Poor Mojo's Newswire

They were taken by surprise and realized what had happened when I was flying back to Iran. This was whilst we didn't even visit the Green Zone, which is Baghdad's safest area. The interesting point is that Bush, the US president, hasn't even stayed overnight in Iraq.

Elsewhere, the president said: Twice, Bush made a serious decision to attack Iran this year and last year. However, this country failed to take such action due to opposition from its military commanders.

The president said that attacking Iran had become Bush's obsession, and added: He even proposed to his advisors that they attack one or two Iranian cities. However, after the advisors disagreed, he called for Iran's sound barrier to be broken. But, every time Bush's advisors and military commanders stressed that any attack on Iran would create a hell which would be against US interests.

He stressed: God willing, US officials will take this wish to the grave with them.

Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley sees a "very frightening bill" in a proposed "compromise," currently in the House, that would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to effectively grant immunity from civil lawsuits to telecommunications companies that agreed to spy on their customers as part of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, starting shortly before the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. If the White House asked a phone company to spy with its assurance that it was legal, the measure says, that's enough to dismiss a case. Congressional Democrats, Turley went on, knew about surveillance and torture programs, but were politically unable to oppose them at the same time they were touting themselves to the public as defenders of civil liberties. The bill, he said, is part of a campaign of collusion between Congress and the Bush administration, immunizing not only the telecommunications companies, but the administration and any members of Congress, on either side of the aisle, that may have been involved.... "People need to be very, very much aware of this bill," [Turley] charged. "What you're seeing in this bill is an evisceration of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. It is something that allows the President and the government to go into law-abiding homes, on their word alone--their suspicion alone--and to engage in warrantless surveillance.

Chief CBS News foreign correspondent Lara Logan, who recently returned from Iraq, appeared on Tuesday’s Daily Show. The outspoken Logan — who has stated in the past that Americans have no idea how badly the war is going because of the suppression of pictures of American casualties — made no attempt to hide her contempt for American coverage of the Iraq and Afghan Wars. “Do you watch the news that we’re watching in the United States?” Stewart asked. “Do you see what we’re hearing about the war?” “No,” replied Logan. “If I were to watch the news that you hear in the United States, I’d just blow my brains out, because it would drive me nuts.” Logan explained how difficult it is to get the network interested in her stories. “I’m on high-value target raids, taking down some of the most wanted Taliban fighters and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, and I’m told … ‘Unless it’s Osama bin Laden, who cares about — you know, Mullah bin Shagged, whatever?’” “Are we just numb?” Stewart asked. “Have we lost our humanity with this entire situation?” “Yeah, we have,” agreed Logan. “Nobody really understands. And the soldiers do feel forgotten. … We may be tired of hearing about this five years later. They still have to go out and do the same job. … More soldiers died in Afghanistan last month than Iraq. Who’s paying attention to that?”

The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.