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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Done, gone. who wrote (583811)	6/19/2004 10:05:19 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands Al-Qaida may 'reward' American president with strike aimed at keeping him in office, senior intelligence man says Julian Borger in Washington Saturday June 19, 2004 The Guardian A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer. In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as "Anonymous", described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would "inevitably" acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them. He said Bin Laden was probably "comfortable" commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani army claimed a big success in the "war against terror" yesterday with the killing of a tribal leader, Nek Mohammed, who was one of al-Qaida's protectors in Waziristan. But Anonymous, who has been centrally involved in the hunt for Bin Laden, said: "Nek Mohammed is one guy in one small area. We sometimes forget how big the tribal areas are." He believes President Pervez Musharraf cannot advance much further into the tribal areas without endangering his rule by provoking a Pashtun revolt. "He walks a very fine line," he said yesterday. Imperial Hubris is the latest in a relentless stream of books attacking the administration in election year. Most of the earlier ones, however, were written by embittered former officials. This one is unprecedented in being the work of a serving official with nearly 20 years experience in counter-terrorism who is still part of the intelligence establishment. The fact that he has been allowed to publish, albeit anonymously and without naming which agency he works for, may reflect the increasing frustration of senior intelligence officials at the course the administration has taken. Peter Bergen, the author of two books on Bin Laden and al- Qaida, said: "His views represent an amped-up version of what is emerging as a consensus among intelligence counter-terrorist professionals." Anonymous does not try to veil his contempt for the Bush White House and its policies. His book describes the Iraq invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage. "Our choice of timing, moreover, shows an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq." In his view, the US missed its biggest chance to capture the al- Qaida leader at Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains in December 2001. Instead of sending large numbers of his own troops, General Tommy Franks relied on surrogates who proved to be unreliable. "For my money, the game was over at Tora Bora," Anonymous said. Yesterday President Bush repeated his assertion that Bin Laden was cornered and that there was "no hole or cave deep enough to hide from American justice". Anonymous said: "I think we overestimate significantly the stress [Bin Laden's] under. Our media and sometimes our policymakers suggest he's hiding from rock to rock and hill to hill and cave to cave. My own hunch is that he's fairly comfortable where he is." The death and arrest of experienced operatives might have set back Bin Laden's plans to some degree but when it came to his long-term capacity to threaten the US, he said, "I don't think we've laid a glove on him". "What I think we're seeing in al-Qaida is a change of generation," he said."The people who are leading al-Qaida now seem a lot more professional group. "They are more bureaucratic, more management competent, certainly more literate. Certainly, this generation is more computer literate, more comfortable with the tools of modernity. I also think they're much less prone to being the Errol Flynns of al-Qaida. They're just much more careful across the board in the way they operate." As for weapons of mass destruction, he thinks that if al-Qaida does not have them already, it will inevitably acquire them. The most likely source of a nuclear device would be the former Soviet Union, he believes. Dirty bombs, chemical and biological weapons, could be home-made by al-Qaida's own experts, many of them trained in the US and Britain. Anonymous, who published an analysis of al-Qaida last year called Through Our Enemies' Eyes, thinks it quite possible that another devastating strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, as was the case in the Madrid bombing, but of keeping the same one in place. "I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now," he said. "One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president." The White House has yet to comment publicly on Imperial Hubris, which is due to be published on July 4, but intelligence experts say it may try to portray him as a professionally embittered maverick. The tone of Imperial Hubris is certainly angry and urgent, and the stridency of his warnings about al-Qaida led him to be moved from a highly sensitive job in the late 90s. But Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations at the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said he had been vindicated by events. "He is very well respected, and looked on as a serious student of the subject." Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy. He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?" guardian.co.uk _______________________________________ P.S. I posted the above for information purposes only. I have zero intention of discussing it with anyone on this thread. Ergo, comment to your heart's content but do not expect me to respond - I will not.

To: Done, gone. who wrote (583811)	6/28/2004 9:05:05 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

'Fahrenheit 9/11' breaks records Monday, June 28, 2004 Posted: 0256 GMT (1056 HKT) LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" took in a whopping $21.8 million in its first three days, becoming the first documentary ever to debut as Hollywood's top weekend film. If Sunday's estimates hold when final numbers are released Monday, "Fahrenheit 9/11" would set a record in a single weekend as the top-grossing documentary ever outside of concert films and movies made for huge-screen IMAX theaters. Adding the film's haul at two New York City theaters where it opened Wednesday, two days earlier than the rest of the country, boosted "Fahrenheit 9/11" to $21.96 million. "Bowling for Columbine," Moore's 2002 Academy Award-winning documentary, previously held the documentary record with $21.6 million. "Fahrenheit 9/11," Moore's assault on President Bush's actions after the 2001 terrorist attacks, won the top honor at last month's Cannes Film Festival and has attracted attention from both sides in the presidential campaign. The movie has been embraced by left-wing groups, which mobilized members to see it during the opening weekend. Conservative groups sought to discourage theaters from showing it and asked the Federal Election Commission to examine its ads for potential violations of campaign-finance law regulating when commercials may feature a presidential candidate. "I want to thank all the right-wing organizations out there who tried to stop the film, either from their harassment campaign that didn't work on the theater owners, or going to the FEC to get our ads removed from television, to all the things that have been said on television," Moore said. "It's only encouraged more people to go and see it." The Wayans brothers' comedy "White Chicks," about two black FBI agents who go undercover as white debutantes, opened in second place with $19.6 million for the weekend. That pushed the total for "White Chicks" to $27.1 million since opening Wednesday. The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," slipped to third place, taking in $18.5 million and pushing its 10-day total to $67.2 million. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks' "The Terminal" fell from second to fourth place with $13.9 million, raising its 10-day gross to $41.8 million. Premiering in fifth place with $13 million was the tearjerker romance "The Notebook," featuring Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner and Gena Rowlands. Despite good reviews, the family film "Two Brothers," about tiger siblings separated in youth and reunited as opponents in the ring as grown cats, opened weakly at No. 9 with $6.2 million. "Fahrenheit 9/11" opened in 868 theaters, a wide release for a documentary but narrow compared to big Hollywood flicks. The film averaged $25,115 a theater, compared to $7,190 in 2,726 cinemas for "White Chicks." Distributors Lions Gate and IFC Films plan to put "Fahrenheit 9/11" into a couple of hundred more theaters this Wednesday, when competition heats up with the release of "Spider-Man 2," summer's most-anticipated movie. Lions Gate and IFC came on board after Disney refused to let subsidiary Miramax release "Fahrenheit 9/11" because of its political content. Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein bought back the film and went looking for independent distributors. BOX OFFICE TOP 10 Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday. 1. "Fahrenheit 9/11," $21.8 million 2. "White Chicks," $19.6 million 3. "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," $18.5 million 4. "The Terminal," $13.9 million 5. "The Notebook," $13 million 6. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," $11.4 million 7. "Shrek 2," $10.5 million 8. "Garfield: The Movie," $7 million 9. "Two Brothers," $6.2 million 10. "The Stepford Wives," $5.2 million edition.cnn.com