Market Full Of Oil, Price Trend "Fake": Ahmadinejad
By REUTERS
Published: June 17, 2008
ISFAHAN, Iran (Reuters) - The market is full of oil and the rising price trend is "fake and imposed," Iran's president said on Tuesday, partly blaming a weak U.S. dollar which he said was being pushed lower on purpose.
"At a time when the growth of consumption is lower than the growth of production and the market is full of oil, prices are rising and this trend is completely fake and imposed," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.
"It is very clear that visible and invisible hands are controlling prices in a fake way with political and economic aims," he said when opening a meeting of the OPEC Fund for International Development in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, has repeatedly said the market is well-supplied with crude and blames rising prices on speculation, a weak U.S. currency and geopolitical factors.
"As you know the decrease in the dollar's value and the increase in energy prices are two sides of the same coin which are being introduced as factors behind the recent instability," Ahmadinejad said.
Oil steadied on Tuesday after touching a record near $140 the previous day, with traders caught between a weaker dollar and expectations that top exporter Saudi Arabia will ramp up output to its highest rate in decades.
Iran has often said it sees no need for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boost output.
"EVER-INCREASING DECREASE"
Ahmadinejad reiterated his view that oil should be sold in a basket of currencies rather than U.S. dollars, an idea which has failed to win over other OPEC members, except Venezuela.
"The ever-increasing decrease in the dollar's value is one of the world's major problems," he said.
"A combination of the world's valid currencies should become a basis for oil transactions or (OPEC) member countries should determine a new currency for oil transactions," he said.
Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program, has for more than two years been increasing its sales of oil for currencies other than the dollar, saying the weak U.S. currency is eroding its purchasing power.
Ahmadinejad, who in the past has called the dollar a "worthless piece of paper," suggested "some big powers" were driving it lower on purpose:
"The planners for some big powers are acting to decrease the dollar's value," he said. "For years they imposed inflation and their own economic problems to other nations by injecting the dollar without any support to the global economy."
Foes since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran and Washington are also at odds over Tehran's disputed nuclear activities as well as over policy in Iraq. Iran says its atomic work is peaceful.
(Additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian in Tehran; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by William Hardy)
Monday, June 23, 2008
Iran's president speaks out about the price of oil
Finally, someone who isn't afraid to tell it like it is. There are no supply constrictions! repeat, supply constrictions are not responsible for the rising cost of gasoline.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Yojimbo
I'm going to go see this Sunday afternoon.
Yojimbo
Sunday, June 22, 2008, 1:00 pm, Meyer Auditorium
In person: Tatsuya Nakadai and Teruyo Nogami, and hosted by Michael Jeck
Two icons of Japanese cinema—actor Tatsuya Nakadai and author Teruyo Nogami—introduce and discuss one of their classic collaborations with the great Akira Kurosawa. Joining acclaimed actor Tatsuya Nakadai is Teruyo Nogami, a legend in her own right whose work as a script supervisor for Kurosawa is commemorated in her memoir Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa. She signs copies of her book following the screening.
Nakadai stars as a pistol-waving killer opposite Toshiro Mifune's scheming yojimbo (bodyguard) in this Kurosawa classic. Their confrontations are "like a face-off between Elvis Presley and John Wayne," writes Stuart Galbraith in his book The Emperor and the Wolf. Film critic Pauline Kael declared it "a glorious comedy-satire of force: the story of the bodyguard who kills the bodies he is hired to guard." 1961 / 110 min. / B&W
Part of the film series, "Tatsuya Nakadai: Icon of Japanese Cinema." This series is cosponsored by Film Forum, New York, and the Japan Foundation. These films are in Japanese with English subtitles. Film descriptions by Japanese film specialist Michael Jeck.
Friday, June 20, 2008
BASSLINE ALL STARS
This looks hot!
BASSLINE ALL STARS
The official bassline launch in London.
Date: Friday 4 July 2008
Location: Mass Nightclub, St Matthews Church, Brixton Hill, London, SW2 1JF
Doors: 10:00 – 06:00
Ticket price: £15 plus booking fee of £1.50
Get Tickets: Online at www.theticketsellers.co.uk or call 0844 870 0000. You can also get tickets on the door on the night.
Playing out on 1Xtra: Broadcasting live on 4 July from Brixton Mass - Bassline House Special hosted by DJ Q between 0200-0600 with Murks, Witty Boy and Shaun Banger Scott.
There is also an additional show on July 5 0200-0400 in the allstar mixshow slot. Bassline Allstars mixshow with sets from the night including burger boy and sub zero and TRC
DJs Playing out: Sub Zero, Burger Boy, DJ Q, Murks, Witty Boy, Shaun Banger Scott and pa's Gemma Fox, Ras Kwame, Andy M B2B Mercury, Kaos, Smalls B2B Sharky, Dub Melitia, Mista Jam, Paleface, TRC and Nay Nay.
Dress code: Smart casual, smart trainers allowed.
Credit writedowns may reach $1.3T
We've not seen the end of this by a long shot.
Paulson & Co. Says Writedowns May Reach $1.3 Trillion (Update4)
By Tom Cahill and Poppy Trowbridge
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- John Paulson, founder of the hedge fund company Paulson & Co., said global writedowns and losses from the credit crisis may reach $1.3 trillion, exceeding the International Monetary Fund's $945 billion estimate.
``We're only about a third of the way through the writedowns,'' Paulson, 52, told the GAIM International hedge fund conference in Monaco today. ``There are a lot of problems out there and it will continue to be felt through the year. We don't see any signs of stabilizing.''
Paulson, whose New York-based company manages about $33 billion, made bets last year that subprime-mortgage debt would fall after he noticed ``bubble like'' prices. His Paulson Partners fund rose 18 percent a year since it started in 1994, and his main subprime-debt fund rose 591 percent last year. Banks and securities firm worldwide posted more than $395 billion in losses and writedowns since the subprime crisis started last year.
The U.S. is heading into a recession as falling home prices weigh on consumer spending, Paulson said. The second half of this year will be worse than the first as the economic slowdown spills into 2009. Signs of stress are ``accelerating'' in the housing market, and he's betting on falling securities prices, he said.
``I don't consider myself a bull or a bear,'' he told the audience at Monaco's Grimaldi Forum. ``I'm a realist.''
A Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc strategist agrees that stock and credit markets still face the worst in a slump that started almost eight months ago.
`Most Bearish Period'
``Mid-July through to October is likely to be the most bearish period we will experience in the bear market that began in the fourth quarter of last year,'' Bob Janjuah, a credit strategist at the bank in London, wrote in a report dated June 11.
The MSCI World Index has lost 13 percent since reaching a record in October. The index is down 4.1 percent this month after the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank policy makers indicated interest rates may need to increase as the threat of inflation intensifies.
The economic slowdown and inflation have put central bankers ``into a dangerous corner'' where the chance of a ``major policy error has just super-spiked,'' Janjuah wrote.
Ambac Financial Group Inc., the second-biggest bond insurer, is ``the most leveraged, troubled company out there,'' Paulson said. It's at risk of being downgraded to non-investment grade, he said. Ambac spokeswoman Vandana Sharma declined to comment.
Ambac shares have lost 92 percent of their value this year after losses on subprime mortgage securities caused the company to lose its AAA credit rating at Fitch Ratings. Ambac, which said today it will terminate its ratings contract with Fitch, fell 7 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $2.07, in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
`Deteriorate Significantly'
The housing and credit-market slump pushed Ambac to three straight quarterly losses after more than a decade of profit. It has written down $5.2 billion since the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market last year.
Paulson's outlook is consistent with the view of hedge funds meeting in Monaco this week. More than 80 percent of the 1,300 fund managers, investors and service providers gathered in Monaco for the annual conference said they expect the credit crisis will continue, according to a GAIM survey. About 23 percent said the situation ``will deteriorate significantly.''
Bill Browder, founder and head of Hermitage Capital Management, said securities firms have a ``vested interest'' in claiming an early end to the crunch. ``If we're in the seventh or eighth inning, this is a 100-inning game,'' he said.
`$10 Trillion Opportunity'
Paulson's speech was the biggest draw at the event, which comes as the hedge fund industry endures some of its worst performance in nearly two decades, rising just 0.13 percent through May, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc.
``John Paulson has of course been very successful by making the right trade last year,'' said Manuel Echeverria, chief investment officer of Optimal Investment Services SA, a Geneva based investor with about $10 billion under management. ``We'll have to see what he's going to do now that the trade has run out of juice.''
Paulson said he's preparing to buy distressed securities such as bank loans, call them a ``potentially $10 trillion opportunity.'' While it is still ``premature'' to invest in many of them, he sees ``opportunities this year'' to buy mortgage backed debt, he said.
He hired employees this year to research securities firms such as Citigroup Inc. for long-term investment positions. ``We're trying to see the right entrance point,'' he said. ``If you invest too early, you lose money.''
To contact the reporter for this story: Tom Cahill in London at tcahill@bloomberg.net; Poppy Trowbridge in London at ptrowbridge@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 18, 2008 16:27 EDT
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Marx Cafe Tonight!!
Hey all, I'll be at the Marx Cafe tonight from 10-whenever, spinning some crunchy UKG, bassline and niche classics. Come by and have a beer or four. see ya there!
3203 Mount Pleasant St NW
3203 Mount Pleasant St NW
McCain's ugly Navy record.
Wow, he really has much in common with GW. John should go ahead and sign that 180 waiver, what is he afraid of?
Jeffrey Klein
McCain's Secret, Questionable Record
"At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.... Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral's star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could 'do more good there,' Mr. Lehman recalled." So claimed the New York Times in a front-page article on May 29 this year.
This story is highly improbable for several reasons, not least of all because John McCain himself has always told a very different story about his stalled naval career. For example, on page 9 of his memoir Worth The Fighting For, McCain writes:
"Several months before my father died, I informed him that I was leaving the navy. I am sure he had gotten word of my decision from friends in the Pentagon. I had been summoned to see the CNO, Admiral Heyward, who told me I was making a mistake.... His attempt to dissuade me encouraged me to believe that I might have made admiral had I remained in the navy, a prospect that remained an open question in my mind.... Some of my navy friends believed I could earn my star; others doubted it.... When I told my father of my intention, he did not remonstrate me.... But I knew him well enough to know that he was disappointed. For when I left him that day, alone in his study, I took with me his hope that I might someday become the first son and grandson of four-star admirals to achieve the same distinction. That aspiration was well beyond my reach by the time I made my decision...."McCain's father died on March 22, 1981. McCain retired from the Navy within a week. He wrote about his retirement soon thereafter. McCain never mentioned the alleged offer of an admiralship by Lehman in any of his books, nor in the numerous interviews McCain gave during his first run for the presidency in 1999-2000.
Furthermore, articles written during the current presidential campaign quote McCain's closest friends about McCain's failure to be promoted to admiral before he retired from the Navy. For example, in an April 26, 2008, National Journal cover story, William Cohen (then a Senator, subsequently Secretary of Defense and the best man at McCain's second wedding) recounts that McCain "knew his career in the Navy was limited." Former Senator Gary Hart, who served as a groomsman at McCain's 1980 wedding, says in the National Journal story that he had been told "that [McCain] was not going to receive a star and not going to become an admiral. I think that was the deciding point for him to retire from the Navy."
John Lehman doesn't figure in any accounts of McCain's naval career, probably because Lehman was appointed Secretary of the Navy less than two months before McCain retired. The New York Times didn't note this, or the pertinent fact that John Lehman is currently serving as National Security Adviser to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Two admirals in the Times story confirmed Lehman's claim, but for unknown reasons the Times, in violation of its own guidelines, accorded them off-the-record status that makes it impossible to assess their motives and credibility.
The New York Times' front-page story about McCain declining promotion to admiral lacks credibility for other reasons as well. For example, McCain had been promoted to captain on August 1, 1979, so he wouldn't have been due for another promotion by March of 1981.
Retired Admiral Peter Booth, who was promoted to rear admiral in 1981, flatly disputes Lehman's claim about McCain. "No, John McCain was not selected for flag rank, for admiral. With all due respect, I think I was selected that same year, and I have never heard anything even remotely like that. To begin with, John Lehman did not select Navy flag officers. That was done with a very august selection board headed by a four-star admiral. The Secretary of the Navy does not appoint. He is in the approval chain, but he is not on the committee.
"I have never heard a story, even remotely, that John McCain was going to be a flag officer. I was early selected for captain, in 1976, and I was regular selected for admiral in 1981. So it's probably five or six years, I guess. I've never heard of anybody being selected for flag rank within three or four years of making captain, ever."
Retired Admiral John R. Batzler, former commanding officer of the U.S.S. Nimitz, also promoted to rear admiral in 1981, agrees with Retired Admiral Booth.
"I made rear admiral in about five years. I wasn't selected early, and I wasn't selected late. I find it incredible that someone made that statement that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to admiral two years after he made captain. First of all, telling him at all is not kosher, but we all know the Secretary of the Navy does what he damn well pleases, in particular John Lehman. This whole idea that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to flag two years after he made captain sounds preposterous to me."
All of the evidence, indications and comments that the New York Times published a flattering lie about McCain's career on its front page are easy for John McCain to refute. All he needs to do is sign Standard Form 180, which authorizes the Navy to send an undeleted copy of McCain's naval file to news organizations. A long paper trail about McCain's pending promotion to admiral would be prominent in his file. To date, McCain's advisers have released snippets from his file, but under constrained viewing circumstances. There's no reason McCain's full file shouldn't be released immediately. There's also a recent precedent for McCain signing the simple form that leads to full disclosure: Senator John Kerry signed the 180 waiver, which made his entire naval file public.
The Navy may claim that it already released McCain's record to the Associated Press on May 7, 2008 in response to the AP's Freedom of Information Act request. But the McCain file the Navy released contained 19 pages -- a two-page overview and 17 pages detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain's career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain's file, of which 617 weren't released to the Associated Press.
Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.
Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "'the Airdales,' the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth's surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path. The justification for this and subsequent plum assignments should be documented in McCain's naval file.
McCain's file should also include records and analytic reviews of McCain's subsequent sub-par performances. Here are a few cited in two highly favorable biographies, both titled John McCain, one by Robert Timberg and the other by John Karaagac.
Timberg:
"[A]fter a European fling with the tobacco heiress, John McCain reported to flight school at Pensacola in August 1958.... [H]is performance was below par, at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn't love it. What he loved was the kick-the-tire, start-the-fire, scarf-in-the-wind life of a naval aviator. ...One Saturday morning, as McCain was practicing landings, his engine quit and his plane plunged into Corpus Christi. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom....McCain was an adequate pilot, but he had no patience for studying dry aviation manuals.... His professional growth, though reasonably steady, had its troubled moments. Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines, which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral.... [In 1965] he flew a trainer solo to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game. Flying by way of Norfolk, he had just begun his descent over unpopulated tidal terrain when the engine died. 'I've got a flameout,' he radioed. He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."Adds Karaagac:
"In his memoir, everything becomes a kind of game of adolescent brinksmanship, how much can one press the limits of the acceptable and elude the powers that be....The [fighter jocks'] ethos of exaggerated, almost aggressive sociability becomes an end in itself and an excuse for license. There is a tendency for people, not simply to believe their own mythology but, indeed, to exaggerate it.... Fighter jocks, like politicians around their campaign contributions, often press the limits of the acceptable. It is a type of mild corruption that takes place in a highly privileged atmosphere, where restraints are loosened and excuses made....McCain gives some hint in his memoirs about where he stood in the hierarchy among carrier flyers. Instead of the sleek and newer Phantoms and Crusaders, McCain flew the dependable Douglas A-4 Skyhawk in an attack, not a fighter squadron. He was thus on the lower end of the flying totem pole."The genius of McCain's mythmaking is his perceived humility amid perpetual defiance. Having been a rebel without cause, and often a rebel without consequences, McCain apparently was not surprised when his Vietnamese captors went relatively easy on him compared to his fellow POWs. The Vietnamese military secretly and frequently filmed the American POWs to learn their propensities. Col. Pham Van Hoa of the Vietnamese People's Army Film Department was in charge of the filming. Asked recently for his dominant impression of McCain, the now-retired Van Hoa said that McCain "seemed superior to other prisoners." How so? "Superior in attitude towards them."
But when Mark Salter, McCain's closest aide and co-author, was asked by the Arizona New Times about the first McCain memoir, Faith of My Fathers, that he was then working on, Salter said "the book will showcase a humble McCain. When I worked on this book with him, he just kept saying, 'Other guys had it a lot worse. I think they took it easier on me because of who my dad was. . . . When they tied me in ropes, they'd roll my sleeve up to give it a little padding between the rope and my bicep, you know, little things I noticed. The only really hard time I had was when I didn't go home, and then it only lasted a week, and sometimes I felt braver, I felt I could get away with more.'"
Is McCain now getting away with more by hiding his official history and by having his national security adviser inflate McCain's resume with a bogus promotion to admiral humbly declined? If so, McCain may be attempting to hide why the Navy was in fact slow to promote him upwards despite his suffering as a POW and his distinguished naval heritage.
One possible reason: After McCain had returned from Vietnam as a war hero and was physically rehabilitated, he was urged by his medical caretakers and military colleagues never to fly again. But McCain insisted on going up. As Carl Bernstein reported in Vanity Fair, he piloted an ultra-light, single propeller plane -- and crashed another time. His fifth loss of a plane has vanished from public records, but should be a subject of discussion in his Navy file. It wouldn't be surprising if his naval superiors worried that McCain was just too defiant, too reckless and too crash prone.
Regardless, McCain owes it to the country to release his complete naval records so that American voters can see his documented history and make an informed decision.
Jeffrey Klein is an investigative journalist who co-founded Mother Jones; directed exposes of Newt Gingrich, Big Tobacco and the introduction of offensive weapons into space; co-produced for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer a series on China's economy that won a Gerald Loeb Award; and taught journalism at Stanford, San Francisco State and Cal. He is currently reporting on assignment for the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute, which provided research support for this article. Research assistance was provided by Peter Jackson.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Moog guitar to take over world.
Looks nifty! I think I know how it's made, and don't rekon that it would be that hard to put together. Sure would be cheaper than $7,000, gulp...
http://www.analog.com/en/app/0,3174,999%255F1115,00.html
http://www.analog.com/en/app/0,3174,999%255F1115,00.html
Bob Moog's synthesizers and effects changed the world. Now, the company that bears his name is trying to apply its vision to a new instrument: the guitar.
The Moog Guitar Paul Vo Edition has infinite sustain -- enough to keep Nigel Tufnel holding the guitar up to his ear until the end of time -- while a muted mode allows players to add the sound of their fingers holding down the strings loosely and then taking them away from the strings right away after the strum for a banjo-type sound. These effects operate separately on each pickup, giving players a wider range of sonic options.
The special sauce: strings that have "a specific metallurgy designed to work with the Moog pickups." Marketing manager Chris Stack told Listening Post, "the pickups are simultaneously listening to the strings and controlling them."
The last time we heard from Moog was when it launched the Little Phatty synthesizer in 2006. That synth was basically a modernized, digitally-controlled version of the earlier analog keyboards for which Moog has traditionally been known. This guitar represents a far more significant leap for the company -- perhaps its biggest since Bob Moog left it in '77.
The video above to the right, in which Lou Reed, Vernon Reid (Living Colour) and other musicians put the Moog Guitar - Paul Vo Edition through its paces, does a fine job of explaining how this $6500 piece of six-string bliss sounds. Here's Moog's full run-down on each of the guitar's modes:
FULL SUSTAIN MODE - like no other sustainer; infinite sustain on every string, at every fret position and at any volume. You may have heard sustain before but not with this power (we call it "Vo Power") and clarity.
CONTROLLED SUSTAIN MODE - allows you to play sustained single or polyphonic lines without muting technique. The Moog Guitar sustains the notes you are playing while actively muting the strings you are not playing.
MUTE MODE - removes energy from the strings, resulting in a variety of staccato articulations. The mute mode has never been heard on any other guitar; the Vo Power stops the strings with the same intensity that it sustains them. You feel the instrument transform in your hands.
HARMONIC BLENDS – use the included foot pedal to shift the positive energy of Vo Power in Sustain mode and the subtractive force of Vo Power in Mute mode between the bridge and neck pick-ups to pull both subtle and dramatic harmonics from the strings.
MOOG FILTER - control the frequency of the built-in, resonant Moog ladder filter using the foot pedal or a CV Input.
Bob Moog had had designs on the guitar market, so this move by those representing his legacy isn't out of character. "Bob and Moog President Mike Adams often spoke of entering the guitar market, but it was not until Paul brought this idea forward that we felt we had something truly innovative to bring the market." (Some Gibson guitars contained circuitry designed by Bob Moog, but this will be the first guitar under the Moog brand.)
Kudos to Moog engineer Paul Vo for inventing this guitar. If I had a spare seven grand lying around, I would pre-order one of these right now. Lou Reed feels the same way, and has the necessary scratch: "As soon as it's ready, I want it. The day you can sell it, I would buy it from you."
A Moog spokeswoman told Listening Post that the guitars are not yet in production, but are scheduled to ship in September.
Update: Grant, the 51st commenter below, who appears to be best friends with Paul Vo's son Adam, claimed the frets themselves contain pickups and electromagnets. However, Listening Post confirmed with Moog's Chris Stack that this is not the case. Stack said there's nothing special going on under the frets or inside the guitar's neck in general, and that interaction between the strings and the pickups is responsible for the guitar's mute and sustain effects. After rereading an e-mail from Paul Vo's son, Grant agreed via e-mail.
See Also:
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Marx Cafe tonight!
edit: It's going to storm soon, I'm not going out in that drek! seeya next week.
Hey All! I'll be at Marx Cafe tonight playing from 10-whenever, dropping bassline and UKG. Hope to see you out tonight!
3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW
Hey All! I'll be at Marx Cafe tonight playing from 10-whenever, dropping bassline and UKG. Hope to see you out tonight!
3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Is the war in Iraq, result of an Irainian Intelligence operation?
This explains why Iran is running things in Iraq.
Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials?
By John Walcott | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday.
A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said.
The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator.
Iran, which was a mortal enemy of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq during his reign, has been the primary beneficiary of U.S. policy in Iraq, where Iranian-backed groups now run much of the government and the security forces.
The aborted counterintelligence investigation probed some Pentagon officials' contacts with Iranian exile Manucher Ghorbanifar, whom the CIA had labeled a "fabricator" in 1984. Those contacts were brokered by an American civilian, Michael Ledeen, a former Pentagon and National Security Council consultant and a leading advocate of invading Iraq and overthrowing Iran's Islamic regime.
According to the Senate report, the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity unit concluded in 2003 that Ledeen "was likely unwitting of any counterintelligence issues related to his relationship with Mr. Ghorbanifar."
The counterintelligence unit said, however, that Ledeen's association with Ghorbanifar "was widely known, and therefore it should be presumed other foreign intelligence services, including those of Iran, would know."
Stephen Cambone, then the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, shut down the counterintelligence investigation after only a month, the Senate report said.
The Senate report said that Pentagon officials never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a comprehensive analysis of whether Ghorbanifar or his associates tried "to directly or indirectly influence or access U.S. government officials."
The counterintelligence investigators recommended that U.S. officials attempt "to map Ghorbanifar's relationship within Iranian elite social networks and, if possible, his contacts with other governments and/or intelligence organizations," but that effort was never undertaken.
The Senate committee also found that Pentagon officials concealed the contacts with Ghorbanifar from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department. Pentagon officials also provided Senate investigators with an inaccurate account of events and, with support from two unnamed officials in Cheney's office, continued meeting with Ghorbanifar after contact with him was officially ordered to stop.
The first meetings with Ghorbanifar, which were disclosed in August 2003 by the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper Newsday, took place in Rome in December 2001. They were attended by two Pentagon Iran experts, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin; by an Italian military intelligence official, and by Ledeen.
On the Iranian side were Ghorbanifar, an unidentified Iranian exile from Morocco and an alleged Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps defector.
Among other things, the Iranians told the Americans about:
* Iranian "hit teams" they said were targeting U.S. personnel and facilities in Afghanistan.
* What they claimed was Shiite Muslim Iran's longstanding relationship with the secular Palestine Liberation Organization.
* "Tunnel complexes in Iran for weapons storage or exfiltration of regime leaders," and about the alleged growth of anti-regime sentiment in Iran.
Franklin, who, in an unrelated matter, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison in 2006 for providing classified information on Iran policy to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, passed the information about the alleged Iranian hit squads to a U.S. Special Forces commander in Afghanistan. Although a DIA analyst told the Senate committee that he couldn't speculate on whether the information had been "truly useful," Ledeen and Pentagon officials claimed it saved American lives, the committee said.
During the Rome meetings, Ghorbanifar also laid out a scheme to overthrow the Iranian regime on a napkin during a late night meeting in a bar. "The plan," said the Senate committee, "involved the simultaneous disruption of traffic at key intersections leading to Tehran that would create anxiety, work stoppages and other disruptive measures" in a capital city famous for its traffic congestion.
Ghorbanifar asked for $5 million in seed money, Franklin told the committee, and indicated that if the traffic jam plan succeeded, he'd need additional money.
"The proposed funding for, and foreign involvement in, Mr. Ghorbanifar's plan for regime change were never fully understood," the Senate committee said.
Nevertheless, Ghorbanifar's proposals grew more ambitious — and expensive. A February 2002 memo from Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman referred to an unnamed foreign government's support for a Ghorbanifar plan that would cost millions of dollars. A later summary referred to contracts "that would assure oil and gas sales in the event of regime change". The U.S. ambassador to Italy said that DOD officials "were talking about 25 million for some kind of Iran program."
After Franklin and Rhode returned from the Rome meetings, the Senate report said, two series of events began to unfold in Washington that were typical of the gamesmanship that plagued the Bush administration's national security team.
"First," the report said, "State Department and CIA officials attempted to determine what Mr. Ledeen and the DOD representatives had done in Rome, and second, DOD officials debated the next course of action."
When the CIA and the State Department discovered that Ledeen and Ghorbanifar were involved, they opposed any further contact with the two. Ledeen's contacts, the Defense Human Intelligence Service concluded, were "nefarious and unreliable," the Senate committee reported.
According to the report, Ledeen, however, persisted, presenting then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith with a new 100-day plan to provide, among other things, evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that supposedly had been moved to Iran — Saddam Hussein's archenemy. This time, the report said, Ledeen solicited support from former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and from three then-GOP senators, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
Rhode and Ghorbanifar met again in Paris in June 2003 with at least the tacit approval of an official in Cheney's office, the Senate report said.
He reported back to officials in the Pentagon and the vice president's office, but "there is no indication that the information collected during the Paris meeting was shared with the Intelligence Community for a determination of potential intelligence value," the report said.
McClatchy Newspapers 2008
US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal
Sounds something akin to extortion!
US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal
By Patrick Cockburn
Friday, 6 June 2008
The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.
Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.
The threat by the American side underlines the personal commitment of President George Bush to pushing the new pact through by 31 July. Although it is in reality a treaty between Iraq and the US, Mr Bush is describing it as an alliance so he does not have to submit it for approval to the US Senate.
Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government. American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.
The US had previously denied it wanted permanent bases in Iraq, but American negotiators argue that so long as there is an Iraqi perimeter fence, even if it is manned by only one Iraqi soldier, around a US installation, then Iraq and not the US is in charge.
The US has security agreements with many countries, but none are occupied by 151,000 US soldiers as is Iraq. The US is not even willing to tell the government in Baghdad what American forces are entering or leaving Iraq, apparently because it fears the government will inform the Iranians, said an Iraqi source.
The fact that Iraq's financial reserves, increasing rapidly because of the high price of oil, continue to be held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is another legacy of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein. Under the UN mandate, oil revenues must be placed in the Development Fund for Iraq which is in the bank.
The funds are under the control of the Iraqi government, though the US Treasury has strong influence on the form in which the reserves are held.
Iraqi officials say that, last year, they wanted to diversify their holdings out of the dollar, as it depreciated, into other assets, such as the euro, more likely to hold their value. This was vetoed by the US Treasury because American officials feared it would show lack of confidence in the dollar.
Iraqi officials say the consequence of the American action was to lose Iraq the equivalent of $5bn. Given intense American pressure on a weak Iraqi government very dependent on US support, it is still probable that the agreement will go through with only cosmetic changes. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the immensely influential Shia cleric, could prevent the pact by issuing a fatwa against it but has so far failed to do so.
The Grand Ayatollah met Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which is the main supporter of the Iraqi government, earlier this week and did not condemn the agreement or call for a referendum. He said, according to Mr Hakim, that it must guarantee Iraqi national sovereignty, be transparent, command a national consensus and be approved by the Iraqi parliament. Critics of the deal fear that the government will sign the agreement, and parliament approve it, in return for marginal concessions.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Marx Cafe Tonight!!
Hey all, I'll be at Marx tonight, playing records from 10-whenever. Hope to see you there!
-M
Marx Cafe
3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW
Airport Security a huge joke
Wow, a new low! This could be an Onion article, fo real.
Transformers shirt gets jet ban
By ANDY CRICK
Published: 02 Jun 2008
AIRPORT guards stopped a man boarding a plane — for wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing a cartoon gun.
Brad Jayakody, 30, was shocked when he was told to change his top if he wanted to catch his flight from Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
IT consultant Brad — on a British Airways trip with four colleagues to Dusseldorf, Germany — asked to see the security chief.
He thought the boss would "see sense" — but he backed up the decision and threatened him with ARREST. Aussie-born Brad said: "My mate set off the alarms and was searched.
"But then the guy told me to stop and said ‘you cannot get on the plane because there is a gun on your T-shirt’."
The top has the Transformers film character Optimus Prime on the front.
Brad, of Bayswater, West London, added: "It’s a cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. What was I going to do, use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?
"I was flabbergasted. I thought the supervisor would come over and see sense, but he didn’t. After I changed he said if I changed back I would be arrested."
A spokesman for Heathrow operator BAA said: "If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it.
"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category."
Last year Gatwick guards made a woman hand over a beef sandwich before boarding and last week a PhD student was stopped for wearing a gun-shaped charm necklace at an airport in Canada.
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Posted June 16, 2008 | 08:50 PM (EST)