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Cover-up News Summary
September 4, 2005

Dear friends,

Below are one paragraph summaries of important news stories which did not warrant a separate message, but which you may have missed. Links are provided to the original sources. If any link fails to function, click here. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can and will build a brighter future.

Take care and have a great day,
Fred Burks for WantToKnow.info

P.S. Our deepest wishes for support and encouragement go out to all affected by Hurricane Katrina. If you are interested in donating to support those affected, we have found that Brother's Brother Foundation (BBF) makes the best use of funds donated. For more, see http://www.brothersbrother.org
 

Banished Whistle-Blowers
September 1, 2005, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opinion/01thu3.html

The Bush administration is making no secret of its determination to punish whistle-blowers and other federal workers who object to the doctoring of facts that clash with policy and spin. The blatant retaliation includes the Army general sidelined for questioning the administration's projections about needed troop strength in Iraq, the Medicare expert muted when he tried to inform Congress about the true cost of the new prescription subsidies and the White House specialist on climate change who was booted after complaining that global warming statistics were being massaged by political tacticians. The latest victims include Bunnatine Greenhouse, a career civilian manager at the Pentagon. She was demoted from her job as the top contract overseer of the Army Corps of Engineers after she complained of irregularities in the awarding of a multibillion-dollar no-bid Iraq contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton, the Texas-based oil services company run by Dick Cheney before he became vice president.

Military examines 'beaming up' data, people
August 29, 2005, San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/29/MNGA0EENPC1.DTL

The military has a long history of funding research into topics that seem straight out of science fiction, even occultism. These range from "psychic" spying to "antimatter"-propelled aircraft and rockets to strange new types of superbombs. In recent years, many physicists have become excited about a phenomenon called "quantum teleportation," which works only with infinitesimally tiny particles. Davis, who has a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Arizona, has worked on NASA robotic missions. His 79-page Air Force study seriously explored a series of possibilities, ranging from "Star Trek"-style travel to transportation via so-called wormholes in the fabric of space to psychic travel through solid walls. Davis expressed great enthusiasm for research allegedly conducted by Chinese scientists who, he says, have conducted "psychic" experiments in which humans used mental powers to teleport matter through solid walls. He claims their research shows "gifted children were able to cause the apparent teleportation of small objects" (radio micro-transmitters, photosensitive paper, mechanical watches, horseflies, other insects, etc.). If the Chinese experiments are valid and could be repeated by American scientists, Davis told The Chronicle in a phone interview Thursday, then, in principle, the military might some day develop a way to teleport soldiers and weapons.

Naval officer says Atta's identity known pre-9/11
Captain is second military man to say terrorist was named

August 23, 2005, New York Times/San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/23/MNG66EBPJ71.DTL

An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret defense intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks. The officer, Capt. Scott Phillpott, said in a statement Monday that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters that the Defense Department had been unable to validate the assertions made by an Army intelligence veteran, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and now backed up by Phillpott, about the early identification of Atta. Shaffer went public with his assertions last week, saying that analysts in the intelligence project had been overruled by military lawyers when they tried to share the program's findings with the FBI in 2000 in hopes of tracking down terrorist suspects tied to al Qaeda.

Pentagon Finds More Who Recall Atta Intel
September 2, 2005, Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090200519.html

Pentagon officials said Thursday they have found three more people who recall an intelligence chart that identified Sept. 11 mastermind Mohamed Atta as a terrorist one year before the attacks on New York and Washington. But they have been unable to find the chart or other evidence that it existed. On Thursday, four intelligence officials provided the first extensive briefing for reporters on the outcome of their interviews with people associated with Able Danger and their review of documents. They said they interviewed at least 80 people over a three-week period and found three, besides Philpott and Shaffer, who said they remember seeing a chart that either mentioned Atta by name as an al-Qaida operative or showed his photograph. Four of the five recalled a chart with a pre-9/11 photo of Atta; the other person recalled only a reference to his name. The intelligence officials said they consider the five people to be credible but their recollections are still unverified. Navy Cmdr. Christopher Chope, of the Center for Special Operations at U.S. Special Operations Command, said there were "negative indications" that anyone ever ordered the destruction of Able Danger documents, other than the materials that were routinely required to be destroyed under existing regulations.

Robertson: U.S. should assassinate Venezuela's Chavez
August 23, 2005, CNN/AP

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/23/robertson.chavez/

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him "a terrific danger" bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas. "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson told viewers. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." [Watch video of Robertson's comments at link above] Robertson, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, called Chavez "a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us badly." "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." Robertson accused Chavez, a left-wing populist with close ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro, of trying to make Venezuela "a launching pad for Communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent." "This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen," he said.

Note: If a prominent Muslim calls for the assassination of a Western leader, he is almost certain to be labeled a terrorist and placed on the most wanted list.

ID cards could be used for mass surveillance system
August 18, 2005, The Independent
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article306577.ece
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=546&objectid=10341459

The Government is creating a system of "mass public surveillance" capable of tracking every adult in Britain without their consent, MPs say. They warn that people who have never committed a crime can be "electronically monitored" without their knowledge. Biometric facial scans, which will be compulsory with ID cards, are to be put on a national database which can then be matched with images from CCTV. The database of faces will enable police and security services to track individuals regardless of whether they have broken the law. CCTV surveillance footage from streets, shops and even shopping centres could be cross-referenced with photographs of every adult in the UK once the ID cards Bill becomes law. Biometric facial scans, iris scans and fingerprints of all adults in the UK will be stored on a national database. Civil liberties groups say the plans are a "dangerous" threat to people's privacy. Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said the plans were being brought in by the Government without informing the public.

Military drafts war plans for terrorist attacks
August 8, 2005, Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/07/AR2005080700843.html
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/08/08/military_drafts_war_plans_for_terrorist_attacks/

Preparing scenarios for action on US soil a shift for Pentagon. The US military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans. The war plans represent a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to become involved in domestic operations and is legally constrained from engaging in law enforcement. Defense officials continue to emphasize that they intend for the troops to play a supporting role in homeland emergencies, bolstering police, firefighters, and other civilian response groups. But the new plans provide for what several senior officers acknowledged is the likelihood that the military will have to take charge in some situations, especially when dealing with mass-casualty attacks that could quickly overwhelm civilian resources.

U.S. Suppressed Footage of Hiroshima for Decades
August 3, 2005, New York Times/Reuters

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-media-anniversary.html
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080305R.shtml

In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. authorities seized and suppressed film shot in the bombed cities by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams to prevent Americans from seeing the full extent of devastation wrought by the new weapons. It remained hidden until the early 1980s and has never been fully aired. "Although there are clearly huge differences with Iraq, there are also some similarities," said Mitchell, co-author of "Hiroshima in America" and editor of Editor & Publisher. "The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at a distance from images of death, whether of their own soldiers or Iraqi civilians." The Los Angeles Times released a survey of six months of media coverage of the Iraq war in six prominent U.S. newspapers and two news magazines -- a period during which 559 coalition forces, the vast majority American, were killed. It found they had run almost no photographs of Americans killed in action. "So much of the media is owned by big corporations and they would much rather focus on making money than setting themselves up for criticism from the White House and Congress,"said Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent. In 1945, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to continue to develop and test atomic and eventually nuclear weapons without an outcry of public opinion. "They succeeded but the subject is still a raw nerve."

Report on CIA before 9/11 slams Tenet
August 26, 2005, New York Times/San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/26/MNG4PEDOTL1.DTL

New director must decide whether to discipline any of the dozen-plus criticized. A long-awaited CIA inspector-general's report on the agency's performance before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks includes detailed criticism of more than a dozen former and current agency officials, aiming its sharpest language at George Tenet, the former director of central intelligence. Tenet is censured for failing to develop and carry out a strategic plan to take on al Qaeda in the years before 2001, even after he wrote in a 1998 memo to the intelligence agencies that "we are at war" with the terrorist group. The findings place Goss in a delicate position. Now, as director of the CIA, he will have to decide whether to discipline any of those criticized, risking a further blow to the morale of an agency still charged with protecting the country against future terrorist attacks.

Note: Though various whistleblowers on the 9/11 cover-up have been fired or demoted, there has never been a report of a single government official being disciplined for failures which led to the 9/11 attacks. As pressure builds for accountability, Tenet, who resigned over a year ago, may be the chosen scapegoat.

Report Details F.B.I.'s Failure on 2 Hijackers
June 10, 2005, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/10/politics/10fbi.html

The F.B.I. missed at least five chances in the months before Sept. 11, 2001, to find two hijackers as they prepared for the attacks and settled in San Diego, the Justice Department inspector general said in a report made public on Thursday after being kept secret for a year. Investigators were stymied by bureaucratic obstacles, communication breakdowns and a lack of urgency, the report said. In the case of the San Diego hijackers, for instance, the report disclosed that an F.B.I. agent assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to pass on information to the F.B.I. about the two men in early 2000 - 19 months before the attacks - but was blocked by a C.I.A. supervisor and did not aggressively follow up. That set the stage for a series of bungled opportunities in an episode that many officials now regard as their best chance to have detected or disrupted the Sept. 11 plot. Many passages in the public version of the report were blacked out to shield information still considered sensitive by the government; an entire 115-page section on one terror suspect was withheld.

Adultery Inquiry Costs General His Command
August 11, 2005, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/11/politics/11general.html

A four-star general who was relieved of command this week said Wednesday through his lawyer that the Army took the action after an investigation into accusations that he was involved in a consensual relationship with a female civilian. The lawyer, Lt. Col. David H. Robertson, said the case "involves an adult relationship with a woman who is not in the military, nor is a civilian employee of the military or the federal government." The general, Kevin P. Byrnes, was relieved Monday by the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, just a few months before General Byrnes was scheduled to retire as head of the Army Training and Doctrine Command. Relieving a four-star general of command is unusual, and several Army officers said they considered the punishment surprisingly harsh for a general who was nearing retirement anyway.

Nuclear Training Drill May Have Provided Another Reason For Firing Of Four Star General
August 15, 2005, The Arctic Beacon
(Excellent non-major media source of inside information)
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/31538.htm

Controversy around a simulated nuclear terrorist attack, called Exercise Sudden Response to be held Aug. 15- 19 at Ft. Monroe, may have provided another reason for the recent firing of General Kevin P. Byrnes. In a highly unusual occurrence, Gen. Byrnes, 55, was relieved of is duties as commander of the prestigious Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, several months short of retirement for what Army brass claims to be sexual misconduct. Political observers point to several other more serious reasons why Gen. Byrnes was pushed aside, including an ongoing feud with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Military insiders claim Rumsfeld, who has been trying to weed out officers who don't toe the party line since taking over at the Pentagon, finally let the hammer drop on Gen. Byrnes. However, two reliable sources from two different political camps, one conservative and one liberal, claim Gen. Byrnes was stopped in his tracks by Rumsfeld after intelligence reports surfaced that Gen. Byrnes was behind a contingent of at least 40 other high-ranking officers who are trying to thwart the administration's plans to engage in a nuclear conflict with Iran. The upcoming nuclear training exercise...also has political observers nervous. Reports have surfaced that Gen. Byrnes was also fired due to certain irregularities involved in the nuclear training session, which is set to simulate a large nuclear bomb being brought on board a ship into a large U.S. city. Critics also site the danger of these "simulated attacks" since the same type of training sessions occurred just prior to both 9/11 and 7/7, with simulated jetliner and subway attack training exercises providing an eerie backdrop for the actual attacks that followed.

For more revealing information from this informative source:
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/page/page/1518131.htm

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Cover-up News Summary