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Monday, November 6, 2006 |
DailyMail: "Tony Blair is in a blind panic over the looming threat of being arrested in the police inquiry into the cash-for-peerages scandal, Cabinet sources have revealed.
A senior Minister said a 'black cloud' had descended over Downing Street at the growing realisation that the Prime Minister and his closest allies face the risk of being prosecuted over the affair."
Independent: "The Prime Minister's longest serving political adviser is to be questioned under caution by the police investigating the cash-for-honours affair.
Jonathan Powell, Number 10's chief of staff, will be interviewed later this month about e-mails and documents discovered in Downing Street offices that indicate Labour Party backers were offered honours in exchange for loans or donations.
Three people have already been arrested: Lord Levy, a friend and close ally of Mr Blair, Sir Christopher Evans, the biotech millionaire who lent Labour £1m, and Des Smith, a government education adviser."
11:24:56 AM 
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ICH: "On Monday, an editorial is scheduled to appear in the Army Times which will call for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as Secretary of Defense. The article will run simultaneously in the Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times and will be available to every active member in the United States Military."
ArmyTimes: "Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go."
TheNation: "On November 14 a group of lawyers and other experts will come before the German federal prosecutor and ask him to open a criminal investigation targeting Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other key Bush Administration figures for war crimes. The recent passage of the Military Commissions Act provides a central argument for the legal action, under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction: It demonstrates the intent of the Bush Administration to immunize itself legally from prosecution in the United States, even for the most serious crimes."
WashingtonPost: "The Army's National Guard and Reserve are bracing for possible new and accelerated call-ups, spurred by high demand for U.S. troops in Iraq, that leaders caution could undermine the citizen-soldier force as it struggles to rebuild."
BuzzFlash: "Plans are secretly underway for a suprise new call up of National Guard and Reserves to be announced sometime after the election.
The Washington Post has now reported that planning that is now classified, being kept secret from voters and military families until the election is over, could well include what the Post calls a policy change forcing a new wave of involuntary call ups."
11:19:42 AM
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Independent: "So America's one-time ally has been sentenced to death for war crimes he committed when he was Washington's best friend in the Arab world. America knew all about his atrocities and even supplied the gas - along with the British, of course - yet there we were yesterday declaring it to be, in the White House's words, another 'great day for Iraq'. That's what Tony Blair announced when Saddam Hussein was pulled from his hole in the ground on 13 December 2003. And now we're going to string him up, and it's another great day.
Of course, it couldn't happen to a better man. Nor a worse. It couldn't be a more just verdict - nor a more hypocritical one.
Death is now visited upon even more Iraqis than Saddam was able to inflict on his Shias and Kurds and - yes, in Fallujah of all places - his Sunnis, too.
The odd thing is that Iraq is now swamped with mass murderers, guilty of rape and massacre and throat-slitting and torture in the years since our 'liberation' of Iraq. Many of them work for the Iraqi government we are currently supporting, democratically elected, of course. And these war criminals, in some cases, are paid by us, through the ministries we set up under this democratic government. And they will not be tried. Or hanged. That is the extent of our cynicism. And our shame. Have ever justice and hypocrisy been so obscenely joined?"
BRussellsTribunal: "The BRussells Tribunal has already alerted World public opinion on June 29 that the proceedings against Mr. Hussain should be halted. We raised fundamental legal questions about the detention and trial of Mr. Hussain in light of existing rules of the laws and customs of war (humanitarian law), and the laws established under the international system of human rights. These bodies of law are binding on all judicial actions."
YNet: "The European Union urged Iraq on Sunday not to carry out the death sentence passed on Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein after his conviction for crimes against humanity."
Guardian: "Iraq's new rulers split yesterday over whether to execute Saddam Hussein if he is convicted of war crimes, with President Jalal Talabani facing calls to resign if he refuses to sign a death warrant.
The Kurdish rebel-turned president said he opposed capital punishment on principle.
'Personally, no, I won't sign,' he told the BBC. But he hinted he may abstain and pass the decision to the two vice-presidents, Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shia, and Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni Arab, who with him comprise the presidential council. 'My two partners in the presidency, the government, the house, all of them are for sentencing Saddam Hussein to death before the court will decide. So, I think I will be alone in this field.'"
11:06:50 AM
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