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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Hurst who wrote (30589)	2/1/2005 7:13:01 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 93284

excerpts-------- NEW YORK — U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan did not ask Paul Volcker for a financial disclosure statement before appointing him to investigate the Oil-for-Food scandal, U.N. officials admitted. — Volcker has a longtime membership in the UNA-USA Business Council, a pro-United Nations organization partly funded by BNP Paribas, the bank that handled all Oil-for-Food transactions. — There are questions about Volcker’s position as an adviser to the Power Corporation of Canada, a company with close ties to BNP and also to Total, the French oil giant that did nearly $2 billion of Oil-for-Food business. U.N. staff regulations specifically state that "all staff members at the assistant secretary-general level and above shall be required to file financial disclosure statements upon appointment." Another document titled “status, basic rights and duties of U.N. staff members” says "they should also voluntarily disclose in advance possible conflicts of interest that arise in the course of carrying out their duties." U.N. Didn't Ask Volcker to Disclose Finances Tuesday, February 01, 2005 By Jonathan Hunt and Per Carlson

To: Don Hurst who wrote (30589)	2/2/2005 1:35:23 AM
From: paret	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

Naysayers tight-lipped since success of Iraq vote By James G. Lakely THE WASHINGTON TIMES February 02, 2005 Skeptics of President Bush's attempt to bring democracy to Iraq have been largely silent since Iraqis enthusiastically turned out for Sunday's elections. Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros and left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore were among critics of the administration's Iraq policy who had no comment after millions of Iraqis went to the polls in their nation's first free elections in decades. The Carter Center determined that the security situation in Iraq was going to be too dangerous to send election monitors, so the Atlanta-based human rights organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter posted its personnel in neighboring Jordan. Despite widespread predictions of spectacular terrorist attacks on election day in Iraq, fewer than 50 were killed, and the 60 percent turnout for the elections was much higher than many predicted. Asked whether the Carter Center had a comment on the election, spokeswoman Kay Torrance said: "We wouldn't have any 'yea' or 'nay' statement on Iraq." Mr. Carter told NBC's "Today" show in September that he was confident the elections would not take place. "I personally do not believe they're going to be ready for the election in January ... because there's no security there," he said. Mr. Soros, the Open Society Institute founder who contributed millions of dollars to groups seeking to prevent Mr. Bush's re-election, had denounced as a "sham" the administration's plans for a democratic Iraq. "To claim that we are invading Iraq for the sake of establishing democracy is a sham, and the rest of the world sees it as such," Mr. Soros said in a Washington speech in March 2003, adding that "the trouble goes much deeper." "It is not merely that the Bush administration's policies may be wrong, it is that they are wrong," Mr. Soros said in the speech. "Because we are unquestionably the most powerful, [the Bush administration claims] we have earned the right to impose our will on the rest of the world." Mr. Soros' Web site (www.georgesoros.com) has no reference to the Iraqi elections. Its latest comments are in a Jan. 26 op-ed article on what Mr. Soros calls Mr. Bush's "ambitious" second inaugural address. "Mr. Soros has not released any statements about the elections in Iraq," said Soros spokesman Michael Vachon. "He has been traveling since Sunday on various foundation projects and hasn't had occasion to comment." Mr. Vachon said Mr. Soros' "position regarding the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and his criticism thereof have been consistent." In his Jan. 26 article, published in more than 20 newspapers, including the Toronto Globe and Mail, Mr. Soros said he agrees with Mr. Bush's goal to spread democracy around the world, "and [I] have devoted the past 15 years and several billion dollars of my fortune to attaining it," but accused the president of "Orwellian doublespeak." "Mr. Bush is right to assert that repressive regimes can no longer hide behind a cloak of sovereignty," wrote Mr. Soros, 74, who made his fortune as an international currency trader. "But intervention in other states' internal affairs must be legitimate." There has been no comment since the Iraq elections from Mr. Moore, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker who characterized the Iraqi insurgents as "Minutemen," and predicted "they will win." The last posting from Mr. Moore on his Web site (www.michaelmoore.com) is dated Jan. 10 and concerns "Fahrenheit 9/11" being named best dramatic movie in the People's Choice Awards. An e-mail to Mr. Moore requesting comment was not returned. On the day before the elections, Mr. Moore featured a link to a column in the New York Times with the headline, "A Sinking Sensation of Parallels between Iraq and Vietnam." On the day after the elections, Mr. Moore linked to a story in the left-wing Nation magazine titled "Occupation Thwarts Democracy." Moorewatch.com, a site dedicated to countering the filmmaker's political statements, knocked Mr. Moore for "failing to acknowledge [the Iraqi people's] achievement." "I find it telling that the man who has lamented such great concern for the kite-flying, tea-sipping Iraqi people featured in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' can't be bothered to string together a few words of admiration for those same people who braved the threat of death to cast their votes this past weekend," the anti-Moore Web site said. "It seems Moore only admires the Iraqi people when they validate his agenda of hating George Bush." Some administration critics, however, saw the Iraqi elections as reason to revise their opinion of Mr. Bush. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown, who has consistently opposed Mr. Bush and the war in Iraq, wrote for yesterday's edition that "it's hard to swallow," but "what if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?" The Chicago columnist wrote that he was struck by "television coverage from Iraq that showed long lines of people risking their lives by turning out to vote, honest looks of joy on so many of their faces." "If it turns out Bush was right all along, this is going to require some serious penance," Mr. Brown wrote.

To: Don Hurst who wrote (30589)	2/2/2005 2:04:49 AM
From: paret	Respond to of 93284

Down syndrome youth used as suicide bomber . The Age ^ \| 2 February 2005 \| Paul McGeough Amar was 19, but he had the mind of a four-year-old. This handicap didn't stop the insurgency's hard men as they strapped explosives to his chest and guided him to a voting centre in suburban Al-Askan. And before yesterday's sunrise in Baghdad, his grieving parents loaded his broken remains on the roof of a taxi to lead a sorrowful procession to the holy city of Najaf. There, they gave him a ceremonial wash, shrouded him in white cotton and buried him next to the shrine of Imam Ali, the founder of their Shiite creed. On Sunday we witnessed an act of collective courage by an estimated 8 million Iraqis as they faced down terrorist threats of death and mayhem to vote in Iraq's first multi-party election in half a century. But the election day story of Amar is from the other side of human behaviour - in a region where too many have knowingly volunteered for an explosive death in the name of their god. He was chosen because he didn't know. He had Down syndrome or, as the Iraqis say, he's a mongoli, and when his parents, Ahmed, 42, and Fatima, 40, went to vote with their two daughters Amar was left in the family home. They presume that in their absence he set out to fill his day as he always did - wandering the streets of the neighbourhood until, usually, a friend or neighbour would bring him home around dusk. Al-Askan is a mixed and dangerous suburb. Yesterday the Iraqi police allowed The Age to advance only a few blocks into the area before ordering us out. The area around the family's home was the centre of a running gunfight between Shiites of the Al-Bahadel tribe and Sunnis of the Al-Ghedi tribe. But one of Amar's cousins, a 29-year-old teacher who asked not to be named, retreated to a distracted state in which Iraqis often discuss death to tell their story as best they can. "They must have kidnapped him," he said. "He was like a baby. He had nothing to do with the resistance and there was nothing in the house for him to make a bomb. He was Shiite. Why bomb his own people? "He was mindless, but he was mostly happy, laughing and playing with the children in the street. Now, his father is inconsolable; his mother cries all the time," the teacher said. After voting at 7.30am, Amar's parents joined their extended family for a celebration that became a lunch of chicken and rice, soup and orange juice, at the home of a relative. The sound of the explosion interrupted the party. But, the cousin said, it was assumed to be a mortar shell, a follow-up to the barrage across the city in the first hours of voting. "Everyone was very happy and excited, but news came that a mongoli had been a bomber. Ahmed and Fatima became distressed and they raced home. They got neighbours to search and one of them identified Amar's head where it lay on the pavement and his body was broken into pieces. "I have heard of them using dead people and donkeys and dogs to hide their bombs, but how could they do this to a boy like Amar?" Apparently, Amar triggered the bomb before he got to the intended target. It exploded while he was crossing open ground. Amar's father served in Saddam's army, but now he sells cigarettes in a street market in Al-Askan, an area of the city that also displayed bravery in the casting of votes on Sunday.