Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (163560)	3/9/2003 5:25:42 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 1574302

Every top Bushie made many millions in energy or defense companies between government gigs. Name one who hasn't. And look at the board of the Carlyle Group if you want to see what cashing in on government service is all about. Dems do it too but this crowd raises profiting off government to a new level. Bush has never earned riches in his life, but he has been given them and always will.

To: i-node who wrote (163560)	3/9/2003 8:02:59 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574302

Blair Confronts Widening Dissent By ALAN COWELL ONDON, March 9 — Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, Washington's most steadfast comrade-in-arms, confronted widening dissent among his Labor Party followers today as a ministerial aide quit the government to protest its readiness to go to war in Iraq and a Labor insider warned that an antiwar revolt among legislators could broaden. The resignation of Andrew Reed, a Labor legislator with the title of parliamentary private secretary in the Environment Ministry, fell far short of a full ministerial resignation that would deeply embarrass Mr. Blair as he seeks international support for a new United Nations resolution sanctifying the use of force against Saddam Hussein. But it was the first departure of its kind among several Labor figures holding positions within the government. Anne Campbell, who holds a similar position in the Trade and Industry Ministry, is among four other junior officials contemplating a similar protest, according to her boss, Minister Patricia Hewitt. And, after a parliamentary revolt by 122 Labor lawmakers last month, when they supported a motion stating that the case for military action was "as yet unproven," Doug Henderson, a former Armed Forces minister, said that the number of Labor dissidents could swell to "upward of 150." Britain has earmarked some 40,000 troops to join the 200,000-plus American soldiers poised to invade Iraq, making it the only significant non-American contributor of forces to President Bush's "coalition of the willing." But Mr. Blair's unswerving support for the Bush administration's invasion plans — with or without a second resolution — has turned into by far his riskiest political gamble since taking office in 1997. Only 15 percent of Britons favor war without a second resolution, according to the latest opinion survey today, leaving Mr. Blair's fortunes in part hostage to the outcome of a military campaign whose political consequences cannot be forecast. While he does not require Parliament's approval to join hostilities, Mr. Blair could well be risking his political future by seeming to flaunt international opinion to support a messy and protracted war in Iraq, particularly if that entails high civilian casualties. "I think the government has serious problems," Mr. Henderson said in a television interview. "My instinct is that this is one of the most critical periods I can remember in the Labor Party." Mr. Blair's loyalists rallied in support today, seeking to convince a skeptical nation that a new resolution was still possible. "We are proceeding through international law to deal with Saddam," said Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. "We are working very hard to get agreement for the second resolution." Mrs. Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Minister, also sought to hold back the protests of junior officials, saying it was "a bit self-indulgent really for people to be talking about resignation in the hypothetical situation that there is no second resolution, when the government is working flat out to get that second resolution." Some analysts said the most troubling message for Mr. Blair was that some Labor legislators seemed to be prepared to take positions that might benefit them in a post-Blair era. The looming prospect of war with Iraq has drawn protests across Britain, the latest on Saturday when some 10,000 took to the streets of the northern city of Manchester to protest the government's support for the White House. Today in Gloucestershire, west of London, police arrested 12 protesters accused of cutting through the fence of a military airbase at Fairford used as a staging post by American B-52 bombers preparing for possible action against Iraq.