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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (46710)	5/20/2004 10:57:55 AM
From: manalagi	Respond to of 89467

The adminsitration should just realize that we had been had by crook Chalabi. Why are we in Iraq? Bush said for democracy. If at the very beginning Bush asked Congress to go to invade to Iraq for democracy, would the nation give him a go ahead? As a conservative life-long Republican - and proud of it, I voted for Bush in 2000 to be the President of the United States. Little that I know, he is the President of Iraq where American taxpayers money is spent/wasted ($ 5B slush fund out of additional $ 25B requested). Bush does not care about the price of gasoline in the US. Afterall, he does not have to pay for gas. The higher gas price if the more oil companies make money. What if the people of Iraq complain about rising gas prices in Bagdad. It won't be one minute too soon that Bush will correct the problem. People who admires this president should just go to Iraq and live there since Bush is the de-facto president of Iraq and he takes care of them at our expense. U.S. Troops Raid Chalabi's Headquarters in Iraq Thu May 20, 7:21 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Luke Baker BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops raided a house used by Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi and searched his party offices in Baghdad on Thursday, piling pressure on the former Pentagon (news - web sites) favorite now increasingly shunned by Washington. Reuters Photo Squads of soldiers, backed by Iraqi police, sealed off the neighborhood around the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and a nearby house used by Chalabi for meeting officials, removing computers, files and other equipment. INC spokesman Haider Moussawi said the troops also wanted to arrest two party members but were told by Chalabi they were not present. Chalabi, who returned from exile after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as a potential future leader, was not detained. "They have been putting political pressure on us for weeks. It's part of an attempted character assassination and it's politically motivated, but it won't work," Moussawi said. "When someone stands up independently and puts his views firmly it appears the Americans don't like it, it scares them." Moussawi said he did not know what the raid was related to, but called it a worrying development. "They think they can do whatever they want. They didn't even have a warrant." U.S. officials said on Tuesday the Pentagon had cut off some $340,000 a month in funding to Chalabi's INC party, payments that were made in part for intelligence gathered by the INC. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the decision "was made in light of the process of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people." "We felt it was no longer appropriate for us to continue funding in that fashion," he told a U.S. Senate hearing. "There's been some very valuable intelligence that's been gathered through that process that's been very valuable for our forces. But we will seek to obtain that in the future through normal intelligence channels." CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE U.S. officials have said they had doubts about the intelligence the INC provided and about whether Chalabi was motivated chiefly by a desire for power. An exile who lived abroad for more than four decades, Chalabi was convicted in absentia of bank fraud in 1992 by a military court in Jordan, where he had founded a bank that failed. He says the charges were politically motivated. The Pentagon flew him into Iraq (news - web sites) with a group of followers after the U.S.-led invasion last year, giving him an opportunity to establish a political base. But he has struggled to drum up support and surveys in Iraq have ranked him as one of the least-liked politicians. Chalabi has many critics elsewhere in the U.S. government, notably at the CIA (news - web sites), which suspected his group may have been penetrated by Saddam's agents before the war and which questioned the intelligence information it provided. The State Department also had its doubts and resented the Pentagon's support for Chalabi. State Department officials questioned whether he could emerge as a national leader. In its prewar role, Chalabi's INC directed Iraqi defectors to the U.S. government to provide intelligence that critics now say was largely spun to prod the United States into taking action against Baghdad. U.S. officials said in February an Iraqi who was the source for Washington's prewar claim that Iraq had mobile biological weapons labs had fabricated the allegation. The man was introduced to U.S. intelligence by Chalabi's group. No stockpiles of banned or unconventional weapons have been found in Iraq.

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (46710)	5/20/2004 12:30:28 PM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

big favor needed: what company did Berkshire Hathaway buy? it was chock full of derivative crappola it took Buffet a couple years to sort out my guess is the name is General RE not sure, just drawing on memory can anyone verify the name? much depreciated, jim

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (46710)	5/24/2004 9:14:14 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Cannes triumph for Michael Moore timesonline.co.uk May 23, 2004 The Sunday Times THE JURY of the Cannes film festival made an overtly political choice last night when it awarded the top prize to Michael Moore's scathing indictment of George Bush's administration and the war on Iraq. It was the first documentary to win the prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's The Silent World in 1956. "What have you done? I'm completely overwhelmed by this. Merci," Moore said at the award ceremony. Although Fahrenheit 9/11 was well received in Cannes, many critics felt it was inferior to Moore's previous Oscar-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine, which earned him a special prize at Cannes in 2002. Some critics speculated that Fahrenheit 9/11 won the top prize more for its politics than its cinematic value. The controversial American director admitted as much when he collected the award. "I have a sneaking suspicion that you have done this to make sure that the simple American sees this film," he declared. "I dedicate this film to all those suffering in Iraq," Moore added. "If it does nothing else, I think it will mean that those who have lost their lives in Iraq did not die in vain." With his customary blend of humour and horror, Moore's cinematic diatribe lambasts the Bush camp for "stealing" the 2000 election, overlooking warnings before September 11 and fanning fears of terror in an effort to boost support for the war on Iraq. It opens with the contested presidential election and moves on to September 11, exposing the relationship between the Bush and the Bin Laden families. The film then switches to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with graphic footage of wounded Iraqis and prisoners being abused by US troops. Moore appears on screen far less in Fahrenheit 9/11 than in Bowling for Columbine or his other documentaries. The film relies largely on interviews, footage of US soldiers and war victims in Iraq, and archive footage of Bush. Moore's win capped a politically charged festival, with documentaries and films reflecting troubled times and French show business workers staging sit-ins to protest against cuts in their welfare benefits. Fahrenheit 9/11 attracted huge publicity before the festival when Disney, the parent company of Miramax which produced the film, said it did not want to distribute the picture in an election year. Last night the director announced he had found a new distributor. Thanking the jury, headed by the cult director Quentin Tarantino, Moore said: "You will ensure that the American people will see this movie . . . You have put a huge light on this."