Translator Alleges FBI / State Dept Espionage, Possible Treason (Tom Flocco)
Former FBI contract linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds did not back down regarding reported evidence she uncovered implicating espionage in the FBI and State Department.

Iron Curtain of Secrecy as Cheney Leads Bush to 9/11 Hearing (truthout)
" The White House said on Tuesday it would not allow any recordings or transcripts of private testimony this week by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks." ... they sure act as if they've got plenty to hide...

We depart a bit from our normal agenda here... Some of my friends are arguing about the possibility of explosives in the towers... So I'm presenting my collection of links related to the issue.
How Strong Is The Evidence For A Controlled Demolition? (Plaguepuppy)
First-hand Accounts of Underground Explosions In The North Tower (Chief Engineer magaziine)
WTC-7: The Improbable Collapse (Scott Loughrey / Centre for Research on Globalisation)
The Collapse: An Engineer's Perspective (Dr. Thomas Eagar / Nova)
A Rebuttle to Thomas Eagar / Nova (wtc7.net)
Further Rebuttles Against Experts Explaining Collapses (wtc7.net)

The downing of United Airlines Flight 93 (WorldNetDaily)
When all the evidence is lined up, it is highly consistent with a heat-seeking missile striking Flight 93, probably around 10:05:30. The evidence strongly infers that the terrorists did not fly that jet into the ground, at least not without help from an external event. The evidence becomes compelling when the federal government's factually false propaganda is factored in.

Lawyers try to gag FBI worker over 9/11 (Independent.co.uk)
"The Bush administration will today seek to prevent a former FBI translator from providing evidence about 11 September intelligence failures to a group of relatives and survivors who have accused international banks and officials of aiding al-Qa'ida."

The Missles of September (LetsRoll911.org)
This website is arguing the claim that missles were fired out of one of the planes just before it impacts with the WTC... Including slowed down / enhanced video footage of the event.

Again, why George W. Bush must be tried as a war criminal (The Free Press/Bob Fitrakis)
"The new revelations in Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack, provide further evidence to convict President George W. Bush of war crimes. ... Woodward’s book reads, as do Clarke’s and Susskind’s, as another lengthy prosecutory indictment against the Bush administration. Bush’s only defense against such blatant illegality is to find the real or imagined, or more likely recently planted, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. For the last two months the Mehr News Agency from Tehran, Iran has reported allegations that the U.S. and British governments have been unloading weapons of mass destruction into southern Iraq."

911 Commission Testimony: Remarks of NORAD Personnel: Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley, Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, Col. Alan Scott (cspan/cooperative research)

Voting panel grills Diebold (CNET News)
California's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel grilled Diebold Election Systems President Bob Urosevich and an attorney for the company after releasing a blistering report that alleged the company violated state law by installing uncertified software on voting machines in four California counties.

Here's the proof that a national draft is being planned! (Take Back The Media!)
This is no rumor. Plans are being laid to set up draft review boards right now.

Dallas Detective Indicted on Felony(Guardian Unlimited)
A state grand jury has indicted a Dallas narcotics detective on felony charges for helping frame Mexican immigrants for drug crimes.

Scary (Matthew Rothschild / The Progressive)
"Here is the President warning that U.S. troops, who have already killed more than 600 Iraqis in the last week, will have a free hand. That is a signal for slaughter. ... In his Manichaean worldview, Bush lumped the Iraqi insurgents in with the terrorists of 9/11. They are all "enemies of civilization," he said, and they share "a fanatical political ideology. ... He warned that if the United States does not take "resolute action" and does not "stay the course" in Iraq, it will "recruit a new generation of killers." What he failed to grasp is that by maintaining the brutal occupation, he himself is recruiting that generation"

Nader tells youths to brace for draft (Washington Times)
"The Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members to fill local draft boards, as the machinery for drafting a new generation of young Americans is being quietly put into place"

Whistle-Blowers Go Unheard (Village Voice / James Ridgeway)
In particular the Jersey Girls wanted the commission to closely question Mueller about Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, who is openly challenging the agency's veracity in the 9-11 investigation. Attorney General John Ashcroft has put a gag order on Edmonds by making her internal complaint to the inspector general secret. Soon after she came out publicly, Edmonds was fired. She subsequently told the commission that the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before September 11. The Justice Department inspector general has been looking into the case over the last two years, and still has not produced a report. Ashcroft, on the advice of Mueller in 2002, invoked the "state secret privilege," making the entire matter secret, "to prevent disclosure of certain classified and sensitive national security information." That effectively put a gag order on Edmonds.

Jim Hightower's Weblog

The August 6th, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief
"Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patters of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of fedral buildings in New York."

FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive - Usama Bin Laden (fbi.gov)
I find it more than a little odd that the FBI's 10 most wanted page about bin laden makes absolutely no mention of anything related to 9-11 despite the fact that it was updated after 9-11.

Bush's Latest Speech (This Modern World)

Explosions in the WTC-1 lobby (PlaguePuppy?)
"This article from Chief Engineer magazine presents eyewitness account of the moments after the first plane crash, and describes evidence of large explosions in the lobby, parking garage and subbasement levels of WTC-1 at the time of the crash."

Disputing Rice testimony (Newsday)
"She told the 9/11 panel of 70 investigations on al-Qaida and of orders to boost surveillance before attacks, but FBI officials dispute both." ... More bits of the August 6th Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB), titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" are finally seeing the light of public scrutiny, including, "The FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking."

France Invades U.S. (Information Clearinghouse)

The Smoking Gun of AIDS (Dr. Boyd E. Graves)
"The 1971 flowchart makes it perfectly clear, the design, intent and purpose of the U.S. Special Virus program. As Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS says, the HIV/AIDS virus is the result of many steps in the laboratory, it was no accident. The 1971 flowchart provides absolute evidence of the United States' intent to kill its own citizens and others."

Free copy of the 1971 flowchart linked for your review.

Cover-up of toxic spill 25 times as large as Exxon Valdez disaster(CBS)
"Jack Spadaro lost his job last year, after he blew the whistle on what he called a whitewash by the Bush administration of an investigation into a major environmental disaster. "I had never seen anything so corrupt and lawless in my entire career as what I saw regarding interference with a federal investigation of the most serious environmental disaster in the history of the Eastern United States," says Spadaro. It happened in October of 2000, when 300 million gallons of coal slurry - thick pudding-like waste from mining operations - flooded land, polluted rivers and destroyed property in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The slurry contained hazardous chemicals, including arsenic and mercury. "It polluted 100 miles of stream, killed everything in the streams, all the way to the Ohio River." "The Bush administration came in and the scope of our investigation was considerably shortened, and we were told to wrap it up in a few weeks," says Spadaro.

GAO: Most Corporations Don't Pay Federal Taxes (MemoryBlog)
"As tax time nears, here's something for US citizens to chew on. from the Wall Street Journal: More than 60% of U.S. corporations didn't pay any federal taxes for 1996 through 2000, years when the economy boomed and corporate profits soared, the investigative arm of Congress reported. ... Corporate tax receipts have shrunk markedly as a share of overall federal revenue in recent years, and were particularly depressed when the economy soured. By 2003, they had fallen to just 7.4% of overall federal receipts, the lowest rate since 1983, and the second-lowest rate since 1934, federal budget officials say. To make it even more sickening, most corporations that actually do owe taxes pay a rate less than 5%. So when you add the corporations that pay no taxes with those that pay tiny taxes, 94% of US-controlled companies and 89% of foreign-controlled companies paid zero to 4% in taxes. Now fork over one-fourth to one-third of your income to the IRS, citizen!"

Despite job news, we're in deep fat (Star Tribune)
"How sweet it is! U.S. jobs apparently grew by 308,000 in March, leaving administration analysts positively giddy. But a closer look at the numbers reveals 182,000 more unemployed workers in March than February. Plus, the number of workers classified as "discouraged" (meaning they've given up looking for work) rose to 40,000. Meanwhile, the actual unemployment rate increased in March to 5.7 percent. Patricia Johnson asks, "Is it any wonder that the payroll figures from the Household Data Survey would increase dramatically after we awarded more than $150 million in contracts for work related to the Iraqi war, to be completed no later than mid-June 2004?" Johnson and other discerning writers have pointed out that many of the new jobs are related to rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure based on an $18.4 billion appropriation from Congress. In other words, a war economy isn't the same as a true economic turnaround -- is it?"

Interior Dept. Is Denounced (Washington Post)
"Investigator of Indian Funds Resigns, Alleges Obstruction: A court-appointed investigator has resigned from his job probing the federal government's management of hundreds of millions of dollars owed Native Americans, and charged that the Department of the Interior blocked his work in a bid to conceal its deals to enrich energy companies and cheat American Indians. In his resignation letter, made public yesterday, Special Master Alan L. Balaran said the Bush administration worked to thwart him beginning last summer after he uncovered a two-decades-old practice by Interior officials of negotiating leases with oil and gas companies that gave Indian landowners a small fraction of the royalties that private landowners received in similar deals. Balaran accused the Department of Justice and the Interior Department of trying repeatedly to have him removed from the case "to prevent any further investigation" of the lopsided deals. "The reason for this dramatic shift in policy is obvious," Balaran wrote of the government's action. "The consequences of [my] findings could cost the very companies with which senior Interior officials maintain close ties millions of dollars."

Bush aide met terrorist leader during FBI probe (Tom Flocco)
"Lawyers for former University of South Florida computer science professor Sami Al-Arian, under a 50-count federal indictment as an alleged terrorist leader, said late Monday that government officials have declined to provide taped conversations from FBI wiretaps which they feel will clear him, citing "the government has no duty to provide information the defendant already knows," according to an Associated Press report." (complete with a photo of Bush and said "terrorist leader" posing together) "In June 2001--three months before the September 11 attacks, Al-Arian was briefed by Senior Presidential Advisor Karl Rove on Bush's faith-based agenda and other issues in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. The Secret Service requires White House complex visitors to submit a Social Security number and birth date for the purpose of undergoing a security check which would have revealed that Al-Arian was already under a six-year-long FBI investigation. ... Al-Arian lawyers Moffitt and Linda Moreno say the tapes the government refuses to produce are "potentially embarrassing to some powerful people who had conversations with Al-Arian about Palestinian rights.""

Manifest Raises Questions About Saudi Flights After 9/11 (Tom Flocco)
"List and testimony indicates FBI may have allowed alleged hijacker's kin to leave U.S. with son of Saudi defense minister without questioning them. ... The White House had originally asserted that flights evacuating Saudis from the United States after 9/11 never existed, but author Craig Unger obtained flight manifest lists which were drawn up by the Saudi embassy. Alhazmi's associates received continued payments of $3,500. per month from Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of Saudi Crown Prince Bandar bin Sultan who is Ambassador to the United States... Both Saudis visited President Bush's Texas ranch in late August, 2002--before this news broke --but Americans will never hear Mr. Bush publicly discuss the contents of their conversations, or Bandar and Haifa's signed checks made out to terrorist associates through his uncle's Riggs Bank. Bush and Cheney will not be under oath, allowing joint corroboration of each other's testimony on-the-spot regarding their actions during the key two hour time-line of the actual attacks--thus avoiding possible future perjury charges and/or impeachment proceedings."

The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11
The most massive collection of public record examples of pre-9/11 warnings of the use of planes-as-missiles I've ever seen...

Bin Laden search intensifies
U.S., Pakistani forces step up efforts along Afghan border

By John Walcott / Knight Ridder
The Columbian - Sunday February 29, 2004

WASHINGTON - As the weather begins to improve along the rugged, remote border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. and Pakistani forces are stepping up their hunt for Osama bin Laden, his top lieutenant and Afghanistan's former Taliban ruler, U.S. officials said this week.
The officials said the Central intelligence Agency has moved at least two unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, both armed with Hellfire missiles, from Iraq to Afghanistan, and that the military's Central Command is sending an unspecified number of special forces soldiers who've been stationed in Iraq to Afghanistan, as well.
In addition, said the officials, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operations are highly classified, U.S. reconnaissance satellites were redirected this weekend to spend more time over border areas near Pakistan's South Waziristan region, where Pakistani forces recently have clashed with what appear to be heavily armed members of al-Qaida or of Afghanistan's former Taliban military.
However, the officials cautioned that they still had no independently confirmed intelligence pinpointing bin Laden; his second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahri; or Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, and on Friday they said the unusually public discussions of intensifying operations are an effort to flush out the 6-foot-5-inch al-Qaida leader in hopes that UAVs, other aircraft, satellites or spies are more likely to spot him if he moves.
The officials also denied reports on Iranian state radio that bin Laden was captured some time ago.
"That report, as well as the suggestion that we're closing in on bin Laden and about to pounce, are overstated," one military official said Saturday. "We're making a lot of progress, but it won't be over 'til it's over, and there's no telling when that'll be."
The officials also expressed skepticism about reports that intercepted satellite telephone conversations referring to "the Sheikh," a suspected code name for bin Laden, indicate the presence of al-Qaida members along the border.
"Bin Laden and the people who know where he is stopped yakking on sat phones more than 5 years ago," said one official. "If we can overhear it, it's probably disinformation."
The officials said they expect the hunt will end in bin Laden's death rather than his capture. U.S. forces are authorized to shoot to kill if they're certain they have bin Laden, Zawahri or Omar in sight, one official said. Intelligence analysts believe all three and their bodyguards would fight to the death if cornered, unlike former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who surrendered to U.S. forces.

3 reasons fuel stepped up bin Laden hunt
By John Walcott
Knight Ridder
The Columbian - Sunday February 29, 2004

Officials cited three reasons for stepping up the hunt for bin Laden and the others:

1) Pakistani President Perves Musharraf, the target of two recent assassination attempts by Islamic militants, has grown more serious about helping to locate bin Laden. Earlier this month, Musharraf assured visiting CIA Director, George Tenet that Pakistan would provide "full cooperation" in the hunt, said one senior official. The State Department's top counter-terrorism official, former CIA officer Cofer Black is now visiting Pakistan, the official said.
The Saudis finally got serious about al-Qaida last May, when they were shocked to discover that bin Laden was after them, too, not just Jews and crusaders," said one U.S. official, borrowing the al-Quada leader's phraseology. "Musharraf appears to be having a similar reaction to the attempts on his life."
Pakistani troops recently have become more aggressive in the border areas, which traditionally have been ruled by local tribal leaders and off-limits to government forces. Seven Pakistani commandos recently were killed in a clash with suspected al-Qaida guerrillas in a village in South Waziristan, their bodies hung from an overhead power line, U.S. officials said.

2) The Pakistanis recently captured some suspected al-Qaida members and their families, and U.S. officials hope information they provide might help lead to bin Laden, much as information from relatives and others helped track down Saddam.

3) The weather along the border should begin improving as springtime arrives, making it easier for cameras carried by spy satellites, UAVs and aircraft to spot their targets. At the same time, however, warmer weather makes it harder for infrared equipment, which tracks heat sources, to spot people, animals, and vehicles because it decreases the temperature difference between such targets and the ground. Radar imaging equipment, which is also in use, is largely unaffected by the weather.
The UAVs and special forces are of diminishing value in Iraq, especially after Saddam's capture, and so they're available to reinforce the 11,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Additional Special forces soldiers, including Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Air Force special operations forces, will be deployed in Afghan border regions along with officers from the CIA and the National Security Agency, the nation's electronic eavesdropping agency, officials said.
Bin Laden's whereabouts are the Bush administration's most important unsolved mystery in this election year. Some Democrats have criticized the administration for moving forces, CIA officers and equipment out of Afghanistan to support the officers-led invasion of Iraq, and of invading Iraq before hunting down bin Laden.

'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes' (Independent.co.uk)
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent... A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened... The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege". ... some senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI's translation department.

Turning the Tide (Noam Chomsky)
"The official weblog of Noam Chomsky, including exclusive, original observations drawn from personal correspondence, ZNet Sustainer Forums posts, and direct blog entries"