more murray waas

* Murray Waas:

"Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.
[]
The new disclosures regarding the tubes may also shed light on why officials so vigorously attempted to discredit Wilson's allegations regarding Niger, including by leaking information to the media that his wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA."

read the rest


* "While the United States constitutes 5% of the world's population, this “land of the free” holds 25% of the world's prisoners – a third to a half are there for drug offenses . With all the talk of Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition, many overlook that we have a Gulag Prison System here at home, fueled by our drug laws." (link)

* rimone has a related post : "“Combine these facts and stats and you see that (A) There are far more drug users than we admit out there; (B) They’re doing fine, holding jobs, raising kids, snorting on the weekends and trooping back to work like the rest of us.”"

* "John Pike is quoted as saying that the Saudis helped finance the Pakistani nuclear project in the first place" (link)

* emptywheel: "Scottie's basically saying (a) I won't address the NYT article directly (b) our public and private comments are consistent (c) you covered the public comments, which said that the use of force was the final option. Rather than just refute or admit the NYT allegations, Scottie simply says Bush's public and private comments are consistent, then he shifts all emphasis onto the public claims, the ones that assert that Bush hadn't yet committed to war. He's basically saying, "Trust Bush. He told you he hadn't decided to go to war yet. Trust him.""

* rimone has more, "that pesky memo, again", and a good bloggy wrapup.