No sanctions for Bush lawyers who approved waterboarding, report will say

Bush administration lawyers who paved the way for sleep deprivation and waterboarding of terrorism suspects exercised poor judgment but will not be referred to authorities for possible sanctions, according to a forthcoming ethics report, a legal source confirmed.

The work of John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, officials in the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, provided the basis for controversial interrogation strategies that critics likened to torture in the years after al-Qaeda's 2001 terrorist strikes on American soil. The men and their OLC colleague, Steven G. Bradbury, became focal points of anger from Senate Democrats and civil liberties groups because their memos essentially insulated CIA interrogators and contractors from legal consequences for their roles in harsh questioning.

The reasoning, set out in a series of secret memos only months after Sept. 11, 2001, prompted a multi-year investigation by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which reviews the ethics of Justice lawyers. The legal source was not authorized to discuss the report's conclusions and described them on the condition of anonymity.

A draft report prepared at the end of the Bush years recommended that Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Bybee, now a federal appeals court judge in Nevada, be referred to state disciplinary authorities for sanctions that could have included the revocation of their licenses to practice.

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US accelerating missile defenses in Gulf: report

The US administration is speeding up deployment of defenses against potential Iranian missile attacks in the Gulf to heed off any possible retaliation, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The move involves placing specialized ships off the Iranian coast and anti-missile systems in at least four Arab countries -- Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait -- the Times said, citing administration and military officials.

Oman has also been approached, although no Patriot missiles have been deployed there yet, US officials told the newspaper, adding that the willingness of other Arab states to accept the US defenses reflects growing unease in the region over Iran's ambitions and capabilities.

"Our first goal is to deter the Iranians," a senior administration official told the newspaper. "A second is to reassure the Arab states, so they don't feel they have to go nuclear themselves. But there is certainly an element of calming the Israelis as well."

The deployments could also forestall any Iranian retaliation in response to the sanctions, as well as discourage staunch US ally Israel from launching a military strike against Tehran's nuclear and military facilities.

Washington is seeking to win over its allies to slap a fourth set of UN sanctions on Iran that would target the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps believed to control the military aspect of Tehran's controversial nuclear program.

Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton upped the pressure on China to recognize the threat from Iran's nuclear program -- which Washington and its Western allies aims to produce nuclear weapons despite Tehran's insistence otherwise -- and join international calls for sanctions.

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Remember the illegal destruction of Iraq?

Glenn Greenwald | Salon

British political news has been consumed for the last several weeks by a formal inquiry into the illegality and deceit behind Tony Blair's decision to join the U.S. in invading Iraq.  Today, Blair himself is publicly testifying before the investigative commission and is being grilled about numerous false claims he made in the run-up to the war, not only about Iraqi weapons programs (his taxi-cab-derived "45-minutes-to-launch!!" warning) and Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda, but also about secret commitments he made to join the U.S. at a time when he and Bush were still pretending that they were undecided and awaiting the outcome of the U.N. negotiations and the inspection process.

A major focus of the investigation is the illegality of the war.  Some of the most embarrassing details that have emerged concern the conclusions by the British Government's own legal advisers that the invasion of Iraq would be illegal without U.N. approval.  The top British legal officer had concluded that the war would be illegal, only to change his mind under substantial pressure shortly before the invasion.  Several weeks ago, a formal investigation in the Netherlands -- whose government had supported the invasion -- produced the first official adjudication of the legality of the war, and found it illegal, with "no basis in international law."

As Digby notes, all of this stands in stark and shameful contrast to the U.S., which pointedly refuses to "look back" or concern itself with whether it waged an illegal (and horribly destructive) war.  The British inquiry has been widely criticized for being too passive and deferential and lacking any credible threat of accountability (other than disclosure of facts).

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Roubini Calls U.S. Growth ‘Dismal and Poor,’ Predicts Slowing

By Simon Kennedy and Erik Schatzker

Bloomberg

New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who anticipated the financial crisis, called the fourth quarter surge in U.S. economic growth “very dismal and poor” because it relied on temporary factors.

Roubini said more than half of the 5.7 percent expansion reported yesterday by the government was related to a replenishing of inventories and that consumption depended on monetary and fiscal stimulus. As these forces ebb, growth will slow to just 1.5 percent in the second half of 2010, he said.

“The headline number will look large and big, but actually when you dissect it, it’s very dismal and poor,” Roubini told Bloomberg Television in an interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “I think we are in trouble.”

Roubini said while the world’s largest economy won’t relapse into recession, unemployment will rise from the current 10 percent, posing social and political challenges.

“It’s going to feel like a recession even if technically we’re not going to be in a recession,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Kennedy in Davos at skennedy4@bloomberg.net

Unrepentant, unforgiven, Blair says: ‘I’d do it again’

LONDON TIMES

Tony Blair was branded a murderer and liar last night after he ended his historic appearance before the Iraq inquiry with a blank refusal to voice regrets over toppling Saddam Hussein.

After six hours in which the Chilcot inquiry team had largely failed to breach his defences, the former Prime Minister brought trouble on himself by failing to show the contrition that his critics wanted.

Mr Blair, who gave a fluent, assured performance, refused to apologise for going to war, said that he would do the same again, and then warned that today’s leaders might have to take similar action to disarm Iran.

He went as far as telling the inquiry that it should pose the “2010 question” and ask what would have happened if America and Britain had lost their nerve and allowed Saddam to go on and build nuclear weapons.

Last night declassified documents released by Downing Street revealed that Mr Blair had already indicated Britain’s support for regime change in Iraq six months before the 9/11 attacks. The memo is from Sir John Sawers, foreign policy adviser to Mr Blair at the time and now head of MI6, to a senior diplomat. Dated March 7, 2001, it said that Britain would support the US in toppling Saddam “when the circumstances were right”.

The Iraq inquiry audience stayed silent through most of yesterday’s testimony but cracked when Sir John Chilcot, the chairman, offered Mr Blair two chances to voice regret.

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China cancels military exchanges with US after Taiwan deal

A furious China said on Saturday it was suspending military exchanges with the United States protesting against Washington’s move to sell $6.4 billion worth of arms to Taiwan. The issue can have wide ramifications onmatters like trade, possible meeting between Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama and China’s arms sales to countries such as Pakistan.

Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei said the US decision was a "rude interference in China's internal affairs, severely endangering China's national security". The country’s defense ministry said it will halt visits between the Chinese and U.S. armed forces "in consideration of the serious harm and impacts on Sino-U.S. military relations".

The choice of arms shows the Obama administration expects China to strike Taiwan sooner or later. It has offered to sell 114 Patriot anti-missile missiles and two mine-hunting ships besides 60 Black Hawk helicopters. But the package does not include F-16 jets, which Beijing had vehemently opposed.

China regards Taiwan as part its own territory and has threatened military action to recapture it in the past.

It is not clear if the People’s Liberation Army will begin moving missile launchers to appropriate positions and make other moves to threaten an attack if Washington does not cancel the deal.

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NATO air strike kills four Afghanistan soldiers in mix-up

KABUL: A joint US-Afghan force clashed with Afghan troops manning a snow-covered outpost and called in an air strike early on Saturday, killing 4 Afghan soldiers, US and Afghan officials said. Both sides called the clash a case of mistaken identity

Afghanistan's defence ministry condemned the killings in the eastern Wardak province and demanded punishment for those responsible. NATO called the deaths "regrettable" and announced an investigation.

The deaths are likely to strain relations between NATO and Afghan forces at a time both are calling for a closer partnership in the fight against the Taliban.

Underscoring those tensions, an Afghan interpreter killed two US service members Friday at a combat outpost elsewhere in Wardak province, a NATO official said.

A US soldier then killed the interpreter, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to release the information. It wasn't clear why the interpreter had opened fire on the Americans.

Both attacks occurred in the Sayed Abad district, but the official said they did not appear to be linked. First reports indicated three Americans were killed but NATO officials said one of the dead was an Afghan.

Saturday's fighting began about 3 am local time, when a joint US-Afghan force traded fire with another Afghan unit manning the outpost, which the army said had been established 18 months ago to guard the highway.

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Authorities seek deal with Detroit suspect on cooperation, guilty plea

WASHINGTON POST

Authorities are inching toward an agreement that would secure cooperation from the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner attack, according to two sources familiar with the case, even as fresh details emerged about the intense and chaotic response to the Christmas Day incident.

Seizing on the near miss, GOP lawmakers have mounted a sustained attack on President Obama and the Justice Department, saying they may have lost out on valuable intelligence by charging Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in a federal court rather than under the military justice system.

But new details complicate that narrative, suggesting that Abdulmutallab, 23, clammed up even before he was informed of his right to remain silent -- a warning that could have come later had he been placed in military custody. He continued to speak to authorities before undergoing treatment for second- and third-degree burns below the waist that occurred during a bid to detonate explosives on Northwest Flight 253.

The incident has provoked criticism that federal agencies missed intelligence signals that might have prevented the attack, and has reignited a fierce debate about the adequacy of traditional law enforcement tools to combat terrorist threats.

Public defenders for the Nigerian student are engaged in negotiations that could result in an agreement to share more information and eventually a guilty plea, the sources said.

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THE TRUTH ABOUT FLIGHT 253 HAS BEEN REVEALED- By Kurt Haskell

***Please note that in the article that follows, I am not claiming that the U.S. Government knew Mutallab had a bomb or intended to hurt anyone on Flight 253 when the U.S. Government let him board.

THE SHARP DRESSED MAN WHO AIDED MUTALLAB ONTO FLIGHT 253 WAS A U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENT.

Since our flight landed on Christmas Day, Lori and I have been doing everything in our power to uncover the truth about why we were almost blown up in the air over Detroit. The truth is now finally out after the publication of the following Detroit News article:

http://detnews.com/article/20100127/NATION/1270405/Terror-suspect-kept-visa-to-avoid-tipping-off-larger-investigation

Let me quote from the article:

"Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

"Revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing," Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

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AIG Secret Deals Conspiracy Starting to Unravel

MARKET ORACLE

The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system -- apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout -- deserves further congressional scrutiny.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was head of the New York Fed at the time of the AIG moves. The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also focused on what many in Congress believe was the New York Fed’s subsequent attempt to cover up buyout details and who benefited.

By pursuing this line of inquiry, the hearing revealed some of the inner workings of the New York Fed and the outsized role it plays in banking. This insight is especially valuable given that the New York Fed is a quasi-governmental institution that isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests, unlike the Federal Reserve.

This impenetrability comes in handy since the bank is the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed’s bailout programs. It’s as though the New York Fed was a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank.

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More Lies From Blair, Blair Knew Iraq Had Nothing to do with 9/11

Citing 9/11, Blair Defends Legacy at Iraq Inquiry

NY TIMES

Almost seven years after he ordered British troops to join the American-led invasion of Iraq, former Prime Minister Tony Blair testified Friday before an official inquiry into the conflict, offering a spirited defense of his legacy in the face of criticism that he had led Britain into an unpopular war and misled the nation about his reasons for doing so.

In six hours of scheduled hearings, many of the questions were likely to turn on his relationship with former President George W. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, particularly confidential meetings he had with Mr. Bush in 2002 to discuss the fervor for an enforced change of government in Iraq, even though there was no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the attacks in New York and Washington.

Before 9/11, Mr. Blair said on Friday, referring to the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, “We thought he was a risk, but it was worth trying to contain it. The crucial thing after Sept. 11 is that the calculus of risk changed.”

He continued, “The point about this terrorist act was that over 3,000 people had been killed on the streets of New York, and this is what changed my perception of risk: if these people inspired by this religious fanaticism could have killed 30,000, they would have.” Discussing America’s plans after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Blair said, “I didn’t want America to feel it had no option but to do it alone.”

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Historian Zinn Said "Largest Lie" Was U.S. "War on Terrorism"

by Sherwood Ross

The “largest lie,” wrote hisorian Howard Zinn who died yesterday at age 87, is that “everything the United States does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a ‘war on terrorism.’”

“This ignores the fact that war is itself terrorism, that the barging into people’s homes and taking away family members and subjecting them to torture, that is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less security.”

In an article published previously in “The Long Term View” magazine of the Massachusetts School of Law, Zinn said that in the Fallujah area of Iraq Knight Ridder reporters found there was no Ba’athist or Sunni conspiracy against the U.S., “only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops.”

Zinn, popularly known as the people’s historian, pointed out that the U.S. may have liberated Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein but afterwards it became Iraq’s occupier. He noted this is the same fate that befell Cuba after the U.S. liberated it from Spain in 1898. In both nations, the U.S. established military bases and U.S. corporations moved in to profit from the upheaval.

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Authorities Quietly Reverse Underwear Bomber Official Story

Authorities have quietly reversed the official story behind the Christmas Day underwear bomber attack and acknowledged that an accomplice was involved, despite weeks of denial and derision of eyewitness Kurt Haskell’s description of a sharp-dressed man who helped Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab board Flight 253 in Amsterdam.

Buried in the last two paragraphs of a story about alleged female suicide bombers coming from Yemen, an ABC News report contains the following bombshell.

“Federal agents also tell ABCNews.com they are attempting to identify a man who passengers said helped Abdulmutallab change planes for Detroit when he landed in Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria.”

“Authorities had initially discounted the passenger accounts, but the agents say there is a growing belief the man have played a role to make sure Abdulmutallab “did not get cold feet.”

Detroit lawyer Kurt Haskell maintained from the beginning that he saw a well-dressed Indian man aid the accused bomber to board the plane despite the fact that he had no passport and was on a terror watch list.

“While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, ‘He’s from Sudan and we do this all the time,’” reported the Michigan Live news website.

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UN in secret peace talks with Taliban

Taliban commanders held secret exploratory talks with a United Nations special envoy this month to discuss peace terms, it emerged tonight.

Regional commanders on the Taliban's leadership council, the Quetta Shura, sought a meeting with the UN special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and it took place in Dubai on 8 January. "They requested a meeting to talk about talks. They want protection, to be able to come out in public. They don't want to vanish into places like Bagram," the Reuters news agency quoted a UN official as saying, referring to the Bagram detention centre at a US military base outside Kabul.

The Dubai meeting was confirmed to the Guardian by officials with knowledge of the encounter, but they said they could provide no further details.

It was the first such meeting between the UN and senior members of the Taliban. The fact that it took place suggests that peace talks have revived since exploratory contacts between emissaries of the Kabul government and the Taliban in Saudi Arabia last year broke down.

It also suggests that some Taliban members might be prepared for the first time to put faith in an international organisation to broker a deal to end the nine-year war.

News of the Dubai meeting surfaced at the end of a day-long conference in London intended to map out a transition over five years from a Nato-led military campaign to Afghan-led effort involving more political, social and economic measures to end the fighting.

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Afghan cleric shot dead by Western troops; NATO apologizes

LA TIMES

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Western troops traveling through the capital of Afghanistan in a military convoy Thursday shot dead an Islamic cleric, apparently mistaking him for a would-be suicide bomber, officials and witnesses said.

NATO acknowledged that its forces had fired on what appeared to be a "threatening vehicle," and expressed regret over the death. Afghan police said two of the cleric's children were in the car with him, but that they were unhurt.

The incident took place hours before Afghan President Hamid Karzai, speaking to a major security conference in London, urged that greater care be taken when foreign troops come into contact with civilians.

The fatal shooting, which occurred during morning rush hour, took place close to a U.S. military base on the city's eastern edge that had been the scene of a suicide car bombing two days earlier. Eight Western troops and at least half a dozen Afghan civilians were injured in that blast, outside an installation known as Camp Phoenix.

After Thursday's shooting, protesters staged a small but angry demonstration near the gates of the base, blocking traffic and shouting anti-American slogans.

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Afghan military strategy doomed without big changes, UN chief warns

The military strategy in Afghanistan is seriously flawed and is doomed to failure without major adjustments, the outgoing head of the UN there has warned.

Kai Eide, who will stand down as UN Special Representative in March, was withering in his assessment of the Afghan surge recently set in motion by President Obama. He warned that the military focus was at the expense of a “meaningful, Afghan-led political strategy” and that Western troops and governments had left Afghans feeling that they faced “cultural invasion”.

Speaking to The Times before today’s conference on Afghanistan, he said that the international community must stop operating according to “strategies and decisions that are taken far away from Afghanistan”.

“Very unfortunately, the political strategy has become an appendix to the military strategy. The strategy has to be demilitarised — a political strategy with a military component.”

Mr Eide added that he supported the arrival of more US and Nato troops but that they had to be used to train Afghan forces. He said that the latter were better than any international forces because Westerners still struggled to understand the sensitivities of the country.

He expressed deep concern at the tactical approach of British and other Western troops, which aimed to remove the Taleban from an area, hold it and then develop local infrastructure and security forces. “

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Darling to hold secret talks with bankers in Davos

LONDON GUARDIAN

Alistair Darling is to hold private talks with an elite group of City bankers in Davos on Friday amid warnings from global business executives that tough new curbs on the financial sector would hold back economic recovery.

Leaders of both UK and international banks will seek reassurance from the chancellor that the windfall tax on bank bonuses is not the start of a concerted crackdown that will make London a less attractive place to do business.

Bob Diamond, the president of Barclays, today strongly attacked Barack Obama's plans to limit the size and scope of Wall Street banks. A new era of "­narrow" banks would be harmful, ­Diamond warned: "The impact on jobs, global trade and the global economy would be very negative."

Peter Sands, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, will host talks at which bankers will voice their unhappiness at what they see as a populist attack on their industry. He said that there was a growing risk that fragmented regulation initiatives would "create enormous complexity" and encourage banks to play one regulator off against another.

Darling is expected to tell the bankers that while the government wants the G20 group of developed and developing nations to draw up plans for better financial regulation, it also wants the City to thrive.

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CBO chief warns of long, slow recovery

The director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had little but bad news on the economy for Congress.

The pace of the U.S. economic recovery will be "slow in the next few years," and the unemployment rate will average 10 percent through the end of fiscal 2011, while the annual budget deficit will likely remain above $1 trillion, CBO chief Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee on Wednesday.

The CBO chief told the congressional panel that he expected economic growth in fiscal 2010, which ends Sept. 30, will be just 1.6 percent, and the unemployment rate will average 10.2 percent. The outlook for fiscal 2011 is not much better, he warned, saying that growth in the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) will barely accelerate to 1.8 percent and the unemployment rate barely budge, averaging 9.8 percent for the year.

Mr. Elmendorf, citing another in the string of forecasts that his well-respected nonpartisan office had developed, also warned that annual budget deficits are likely to top $1 trillion for this year and next and remain at stratospheric levels for years. The resulting public debt will make up a huge share of the overall economy and remain a constant threat to economic growth for the foreseeable future.

"It is true that as we push [publicly held debt] in this country to 60 percent of GDP at the end of this [fiscal] year and beyond that over the next few years, we're moving into territory that most developed countries stay out of," Mr. Elmendorf told the House budget panel. "That raises the risk" of seriously adverse economic consequences "every step that we go."

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CBO Report: Stimulus price tag soars, jobless rate rises

WASHINGTON TIMES

The economic stimulus bill's price tag has risen to $862 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday — a $75 billion jump that's a result in part to the fact that, despite the spending, joblessness has risen and the government is paying out more than expected on unemployment benefits.

The CBO, in a new report, also said spending in fiscal 2010 will push the deficit to more than $1.3 trillion, or nearly the record $1.4 trillion deficit recorded in 2009.

The dire warnings fueled spending hysteria, which hit Washington in full force this week after Democrats' health care overhaul got shelved last week.

President Obama plans to call for a freeze on non-security spending in Wednesday's State of the Union address — but advisers said it wouldn't take effect until 2011.

"In 2010, we are focused on making sure we can get people back to work. In 2011, when we believe the economy will be back on stronger footing, we're going to be looking to make sure the footing we are putting them on is a more sustainable discretionary footing," said White House deputy budget director Rob Nabors.

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Revealed: See Who Was Paid Off In The AIG Bailout

HUFFINGTON POST

A key question at the heart of the controversial bailout of AIG is just how much money the government lost. The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have worked to keep that number secret and to conceal who was on the winning end.

An unredacted document obtained by the Huffington Post list the damage in detail. Goldman Sachs alone, for instance, got $14 billion in government money for assets worth $6 billion at the time -- a de facto $8 billion subsidy, courtesy of taxpayers.

The list was produced as part of a congressional investigation led by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into the federal bailout of AIG.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, purchased a slew of souring assets from the world's biggest banks for 100 cents on the dollar in November and December 2008. A scathing report by a government watchdog held Geithner responsible for the overpayments.

The New York Fed initially pressured AIG to keep the list hidden from investors, regulators and the public. When it was eventually filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC allowed the Fed and AIG to keep the details secret. A heavily-redacted version was made public last March.

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