Backtalk July 13, 2004

Inoculated for a While? Some time ago I was reading PNAC's Dec. 3, 2003, National Security Outlook, authored by Thomas Donnelly and Vance Serchuk. The following practically leapt off the page ["Fighting a Global Counterinsurgency"]: (D)efense transformation must bring...

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Condoleezza Needs to Call Anonymous

In our various oral and written presentations on Iraq, my veteran intelligence officer colleagues and I took no delight in sharply criticizing what we perceived to be the corruption of intelligence analysis at CIA. Nothing would have pleased us more than to have been...

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Quandary Over Saddam’s Defense

DUBAI - The rumor mill has been hard at work since Saddam Hussein first appeared before an Iraqi investigative judge after his December capture. The questions, now, are who will defend the former Iraqi president and will he get a fair trail under the new government....

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Whitewash!

The real purpose of a government report is to place the blame where it does the least damage to the political party in office. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq" carefully...

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Neocons Stir China-Taiwan Conflict

The Chinese government is fully committed to working with the international community to support economic and political stability in East Asia, but would be willing to sacrifice those principles if Taiwan tried to break away from the mainland and create an independent...

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CIA Becomes Political Football

The imminent choice by U.S. President George W Bush of a new director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), blasted Friday for "groupthink" and incompetence by a key Congressional committee, is fast becoming the major new battleground between the administration's...

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Japanese Deliver Verdict on Koizumi’s Troop Decision

TOKYO (IPS) – Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's humiliating blow in Sunday's House of Councilors election could have a fallout effect on his controversial decision to keep troops in Iraq, say analysts. "The election results reflected people's...

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Democrats Drop Antiwar Pretensions

Saturday at the Westin Diplomat hotel outside Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the Democratic Party finalized its platform for the upcoming Democratic National Convention to be held in Boston later this month. Progressives and peace lovers – mostly Kucinich and Dean...

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