Operation OIL - The Weak In Review - October 31st, '03

[greedy_lars]

Mushroom clouds...

Iraq 'shelved nuclear plans'

By Jon Leyne

Iraq's nuclear programme may have been disbanded in 1991. New evidence acquired by the Washington Post newspaper suggests that Iraq made no attempt to restart its nuclear programme following the first Gulf War in 1991. It follows the report presented by the weapons inspector David Kay earlier this month who admitted they had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The information obtained by the newspaper suggests there is no evidence of any renewed nuclear programme in Iraq in the last 12 years. Perhaps even more seriously, the evidence suggests that the Bush administration did not take its own warnings very seriously either.

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U.S. Postwar Death Toll in Iraq Hits New Milestone
Wed Oct 29, 8:26 AM ET

By Alistair Lyon

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. postwar combat death toll in Iraq climbed past the number of soldiers killed during the invasion when the U.S. military said Wednesday it had lost two more dead in a roadside bomb north of Baghdad.

Their deaths brought to 116 the number of U.S. troops killed in hostilities since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1, surpassing the 115 killed in the war launched on March 20 to topple Saddam Hussein.

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Nations back off sending troops

By Tom Squitieri

Bangladesh and Portugal won't deploy forces to Iraq; decision is postponed in South Korea
WASHINGTON -- Bangladesh and Portugal, two nations the Pentagon has pressed to send combat troops to Iraq, have decided against contributing to the U.S.-led force there. A third nation that once promised to send troops, South Korea, says it has not made up its mind and has delayed a decision pending further study.
Turkey has agreed to send 10,000 troops but is waiting to hear from the Pentagon when and where they should go. U.S. officials have delayed discussing specifics with Turkey because of opposition to the Turkish deployment from Kurds who live in northern Iraq. Turkish officials say their offer will stand for a year but that none of its forces will be deployed unless the Pentagon gets public assurances of support from the Kurds.

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"thousands and thousands"

Private study estimates Iraqi war dead at 13,000

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An estimated 13,000 Iraqis, including as many as 4,300 non-combatants, were killed during the major combat phase of the war in Iraq, a research group found in a study.

The Project on Defense Alternatives said its estimate was based on a review of US combat data, battlefield press reports, and Iraqi hospital surveys. The study covered the period from March 19 to the end of April.


The Pentagon has refrained from making estimates of Iraqi dead in either the 1991 Gulf War or the latest conflict.


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White House pressed on 'mission accomplished' sign

Navy suggested it, White House made it, both sides say

From Dana Bash


Wednesday, October 29, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- What was once viewed as a premier presidential photo op continues to dog President Bush six months after he landed on an aircraft carrier to declare "one victory" in the war on terrorism and an end to major combat operations in Iraq.

Attention turned Tuesday to a giant "Mission Accomplished" sign that stood behind Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln when he gave the speech May 1.

The president told reporters the sign was put up by the Navy, not the White House.

"I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way," the president said Tuesday.



President Bush addresses the nation from aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1 with the banner in the background.

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Congress Nixes Extra Pay for Some Troops
Wed Oct 29, 2:34 AM ET

By KEN GUGGENHEIM,

WASHINGTON - House-Senate negotiators considering an $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan have rejected a Democratic proposal to compensate federal employees on active duty with the National Guard and reserves.

The proposal by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would have made up the differences between the workers' regular salaries and their service incomes, as many states and private employers are already doing. He said 23,000 federal employees would be affected.

The Senate had included the provision in its version of the Iraq spending bill, but senators in the conference agreed to eliminate it Tuesday in a 16-13 vote that was mainly along party lines.

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Reps: U.S. Overpaying Halliburton for Gas
Wed Oct 29, 7:24 PM ET

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is paying Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm Halliburton "enormous sums" -- $2.65 a gallon -- for gasoline imported into Iraq from Kuwait, two lawmakers charged on Wednesday.

Democrats Rep. Henry Waxman of California and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan said this gross overpayment was made worse by the fact that the U.S. government was turning around and reselling the gasoline in Iraq for four to 15 cents a gallon.

In a letter of complaint sent to President Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice , the two lawmakers said experts they consulted think the cost of buying and transporting gasoline from Kuwait into Iraq should cost less than $1 a gallon.

The Iraqi oil company SOMO is paying only 97 cents a gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq, they said.

Waxman added in a statement: "We know that someone is getting rich importing gasoline into Iraq. What we don't know is who is making the money, Halliburton or the Kuwaitis?"

Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, which defends its pricing as fair, has a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild Iraq's oil sector. This has included importing oil products in short supply as the oil-rich nation's refineries are brought back into production.

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and on a related note
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Halliburton Contract Extended in Iraq
Wed Oct 29, 6:28 PM ET

By LARRY MARGASAK

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's former company will retain a no-bid contract in Iraq longer than expected, the Bush administration said Wednesday, blaming sabotage of oil facilities for delays in replacement contracts.

Halliburton's contract, worth $1.59 billion so far, will be extended until December or January while the government receives and evaluates revised bids for replacement work that could total $2 billion.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the oil industry rehabilitation, already has received competitive bids for replacement contracts, and hoped to announce the winners this month. The Corps said it was forced to revise the workload requirements because of continued sabotage and a need to provide additional security.


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Report Says Iraq Contracts Reek of Cronyism
Thu Oct 30, 2:41 PM ET

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many of the U.S. firms doing billions of dollars of work in Iraq and Afghanistan have been big donors to President Bush and his Republican Party and fill their boards with political and military heavyweights, a report on Thursday said.

The report by the watchdog group, the Center for Public Integrity, said most of the 70 firms and individuals getting up to $8 billion in contracts for post-war Iraq and Afghanistan donated more to Bush's presidential campaign -- a little over $500,000 -- than any other candidate in the past decade.

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busy week.
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[JackSpratts]

more weekend reading!

"We know that someone is getting rich importing gasoline into Iraq. What we don't know is who is making the money, Halliburton or the Kuwaitis?"

my guess? it's a little of both. the kuwatis should be ashamed of taking advantage of our sacrifice and cheney/haliburton should just be ashamed.

well edited wir greedy.

- js.

[multi]

HUFFINGTON: Got Oil?

By Arianna Huffington, AlterNet
October 21, 2002

The Bush team's ridiculous and wildly inflammatory anti-drug ads are still running in heavy rotation. You know the ads I'm talking about – the ones where innocent-looking, middle-class teens admit their culpability for the consequences of the drug trade. "I helped blow up buildings," says one doe-eyed youth.

So if that is a legitimate logic, and our president says that it is, I wonder if we might turn the tables on him by starting a little ad campaign of our own to sabotage another misguided Bush campaign: the War on Conservation.

The thought occurred to me after the startling announcement that the administration was taking precious time off from an actual, necessary war – the one on terrorism – to sue the state of California for daring to require that carmakers put more energy-efficient models on the road.

Turning the letter of the Federal Clean Air act against its clear intent, Department of Justice lawyers lined up on behalf of the administration's friends in the hydrocarbon-loving auto-manufacturing industry and argued that as long as California's cars are in compliance with the lax Federal standard, the state cannot impose a tougher one. For those keeping score, the Bush administration is in favor of states' rights when the states want to weaken federal safety standards of any kind, and against states' rights when the states want to strengthen them.

So how about using the same shock-value tactics the administration uses in the drug war to confront the public with the ultimate – and much more linearly linked – consequences of their energy wastefulness? Imagine a soccer mom in a Ford Excursion (11 mpg city, 15 mpg highway) saying, "I'm building a nuclear bomb for Saddam Hussein." Or a mob of solo drivers toodling down the freeway at 75 mph shouting in unison, "We're buying weapons that will kill American soldiers, marines, and sailors! Yahoo!"

It's not just a fantasy. Last week, talking to my friend Scott Burns, co-creator of the "Got Milk?" campaign, I was delighted to hear that he already had two ad scripts ready to go. The first one feels like an old Slim Fast commercial. Instead of "I lost 50 pounds in two weeks" the ad cuts to different people in their SUVs: "I gassed 40,000 Kurds," "I helped hijack an airplane," "I helped blow up a nightclub," and then in unison: "We did it all by driving to work in our SUVs."

The second, which opens on a man at a gas station, features a cute kid's voice-over throughout: "This is George." Then we see a close up of a gas pump. "This is the gas George buys for his car." Next we see a guy in a suit. "This is the oil company executive who makes money on the gas George buys." Close up on Al-Qaeda training film footage: "This is the terrorist organization supported by money from the country where the oil company does business. " It's followed by footage of 9/11: "We all know what this is." And it closes on a wide shot of bumper to bumper traffic: "The biggest weapon of mass destruction is parked in your driveway." Pretty effective.

Can the administration seriously deny that oil dollars do, actually, finance a spreading slick of evil in the world today? In Iraq, oil money has kept Saddam's repressive regime afloat even in the midst of tough UN sanctions. According to a report just released by the CIA, Saddam has been spending his oil money on conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction, while starving and torturing his own people.

In Saudi Arabia, our second largest foreign supplier of oil, the money you spend at the pump over here pays for a feudal monarchy that gorges itself on excess while bankrolling terrorist mischief abroad with its support of suicide bombers.

Even our close ally Kuwait, our eleventh largest oil supplier, manifests an ambivalence toward America that, if you accept the Bush administration's drug-war arguments about the validity of remote effects, resulted in this month's assassination of an American Marine on military exercises. Thank you, Exxon.

Would it be so painful for us to slow down the intravenous drip of oil that keeps these hideously anti-American regimes alive? There are car companies with electric and hybrid cars already on the market. And a little pressure on our wasteful ways could unleash a new wave of good old American inventiveness.

But instead of applying the marketing skills it uses for its wrong-headed drug war to the eminently worthwhile cause of saving energy, Bush, Inc. has sided with the Enrons of the world to stifle energy-saving technology and keep America in an artificially prolonged state of dependence.

Of course, waiting for the Bush administration to get religion on energy conservation would be about as fruitful as waiting for Saddam to welcome U.S. inspectors to his palaces. It ain't gonna happen. Unless, that is, the public makes it happen. Anyone willing to pay for a people's ad campaign to jolt our leaders into reality?



has this woman switched sides or something i thought she was the conservatives pin up girl?

this makes too much sense to be right wing...
maybe its just more clutzy conservative mindfuck tripping over itself...

[naz]

Originally posted by multi

has this woman switched sides or something i thought she was the conservatives pin up girl?

She's def a hottie

[JackSpratts]

Originally posted by naz
She's def a hottie

and she's got those eva gabor pipes.

- js.

[tambourine-man]

Well, you know the old phrase....

..."liberals are just conservatives that got arrested by the police."

It's only a matter of time

[greedy_lars]

Originally posted by JackSpratts
well edited wir greedy. [/b]

should be, i stole one of yer week in reviews for a blueprint, hehhehe

[span]

i'm waiting to see which one of you losers offs yourself first after Bush is re-elected

[greedy_lars]

hahahahahh span is funny, look at the funny man------->span

[span]

Originally posted by greedy_lars
hahahahahh span is funny, look at the funny man------->span

your sarcasm hides a deeply rooted pain, embrace the abyss Greedy, it's the only way.

[multi]

Originally posted by naz
She's def a hottie

damn u naz & jack ..u made me put coffee everywhere....wasnt quite ready for that one...

me thinks i got her mixed up with someone else..

is this wir going to be a regular feature round here now greedy?

[greedy_lars]

dunno wasent planing on it, was more a spur of the 'wow what a shitty week' thing, but depending on how its recieved and what happens in future weeks, guess it could be.

[Sinner]

Originally posted by multi

has this woman switched sides or something i thought she was the conservatives pin up girl?

this makes too much sense to be right wing...
maybe its just more clutzy conservative mindfuck tripping over itself...

I think you were thinking Ann Coulter...

[multi]

oops..
big difference..

[JackSpratts]

ann's the nicest looking girl i can't stand. disliking her goes against my nature - but it has to be done.

- js.

[greedy_lars]

Iraqi women fall for American GIs, get married and in trouble
Fri Oct 31, 6:23 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqis Joanne and Ahda fear for their lives, after marrying US soldiers who as part of the occupation force are viewed by many as the enemy.

Joanne, 26, and her best friend Ahda, 25, now live in virtual hiding, unable even to meet with their new husbands, who are also under the threat of sanctions from the army.

The two women, who were working as interpreters for the US forces in a Baghdad hotel where they met their husbands, risk abduction and murder as "collaborators" with the US-led coalition occupying conservative Muslim Iraq.


Their husbands, a captain and sergeant from the Florida National Guard serving with the 1st Armored Division, could be charged with dereliction of duty for having reportedly got married while on foot patrol in Baghdad.


the rest


p.s. was Ann(cough cough) a liberal who switched sides?????

[jcmd62]

Originally posted by greedy_lars
Iraqi women fall for American GIs, get married and in trouble
Fri Oct 31, 6:23 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqis Joanne and Ahda fear for their lives, after marrying US soldiers who as part of the occupation force are viewed by many as the enemy.

Joanne, 26, and her best friend Ahda, 25, now live in virtual hiding, unable even to meet with their new husbands, who are also under the threat of sanctions from the army.

The two women, who were working as interpreters for the US forces in a Baghdad hotel where they met their husbands, risk abduction and murder as "collaborators" with the US-led coalition occupying conservative Muslim Iraq.


Their husbands, a captain and sergeant from the Florida National Guard serving with the 1st Armored Division, could be charged with dereliction of duty for having reportedly got married while on foot patrol in Baghdad.


the rest


p.s. was Ann(cough cough) a liberal who switched sides?????

Damn Terrorists! They will stop at nothing to attack us. Slutty suicide bombers marrying soldiers. Luckily these 2 failed to detonate.

Nice sig greedy. Tattoo it on yer wife and kids yet? Whats next? Liar liar Bush's pants are on fire?

[multi]

Originally posted by greedy_lars
I

p.s. was Ann(cough cough) a liberal who switched sides?????

probably not.....i read some interview with her a while back ...
i think her sort of stupidity is present at birth...

[jcmd62]

Originally posted by multi
probably not.....i read some interview with her a while back ...
i think her sort of stupidity is present at birth...

AHhh......This explains her selling millions of books, being rich and famous and a babe, whilst casting quite a light on your pathetic admission of being a drug addicted internet thief who can't hold a job cuz yer daddy used to beat ya.

Damn.....I guess that means that there are those like Ms. Coulter that overcome their "stupidity" and those, like you, that just learn to live with it.

[greedy_lars]

...being a drug addicted internet thief who can't hold a job cuz yer daddy used to beat ya....

is that why you downloaded songs jc, gosh i dident know, im sorry dood.