of the White House, it was smart to blur the lines about what was acceptable and what was not in the war on terrorism. It meant that whenever someone was overzealous in some dark interrogation cell, President Bush and his entourage could blame someone else. The rendition teams are drawn from paramilitary officers who are brave and colorful. They are the men who went into Baghdad before the bombs and into Afghanistan before the army. If they didn’t do paramilitary actions for a living, they would probably be robbing banks. Perhaps the Bush administration deliberately created a gray area on renditions.

[Salon.com]