AfterDowningStreet.org

House minority leader backs quick withdrawal
Staff and agencies
WASHINGTON - "I will be supporting the Murtha resolution," Pelosi said of Murtha‘s resolution calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the earliest practicable date.

The Cheerleader at Annapolis
By MIKE WHITNEY, www.CounterPunch.org
It's pathetic to see the world's most powerful man, shunted into prearranged venues so he can pitch his snake-oil to college aged boys. That said, Bush's appearance today at the Naval Academy has got to be a new low for the White House public relations team. Apparently the only people buying the huckster-in-chief's bedraggled vision of a democratic Iraq are rosy-cheeked young men who dream of battlefields instead of girlfriends.

By Randolph T. Holhut
http://www.opednews.com
DUMMERSTON, Vt. — Given the intense hatred that the Bush administration has for journalists and independent reporting, the news that in April 2004, President Bush seriously contemplated bombing the Qatar headquarters of the Arab news channel al-Jazeera, isn't surprising.

By Dahr Jamail and Harb al-Mukhtar, Inter Press Service
Ramadi - Hospital personnel are reporting regular raids and interference by the US military as fighting continues in the volatile Al-Anbar province of Iraq.*

By Juan Cole, Truthdig.com
The ongoing trial of Saddam Hussein could prove increasingly uncomfortable for the Bush administration. The first crime of which the deposed dictator is accused, the secret execution of 143 Shiites arrested in 1982, seems an odd choice for the prosecution, and politics may be behind it. Hussein is accused of using poison gas against Iranian troops, of genocide against the Kurds and of massacring tens of thousands to end the 1991 uprising after his defeat in the Gulf War. The problem for the Bush administration with these other, far graver charges, is that the Americans are implicated in them either through acts of commission or omission.

By Danny Schechter, TomPaine.com
“News Dissector” Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org. His latest books are The Death of Media (Melville Manifestos) and When News Lies on media complicity and the Iraq war (Select Books). See www.newsdissector.org/store.htm.

By Democracy Now!
* Video Broadcast of Kidnapped Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams that
Helped Expose Abu Ghraib Prisoner Abuse Scandal *
The Christian Peacemaker Teams has confirmed that four peace activists

Open the PDF.
Note that the two reasons Bush gave for the war are totally absent from his list of reasons for continuing it.

New Addition to NoQuarter.typepad.com
By Larry C. Johnson
Yesterday's press conference with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and JCS Chief General Peter "Perfect" Pace gave us some insight into why Abu Ghraib could occur and how Rumsfeld's lack of leadership allowed such reprehensible behavior by U.S. troops.

By Norman Solomon
Newspapers across the United States and beyond told readers Wednesday
about sensational new statements by a former top assistant to Colin
Powell when he was secretary of state. After interviewing Lawrence

By David Swanson
I just spoke for an hour with Dori Smith, host of Talk Nation, a terrific radio show. Audio of her shows can be found here, and transcripts here. Today's should be there by tomorrow.

By American Progress Action Fund
After two-and-a-half years and 2,110 U.S. troop fatalities, the Bush administration released what it calls a "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" (NSVI). The problem is, it's not a new strategy for success in Iraq; it's a public relations document. The strategy describes what has transpired in Iraq to date as a resounding success and refuses to establish any standards for accountability. It dismisses serious problems such as the dramatic increase in bombings as "metrics that the terrorists and insurgents want the world to use." Americans understand it's time for a new course in Iraq. Unfortunately, this document is little more than an extended justification for a President "determined to stay his course." (For a bold new approach, check out American Progress's plan, Strategic Redeployment)

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN and IAN FISHER, New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - The Bush administration, responding to European alarm over allegations of secret detention camps and the transport of terror suspects on European soil, insisted Tuesday that American actions complied with international law but promised to respond to formal inquiries from European nations.

By Charles R. Babcock, Washington Post
The two defense contractors who allegedly made many of the illicit payments to convicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) worked together for several years as relatively small players in the Pentagon's multibillion-dollar procurement system.

November 30, 2005
Professor Carolyn Eisenberg
Dear Professor Eisenberg:
The war in Iraq is on the minds of many of you who have written or who have called my office asking questions and expressing frustration. When the President addresses the nation tomorrow on the war, the American people want and deserve to know how we got there, why we are still there, how we have executed the war and what we should do now. In short, the President must explain his plan for the war in Iraq.