Cheney and Your 3 Ounce Shampoo Bottles

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emptywheel
Suskind provides details of how Bush and Cheney ordered up a torture scare just in time for elections. And as a result, you're still surviving off of hotel shampoo when you travel.

Your Expensive Commute Has Gone To Line Maliki's Pocket

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emptywheel
Henry Waxman comes up with a stat that will definitely put the financial cost of the Iraq war in concrete terms.

China Exhibits Very Bad Judgement in Whom to Intimidate

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emptywheel
The Chinese just detained the plane carrying the White House press corps to the Beijing Olympics. A horrible, heavy-handed tactic, no doubt. But not a good choice of targets, IMO.

Not a Question of If, But Who, Forged the Letter

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emptywheel
While there appears to be little doubt that the December 2003 Habbash letter was a forgery, what remains unclear is precisely what confluence of bureaucratic in-fighting created the letter.
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Native Tears

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bmaz
Via the Washington Post, the verdict has been rendered at long last in the Cobell litigationA federal judge ruled Thursday that American Indian plaintiffs are entitled to $455 million in a long-running trust case, a fraction of the $47 billion they wanted. The Native Americans have been screwed once again by the white man.

Bioterrorism on a Grassy Knoll

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emptywheel
Joe Persichini, the Assistant Director of the DC FBI Field Office, is going to be the guy who goes down in history as having claimed that Bruce Ivins was acting alone. Thing is, the evidence doesn't prove that claim.

Anthrax Timeline, Two

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emptywheel
My anthrax timeline updated with the dates from the DOJ document dump. Boy, if I were Steven Hatfill, I'd be pissed, even with my $5 million.

"It Was Ivins, With a Flask, 200 Miles from the Site of the Crime"

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emptywheel
So our crack DOJ wants us to believe that, by providing a lot of circumstantial evidence that places Bruce Ivins in the same room as a flask full of anthrax used in the attack, they've proven not only that Ivins was involved in the crime, but that he was the only one involved in the crime. In other words, they haven't solved this crime, but they want us to all go away

The Case Against Ivins, Search Warrant One

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emptywheel
A summary of the FBI's case as it existed in October 2007.

The Anthrax Prosecutor: The Daughter of the Defense Attorney for BushCo's "Germ Boy"

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emptywheel
The most credible reason people have suggested for Ivins' murders of five people was that he wanted the country to be more proactive about anthrax vaccines. But there's someone else who was pushing that issue much harder than Ivins. And, astoundingly, the daughter of that person's defense attorney is one of the prosecutors working this case. That person? Scooter Libby.

DOJ Wants to Have Its Culprit and Withhold Some Materials, Too

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emptywheel
News reports say something is going to happen today with the anthrax case. But it's not sure what. NPR reports that DOJ is going to declared its case solved--even while it doesn't close the case. Officials close to the anthrax investigation have told NPR that the FBI will declare the case of the 2001 anthrax letters solved Wednesday, but that the case will remain open so agents can follow up on some

Tenet and the "Creamy White House Stationery"

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emptywheel
Tenet says the Iraqi referred to in Ron Suskind's book, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, wasn't believable. What I want to know, though, is why Tenet is only now admitting he got intelligence from Habbush.

Disestablishmentarianism, CIFA Version

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emptywheel
Remember that word? As a kid you probably proudly claimed to have learned its opposite, antidisestablishmentarianism, not long after you learned how to spell M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. You may vaguely remember that the word pertains directly to state sanctioning--or unsanctioning--of religion. According to Warren Strobel, the Pentagon has decided to use the term "disestablished" to refer to the closure of the CIFA program.
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Once Again, Forgeries?

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emptywheel
The news that the CIA may have forged a letter alleging ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq reminds me that OVP--particularly Scooter Libby--was the one behind many of the Iraq-Al Qaeda claims.

Anthrax Timeline

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emptywheel
The media is finally beginning to question the story about Bruce Ivins (though Glenn is still schooling them). But here's a question I see no one asking, much less answering. The LAT reported that attention began to focus on Ivins in "late 2006" only after FBI Director Mueller changed the leadership team on the investigation. Federal investigators moved away from Hatfill -- for years the only publicly identified "person of interest" --
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Michael Isikoff's Chat with Cheney's Lawyer

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emptywheel
Michael Isikoff took a whole bunch of contradictions in Scooter Libby's cover story and just dismissed them as irrelevant based on the explanation offered by one anonymous source. The anonymous source? Terry O'Donnell, Dick Cheney's own lawyer.

Jane Mayer, the CIA Inspector General's Report, and the Torture Tapes

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emptywheel
Jane Mayer's Dark Side corroborates something I've been arguing. The CIA IG's report on torture--which concluded that CIA's interrogation methods were cruel and inhumane--was one of the things that made the CIA panic and destroy the torture tapes.

Ivins and the Anthrax Investigation

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emptywheel
There were at least two points where, by virtue of being a top expert on anthrax, Bruce Ivins may have been able to monitor and perhaps influence the anthrax investigation.

Who First Spread the Iraqi Anthrax Claim?

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emptywheel
The likely sources for the earliest stories claiming Iraq had a role in the anthrax attack are pretty telling.
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