Niger sues US over 2003 Bush statements re uranium sales to Saddam

[crossposted at dkos]

Stephen Hadley

Remember Bush’s State of the Union address in 2003, and the 16 words that scared America into war with Iraq?

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Now, I’m not a document expert, but the whole Niger thing was a joke of a forgery. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the documents.

But good ole nearsighted Stephen Hadley, the raging Dick and Careless George managed to make this trash into a casus belli that America may never live down. Compared with the destruction wrought by the Iraq war, a few legal actions pale, I suppose. The lawyers have gotten involved on behalf of the United States America (v. Scooter Libby), and on behalf of the Wilsons (“Plamegate”).
Now, it seems the stakes may go even higher. Niger has decided it wants satisfaction.

SOME 30 non-governmental organisations in Niger said overnight they are going to sue the United States for nearly two billion dollars for “unfairly accusing” Niger of selling uranium to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Oops.
Now I got zero idea how a bunch of NGOs sue the US, and of course Bush has pulled us out of just about every judicial organization in the world. So I don’t expect us to have to cough up anything. But maybe in a couple of years we can come to some sort of settlement, after the Bushies have left their mess to the adults.

In the meantime, it may be fun to see the documents dragged around again, maybe Stephen Hadley, apparently one of the principal architects of “surge,” will be further shown to be the idiot that he is.

“Our lawyers are about to file a lawsuit against the US calling for damages of about 1000 billion CFA francs ($2.42 billion dollars) for the harm suffered” by the country, Moustapha Kadi, president of the Collective of organisations in Niger defending the right to energy (CODDAE).

The lawsuit by the collective will be filed at either French or Belgian courts, Kadi added.

In January 2003, US President George W. Bush accused Saddam of having bought uranium from Niger to make weapons of mass destruction.

The Niger collective said in a statement that investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), world media and US officials, all concluded that it was a “false accusation” against Niger.

That false information was used by Bush “to invade Iraq,” said the collective’s statement, which also called for support from Niger’s President Mamadou Tandja, who back in 2003 said the US allegations were “harming Niger’s image”.

Isn’t there something very embarassing about this? It’s hard not to be ashamed of this load of trash that took over our country. We let it happen. We let them sell us a bill of goods….
And we may be letting it happen again??????

The Big Lebowski Saturday morning roundup: breaking stories from the world of pain.

Warning: This material will make little or no sense to anyone who hasn’t seen the film The Big Lebowski. At least three times. Emergency assistance can be obtained by hitting the tab “Tying the Room Together” in the header. Limited video available at tab “About.” Don’t go near the tab “There are Rules” unless you are a practicing cult member.


what size?

A huge week, in terms of achievements. Let’s roll the tape:

* You want a ringer…I mean, GPS? contact the Dude. Okay, that’s pretty lame….

* Maude was on Letterman this week. Didn’t make me uncomfortable.

Now, the BIGGIE:
* Saddam Hussein talks to us by phone from Sacramento, about, well, his death and about bowling shoes.

“I have been getting a good deal of questioning in the last few days about whether my career is permanently over…”

SEE? I told ya we had some great stuff….

That’s a lot for one week. Maybe I should start doing it Wednesdays as well; let me know what you think.

Conservative columnist Rod Dreher: scales fell from his eyes

link to audio at NPR

text and h/t at Glenn Greenwald.

And immediately there fell from his [Saul's] eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized. —-Acts, 9-18, King James Bible.

Rod Dreher is a Christian/conservative columnist at the Dallas Morning News and National Review Online. He has suddenly seen the light about the casual militarism of Bush and his ilk. He spoke on National Public Radio:

As President Bush marched the country to war with Iraq, even some voices on the Right warned that this was a fool’s errand. I dismissed them angrily. I thought them unpatriotic.

But almost four years later, I see that I was the fool.

In Iraq, this Republican President for whom I voted twice has shamed our country with weakness and incompetence, and the consequences of his failure will be far, far worse than anything Carter did.

The fraud, the mendacity, the utter haplessness of our government’s conduct of the Iraq war have been shattering to me.
….
As I sat in my office last night watching President Bush deliver his big speech, I seethed over the waste, the folly, the stupidity of this war.

I had a heretical thought for a conservative – that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word – that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot – that they have to question authority.

On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn’t the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?

Dreher is not a dinosaur by any means. His book Crunchy Cons sounds pretty darn progressive to me, though I haven’t read it. And he has had some very tough things to say to the fundos about what Christianity is and is not. And that is, in a way, what his revelation about Bush and militarism is about.

Israeli experts see Bush hurting Israel’s security

link

“The threats to Middle East security and stability worsened in 2006,” experts at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies recently warned. “The American failure in Iraq has hurt the standing of the U.S. in the Middle East.”

Perhaps most strikingly, in their annual evaluation of the situation, the Israeli analysts concluded that it was better for the United States to get out of Iraq than to add troops, as President Bush is proposing.

“There’s no Israeli interest being served by continued American presence in Iraq,” said Mark A. Heller, a Jaffee Center researcher who helped produce the group’s annual “Middle East Strategic Balance” report.

“There’s a basic overall interest in not having the United States perceived as a weak or failing power,” Heller said. “But any initial goals that might have been served by getting rid of Saddam Hussein have long since been banked.”

The Bush administration is “simply discredited in the region as a player,” Yossi Alpher said. Alpher, a former head of the Jaffee Center, now serves as co-director of http://www.bitterlemons.org, a joint Palestinian-Israeli Web site financed by private donations and a grant from the European Union.

The idea that we went to war for very marginal, if not contraproductive, purposes of Israel’s security is offensive to me. But at least some Israelis realize that war doesn’t solve problems, it just creates new ones, not the least of which are burning lives and money.

Report:Pentagon estimates doubling of US casualties with “surge”.

Capital Hill Blue

If Condi Rice lied to Congress about this, she has got to go. Impeached. Gone. Monday. if not yesterday.

And if she didn’t know about it, and if it’s true, she should be fired for making up the stuff she said.

Pentagon planners this week warned President George W. Bush that his “troop surge” plan could double U.S. casualties in Iraq in the coming year and result in 10,000 or more American deaths by the end of 2008. (with more than 100,000 wounded and/or maimed for life.) In a classified assessment memo, military experts predicted violence against U.S. troops will increase “at a sustained pace” and concluded that increasing the use of soldiers for house to house searches in Baghdad will “dramatically alter” the “ratio of casualties to actions” in that civil-war torn city, says a military source familiar with the memo.

In an appearance before the Senate Armed Services committee Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to provide an estimate of U.S. casualties, saying such estimates are not possible but the Pentagon assessment had been delivered to the White House on Tuesday, two days before her testimony.

Military planners, as a matter of course, prepare casualty estimates as part of any action.

Senators from both sides of the aisle told Rice they did not believe her testimony, saying too many Bush administration officials have lied to Congress too many times.

Sounds like somebody in the military is blowing the whistle on the lying; and well they should. Our kids are gonna die, with this projected house to house fighting. I hope that Webb or someone will get some better answers on this.
Not to mention the fact that the authors of the surge idea think that this puny effort will fail.

Doomsday Clock advances, but Rapture Index drops (??)

link

What to think?

The Doomsday Clock says things are getting scarier:

The major new step reflects growing concerns about a “Second Nuclear Age” marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing “launch-ready” status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

But what do a bunch of scientists know? Exxon and George Bush say scientists are full of shit.

The Rapture Index, however, says things are getting slightly less scary….well, I’ve gotta go with that…God is like, all-powerful, am I right? Doesn’t that extend to this situation? George Bush and Exxon don’t say God is full of shit, do they?

Anyway, the “RI” fell one point (oil prices down) from last week, even though a) the Democrats still control the Congress, and b) satanic attacks on farm animals are continuing to be a concern, maxing out those categories.

But don’t take anything for granted…let’s be careful out there.

“two tacos, please, with extra manure”: E. coli outbreak traced to California

but don’t step in it

link

Contaminated California-grown lettuce was the possible source of the E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 80 people late last year at Taco John’s restaurants in two states, health officials said Friday.

State and federal investigators said they have matched the strain of the bacteria associated with the outbreak to two samples taken from dairy farms in California’s Central Valley. The farms are near lettuce fields, the Food and Drug Administration said.

Investigators continue to study whether bacteria-laden manure from the dairy farms could have contaminated the nearby lettuce-growing areas, the FDA said.

I used to think the word “manure” was funny. Am I the only one? I don’t think so…..but it’s not very funny these days. I could be wrong here but I don’t get the feeling that the Bush administration is doing a thing about this on a national scale. How many more people are gonna die or go on dialysis before we get serious about this? Does every county in California have to produce tainted vegetables and promise to do better and then fail, before the United States of America steps in? Who’s running this place? those cows with the “eat mor chikn” signs? are they paying somebody off?