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More than 260 doctors from around the world have launched an unprecedented attack on the American medical establishment for its failure to condemn unethical practices by medical practitioners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. In a letter to The Lancet, the doctors from 16 countries, including Britain and America, say the failure of the US regulatory authorities to act is "damaging the reputation of US military medicine". They compare the actions of the military doctors, whom they accuse of being involved in the force-feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and of turning a blind eye to evidence of torture in Iraq and elsewhere, to those of the South African security police involved in the death of the anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko 30 years ago. The group highlighted the force-feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay last year and suggested the physicians involved should be referred to their professional bodies for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines. The doctors wrote: "No healthcare worker in the War on Terror has been charged or convicted of any significant offence despite numerous instances documented including fraudulent record-keeping on detainees who have died as a result of failed interrogations ... The attitude of the US military establishment appears to be one of 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'." The US introduced the policy of force-feeding, in which prisoners are strapped to a chair and a tube is forced down the throat into the stomach, after more than 100 prisoners went on hunger strike in 2005. "Fundamental to doctors' responsibilities in attending a hunger striker is the recognition that prisoners have a right to refuse treatment," the doctors wrote.

Be careful what you say and whom you help -- especially when it comes to the Iraq war and the Iraqi government. President Bush issued an executive order last week titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq." It could be interpreted as targeting the financial assets of any American who directly or indirectly aids someone who has committed or "poses a significant risk of committing" violent acts "threatening the peace or stability of Iraq" or who undermines "efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform" in the war-torn country. The text of the order, if interpreted broadly, could cast a far bigger net to include not just those who commit violent acts or pose the risk of doing so in Iraq, but also third parties -- such as U.S. citizens in this country -- who knowingly or unknowingly aid or encourage such people. The targeting of not just those who support perpetrators of violence but also those who support individuals who "pose a significant risk" of committing violence goes far beyond normal legal language related to intent and could be applied in a highly arbitrary manner, said Bruce Fein, a senior Justice Department official in the Reagan administration. Fein also questioned the executive order's inclusion of third parties, such as U.S. citizens who assist, sponsor or make "any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services" to assist people on the Treasury list. "What about a lawyer hired to get someone off the list?" Fein asked. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control keeps a "Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons" roll that includes those covered by several such executive orders. It most recently ran to 276 pages.

Note: To read the full text of the Executive Order, "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq," click here.

Obscurity has been Cheney's hallmark since he took office in January 2001, and that's the way he likes it. "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" he quipped in 2004. "It's a nice way to operate, actually." Cheney is ... the most powerful vice- president in American history. "He has expanded the power of the vice-president fiftyfold," says Bruce Fein, a lawyer who served in the Reagan administration. So dominant has he been in a traditionally submissive role that some commentators are now wondering whether it is time to drop the "V" from his title. "Cheney is de facto president in all areas of policy, bar just a few aspects of the domestic agenda," Fein says. It was obvious the Cheney vice-presidency was never going to stick to convention from the day in July 2000 George Bush announced his running mate. After all, the man who recommended Cheney for the job was ... Cheney. The Bush cabinet was formed in Cheney's image. Figures who were to become seminal -- Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Scooter Libby -- were all Cheney's people. September 11 2001 ... was the moment for which Cheney had been preparing for many years. Since his days as White House chief-of-staff to Gerald Ford, living with the fallout of Nixon's destruction, Cheney had harboured ambitions to hit back at Congress and reinstate the untrammelled authority of the president. Within hours of the attacks on New York and Washington, while Bush was still floundering around in Air Force One, Cheney had assembled a legal team within his own office and was actively planning how to roll back the restraints on the president's executive power that had been introduced in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate.

The U.S. Northern Command, the military command responsible for "homeland defense," has asked the Pentagon if it can establish its own special operations command for domestic missions. The request ... would establish a permanent sub-command for responses to incidents of domestic terrorism as well as other occasions where special operators may be necessary on American soil. The establishment of a domestic special operations mission, and the preparation of contingency plans to employ commandos in the United States, would upend decades of tradition. Military actions within the United States are the responsibility of state militias (the National Guard), and federal law enforcement is a function of the FBI. Employing special operations for domestic missions sounds very ominous, and NORTHCOM's request earlier this year should receive the closest possible Pentagon and congressional scrutiny. There's only one problem: NORTHCOM is already doing what it has requested permission to do. When NORTHCOM was established after 9/11 to be the military counterpart to the Department of Homeland Security, within its headquarters staff it established a Compartmented Planning and Operations Cell (CPOC) responsible for planning and directing a set of "compartmented" and "sensitive" operations on U.S., Canadian and Mexican soil. In other words, these are the very special operations that NORTHCOM is now formally asking the Pentagon to beef up into a public and acknowledged sub-command.

In demanding a congressional investigation into the aborted rescue during the attack of the USS Liberty and subsequent alleged cover-up [the following] conclusions [were] submitted in October 2003 to the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense by the USS Liberty Veterans Association, Inc.: 1. That on June 8, 1967 ... Israel launched a two-hour air and naval attack against USS Liberty ... inflicting 34 dead and 173 wounded American servicemen; 2. That ... unmarked Israeli aircraft dropped napalm canisters on USS Liberty's bridge and fired 30mm cannons and rockets into [the] ship; 3. That the torpedo boat attack involved not only the firing of torpedoes, but the machine-gunning of Liberty's firefighters and stretcher-bearers as they struggled to save their ship and crew; the Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine-gun at close range three of the Liberty's life rafts that had been lowered into the water by survivors to rescue the most seriously wounded; 4. That there is compelling evidence that Israel's attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew; evidence of such intent is supported by statements from Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Undersecretary of State George Ball, former CIA Director Richard Helms, former NSA Directors Lt. Gen. William Odom, USA (Ret.), Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, USN (Ret.), and Marshal Carter; former NSA deputy directors Oliver Kirby and Maj. Gen. John Morrison, USAF (Ret.); 6. The White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack.

Note: To view the BBC documentary about the USS Liberty attack, "Dead in the Water," click here. For more information about the USS Liberty, click here.

Former CIA director George J. Tenet bitterly complains in a forthcoming television interview that White House officials set him up as a scapegoat when they revealed that he had assured President Bush the intelligence on Iraq's suspected weapons arsenal was a "slam dunk." Tenet, who was one of the longest-serving CIA directors in U.S. history, resigned abruptly in June 2004 after administration infighting over the flawed intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. Bush awarded him the Medal of Freedom six months later. Tenet then remained publicly silent about his role in the presentation of prewar intelligence that turned out to be wrong. CBS News's "60 Minutes" released excerpts of its Tenet interview. In the interview, Tenet acknowledged that he used the phrase "slam dunk" during a conversation with Bush and other key advisers in December 2002. But Tenet said the phrase was an offhand remark used to describe the ease with which a public case for war could be made. Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward first wrote about the conversation between Tenet and Bush in his 2004 book "Plan of Attack." Bush told Woodward then that Tenet's "slam dunk" assurance had been "very important" as he weighed decisions about the invasion. In the television interview, Tenet takes special exception with Bush's comments. Tenet initially denied having used the phrase "slam dunk." But, in a 2005 speech at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, he said he regretted using the phrase to describe the case against Iraq. "Those were the two dumbest words I ever said," Tenet said.

Note: The head of the CIA admits he lied about something as vital as the use of a phrase involving gross manipulation of the public in support of war. Who else is lying here?

Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres of Chinese civilians. And then he became a U.S. spy. Newly declassified CIA records ... document more fully than ever how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War. The records [were] declassified in 2005 and 2006 under an act of Congress in tandem with Nazi war crime-related files. In addition to Tsuji ... conspicuous figures in U.S.-funded operations included [a] mob boss and war profiteer [and] former private secretary to Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister hanged as a war criminal in 1948. The assessments ... show evidence that other U.S. agencies, such as the Air Force, were also looking into using some of the same people as spies, and that the CIA itself had contacts with former Japanese war criminals. Historians long ago concluded that the Allies turned a blind eye to many Japanese war crimes, particularly those committed against other Asians. Some of Japan's most notorious wartime killers [came] under U.S. sponsorship. Tsuji, for instance, was wanted for involvement in the Bataan Death March of early 1942, in which thousands of Americans and Filipinos perished. The U.S. Air Force attempted unsuccessfully to recruit him after he was taken off the war crimes list in 1949. The Army considered him a potentially valuable source. [Yet] a CIA assessment from 1954 ... says: "Tsuji is the type of man who, given the chance, would start World War III without any misgivings."

Note: Those who claimed the U.S. government had links to former Nazi and Japanese war criminals were once called "conspiracy theorists." Why does it take over 50 years for the truth to come out? For more, click here.

The Pentagon has said it, the President has said it, everybody says it: "Our troops deserve nothing but the best when we send them into combat." It’s a goal that isn’t always met. Did a retired Marine colonel’s connections count more than the best design for a new vehicle for the troops? Jerry Bazinski has made a career of designing and helping to develop new vehicles here in Detroit for years. So when the Marines called for new vehicle small enough to load into an Osprey helicopter but lean and mean enough to allow soldiers to move quickly and launch attacks deep into enemy territory, Jerry and a team of veteran Detroit vehicle designers came up with [a model that] met or exceeded all the specifications. It was designed to provide for bullet-proof protection from enemy gunfire. It included a sturdy built-in roll-cage. And the Marines were impressed, as you can see from the report card that shows a whole list of many strengths ... and "no significant weaknesses." Well, here’s what the Marines ultimately bought ... a model known as the Growler that sort of looks like a dune buggy with a machine gun. Though it may seem it should have a lower sticker price, it’s turned out to cost us upwards of $127,000 a copy. Former Colonel Terry Crews ... sold the Marines on the Growler. [Investigative Reporter Steve] Wilson to Wayne Blake/Growler Plant Manager: That’s how he got this contract, he had some friends, didn’t he? Blake: Yeah, he lives 15 miles from the Pentagon. And the military version is $127,000. And if you bought it as a civilian version? 17,000.

Note: This article has disappeared from the website, though you can try this Google cache version. For a highly revealing, two-page summary by a top U.S. general on major war corruption, click here.

Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March. And then he became a U.S. spy. Newly declassified CIA records, released by the U.S. National Archives and examined by The Associated Press, document more fully than ever how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War. In addition to Tsuji, who escaped Allied prosecution and was elected to parliament in the 1950s, conspicuous figures in U.S.-funded operations included mob boss and war profiteer Yoshio Kodama, and Takushiro Hattori, former private secretary to Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister hanged as a war criminal in 1948. The CIA also cast a harsh eye on its counterparts — and institutional rivals — at G-2, the occupation's intelligence arm, providing evidence for the first time that the Japanese operatives often bilked gullible American patrons, passing on useless intelligence and using their U.S. ties to boost smuggling operations and further their efforts to resurrect a militarist Japan.

The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that ... about $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses. Of the $10 billion in overpriced contracts or undocumented costs, more than $2.7 billion were charged by Halliburton Co., the oil-field services company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk. More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall. "There is no accountability," said David M. Walker, who heads the auditing arm of Congress. "Organizations charged with overseeing contracts are not held accountable. Contractors are not held accountable. The individuals responsible are not held accountable." The investigators urged the Pentagon to reconsider its growing reliance on outside contractors. Layers of subcontractors, poor documentation and lack of strong contract management are rampant. Walker complained that GAO investigators have difficulty getting basic detail about reconstruction contracts such as expenses and subcontractors involved because many Pentagon divisions fail to consistently track or fully report them. Noting that auditors still have $300 billion of Iraq spending to review, Waxman said the total amount of waste, fraud and abuse "could be astronomical."

Note: To understand how so much money can go missing, read what a top U.S. general has to say here. And for major media articles claiming hundreds of billions of dollars are missing, click here.

A recent poll by the respected New York Times revealed that three out of four Americans now suspect the U.S. government of not telling the truth about 9/11. This proportion has shot up from a year ago, when half the population said they did not believe the official story. [The] accepted version of what happened on 9/11 is being challenged by a 90-minute internet movie, [Loose Change, which is] so popular that up to 100 million viewers have watched [it]. Why were no military aircraft scrambled in time to head off the attacks? How could a rookie pilot - as one of the terrorists was - fly a Boeing 757 aircraft so precisely into the Pentagon? The movie's assertions are being explored by a number of commentators in America and Britain. Former Labour Cabinet Minister Michael Meacher ... has said of 9/11: "Never in modern history has an event of such cataclysmic significance been shrouded in such mystery." These words were written in a foreword for Professor David Ray Griffin's bestselling book, The New Pearl Harbour. Griffin ... is emeritus professor at the Claremont School of Theology in California and a respected philosopher. Together, the book and the movie have raised the question: could the attack be a carbon copy of Operation Northwoods, an aborted plan by President Kennedy to stage terror attacks in America and blame them on Communist Cuba as a pretext for a U.S. invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro? Initially ... Professor Griffin dismissed claims the attacks could have been an inside job. It was only a year later ... that the professor was sent a 'timeline' on the day's events based entirely on newspaper and television accounts. It was then that he changed his mind.

Note: The timeline which opened Prof. Griffin's eyes was the two-page 9/11 timeline from WantToKnow.info available at http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up. This is the most supportive article yet by the mainstream media. The word is spreading. For lots more reliable, verifiable information on 9/11, click here.

In 1969, a year after he was elected U.S. president, Richard Nixon renounced the "use of any form of deadly biological weapons that either kill or incapacitate." Nixon's declaration is one of the few cheerful spots in "The Living Weapon," a PBS program that [aired] Feb. 5. The U.S. got into the germ-warfare business in 1942 at the request of Britain, which feared that Adolf Hitler was cooking up world-class pestilence in his labs. As it turns out, Hitler early on ordered that "there was to be no offensive biological weapons research." His benevolence may have been the result of having been gassed in World War I, the show suggests. The U.S. program, headquartered at Fort Detrick, Maryland, ... used human subjects, though many were volunteers. Most were Seventh-Day Adventists, who as conscientious objectors refused to bear arms. About 2,200 of them agreed to inhale various non-lethal agents that made them, as one expert says, "pig sick." The idea behind the experiment, the show says, was that a sick soldier in the field creates a much greater strain on an army than a dead one. The government also bombarded several U.S. cities with simulants -- non-infectious bacteria -- to assess how biological agents spread. Targets in that super-secret program included San Francisco, St. Louis and Minneapolis. The end to the U.S. development program may have been partly the result of a 1969 Utah incident in which an "errant cloud" of nerve gas was held responsible for killing some 6,000 sheep.

Note: The "non-infectious bacteria" sprayed on the public infected a dozen people and killed at least one man, according to this media report, and likely more. For key reports from reliable sources on US government experimentation on human subjects, click here.

The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries including Iran and China who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components. In one case ... a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ... say those parts made it to Iran. In [another] case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again -- customs evidence tags still attached -- to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran. That incident appalled even an expert on weaknesses in Pentagon surplus security controls. Sensitive military surplus items are supposed to be demilitarized or "de-milled" rendered useless for military purposes or, if auctioned, sold only to buyers who promise to obey U.S. arms embargoes, export controls and other laws. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million worth including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors. Investigators have found the Pentagon's inventory and sales controls rife with errors.

Britain's former top Iraq expert at the United Nations said in previously secret testimony that most government officials did not believe Iraq posed a threat in the months leading to the U.S.-led invasion. Carne Ross ... told a House of Commons committee that he and other analysts believed that Iraq had only a "very limited" ability to mount an attack of any kind, including one using weapons of mass destruction. The committee published Ross' testimony after assuring him that parliamentary privilege would protect him from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. "It was the commonly held view among officials that the threat had been contained," Ross said in the written testimony. "Iraq's ability to launch a WMD or any form of attack was very limited. Iraq's air force was depleted to the point of total ineffectiveness; its army was but a pale shadow of its earlier might; there was no evidence of any connection between Iraq and any terrorist organization that might have planned an attack," he wrote. During the months leading up to the war, he said, there was no new evidence that Saddam Hussein posed a threat. "What changed was the government's determination to present available evidence in a different light," he testified. Ross told the committee that he resigned from the government in September 2004 because of his misgivings over the war. John Major, Britain's former prime minister, raised concerns ... that other issues remain to be resolved, including the distribution of oil revenues.

Note: This recently released testimony was given in 2004, but kept secret for reasons of "national security."

Japan has again been forced to confront its wartime conduct after a former doctor in the country's imperial navy admitted he had conducted experiments on Filipino prisoners during the second world war. Akira Makino, 84, said in an interview with the Kyodo news agency that he had performed surgery and amputations on dozens of prisoners of war before they were executed in the Philippines. Mr Makino is one of several former Japanese soldiers who decided to reveal the truth about their country's use of human guinea pigs before they die. Unit 731, the imperial Japanese army's notorious germ warfare unit, killed thousands of Chinese civilians and Allied PoWs at its sprawling complex in Harbin, northern China. The victims ... were injected with typhus, cholera and other diseases. They died during the experiments or were executed to prevent them from talking about their experiences. As the end of the war approached, the unit destroyed evidence of their activities. The extent of their activities only came to light following testimony from repentant former doctors, soldiers and nurses. US authorities secretly granted unit officials immunity from prosecution in return for access to years of research into biological weapons. Several former Unit 731 officials went on to enjoy prominent careers in medicine, academia and business. Mr Makino ... said he remained haunted by memories of the experiments. "We should not repeat that misery again," he said. "I want to tell the truth about the war."

Note: Explore a list depicting the rampant use of humans as guinea pigs in government, military, and medical experiments over the last century.

The US defence department has set up a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet. The Pentagon said the move would boost its ability to counter "inaccurate" news stories and exploit new media. The newly-established unit would use "new media" channels to push its message and "set the record straight", Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said. A Pentagon memo seen by the Associated Press news agency said the new unit would "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and aim to "correct the record". The unit would reportedly monitor media such as weblogs and would also employ "surrogates", or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.

BLITZER: Let's check in with Jack Cafferty right now. JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: The House just passed President Bush's bill to redefine the treatment of detainees, and the Senate's expected to do the same thing tomorrow. Buried deep inside this legislation is a provision that will pardon President Bush and all the members of his administration of any possible crimes connected with the torture and mistreatment of detainees dated all the way back to September 11, 2001. At least President Nixon had Gerald Ford to do his dirty work. President Bush is trying to pardon himself. Under the War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva Conventions are felonies. In some cases, punishable by death. When the Supreme Court ruled the Geneva Conventions applied to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, President Bush and his boys were suddenly in big trouble. They had been working these prisoners over pretty good. In an effort to avoid possible prosecution, they're trying to cram this bill through Congress before the end of the week when Congress adjourns. The reason there's such a rush to do this, if the Democrats get control of the House in November, well, this kind of legislation probably wouldn't pass. You want to know the real disgrace of what these people are about to do or are in the process of doing? Senator Bill Frist and Congressman Dennis Hastert and their Republican stooges apparently don't see anything wrong with this. I really do wonder sometimes what we're becoming in this country. The question is this: Should Congress pass a bill giving retroactive immunity to President Bush for possible war crimes?

Note: To watch a video clip of this broadcast, click here.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., [Herbert Reed] ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another. They began to talk. [They] all have depleted uranium in their urine. The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks. The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations. Fifteen years after it was first used in battle, there is only one U.S. government study monitoring veterans exposed to depleted uranium. Number of soldiers in the survey: 32. Depleted uranium falls into the quagmire of Gulf War Syndrome, from which no treatment has emerged. About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer [this] baffling array of symptoms. Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor. It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange...was linked to [major disease and] sufferings. It took 40 years for the military to compensate sick World War II vets exposed to massive blasts of radiation during tests of the atomic bomb.

Note: Why isn't the media reporting more on this health disaster? For lots more on how veterans suffer from corporate and governmental denial and manipulations, see what a highly decorated U.S. General has to say on the suffering of soldiers at http://www.WantToKnow.info/warcoverup. For an amazingly revealing documentary with interviews from top sources on the depleted uranium cover-up, click here.

I reported on eight of the [Downing Street] memos while working at the Daily Telegraph in September 2004. I then moved to the Sunday Times, where I obtained the other two memos. Why did the US newspapers take so long to pick up on the story? The memos were so momentous in what they told us about how Bush and Blair went to war...that they surely had to be reported. They were not only “the smoking gun” that proved all the lies; they also proved the lack of planning for the aftermath; the fraudulent use of the UN to make the war legal; and...the way in which the allies began the war...months before they went to the UN or Congress to get backing for war. The memo actually says...that the Prime Minister agreed at Crawford in April 2002 to go to war, so the British needed to "create the conditions" which would make the war legal under international law. In the wake of 9/11, the US media were initially prevented from any criticism of the administration. Then when the need to criticize became unavoidable, they were cowed by administration claims that it helped the terrorists. There is something grotesque about Bush saying that his administration is setting “a forward strategy for freedom” around the world while it is attempting at the same time to bully the US press back into submission at home. I don’t for one moment believe it will succeed. But none of us can afford to be complacent.

MI5 is facing an internal revolt by officers alarmed about intelligence failures and the lack of resources to fight Islamic terrorism. To illustrate their concern, agents have leaked more topsecret documents to The Sunday Times because they want a public inquiry into the “missed intelligence” leading up to the July attacks in London. They believe ministers have withheld information from the public about what the security services knew about the suspects before the bombing of July 7 and the abortive attacks of July 21. The documents include an admission by John Scarlett, head of SIS, the secret intelligence service (also known as MI6), that one of the July 21 suspects was tracked on a trip to Pakistan just months before the attempted bombings. MI5, which is responsible for national security, allowed the July 21 suspect to travel to Pakistan after he was detained and interviewed at a British airport. It stopped monitoring him because it said “the Pakistani authorities assessed that he was doing nothing of significance”. They are critical of Blair, who has ruled out an inquiry saying it would distract the security services from fighting terrorism. The assessment echoes a decision by MI5 to halt surveillance on two of the July 7 bombers 16 months before the attacks. Both were filmed and taped by MI5 agents as they met two men allegedly plotting to carry out a terrorist attack in England.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.