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Sunday, August 14, 2005 |
AlertNet: "Italy, a month ahead of schedule, has started reducing its presence in Iraq by drawing down the first 130 forces in a planned 300-troop withdrawal, a Rome-based military source said on Saturday."
Is this hasty withdrawal caused by the deadly London bombings?
It seems the political atmosphere in Britain after the bombings is not really conducive to peace and quiet.
Scotsman: "The editor of a Scottish weekly newspaper is facing possible prosecution under Britain's anti-racism laws, following the publication of an article claiming that a massive refugee camp could be built in Scotland.
Mr Buchan was charged under a section of the Public Order Act which gives the police powers to arrest any person whom they suspect of publishing or distributing written material that is threatening, abusive, or insulting and intended to stir up racial hatred."
I wonder whether a prosecution will really make a change for the better. It might backfire.
Independent: "An investigation into the four suicide bombers from the first attacks and the people alleged to be behind the July 21 plot has found no evidence of any al-Qa'ida 'mastermind' or senior organiser. The inquiry involved MI5, MI6, the listening centre at GCHQ, and the police."
Which would mean that terrorists can pop up from anywhere. Not a reassuring thought.
But who can ever be sure about 'intelligence'?
ICH: "The [9/11] commission concluded, you'll recall, that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon couldn't have been prevented, and that if there was negligence, it was as much the fault of the Bush Administration (for moving slowly on the recommendations of Clinton counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke) as of the Clinton administration.
Able Danger was a military intelligence unit set up by Special Operations Command in 1999. A year before the 9/11 attacks, Able Danger identified hijack leader Mohammed Atta and the other members of his cell. But Clinton administration officials stopped them - three times - from sharing this information with the FBI.
What may be a bigger scandal is that the staff of the 9/11 Commission knew of Able Danger and what it had found, but made no mention of it in its report. This is as if the commission that investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor had written its final report without mentioning the Japanese."
More about Able Danger.
But if the Clinton administration made a mistake, that is even more so for the Bush administration. My opinion is that the intelligence services knew about that specific threat but did nothing to prevent the 9/11 attack; not even one fighter plane was scrambled while the hijacking was going on.
3:31:55 PM 
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