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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (5168)	3/3/2006 4:06:56 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Open the Iraq Files American spooks don't want to release Saddam's secrets. Friday, March 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST When the 9/11 Commission bullied Congress into creating the Directorate of National Intelligence, we doubted that another layer of bureaucracy on top of the CIA would fix much of anything. Our skepticism has since been largely reinforced--most recently by the DNI's reluctance to release what's contained in the millions of "exploitable" documents and other items captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. These items--collected and examined in Qatar as part of what's known as the Harmony program--appear to contain information highly relevant to the ongoing debate over the war on terror. But nearly three years after Baghdad fell, we see no evidence that much of what deserves to be public will be anytime soon. For example, if it hadn't been for the initiative of one Bill Tierney, we wouldn't know that Saddam Hussein had a habit of tape-recording meetings with top aides. The former U.N. weapons inspector and experienced Arabic translator recently went public with 12 hours (out of a reported total of 3,000) of recordings in which we hear Saddam discuss with the likes of Tariq Aziz the process of deceiving U.N. weapons inspectors and his view that Iraq's conflict with the U.S. didn't end with the first Gulf War. In one particularly chilling passage, the dictator discusses the threat of WMD terrorism to the United States and the difficulty anyone would have tracing it back to a state. With the 2001 anthrax attacks still unsolved, that strikes us as bigger news than the DNI or most editors apparently considered it. In another disclosure, The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes was told by about a dozen officials that Harmony documents describe in detail how Saddam trained thousands of Islamic radicals in the waning years of his regime. So much for the judgments of many in the intelligence community--including Paul Pillar, the latest ex-spook to go public with his antiwar message--that the secular Saddam would never consort with such religious types. To its credit, the DNI did bless the recent release of about two dozen documents from Afghanistan as part of a West Point study painting a portrait of al Qaeda's organizational structure. They show that al Qaeda functioned like a corporation in some ways, with fixed terms for employee benefits such as family leave, and seem to vindicate the once-controversial decision to move quickly to destroy al Qaeda's base of operations in Afghanistan. But these tantalizing tidbits represent only a fraction of what's in U.S. possession. We hear still other documents expand significantly on our knowledge of Saddam's WMD ambitions (including more on the Niger-uranium connection) and his support for terrorism, right down to lists of potential targets in the U.S. and Europe. Former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle accuses the DNI of "foolish restraint" on releasing information that could broaden understanding and bolster support for a war that is far from won. Representative Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.) echoes that criticism. And after chatting with the Congressman and with someone we agreed to describe as a "senior intelligence official familiar with the program," we largely agree. The intelligence community has a point that some caution must be exercised. For example, the senior intelligence official pointed out, some documents describe in detail rapes and other abuses committed by Saddam's regime--details that could still haunt living victims in such an honor-bound society as Iraq. But while it would seem to make sense to screen the documents for such items--and perhaps terrorist recipes such as ricin--we still can't understand how that justifies the current pace and method of making information public. And our alarm bells really rang when the intelligence official added another category of information that's never slated to see the light of day: "We cannot release wholesale material that we can reasonably foresee will damage the national interest." Well, what exactly does that mean and who makes the call? The answer, apparently, is unaccountable analysts following State Department guidelines. But consider just one hypothetical: Is it in the "national interest" to reveal documents if they show that Jacques Chirac played a more substantial role in encouraging Saddam's intransigence than is already known? No doubt some Foggy Bottom types would say no. But we'd strongly disagree. The "national interest" exception is so broad and vague that it would end up being used to justify keeping secret the merely embarrassing. What's more, according to Mr. Hoekstra, the DNI release plans don't call for making any documents publicly available per se, but only through scholars in the manner of the West Point study. As he puts it, the decision to move everything through analysts and carefully chosen outsiders is an "analog" method in a "digital" age, when we could be calling on the interpretive wisdom of so many by putting much of it on the Internet. Yesterday Mr. Hoekstra introduced a bill to require the intelligence community to be more forthcoming with the Iraq and Afghanistan documents. "I'm beginning to believe the postwar intelligence may be as bad as the prewar intelligence," he says. Another person who sees vast room for improvement is Iraqi scholar Kanan Makiya, who founded the Iraq Memory Foundation. While he shares the DNI's concerns about potential damage to some people mentioned therein, he also says the U.S. government has gone too far and needs to find better ways to grant access to this information. America went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan because we believed that the truth about the regimes in those countries justified it. Why should so much of that truth now be deemed so sensitive? opinionjournal.com

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (5168)	3/3/2006 8:21:24 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 71588

Coming to a street near you? Six Hurt As SUV Plows Into Student-Filled 'Pit' Driver Identified In UNC Hit-And-Run March 3, 2006 wral.com CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Authorities say 23-year-old Mohammed Reza Taheriazar drove a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee into The Pit at the UNC-Chapel Hill campus around noon Friday, injuring five students and a visiting scholar. Police said they would charge Taheriazar, who was a UNC student as recently as Fall 2005, with multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Authorities are not releasing a motive, but they did say the incident was intentional. Six people were taken to UNC Hospitals with minor injuries, hospital spokesman Tom Hughes said. Five had been treated and released late Thursday afternoon, while one person was still undergoing treatment but was not expected to be admitted. Three other people declined treatment on the scene, according to police. Authorities later found the vehicle on Plant Road near Franklin Street and Taheriazar was taken into custody. Authorities said that drugs and alcohol are not believed to have been involved. A student who witnessed the event, said that the SUV was going between 40 and 45 mph when it hit the students at the Pit, which is located in an open area surrounded by two libraries, a dining hall and the Frank Porter Graham Student Union on campus. Campus police said Taheriazar used an area designed to give access to Lenoir Hall to work his way to the Pit. Coming from the parking lots in the north side of Davis Library, a car could travel down the side of the cafeteria and end up in the Pit from there. Normally, there are barricades up but on Friday, they were not in place. Mohammed Reza Taheriazar Several witnesses saw the SUV as plowed through that part of campus. "He was speeding up and swerving to hit people. One person got knocked out of a wheelchair, and he didn't care," said student Lauren Westate, who saw the accident. Nicholas Altman, who was having coffee nearby, said that one man was hit and thrown onto the hood of the SUV. That person was taken away on a stretcher, Altman said. "I was on my phone and I heard somebody scream," Altman said. "I turned around and there was a white SUV. It looked like it hit a couple of people. One person in particular went over the hood." Student affairs staff and counselors have been providing support to students who watched the scene unfold. Sky 5 State and local investigators converged outside the University Commons Apartments in Carrboro early Friday afternoon, where the suspect in the UNC incident is believed to have lived. Around two hours after the crash, state and local investigators surrounded Building D at University Commons Apartments at 303 Smith Level Road in Carrboro, where Taheriazar is believed to have lived. Bomb squad officers entered the building around 5:15 p.m., but there is no word if anything has been found inside. WRAL.com.

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (5168)	3/3/2006 8:40:43 PM
From: paret	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

muslim says he hits students deliberately (03/03/06 -- CHAPEL HILL) - The driver of an SUV that plowed into a group of pedestrians at UNC-Chapel Hill on Friday told police it was retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News. --- Sources say Taheriazar told police he was seeking retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News justice correspondent Pierre Thomas. Taheriazar apparently told police he tried to rent the biggest SUV he could find to use in the attack. abclocal.go.com