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

To: combjelly who wrote (230828)	4/27/2005 9:49:23 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573867

CIA can't rule out WMD move to Syria By Rowan Scarborough The CIA's chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing "sufficiently credible" evidence that WMDs may have been moved there. Inspector Charles Duelfer, who heads the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), made the findings in an addendum to his final report filed last year. He said the search for WMD in Iraq -- the main reason President Bush went to war to oust Saddam Hussein -- has been exhausted without finding such weapons. Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s. But on the question of Syria, Mr. Duelfer did not close the books. "ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war," Mr. Duelfer said in a report posted on the CIA's Web site Monday night. He cited some evidence of a transfer. "Whether Syria received military items from Iraq for safekeeping or other reasons has yet to be determined," he said. "There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation." But Mr. Duelfer said he was unable to complete that aspect of the probe because "the declining security situation limited and finally halted this investigation. The results remain inconclusive, but further investigation may be undertaken when circumstances on the ground improve." Arguing against a WMD transfer to Syria, Mr. Duelfer said, was the fact that all senior Iraqi detainees involved in Saddam's weapons programs and security "uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria." "Nevertheless," the inspector said, "given the insular and compartmented nature of the regime, ISG analysts believed there was enough evidence to merit further investigation." He said that even if all leads are pursued someday, the ISG may never be able to finally determine whether WMDs were taken across the border. "Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place," his report stated. "However, ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials." Speculation on WMDs in Syria was fueled by the fact that satellite images picked up long lines of trucks waiting to cross the border into Syria before the coalition launched the invasion. Mr. Duelfer previously had reported that Syria was a major conduit for materials entering Iraq that were banned by the United Nations. Saddam placed such importance on illicit trade with Syria that he dispatched Iraqi Intelligence Service agents to various border crossings to supervise border agents, and, in some cases, to shoo them away, senior officials told The Washington Times last year. Today, U.S. officials charge that Syria continues to harbor Saddam loyalists who are directing and financing the insurgency in Iraq. The Iraq-Syria relationship between two Ba'athist socialist regimes has further encouraged speculation of weapons transfers. Several senior U.S. officials have said since the invasion that they thought WMD went to Syria. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the war, said in his book, "Inside CentCom," that intelligence reports pointed to WMD movement into Syria. In October, John A. Shaw, then the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, told The Times that Russian special forces and intelligence troops worked with Saddam's intelligence service to move weapons and material to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," he said.

To: combjelly who wrote (230828)	4/27/2005 9:56:24 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573867

Donations link DeLay, ethics panel By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY All five Republicans on the House ethics committee have financial links to Tom DeLay that could raise conflict-of-interest issues should the panel investigate the GOP majority leader. Public records show DeLay's leadership political action committee (PAC) gave $15,000 to the campaign of Rep. Melissa Hart (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa. - $10,000 in 2000 and $5,000 in 2002. Hart would chair a panel to investigate DeLay if the committee moves forward with a probe. The same political committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, also has donated to the campaigns of ethics Chairman Doc Hastings of Washington, Judy Biggert of Illinois and Tom Cole of Oklahoma. They are among scores of Republicans DeLay has contributed to. Cole and the remaining committee Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund. (Related link: Donations from Americans for Republican Majority) Hart said there is no appearance problem. "That's just normal" for leaders to contribute to campaigns, she said. There is precedent for ethics panel members recusing themselves when such conflict issues arise. Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., stepped aside in 2002 in the case of then-senator Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., accused of financial misconduct. Reid had given $500 to Torricelli's legal defense fund. "Recusal is pretty much an individual choice, if there is any possibility of a conflict of interest," said Donald Ritchie, a Senate historian. Kenneth Gross, an attorney who has represented Democrats and Republicans on ethics issues, said the financial ties on the committee could be a problem. "I would advise the committee not to use a member who had received contributions from DeLay's leadership PAC to head the investigation," he said. The ethics committee has admonished DeLay five times since 1997, more than any current member of Congress. He has come under renewed scrutiny for taking foreign trips that may have been paid for by lobbyists or foreign agents, which is prohibited. A DeLay investigation cannot be launched because the committee hasn't been able to solve a dispute over its rules. Rep. Alan Mollohan (news, bio, voting record) and other Democrats refuse to adopt the rules, saying they are designed to protect DeLay and would allow either party to protect members by refusing to act on complaints. The panel is the only House committee with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats: five each.

To: combjelly who wrote (230828)	4/27/2005 2:40:50 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1573867

No, it's the "religious party" that is threatening to change the rules wrt filibusters; the nuclear option." The infuriating thing is they have been lying about their role in psst filibusters, pretending that this is a new, and unconstitutional phenomena. It's not that they are doing it, they are politicians after all, but our so-called journalists let them get away with it. Heck, the other day I was listening to NPR and heard John Cornyn, our very own entry in the dull knife drawer, state in essence that judicial nominations have never been filibustered before. Amazing........the filibuster has been around for 200 years. And we needed to do something before a Supreme Court nominee got filibustered, totally shredding the Constitution in the process. I don't know, the Republicans filibustered a Supreme Court nominee in 1968 and the Constitution seems to have survived that crisis. I know, I know, it was different then since it was a Republican filibuster and they did it with the greatest respect of the Constitution... That's because the GOP filibusters 'constitutionally'. The Dems just filibuster. I am sorry you don't see the difference. It is amusing to note that the Republicans are pretending that the Democrats are the only ones using the phrase "nuclear option". Given that a Republican coined the term and that they have been using the phrase consistently until recently makes it seem strange. I guess this is like the term "privatization" in conjunction with Social Security. They just have so much trouble getting the terminology right. I think they continue to overplay their hand. I was real happy when Bush came out in support of Delay. ted