Jeff Beck
Drown in My Own Tears

I think I’ve posted this before, but I love Beck sooooooo much, and I love this song. So here it is again……..

Ya, that’s quite a democracy they got going on in Iraq!

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A new video of Saddam Hussein’s corpse, with a gaping neck wound, was posted on the Internet early Tuesday, the second leaked release of clandestine pictures from the former leader’s hanging.

The video appeared to have been taken with a camera phone, like the graphic video of the hanging which showed guards taunting Saddam in the final moments of his life.

The footage pans up the shrouded body of the former leader from the feet. It apparently was taken shortly after Saddam was executed and placed on a gurney. He was hanged shortly before dawn on Dec. 30.

As the panning shot reaches the head region, the white shroud is pulled back and reveals Saddam’s head and neck.

His head is unnaturally twisted at a 90 degree angle to his right. It shows a gaping bloody wound, circular in shape, about an inch below his jaw line on the left side of his neck. His left cheek is marked with red blotches, and there is blood on the shroud where it covered his head.

Read more here

Tony Blair will make clear this week that Britain is not going to send more troops to Iraq even if the US pushes ahead with a “surge” of 20,000 extra soldiers.

The Prime Minister will insist that the UK will stick to its own strategy of gradually handing over to the Iraqi army, as it has been doing with success in Basra and the south.

President Bush will announce a new US policy for Iraq either tomorrow or Wednesday. There are currently 140,000 US troops in Iraq, compared to 7,000 British servicemen and women. Mr Blair, in a rare distancing from White House policy, has been keen for Britain to be seen to be acting under its own initiative.

Chancellor Gordon Brown said yesterday that as Prime Minister he would conduct a foreign policy based firmly on British interests.

Source here

In a signal that he could be open to working more closely with congressional Democrats rather than stonewalling, President Bush plans to name the widely respected Republican lawyer Fred F. Fielding as White House counsel this week, party sources tell TIME. Fielding, who held the same position under President Ronald Reagan, will succeed the President’s friend Harriet Miers, who last week announced her resignation, effective Jan. 31. An official who has been briefed on the impending announcement, which could come as soon as Tuesday, called Fielding “the ultimate Washington lawyer-insider - he’s the man to see.”

“He’s the guy who helps you defend your position, stick to your principles, but tries to work out a reasonable compromise,” the official said. “He’s highly partisan, but he’s highly regarded by everyone.” The idea came from Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, and Administration officials said they regarded it as a savvy choice. The selection of Fielding, a member of the 9/11 commission from 2002 to 2004, comes as the White House is gearing up for a multitude of investigations - and likely subpoenas - from Democrats, who took control of both chambers of Congress last week with a vow to pursue aggressive oversight and deny the White House blank checks for Iraq or anything else.

Read more at Time.com

Jan 8, 2007 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey will make an announcement on Iran at a news conference on Tuesday, the Treasury said on Monday.

A Treasury spokeswoman declined to provide further details about the announcement, scheduled for 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT), but the Bush administration has been ratcheting up pressure against Iran over its nuclear enrichment program.

The scheduled news conference comes three after weeks the United Nations Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Iran’s trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology in an effort to halt enrichment work that could be used to produce nuclear bombs. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

As Treasury’s point man for combating terrorist financing and money laundering, Levey has warned international banks in recent months to watch for flows of money from Iran to finance illicit activities such as terrorism or weapons proliferation.

In September, Levey announced measures to cut off one of Iran’s main state-owned banks from dealings with the U.S. financial system, accusing the Iranian government of using the bank to transfer money to terrorist organizations.

Read more at ABC News

Too good to pass up they said…… in 2002 this guy was the mastermind on an attack on an Israeli hotel in Kenya, and the attempted shootdown of an Israeli airliner. Oh ok….I see…..we’re doing Israel’s bombing for them now.

CBS/AP) A U.S. Air Force gunship has conducted a strike against suspected members of al Qaeda in Somalia, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports exclusively.

The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa, Martin reports. Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people.

The AC-130 gunship is capable of firing thousands of rounds per second, and sources say a lot of bodies were seen on the ground after the strike, but there is as yet, no confirmation of the identities.

The gunship flew from its base in Dijibouti down to the southern tip of Somalia, Martin reports, where the al Qaeda operatives had fled after being chased out of the capital of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops backed by the United States.

Once they started moving, the al Qaeda operatives became easier to track, and the U.S. military started preparing for an air strike, using unmanned aerial drones to keep them under surveillance and moving the aircraft carrier Eisenhower out of the Persian Gulf toward Somalia. But when the order was given, the mission was assigned to the AC-130 gunship operated by the U.S. Special Operations command.

Read more at CBS News

The decider has decided there hasn’t been quite enough deaths yet.

Sources: Iraq plan calls for more troops, more spending

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush’s new plan for Iraq will call for increasing the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad — and perhaps other areas — by at least 20,000, sources said.

Debate within the Bush administration has been whether to send troops all in as a “big bang” force right away, or phase them in from month to month, contingent on whether the Iraqi leadership meets certain political and military goals, sources said.

“The whole struggle — has been for weeks and even months — is: What is [Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki] going to do about [radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr]?” one source said.

The phased-in approach “seems to be winning the day,” the sources said.

“It also allows the Pentagon to get its people ready to go,” one said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, cautioned Sunday that if Bush calls for additional U.S. troops for Iraq, he will have to show the Democratic-controlled Congress why more money should be poured into the war. (Full story)

Sources familiar with Bush’s deliberations said White House speechwriters worked “around the clock” over the weekend to prepare the address for the plan’s critical midweek unveiling.

Over the next few days, the president will review and rework the speech, expected to be delivered Wednesday.

The plan had been dubbed “A New Way Forward” as of last week.

Aspects of it have been widely agreed upon, although the plan’s not final, said three sources familiar with deliberations.

Read more at CNN.com

Bush’s latest……he’s going to establish “benchmarks” for Iraqis. Oh ok…..alittle late isn’t it? Like almost 4 years too late?

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush’s new Iraq policy will establish a series of goals that the Iraqi government will be expected to meet to try to stabilize the country politically and economically, The New York Times reported on its website.

Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said these “benchmarks” will call for drawing more Sunnis into the political process, finalizing a long-delayed measure on the distribution of oil revenue and easing the government’s policy toward former Baath Party members.

Without saying what the specific penalties for failing to achieve the goals would be, US officials insisted that they intended to hold the Iraqis to a realistic timetable for action, the report said.

The Americans and Iraqis have agreed on many of the objectives before, only to fall far short, The New York Times pointed out.

Bush is expected to refer to the benchmarks in a much-anticipated speech this week outlining his new Iraq strategy, including plans to send as many as 20,000 additional troops, according to the report.

Administration officials plan to make the benchmarks public sometime after the address, the paper said.

“This is not an open-ended commitment,” the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying. “We are putting real specific requirements and expectations on the Iraqi government.”

Read more at YahooNews