Headlines for 01-26-08

Iran says break with U.S. won't last forever Iran's foreign minister said on Saturday he could envisage the Islamic Republic resuming diplomatic ties with the United States one day but that many hurdles remained to normal relations.


Iran says surprised at sanctions plan, urges patience Iran said on Saturday it was surprised by proposed new sanctions over its nuclear program and said major powers should have waited for the verdict of a United Nations watchdog in March.


Iran set to test next generation of centrifuges


Iran's FM questions UN resolution


Pakistan nukes safe from militants: army chief


US offers troops to fight in Pakistan The United States has offered to send American troops into Pakistan to fight Islamic militants.


Afghanistan: Iran accused as mines are found in Taliban cache


Found in Translation by Philip Giraldi if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani, and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments......Edmonds also claims that Grossman was instrumental in seeding Turkish and Israeli Ph.D. students into major American research labs by godfathering visas and enabling security clearances.......She further reports that beginning in 1999, the FBI was investigating senior Pentagon officials who were assisting agents of foreign governments, including Turkey and Israel. Edmonds has not publicly named names at the Pentagon, but a website linked to her appears to be a non-incriminating instrument for identifying suspects without doing so directly. Its ?rogues gallery? includes photos of Richard Perle and Douglas Feith........?If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,? Edmonds told the Times...... Edmonds?s claims that the section was infiltrated by translators who should never have received security clearances and who were deliberately failing to translate incriminating material are supported by the Justice Department inspector general investigation and by an FBI internal investigation, which concluded that she had been fired after making ?valid complaints.?........Edmonds?s revelations have attracted corroboration in the form of anonymous letters apparently written by FBI employees. There have been frequent reports of FBI field agents being frustrated by the premature closure of cases dealing with foreign spying, particularly when those cases involve Israel, and the State Department has frequently intervened to shut down investigations based on ?sensitive foreign diplomatic relations.?.......Curiously, the states-secrets gag order binding Edmonds, while put in place by DOJ in 2002, was not requested by the FBI but by the State Department and Pentagon?which employed individuals she identified as being involved in criminal activities.......It is generally believed that Waxman, a strong supporter of Israel, is nervous about exposing an Israeli lobby role in the corruption that Edmonds describes. Wow.


Why McCain would be worse than Bush by Patrick J. Buchanan Where Bush finally cleansed his administration of neocons, if not of their legacy, a McCain candidacy is the last, best hope of a neocon restoration and new military adventures in the Middle East. If Rudy Giuliani founders in Florida, neocons will be chanting, "Mac is back!"



Israel suspects Iranians already working on nuclear warhead Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, in an interview published Saturday, that Iran is "quite advanced" in its work on atomic weapons and may already be fashioning a nuclear warhead.


Like FBI, CIA Has Used Secret 'Letters' newly released documents shed light on the use of the letters by the CIA. The spy agency has employed them to obtain financial information about U.S. residents and does so under extraordinary secrecy, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained copies of CIA letters under the Freedom of Information Act.


In Clinton endorsement, New York Times inches towards historical revisionism in giving the New York lawmaker their nod, the Times' editorial board appeared to be subtly revising its stance in the lead up to the Iraq War, painting the picture that it outright opposed the March 2003 invasion.


The Long Fuse to the Iraq War He talks about a parallel establishment and "an elite caste," but doesn't do anything to explore the huge pots of money available to the neocons and to politicians who stick by Israel. There is no follow through because all these ideas are close to anti-Semitic "canards," the word the pro-Israel crowd likes to use when anyone tries to address Jewish influence in public life......... If Heilbrunn doesn't believe this, he ought to state why not. As it is the reader is left with the shadowy sense that the neocons have a pro-Israel agenda that they are not upfront about. But it isn't a conspiracy, Heilbrunn warns. The neocons have convinced themselves that the U.S. and Israel have congruent interests.


Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, there is a vast black market for nukes, and certain U.S. officials have been supplying sensitive nuclear technology information to Turkish and Israeli interests through its conduits.


Rice decries 'foreign interference' after Lebanon bombing


Christian Zionists Feel "Betrayed" by Bush's Road Map "Hagee's injection of the charged rhetoric of biblical prophesy into contemporary foreign policy," Posner writes, "has catapulted him to the forefront of an American Christian Zionist movement that has become the darling of conservative Israel hawks in Washington and neoconservatives yearning for regional war in the Middle East."


Letter: Resist Israel lobbyists The drums for war with Iran are getting louder, and overpowering calls for restraint and negotiation. The only country advocating, in fact demanding, that the United states attack Iran, "regime change" is the euphemism used, is Israel......I cannot stand idly by and watch special interests, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and their neoconservative partners, browbeat our leaders in Congress and the White House into actions that may well result again in Americans' lives being wasted in more unnecessary Mideast wars.