Mastermind's amazing escape

THE hunt for the mastermind behind the London terror attacks dramatically widened last night with the arrest of four suspects, as authorities warned that further atrocities in the British capital were a "very strong possibility".

British police chief Sir Ian Blair admitted the man, whose identity had been known to investigators for days, was on a "watch list" as a low-grade suspect and arrived in Britain two weeks before the bombings. But he was not placed under surveillance.

He arrived at the Suffolk port of Felixstowe and left from Heathrow airport in full view of Special Branch agents hours before the blasts that left at least 54 dead, including Australian Sam Ly.

The man is known to have links to the top of al-Qaida, including two of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden's strategic lieutenants on the subcontinent and another in the US.

Jamaican-born husband and father Jermaine Lindsay was named as the "squadron leader" of the terrorists. Security chiefs believe he may have acted as the go-between with the terror mastermind.

Officials in Washington also claimed that Lindsay was on a watch list, but the British lost track of him.

Lindsay and another of the bombers were last night linked to a thwarted UK terror plot.

It was revealed yesterday that captured al-Qaida operatives issued at least two warnings that attacks were planned on London's commuter system.

Asked about the bungle that saw the suspected mastermind slip through the grasp of authorities, Sir Ian said: "Nothing at the moment . . . links him directly. But what we expect to find at some stage is that there is a clear al-Qaida link . . . because the four men who are dead, who we believe are the bombers, are in the category of foot soldiers."

Pakistani intelligence has previously indicated that one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, met a member of a group linked to al-Qaida during his visit to the country last December.

London bombers linked to U.S.

One of the bombers in last week's attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York.

Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.

In addition to Khan, two other men linked to the London bombings also had direct ties with the United States.

"Whilst we are watching the ports and the airports trying to prevent people from coming in," said M.J. Gohel, a terrorism analyst at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, "al Qaeda and its global jihadi friends are a step ahead. They have already penetrated into the West and are recruiting Western born Muslims to join terrorism."

Lindsay Germaine, one of the four dead bombers and a Jamaican who left behind a pregnant wife, had recently traveled to see relatives in Ohio.

Furthermore, Magdy El Nashar, 33, who was captured last night at his family's home outside of Cairo and then questioned by British agents, studied at North Carolina State University. Police believe he helped the bombers build their explosive devices. Now they want to know if there are more bombs and would-be bombers.

McCurry Sticks Up For McClellan, Says Leak Story Disproportionate

I know Democratic partisans are not supposed to get weepy watching the Bush team wilt under the hot lights of Plamegate, but allow me a little sympathy for Scott McClellan who gets sent out to roast every day from the hot breath of the White House press corps.

Been there, done that I would say. I was the press corps pinata for President Clinton during four zesty years that included l'affaire Monique. Sometimes it is the chosen assignment of the White House Press Secretary to go out and get whacked, over and over, to see if anything interesting will spill out.

Press secretaries suck it up and suck it in because sometimes the brief you are given to argue is pretty slim goings. I am familiar with the answer "we may not comment on that matter because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation." It happens to be the right answer when people face legal jeopardy and might go to jail. Or when there is a determined assault on the principle of executive privilege (not to mention attorney-client privilege) as we faced during the Clinton years at the hands of Judge Ken Starr.

I don't pretend to know much about Karl Rove's conversations or the machinations of the determined prosecutor this time around, Mr. Fitzgerald.

But it does seem to me that there must be something more to this than the conversation reported between Matt Cooper of Time and Rove. Rove was making a late week heads up call to the White House news magazine reporter and, believe me, that is not the time or place to dish major strategy. A two-minute call such as the one now reported is basically to get the signals straight -- green, yellow, red. Rove seems to have been telling Cooper that the yellowcake story was a flashing yellow and he needed to be cautious.

Unless conversations go well beyond what has been reported, there has to be some other explanation for the zeal with which this investigation is being pursued. Something consequential must have happened because of this leak that we have not yet read about. That's about all I can imagine, because otherwise the whole thing -- leak, story, investigation -- seems a little disproportionate.

Rove E-Mailed Security Official About Talk

After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl Rove alerted the president's No. 2 security adviser about the interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations the operative's husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence.

The July 11, 2003, e-mail between Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is the first showing an intelligence official knew Rove had talked to Matthew Cooper just days before the Time magazine reporter wrote an article identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer.

"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, recounting how Cooper tried to question him about whether President Bush had been hurt by the new allegations.

The White House turned the e-mail over to prosecutors, and Rove testified to a grand jury about it last year.

"Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming," Rove wrote in the e-mail to Hadley.

"When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Hadley, now Bush's national security adviser, said he could not comment due to the continuing criminal investigation. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said his client answered all the questions prosecutors asked during three grand jury appearances, never invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the president's executive privilege guaranteeing confidential advice from aides.

Rove, Bush's closest adviser, turned over the e-mail as soon as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's covert work for the CIA.

He later told a grand jury the e-mail was consistent with his recollection that his intention in talking with Cooper that Friday in July 2003 wasn't to divulge Plame's identity but to caution Cooper against certain allegations Plame's husband was making, according to legal professionals familiar with Rove's testimony.

Rove sent the e-mail shortly before leaving the White House early for a family vacation that weekend, already aware that another journalist he had talked with, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, was planning an article about Plame and Wilson.

The AP reported Thursday that Rove acknowledged to the grand jury that he talked about Plame with both Cooper and Novak before they published their stories but that he originally learned about the operative's identity from the news media, not government sources.

Republicans cheered the latest revelations Friday, saying they showed Rove wasn't trying to hurt Plame but instead was trying to informally warn reporters to be cautious about some of Wilson's claims.

"What it says is, Karl Rove wasn't the leaker, he was actually the recipient of the information not the provider," Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman said on Fox News. "So there are probably a lot of folks in Washington who have prejudged this, who have rushed to judgment who are trying to smear Karl Rove."

Democrats, however, said that even if Rove wasn't the leaker, someone still divulged Plame's identity and possibly violated the law.

California facilities on target list

Law enforcement authorities warned the Israeli Consulate and California National Guard that their facilities were on a list of possible terror targets that police found recently while investigating a string of robberies, officials said Friday.

``We're very concerned about it,'' said Maj. Jon Siepmann, the California National Guard's deputy director of communications. ``There was evidence that an attack was at least being planned.''

The list, which police found while searching the home of a man arrested last week in connection with a series of gas station robberies in south Santa Monica Bay communities, included three National Guard facilities in the greater Los Angeles area, Siepmann said. He said law enforcement authorities thoroughly briefed National Guard representatives on the possible threat, which he described as apparently ``very serious.''

Siepmann declined to discuss specifics of the case or which National Guard facilities were possible targets. He said the National Guard has strong security measures in place because its soldiers have been involved in anti-terror operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Asia. About 12,000 of the California Guard's 20,000 soldiers have been mobilized and deployed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he said.

The warnings followed the July 5 arrests by Torrance police of Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, of Gardena, and Levar Haney Washington, 25, of Los Angeles, on suspicion of robbery. Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges in Torrance Superior Court.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed last week that the agency's Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigating the case, but declined to describe the focus of the probe or provide other details.

US forces kill 24 militants in Pakistan

United States-led coalition forces killed 24 Taliban fighters two hundred metres inside Pakistan�s North Waziristan Agency, a military spokesman said on Friday.

The bodies of the 24 fighters, most of them Afghans, were found 200 metres inside Pakistani near Lawara Mandi in North Waziristan early on Friday, military spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan told Daily Times. The Taliban attacked a US military base in Paktia province late on Thursday evening, a source in Miranshah told Daily Times. �The Taliban attacked the base with rockets and killed and wounded Americans,� said the source. Sultan said that the US informed Pakistan and �we deployed troops to prevent the Taliban from crossing into our area.� He said the Taliban were killed by the US forces inside Pakistan.

The military spokesman did not say that Pakistan protested the US violation of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sultan said that the US side had informed Pakistan before opening fire on the fleeing militants. �There will still be a check to see whether there had been any violation of Pakistani territory or airspace.�

He said the authorities had not ascertained the nationalities of all the killed Talibans yet. �Most of them appear to be Afghans,� he said. But he did not rule out the involvement of local tribesmen in the Paktia attack.

He said no local civilian was killed or wounded in the US attack. �All killed were militants,� he said. He said that two twin cabin vehicles were hit in the attack. It was not clear whether the US forces killed the Taliban with missiles or chased them with helicopters. A witness said he saw US helicopters engaged in the attack, while a local TV channel said the fighters were killed by missile.

Al-Zarqawi Fled Baghdad Recently

The leader of Iraq's most feared terror group fled Baghdad about two weeks ago because a U.S.-Iraqi military operation in the capital was threatening his al-Qaida movement, Iraq's interior minister said in a television interview aired Friday.

Bayan Jabr told the U.S.-owned Al Hurra television that the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and many of his al-Qaida in Iraq followers fled Baghdad because of the success of Operation Lightning, launched May 28.

He nonetheless claimed many al-Qaida members had left the capital ``because they have lost the battle.'' Al-Zarqawi fled Baghdad 12 days ago after several car-rigging factories were discovered in a security operation, he said.

``Al-Zarqawi is in his last months,'' Jabr added.

Rumsfeld Victory in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

A federal district court ruling, widely touted by liberals, that found fault with the government's military tribunals has been struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit, which is the penultimate court in America. This decision is a victory in the war on terror.

Check out Powerline for analysis by the legal minds there.

UPDATE:
A federal appeals court put the Bush administration's military commissions for terrorist suspects back on track Friday, saying a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison who once was Osama bin Laden's driver can stand trial.

A three-judge panel ruled 3-0 against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose case was halted by a federal judge on grounds that commission procedures were unlawful.

"Congress authorized the military commission that will try Hamdan," said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The protections of the 1949 Geneva Convention do not apply to al Qaeda and its members, so Hamdan does not have a right to enforce its provisions in court, the appeals judges said.

Now that the top federal appeals court has confirmed that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists, as we have already stated, can the media drop the whole debate about it?

PLAME GAME: 'Most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee'

A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
"She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.

Soldier survives attack; captures, medically treats sniper (Video)

During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents.
Tschiderer, with E Troop, 101st �Saber� Cavalry Division, attached to 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemy�s position.

After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Iraqi Army Brigade, Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist who�d tried to kill him just minutes before.

See the video of the attack.

Read the account of the incident from the 256th Brigade Combat Team

John Kerry Outed Undercover CIA Agent

Sen. John Kerry, who called for Karl Rove to be fired over allegations that he revealed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame, outed a genuine undercover CIA agent just this past April - even after the agency asked that his identity be kept secret.

Kerry blew the cover of CIA secret operative Fulton Armstrong during confirmation hearings for U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton. Questioning Bolton, Kerry asked: "Did Otto Reich share his belief that Fulton Armstrong should be removed for his position?" - according to a transcript excerpted by the New York Times.

"The answer is yes," the top Democrat continued.

In his response to Kerry, Mr. Bolton did his best to maintain the agent's confidentiality, reverting to Armstrong's pseudonym.

"As I said," he told Kerry, "I had lost confidence in Mr. Smith, and I conveyed that."

Two years earlier, Armstrong had been identified in news reports on his dispute with other officials over intelligence involving Cuba. But he was operating in a different capacity and his identity wasn't secret at the time.

"When the Bolton nomination resurrected the old accounts, however, the C.I.A. asked news organizations to withhold his name," the Times said.

Apparently the CIA directive wasn't good enough for Sen. Kerry - who outed Armstrong anyway and later defended the move by saying his Republican colleague, Senator Richard Lugar, had also mentioned the name.

And besides, said Kerry, the secret agent's name "had already been in the press."

Sen. Intel Chair: Joe Wilson a Fraud

Thanks to the media's obsession with the Karl Rove pseudo-scandal, former Iraq ambassador Joseph Wilson is once again the toast of Washington, D.C. - appearing on dozens of TV and radio programs, airing his demand that President Bush "honor his word" to fire Rove.

It's almost as if last year's Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into Wilson's allegations never happened.

In fact, after probing Wilson's story, Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts publicly ripped the so-called "whistleblower" as a possible hoaxer and a fraud.
In a July 9, 2004 press release that's still available on Roberts' official Web site, the Kansas Republican said:

"The former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading. ...

"Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. As discussed in the Niger section of the [Committee's] report, not only did he NOT 'debunk' the claim, he actually gave some intelligence analysts even more reason to believe that it may be true."

Sen. Roberts continued:

"When asked how [Wilson] 'knew' that the Intelligence Community had rejected the possibility of a Niger-Iraq uranium deal, as he wrote in his book, he told Committee staff that his assertion may have involved 'a little literary flair.'"

The Intel Committee chair concluded:

"I believed very strongly that it was important for the Committee to conclude publicly that many of the statements made by Ambassador Wilson were not only incorrect, but had no basis in fact."

Saddam Harbored 4,000 Terrorists on War�s Eve

The �Voices of Soldiers� Truth Tour organized by Move America Forward and RighTalk Radio Network has learned in an exclusive briefing that Saddam Hussein harbored approximately 4,000 terrorists in Iraq in the six months leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Iraqi Lt. General Abdul Qader Jassim told the �Voices of Soldiers� Truth Tour delegation that these Iraqi-trained terrorists were designed to undermine Iraq�s enemies, most specifically Israel and Iran. Jassim also said that many of these same individuals are believed to be involved with or assisting the terrorist insurgents seeking to undermine the current Iraq regime.

�Saddam Hussein was operating as one of the world�s largest sponsors of terrorism before Coalition Forces put him out of business,� said Howard Kaloogian, Co-Chairman of Move America Forward.

We are closer to winning the war on terrorism because of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and anyone who doubts that needs only look to see how determined Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are to see us fail here,� Kaloogian said.

Alleged Mastermind of London Bombings Captured

Magdy Elnashar Is Taken Into Custody Outside Cairo After Worldwide Manhunt
The U.S.-trained chemist who police believe is the mastermind behind last week's London transit attacks has been captured, Egyptian and Western intelligence sources tell ABC News.

Magdy Elnashar, 33, who authorities believe helped build the bombs, was taken into custody in suburban Cairo, Egypt. Elnashar had left England two weeks before the bombings, and British authorities had initiated a worldwide manhunt for him.

Police say it was Elnashar who helped the bombers set up their bomb factory in Leeds.

Elnashar's capture came as British authorities released the first surveillance photo of one of the bombers in the hours before the attacks.

Hasib Hussain, 18, is seen carrying the backpack that exploded on a double-decker bus two-and-a-half hours later.

Hussain was described by Britain's top police official as just a foot soldier.

"What we've got to find now is the people who trained them, who built their bombs," said Ian Blair, commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police.

British authorities also identified a fourth bomber as a Jamaica-born man with a pregnant wife in England and a mother living in the United States.

U.S. authorities tell ABC News that Lindsey Germaine had been in the United States within the past two years, and the FBI is now investigating contacts he made in Ohio and New Jersey.

The FBI had also joined the search for Elnashar because he attended North Carolina State University in 2000.

But the best lead now is Elnashar himself. Officials in Cairo tell ABC News that state security officials have already begun to question him with British agents in attendance.

Source: Rove Got CIA Agent ID From Media

Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a person briefed on the testimony.

The person, who works in the legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, told The Associated Press that Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.

Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. The conversation eventually turned to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq war policy and the intelligence it used to justify the war, the source said.

The person said Rove testified that Novak told him he had learned and planned to report in a weekend column that Wilson's wife, Plame, had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims of alleged nuclear material sales to Iraq.

Novak's column, citing two Bush administration officials, appeared six days later, touching off a political firestorm and leading to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. That probe has ensnared presidential aides and reporters in a two-year legal battle.

Rove told the grand jury that by the time Novak had called him, he believes he had similar information about Wilson's wife from another reporter but had no recollection of which reporter had told him about it first, the source said.

When Novak inquired about Wilson's wife working for the CIA, Rove indicated he had heard something like that, according to the source's recounting of the grand jury testimony.

Rove told the grand jury that four days later, he had a phone conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and - in an effort to discredit some of Wilson's allegations - told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, though he never used her name.

An e-mail Cooper recently provided the grand jury shows Cooper reported to his magazine bosses that Rove had described Wilson's wife in a confidential conversation as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said Thursday his client truthfully testified to the grand jury and expected to be exonerated.

"Karl provided all pertinent information to prosecutors a long time ago," Luskin said. "And prosecutors confirmed when he testified most recently in October 2004 that he is not a target of the investigation."

CIA 'outing' might fall short of crime

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON � The alleged crime at the heart of a controversy that has consumed official Washington � the "outing" of a CIA officer � may not have been a crime at all under federal law, little-noticed details in a book by the agent's husband suggest.

In The Politics of Truth, former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Neither spouse, a reading of the book indicates, was again stationed overseas. They appear to have remained in Washington, D.C., where they married and became parents of twins.

Six years later, in July 2003, the name of the CIA officer � Valerie Plame � was revealed by columnist Robert Novak.

The column's date is important because the law against unmasking the identities of U.S. spies says a "covert agent" must have been on an overseas assignment "within the last five years." The assignment also must be long-term, not a short trip or temporary post, two experts on the law say. Wilson's book makes numerous references to the couple's life in Washington over the six years up to July 2003.

"Unless she was really stationed abroad sometime after their marriage," she wasn't a covert agent protected by the law, says Bruce Sanford, an attorney who helped write the 1982 act that protects covert agents' identities.

Joseph Wilson would not say whether his wife was stationed overseas again after 1997, and he said she would not speak to a reporter. But, he said, "the CIA obviously believes there was reason to believe a crime had been committed" because it referred the case to the Justice Department.

Spokesmen for both the CIA and federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating whether a crime was committed, also would not comment.

Though that key law may not have been broken in leaking the name, Fitzgerald must still be pursuing evidence of some type of wrongdoing, said Victoria Toensing, another of the attorneys who helped draft the 1982 act. Like Sanford, she doubts Valerie Wilson, as she now refers to herself, qualified as a "covert agent" under that law. She and Sanford also doubt Fitzgerald has enough evidence to prosecute anyone under the Espionage Act. That law makes it a crime to divulge "information relating to the national defense" that "the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury" of the nation.

But, Toensing said, "reading between the lines, I'd say he's got a 'Martha Stewart case' " involving perjury or obstruction of justice. In other words, though a crime may not have been committed at the start, one may have occurred during the investigation when someone lied to Fitzgerald or to a federal grand jury.
(End of Article)

( On Wednesday's show I talked about this very issue and stated that by the end of the week this case would no longer be about the Plame leak, that the left would now be hoping for perjury charges to emerge on Rove. Well folks, here is the USA Today basically suggesting just that. I told you, the MSNM and the left realize there is no crime here so they are hoping that Rove perjured himself. Highly unlikely folks, since Rove signed a waiver to allow prosecutors to question the reporters Rove spoke to, and then Rove himself cleared Cooper to talk to the Grand Jury resolving him of any confidentiality that existed. If Rove lied to the grand jury he would not have done either of those things. Hang on to your hats folks cause its going to be a bumpy ride but in the end Rove will have broken no law and therefore will not be prosecuted. It will be interseting to see who is though if Miller talks about her source, who is obviously not Rove or why would she go to jail to conceal someone who is already known.)

J.R.

Iraqi Army Foils Three Terrorist Attacks

Iraqi soldiers stopped three terrorist attacks against a water plant, a military recruiting drive, and a hospital July 11, all around Baghdad.

No soldiers or civilians were injured in any of the attacks, and the Iraqi troops' efforts saved the lives of countless citizens, officials noted.
At 3:25 a.m. that day, terrorists fired on Iraqi soldiers guarding the Khark Water Treatment Plant in north Baghdad. The guards returned fire, driving the attackers away and preventing any damage to the newly repaired facility, which provides fresh water to millions of people in the city.

In west Abu Ghraib, Iraqi soldiers guarding the site of an Iraqi Army recruiting drive spotted a mortar round less than 100 yards away from their checkpoint. A dispatched team of explosives experts safely detonated the bomb.

The third incident occurred just before noon, when a citizen told Iraqi soldiers he'd seen a car bomb parked near a hospital in south Baghdad. They secured the site and called in explosives experts to investigate.

The team found a white car with wires running from the transmission to two batteries. It also found a bomb near the hospital consisting of four mortar rounds. The team safely removed the car bomb and munitions from the site.
"These successes can be directly attributed to better-trained and more experienced Iraqi army soldiers patrolling the streets," said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman.

"They're making their presence known and they're talking to Iraqis they meet while patrolling," Kent noted. "As a result, Iraqis are gaining more confidence in their Army and providing the Soldiers with more information, which they can use to disrupt insurgent cells."

No Gitmo torture, Senate panel told

A military investigation of interrogations at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found no torture occurred, but one high-value al Qaeda operative was subjected to "abusive and degrading treatment" when he was forced to wear a brassiere, do dog tricks and stay awake for 20 hours a day.
"We looked at this very, very carefully -- no torture occurred," Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt testified yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Detention and interrogation operations across the board ... looking through all the evidence that we could, were safe, secure and humane."

London Bombers Tied to Al Qaeda Plot in Pakistan

At least two men who have connections to last week's London bombings are alive and still at large.

The first is a man, who was seen on surveillance tapes at Luton station, located outside of London, as he bid farewell to the four bombers the morning of the attacks. The other is Magdy El Nashar, an Egyptian chemist, who attended and received training at North Carolina State University.

British police think El Nashar may have helped the London group build their bombs before leaving England two weeks before the attacks. They have since issued a worldwide alert for him.

The picture shows Hasib Hussain, 18, at the Luton train station at 7:20 a.m., one week ago today. Two-and-a-half hours later, his backpack full of explosives was detonated. It killed him and 13 others on a crowded double-decker bus.

Now police are on the search for answers to how such a plot was carried out. "Who supported them? Who financed them?" asked Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch of the Metropolitan Police. "Who trained them? Who encouraged them?"

Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington.

"There's absolutely no doubt he was part of an al Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Great Britain," explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry who is now a senior terrorism consultant for ABC News.

At the time, authorities thought they had foiled the London subway plot by arresting more than a dozen young Britons of Pakistani descent last August in Luton, a city known for its ties to terrorism.

"For some time, the locus of terrorism in Britain has been around the Luton area and in some of the northern cities," said Michael Clark, professor of defense at King's College in London.

Security officials tell ABC News they have discovered links between the eldest of the London bombers, Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, and the original group in Luton. Officials also believe it was not a coincidence the subway bombers all met at the Luton train station last week.

"It is very likely this group was activated last year after the other group was arrested," Debat said.

Forces capture would-be bomber in Iraq

Iraqi and U.S. forces captured a suicide bomber before he could detonate his explosive belt Thursday, and announced a key suspect in the kidnap-slaying of Egypt's top envoy to Iraq had been arrested in what was hailed as a blow to the terror network.

The thwarted suicide attack - just 150 feet from the Green Zone, the site of the U.S. Embassy and major Iraqi government offices - was intended to be part of coordinated assaults by a suicide car bomber and two pedestrians strapped with explosives.

The attackers apparently planned to detonate the car bomb first. Then the two pedestrians would blow themselves up in the midst of troops, police and rescue workers rushing to the scene, U.S. officials said.

The car bomb exploded successfully. But one pedestrian bomber was killed after an Iraqi policeman shot him, setting off his explosive vest, a U.S. statement said.

The second pedestrian bomber was wounded by shrapnel from the blast before he could detonate his own vest, and was in critical condition at a U.S. military hospital in the Green Zone, the statement said.

Would-be bombers are rarely captured in Iraq. A 19-year-old Saudi was taken into custody after he somehow survived the explosion of his fuel tanker in December, a blast that nine people. A Yemeni was arrested in 2003 when his car bomb failed to detonate at a Baghdad police station.

There was no word on the identity of the failed bomber, but his arrest could yield valuable intelligence on the shadowy network of Islamic extremists - many of them believed to be foreigners linked to al-Qaida.

In another setback to insurgents, about 30 suspected al-Qaida members were arrested in the past week, including a key suspect in this month's killing of Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sherif and attacks on senior diplomats from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. command said.

Poll finds Muslim support for bin Laden waning

In heavily Islamic countries, support for terror attacks on Americans drops

WASHINGTON - Support for Osama bin Laden and terrorist bombings
against Americans and their allies in Iraq is falling in several
heavily Muslim countries, particularly those where terrorist attacks
have occurred.

According to surveys conducted for the Pew Research Center for the
People & the Press, young people in Morocco, Lebanon, Pakistan and
Turkey view America more favorably than the overall populations in
those countries.
"There are some signs � especially in Indonesia, Morocco and even
Turkey, where they've had their own experience with terrorist
bombings � that there's less support than there was in 2003 for
suicide bombings and for bin Laden," Pew director Andrew Kohut said.

Pew interviewed people in 17 countries, six of which � Indonesia,
Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey � have majority Muslim
populations. The polling was done before last week's terrorist
bombings in London.

Fewer justify suicide bombings
In Lebanon, the number of people who think the use of suicide bombing
and other forms of violence is justified in defense of Islam has
dropped from 73 percent in the summer of 2002 to 39 percent now.
Smaller drops were seen in Morocco, from 40 percent a year ago to 13
percent now, and in Pakistan and Indonesia. In Jordan, the number of
people who feel such violence is justified has grown slightly; the
number in Turkey remains very low.

Since March 2004, the sentiment for suicide bombing against Americans
and their allies in Iraq dropped from 70 percent to 49 percent in
Jordan, which neighbors Iraq, and dropped by smaller margins in
Pakistan, Turkey, and Morocco.

Public confidence in bin Laden has dipped sharply since May 2003 in
Indonesia, Morocco, Lebanon and Turkey � all countries that have
experienced recent terrorist bombings. In Pakistan and Jordan, a
majority of people continue to say they have at least some confidence
in bin Laden, the Saudi leader of al-Qaida.

A majority of people in Morocco and Pakistan say Islamic extremism
greatly threatens their country, and almost half in Indonesia and
Turkey said it poses a great threat. Few people in Lebanon and Jordan
felt that way.

Iraqis March Against Terror

There was a protest march of Iraqis against terror on July 5th. You probably haven't heard about it from Peter Jennings or Dan Rather:

QAYARRAH, Iraq: Citizens of the southern city of Qayarrah, of the northern province of Ninewah, gather to demonstrate their defiance against terrorism during the March Against Terror. Over 1,000 Iraqi citizens, including several influential political and religious leaders, marched alongside Iraqi Army and police officers in this first of several such demonstrations planned for the northern region of Iraq.

Call it the Iraqi version of We're Not Afraid.

Hat Tip To: BLACK FIVE

Joseph Wilson Calls on Bush to Fire Rove

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson called on President Bush Thursday to fire deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, saying Bush's top-level aide engaged in an "abuse of power" by discussing Wilson's wife's job with a reporter.

Wilson decried what he called a White House "stonewall" in the wake of revelations that Rove, a longtime Bush confidant, was involved in the leak to the news media that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer.

Bush said Wednesday that he would not comment on discussions that blew her cover because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, however, the president still has confidence in Rove.

Wilson, in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show, said he thinks the White House's posture in this controversy represents a continuing "cover-up of the web of lies that underpin the justification for going to war in Iraq."

Wilson was asked about statements by Rove's defenders noting that an e-mail describing Rove's conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper indicated that Rove did not specifically mention Valerie Plame by name.

"My wife's name is Mrs. Joseph Wilson," he replied. "It is Mrs. Valerie Wilson. He named her. He identified her," Wilson said. "So that argument doesn't stand the smell test ... What I do know is that Mr. Rove is talking to the press and he is saying things like my wife is fair game. That's an outrage. That's an abuse of power." (End of Article)


( Wow, this guy Wilson can't even read. Rove stated to Cooper that Joe Wilsons wife worked for the CIA. He did not name her. All through this story she has been referred to as Valerie Plame, I have never heard of her referred to as Mrs. Joseph Wilson or Mrs. Valerie Wilson. Now all of a sudden when Wilson see's that Rove has committed NO crime here, Plames last name suddenly changes to Wilson for the Dems and the MSNM convenience . What a joke this whole thing is turning out to be the MSNM and the Dummocrats are falling over each other trying to sink Rove and now Wilson tells one more lie.)

J.R.

FACE OF THE BUS BOMBER

Police have released a CCTV image of the man they believe bombed the No 30 bus in London's Tavistock Square.

They have appealed for information on the movements of 18-year-old Hasib Hussain while he was in London.

He was seen at Luton Station at 7.20am on the day of the bombings before travelling to King's Cross in London with three other men.

It is thought Hussain then tried to get on a Northern Line train but was unable to due to disruption on the line.

He could then have been on the No 30 bus for up to 45 minutes before he set off his bomb at 9.47am.

Up to 80 people were on the bus when it exploded.

Police want to hear from anybody who may have seen Hussain at any stage that morning.

The news comes as the number of people killed in the transport bombings rose to 53.

Seven people died in the Liverpool St/Aldgate blast; seven in the Edgware Road blast; 26 in the King's Cross/Russell Square bombing; and 13 in the No 30 bus.

Anti-terror police are now hunting two others suspects known as the "mastermind" and the "chemist".

They have named Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, both from the Leeds area, as two bombing suspects. Police said Tanweer carried out the Aldgate Tube attack.

The fourth bomber is believed to be a Jamaican-born Briton called Lindsey Germail.

DAC Peter Clarke of London's anti-terror branch said they were looking at "who committed the bombings, who supported them, sho financed them, who trained them and who encouraged them".

Kennedy raps Santorum for sex abuse remarks Made in 2002 ?

In a rare personal attack on the Senate floor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy accused Sen. Rick Santorum on Wednesday of being self-righteous and insensitive for a column he wrote three years ago linking Boston�s liberalism to the sex abuse scandal in its Catholic diocese.

Santorum, R-Pa., wrote in the July 2002 column for Catholic Online that promoting alternative lifestyles feeds such aberrant behavior as priests molesting children.

�Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture,� Santorum wrote. �When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.�

In a speech, Kennedy, D-Mass., called for Santorum to retract his remarks and apologize to the people of Boston and Massachusetts and the nation.

�The people of Boston are to blame for the clergy sexual abuse? That is an irresponsible, insensitive and inexcusable thing to say,� said Kennedy.

Robert Traynham, a spokesman for Santorum, said his boss recognizes that the church abuse scandal was not just in Boston, but all over the country.

Throughout the United States, sexual abuse by priests has cost the Catholic Church more than $1 billion. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has said that its records show 44 priests have been �credibly� accused of molesting minors since the 1950s.

Traynham said Santorum �was speaking to a broader cultural argument about the need for everyone to take these issues very, very seriously.� (End of Article)


(Well it looks like the Dems are really losing it folks, commenting on something that was stated in 2002 by a Republican to a church group. Wow. Just goes to show you what alcohol will do to your brain Mr. Kennedy. S L O W S I T W A Y D O W N !)

J.R.

Calif. National Guard Criticized for Poster Suggesting Dipping Bullets in Pig's Blood

Islamic leaders and peace groups are criticizing the California National Guard for a flier posted in its headquarters suggesting the United States execute Islamic terrorists with bullets dipped in pig's blood to deny them entry to heaven.

The flier attributed the practice to World War I General John J. Pershing.

"Maybe it is time for this segment of history to repeat itself, maybe in Iraq?" the flier stated. It was posted outside a cubicle in the Guard's Civil Support Division.

A second flier showed the wings and tail of a bomber forming a peace sign with the slogan, "Peace the old fashioned way."

Also posted was a cartoon from a Web site showing a Red Crescent ambulance stuffed with weapons and a caricature that looks like the late-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat unloading the weapons.

Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Doug Hart at first defended the postings to the San Jose Mercury News, which reported them Tuesday, but Hart later said they had been removed.

Peace activists spotted the fliers during a tour last week.

The tour came after peace groups and a state senator questioned whether a new Guard unit had been formed to spy on U.S. citizens and had monitored a Mother's Day anti-war rally. A federal investigation of the allegations is underway.

U.S. Military Arrests Suspect in Kidnap-Slaying of Egyptian Envoy

The U.S. military on Thursday announced the capture of two key members of Iraq's most-feared terror group, including one suspected in the kidnap-slaying of an Egyptian envoy and attacks on senior diplomats from Pakistan and Bahrain.

Khamis Farhan Khalaf Abd al-Fahdawi, known as Abu Seba, was arrested last Saturday following operations in the Ramadi area west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

He was accused of involvement in the abduction and killing of Egypt's top envoy in Iraq and attacks on Pakistani and Bahraini diplomats earlier this month.

"Seba served as a senior lieutenant of al-Qaida in Iraq, and is suspected in attacks against diplomats of Bahrain, Pakistan and the recent murder of Egyptian envoy, Ihab Salah al Din Ahmad al-Sherif," the U.S. statement said. "Al-Qaida ordered the attacks against Arab diplomats in an effort to reduce support for the government of Iraq according to a military spokesman."

Another al-Qaida in Iraq lieutenant, Abdullah Ibrahim Mohammed Hassan al Shadad, or Abu Abdul Aziz, was captured Sunday, the command said. It said Abu Abdul Aziz was a top lieutenant of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and served as operations officer for the group.

The statement said Abu Abdul Aziz was cooperating with coalition forces.

In an Internet statement Thursday, al-Qaida in Iraq acknowledged that Abu Abdul Aziz had been captured but described him as the commander of one of the group's Baghdad brigades.

"They invent the posts: here is the prince of Baghdad, the deputy of al-Zarqawi, or one of the top leaders," the group said. "God knows that our brother Abu Abdul Aziz, God free him from capture, is nothing but a leader of one of the brigades in Baghdad."

The group said he was detained when American and Iraqi forces stormed a house in Baghdad and that Abu Abdul Aziz was wounded and possibly killed.

Hat Tip: The Conservative Voice

CNN's Kyra Phillips: "definitely a major smear campaign going on" against Rove

CNN anchor Kyra Philips responded to a call by Democratic senators for President Bush to fire White House senior adviser Karl Rove for his alleged role in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame by saying: "definitely a major smear campaign going on."

Phillips made her comment on the July 12 edition of CNN's Live From ..., following footage of Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) calling for Rove to be fired:

PHILIPS: Bob, definitely a major smear campaign going on. I mean, what's the chances of hearing from Karl Rove? Could he speak? Could he come forward? A lot of people said that could just clear the air if he just came forward and gave the facts.

Pentagon says key Zarqawi operative caught in Iraq

American forces have captured a key operative in the organisation of Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top US general said.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the PBS program "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that Monday's capture of Abu Abd Al-Aziz, whom he called Zarqawi's "main leader in Baghdad," was "going to hurt that operation of Zarqawi's pretty significantly."

Myers said Al-Aziz was picked up "on the battlefield," but provided no other details.

A defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, "When you look at the picture of the Zarqawi network of the different elements that are known to exist, he's the second-in-command of the Baghdad element and has the reputation of being the 'emir of Baghdad' for Zarqawi."

The official said American forces were involved in the operation that snared Al-Aziz, but was unable to say whether Iraqi government forces played a role.

Robert Novak: Plame Source 'No Partisan Gunslinger'

The Washington press corps and their Democratic friends have been too busy this week chasing down Karl Rove to notice that columnist Robert Novak has offered a tantalizing clue about the identity of just who it was who leaked Valerie Plame's name to him back in July 2003.

And judging from Novak's revelation - it wasn't Karl Rove.

"During a long conversation with a senior administration official," he wrote, "I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger."

No partisan gunslinger?

Even fans of Mr. Rove would be hard-presseed to deny he's a "partisan gunslinger" - just the kind of person Novak says his leaker wasn't.

Prosecutor: Karl Rove Not Target of Probe

Plamegate special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had told top White House advisor Karl Rove that he's not a target of his investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA analyst Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak.

And Fitzgerald has also asked the top Bush aide not to discuss the case in public.

Speaking to National Review Online's Byron York late Tuesday, Rove attorney Robert Luskin said Fitzgerald "has told Rove he is not a 'target' of the investigation" - despite media reports suggesting otherwise.
Fitzgerald has also made it clear, however, that virtually anyone whose conduct falls within the scope of the investigation, including Rove, is considered a "subject" of the probe, Luskin told York.

"'Target' is something we all understand, a very alarming term," he added.

Former Reagan Justice Department official Mark Levin told York last night that Luskin's revelation made a big difference. "He is not a target, which is quite different from a subject," Levin said on his WABC radio show. "I know what a target is . . . the prosecutors are chasing you."

"If he's not a target, what the hell is the media up to" by making Rove the focus of their questions, Levin asked?

Luskin also told York that Rove has not spoken publicly, "because Fitzgerald specifically asked him not to."

Karl Rove, Whistleblower

From The Wall Street Journal


Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. ... But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.

On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail. ...

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know.

If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. ...

Sharp Increase in Tax Revenue Will Pare U.S. Deficit

For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion.

On Wednesday, White House officials plan to announce that the deficit for the 2005 fiscal year, which ends in September, will be far smaller than the $427 billion they estimated in February.

Mr. Bush plans to hail the improvement at a cabinet meeting and to cite it as validation of his argument that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and ultimately help pay for themselves.

Based on revenue and spending data through June, the budget deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was $251 billion, $76 billion lower than the $327 billion gap recorded at the corresponding point a year earlier.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the deficit for the full fiscal year, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be "significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion."

The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well.

Most of the increase in individual tax receipts appears to have come from higher stock market gains and the business income of relatively wealthy taxpayers. The biggest jump was not from taxes withheld from salaries but from quarterly payments on investment gains and business earnings, which were up 20 percent this year.