Now comes the news from David Albright that the big boys have known since last May that WMDs would never be found. The former UN nuclear inspector with close contacts in the intelligence community claims that ?the only people who did not know that fact was the public?. That means that we spent hundreds of millions of dollars and eight months to confirm what our governors already knew.

One who's already spoken out on this topic is the hapless former U.S. czar of Iraq, the Israeli-connected General Jay Garner, who recently said point blank that the U.S. is there to stay.
"I think one of the most important things we can do right now is start getting basing rights" in both northern and southern Iraq, Garner said, adding that such bases could provide large areas for military training. "I think we'd want to keep at least a brigade in the north, a self-sustaining brigade, which is larger than a regular brigade," he added.
Noting how establishing U.S. naval bases in the Philippines in the early 1900s allowed the United States to maintain a "great presence in the Pacific," Garner said, "To me that's what Iraq is for the next few decades. We ought to have something there. . . that gives us great presence in the Middle East. I think that's going to be necessary."

Interestingly, one of Chalabi's named cronies in the Newsday story also was the beneficiary during the 1980s of millions of dollars from Chalabi's Jordan-based Petra Bank. It was Chalabi's looting of Petra Bank back then that led to the seizure of the bank by Jordanian authorities, Chalabi's fleeing from justice, and his eventual conviction

Things are so bad in Iraq that none other than Henry Kissinger, the oracle himself, has suggested that Iraq might just as well disintegrate. In one of his patented over-long op-eds in The Washington Post?you had to read all the way to the end of the damn thing to find this?Henry the K says matter-of-factly. "A break up of Iraq into three states may be imposed by events."

Cheney's assets invested with Vanguard Group total $18M to $87M. Given the size of Vanguard's stake in Halliburton, it is hard to imagine a mathematical possibility that Cheney's assets are unconnected to Halliburton's fortunes..

"The whole congressional action looks like a shell game," said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. "There may be enough of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing."

To put the suspicion in compact form: did Cheney maybe in concert with his hunting buddy Bill Bradford, Dresser's CEO, shaft the shareholders by suppressing the explosive news that a former Dresser subsidiary had formally alerted Dresser it might be facing hugely expanded asbestos liabilities?

The Bush administration says it improperly altered a report documenting large racial and ethnic disparities in health care, but it will soon publish the full, unexpurgated document.
The original version of the report included these statements, which were dropped from the final version:
?"We aspire to equality of opportunities for all our citizens. Persistent disparities in health care are inconsistent with our core values."
?"Disparities come at a personal and societal price."
?"Compared with whites, blacks experience longer waits in emergency departments and are more likely to leave without being seen."
?When hospitalized for heart attacks, "Hispanics are less likely to receive optimal care."

At a town hall meeting in Fresno recently, Schwarzenegger said that if the ballot measures lose, "We would have to make drastic cuts, deep cuts. I call them Armageddon cuts. It would be devastating.''

I couldn't help but think there might be something to this comparison as I remembered that Ambassador Otto Reich, President Bush's Envoy for Western Hemisphere Initiatives, had arrived in Haiti the same week bombs began falling on Iraq.