:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 4.02.2005 ::
:: "WOLFOWITZ TURNS DOWN WORLD BANK POST" ::
NEOCONSERVATIVE ACCEPTS BLAME FOR INTELLIGENCE ERRORS
From an e-newsletter
by Greg Palast
[Brussels] In a unexpected turn of events, controversial US Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz has turned down the post of President of the World Bank. The Deputy Defense Secretary had won unanimous support of World Bank trustees in a vote Thursday despite widespread objections to the appointment in the European press.
In a statement issued today by the Deputy Secretary before departing Brussels, Mr. Wolfowitz cited the release of the Silberman-Robb Commission report to the President on failures of US intelligence in Iraq.
Mr. Wolfowitz noted that on March 27, 2003, he had testified before the US Congress that the post-war reconstruction of that nation would not cost any "US taxpayer money." Rather, Iraq's oil would pay the tab for the post-conquest rebuilding.
The price tag is now inching toward $200 billion. Mr. Wolfowitz, long associated with neo-conservative factions in the Bush Administration, angrily responded to the Silberman-Robb Commission's accusation that his intelligence on Iraq was flawed or deficient.
"That's just plain wrong. In fact, the Pentagon had incontrovertible evidence that my projections were as phony as a three-dollar bill. Don't blame the CIA. We saw their intelligence and preferred an alternative reality."
A World Bank spokesman reached in Washington, when asked about the Wolfowitz rejection of the institution's presidency, said, "It's sounds like another cheap April Fool's Day trick by Greg Palast to call attention to his investigative report on the Bush Administration's secret plans for Iraq's oil -- out in this month's Harper's Magazine."
[**** THIS WAS ORIGINALLY TO BE POSTED ON APRIL 1**** ;]
View Greg Palast's BBC Television Newsnight report, "US Secret Plans for Iraq's Oil," at www.GregPalast.com - and read the expos? ... in the April edition of Harper's Magazine.
posted by me
:: 10:00:00 AM [+] ::
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