JUNE 16, 2011
BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND
The news as I see it and the views as I want them.
June 16 is … National Hollerin' Contest Day
Sueee, Sueeeee, Sueeeeeeeeeeeeh!
Way to go Boston Bruins. They won the Stanley Cup, beating Vancouver in Canada to keep the Cup in the United States. The Blackhawks are no longer the defending Stanley Cup champions.
If we ever pay Pakistan another penny in aid, we are the stupidest people on this planet and there are plenty to choose from.
Pakistan's intelligence service has arrested the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to observe Usama bin Laden's compound before the U.S. raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, as well as a "handful" of other Pakistanis, a U.S. official said late Tuesday. In Pakistan, a Western official confirmed a New York Times report that five of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the CIA before the May 2 bin Laden raid were arrested by Pakistan's top military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as ISI.
The officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. The Times, in an article posted on its website late Tuesday, said the detained informants included a Pakistani army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in the weeks before the raid.
The Pakistani army denied Wednesday that one of its majors was among a group of Pakistanis who Western officials say were arrested for feeding the CIA information before the American raid that killed bin Laden. The Pakistan government is known for its truthfulness. No, wait, it is known for its circus clown act, that’s it.
Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas denied an army major was arrested, saying the report was "false and totally baseless." His nose seemed to grow bigger as he spoke. Neither the army nor Pakistan's spy agency would confirm or deny the overall report about the detentions.
The group of detained Pakistanis included the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to observe bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, an army town not far from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, a U.S. official said. The owner was detained along with a "handful" of other Pakistanis, said the official. The Western officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
The fate of the CIA informants who were arrested was unclear, but American officials told the newspaper that CIA Director Leon Panetta raised the issue when he visited Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers. In Islamabad, an ISI spokesman, who customarily speaks anonymously, declined to comment. U.S.-Pakistani relations have been strained over the raid by Navy SEALs on Pakistani territory, which was a blow to Pakistan's military, and other issues. Officials said the arrest of the informants was just the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the two nations. The overall “just pay us” attitude of Pakistan appears to be another.
The Times said that at a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael Morell, the deputy CIA director, to rate Pakistan's cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10. "Three," Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange, the newspaper said.
American officials speaking to the Times cautioned that Morell's comment was a snapshot of the current relationship and did not represent the Obama administration's overall assessment. This guy should be fired and Obama should be impeached if he truly believes Pakistan is our friend.
This would be funny if it were not true. This is a costly prime example of government greed and criminals in our government. Federal auditors conceded that $6.6 billion in cash sent to Iraq in cargo planes after the US-led invasion could have been stolen, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.
The money was part of a $12 billion haul that the George W. Bush administration sent to Iraq in the months following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime to pay for reconstruction and support government services. After repeated investigations into the missing funds since 2005, federal auditors in Washington are now suggesting the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. It could be "the largest theft of funds in national history," according to Scott Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
Pentagon officials have testified that reconstruction money was not closely monitored during the chaotic post-invasion period of 2003-2004. Millions of dollars was stuffed into sacks and loaded on pickup trucks before being delivered to contractors and government departments, they said. In 2005, House Government Reform Committee investigators said there was "evidence of substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and disbursement of the Iraqi funds."
The United States' inability to account for the cargo plane cash is causing tension with the Iraqi government, which is threatening to take the US to court. Iraqi officials say the US was responsible for safeguarding the money -- which came from Iraqi oil sales, seized Iraqi assets and the United Nations' oil-for-food program -- under a 2004 legal agreement it signed with Iraq. "Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't seem to find," Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) told the Los Angeles Times.
Special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen told the Times the missing money may represent "the largest theft of funds in national history."
It was not, it is crucial to note here, U.S. tax-payer dollars which have gone missing in Iraq. The money came from a special fund set up by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with Iraq's own money -- funds which were withheld from the nation during a decade of harsh economic sanctions under Saddam.
Now and here's the real kicker, Iraq wants it's money back. The Los Angeles Times says some officials in Baghdad have threatened to take the U.S. government to court to reclaim the missing loot. The last known holder of the funds, before they mysteriously disappeared into the dusty oblivion of post-war Iraq, was the U.S. government.
"Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't seem to find," Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) told the Times. Waxman was head of the House Government Reform Committee which held hearings on U.S. waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq about six years ago. Bowen has been a harsh critic of the way the U.S. government spent money in Iraq following the ouster of Saddam.
The United States has spent $61 billion on reconstruction and development in Iraq since the US-led invasion.
We are talking about 6.6 billion dollars. This cannot just be swept under the rug or chalked up to an accounting error. People need to go to jail for this including government people who were overseeing this fiasco. The spin that it is really not taxpayer’s money will turn out to be a lie, like it always does.
Just a couple of thoughts I had.
BRUCE A. BRENNAN
DEKALB, IL 60115
COPYRIGHT 2011
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Book Titles:
Holmes the Ripper
A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction
"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will
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