I wish he’d stay there……

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The plane carrying Vice President Dick Cheney from Australia to the United States was diverted to Singapore on Sunday because of unspecified problems, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.

“I am not aware of the full circumstances and I have not been told except that it has been diverted,” Howard told reporters in Sydney.

“As to the precise circumstances I’m not as yet advised,” he said.

Australian media including Sky Television and Australian Associated Press reported that the plane had experienced unspecified mechanical problems.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. consulate in Sydney said she was not aware of the circumstances or of Cheney’s proposed route and referred further questions to the White House.

The United States embassy in Singapore said it was not aware of any problems with Cheney’s plane or of his planned route.

Cheney’s plane left Sydney’s international airport at about 9 a.m. (2200 GMT Saturday) to return to the United States.

Cheney was in Sydney as part of a trip to thank Washington’s Iraq war allies Japan and Australia and to reassure them that President George W. Bush’s plans to inject 21,500 more troops would help quell violence.

More at Reuters

Cat Stevens
Another Saturday Night

In Diyala, the vast province northeast of Baghdad where Sunnis and Shiites are battling for primacy with mortars and nighttime abductions, the U.S. government has contracted the job of promoting democracy to a Pakistani citizen who has never lived or worked in a democracy.

The management of reconstruction projects in the province has been assigned to a Border Patrol commander with no reconstruction experience. The task of communicating with the embassy in Baghdad has been handed off to a man with no background in drafting diplomatic cables. The post of agriculture adviser has gone unfilled because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided just one of the six farming experts the State Department asked for a year ago.

“The people our government has sent to Iraq are all dedicated, well-meaning people, but are they really the right people — the best people — for the job?” asked Kiki Skagen Munshi, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer who, until last month, headed the team in Diyala that included the Pakistani democracy educator and the Border Patrol commander. “If you can’t get experts, it’s really hard to do an expert job.”

Read more at MSNBC

H/T G for this post!

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Michigan’s first female U.S. attorney says she is stepping down, prompting speculation that she is the latest in a wave of resignations forced by the Bush administration.

Margaret M. Chiara, 63, said Friday she would resign her position effective March 16, but did not say why. She said in a statement issued by her office that she intends to remain in public service.

Chiara was unavailable for comment Friday because she was attending to personal matters, an aide said.

Seven other U.S. attorneys have been forced to resign in recent months. Democrats have accused the Bush administration of forcing the resignations to make way for political allies.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Chiara’s resignation “could well be one of them. Now that this shoe has dropped, we-ll be continuing to seek better explanations than those we-ve been given.”
Read more at MSNBC

H/T G for this post!

On Sunday February 25th, 60 Minutes (on CBS at 7 p.m. ET/PT) will air a segment about the Appeal for Redress. The segment will feature a number of the service members who have signed the Appeal. The Appeal states;

“As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.”

Navy Petty Officer Johnathan Hutto, one of the Iraq war veterans who started the drive, along with others, spoke to 60 Minutes off duty, off base and out of uniform as a concerned citizen. Hutto says “But at the same time, as citizens, it’s our obligation to have a questioning attitude … about policy.” A co-founder, Marine Sgt. Liam Madden states, “Just because we volunteered for the military doesn’t mean we volunteered to put our lives in unnecessary harm and to carry out missions that are illogical and immoral.” Many of the signees have similar feelings and in addition want to protect their rights to voice their own opinions regarding the war.

On January 16th 2007, representatives of the Appeal for Redress publicly voiced their opposition to the war in Iraq by bringing the individual petitions of over 1,300 active-duty and reserve members of the military to the attention of Congress. The Appeal for Redress, was started by active duty service members. About 60% of signees have served at least one tour of duty in Iraq. The service members who started this ongoing appeal felt that it was important for them to take a clear stand on the issue.

Continue reading here

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 24 - Venezuela’s arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America’s largest weapons buyer and placing it ahead of other major purchasers in international arms markets like Pakistan and Iran.

Venezuelan military and government officials here say the arms acquisitions, which include dozens of fighter jets and attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, are needed to circumvent a ban by the United States on sales of American weapons to the country.

They also argue that Venezuela must strengthen its defenses to counter potential military aggression from the United States.

“The United States has tried to paralyze our air power,” Gen. Alberto Muller Rojas, a member of President Hugo Chávez’s general staff, said in an interview, citing a recent effort by the Bush administration to prevent Venezuela from acquiring replacement parts for American F-16s bought in the 1980s. “We are feeling threatened and like any sovereign nation we are taking steps to strengthen our territorial defense,” he said.

Read more at the New York Times

Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby, a Navy corpsman whose efforts to save a wounded marine in Iraq and his own wounding by a sniper on Christmas were covered by The New York Times, has returned home to Georgia and expects a nearly full recovery, he and his family said.

He returned escorted by a police honor guard early this month, after his discharge from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and four operations during five weeks of care.

Petty Officer Kirby, 23, was struck by a bullet in the left side of the face while near a bunker on the roof of Outpost Omar, a Marine position in Karma, a city in Anbar Province.

His injury mixed the worst of luck with an uncanny stroke of good fortune.

The bullet, which he said was an armor-piercing 7.62 millimeter round fired from a Dragunov’style sniper rifle at a range of 400 to 600 yards, passed through his head and exited at the side of his mouth. In traveling this path, it did not strike his brain, spinal column or major veins or arteries, he said.

Immediately after the bullet’s impact, Petty Officer Kirby remained conscious and could walk. He communicated by writing notes. But his condition deteriorated, he and officers in his battalion said, from blood loss and trauma to the roof of his mouth and the base of his skull.

Although officers in the unit to which he was assigned, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, initially thought he had lost his ability to speak, since undergoing the operations he has recovered a voice that is only slightly slurred.

“I-m doing a lot better than most people would expect,” he said by telephone from Hiram, Ga.

Petty Officer Kirby had been assigned as a trauma medic to the battalion’s weapons company. In early November he was the subject of an article that described his work and prayers to save the life of his friend, Lance Cpl. Colin Smith, a machine gunner in the vehicle’s turret who was shot through the skull by a sniper in Karma in late October.

Lance Corporal Smith, 19, survived, and is undergoing treatment and full days of intensive therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis. His father, Bob Smith, said by telephone that while his prognosis is unclear he has made significant progress.

The bullet, the same type that struck Petty Officer Kirby, destroyed the top regions of both frontal lobes of Lance Corporal Smith’s brain. But since being medically stabilized and beginning a range of therapies, he has begun to walk with assistance and a four-pronged cane, to smile and to mimic sounds and repeat words he hears, his father said.

Mr. Smith also said his son recognized relatives and was in very good spirits, often laughing, acting playfully and twinkling his eyes.

Continue reading at the New York Times

Meanwhile, a fuel tanker bomb kills 37 in western Iraq

Britain said yesterday it will increase its troop strength in southern Afghanistan to bolster NATO forces battling Taliban militants, days after Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was pulling some British troops out of Iraq.

British media said 1,000 more soldiers would be sent to Afghanistan to join the more than 5,000 British troops already there.

Defence Minister Des Browne confirmed the deployment, but would not provide specific numbers.

Browne said the government made the decision to boost its forces after last week’s meeting of NATO defence ministers in Spain in which the alliance urged countries to send more troops.

“NATO must respond to this request, or we will put at risk everything we have achieved across Afghanistan in the last five years,” Browne said, adding that full details of the deployment would be announced Monday in Parliament.

More at Reuters

With about 20,000 additional American troops heading to Baghdad as part of the new security crackdown, Mixon said he has “only one little brigade covering all of Diyala.” A brigade is the smallest self’sufficient unit in the U.S. Army, and typically consists of between 1,500 and 3,500 soldiers.

Dejavu……. so we’ll TRY and secure Baghdad and in the meantime, violence will rage elsewhere because of it. Great plan George!!!

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) - A U.S. general warned Saturday that increased Sunni attacks in a province extremists call the center of their Islamic state in Iraq may delay plans to hand it over to Iraqi troops by the end of the year.

Plans call for all provinces to be transferred to Iraqi security control by Dec. 31, with the hope that U.S. troops could begin to leave. But increased attacks by Sunni insurgents could delay the transfer of Diyala, just northeast of Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon told The Associated Press.

Direct fire attacks on U.S. soldiers in the province are up 70 percent since last summer, said Col. David W. Sutherland, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd Brigade. The security crackdown in Baghdad has also encouraged mostly Sunni extremists to flee the capital for surrounding provinces, especially Diyala, Mixon said.

Read more here

OBAMA RIDICULES CHENEY’S COMMENTS

DON’T MESS WITH THE SENIOR CITIZENS!

RATS GONE WILD!!!

CHENEY LEAVES MILITARY OPTION OPEN AGAINST IRAN

ISRAEL WANTS TO FLY THROUGH IRAQ

U.S. FORBIDS ISRAEL/SYRIA TALKS

U.S./S. KOREA SET 2012 FOR MILITARY COMMAND CHANGE

DEMOLITION OF THE WILLING

SHIITES DECRY DETENTION OF LEADER’S SON

VIETNAM VET GETS MEDAL OF HONOR…..41 YEARS LATER

MILITARY DEFENDS ARREST OF LEADER’S SON

AMERICANS UNDERESTIMATE IRAQI DEATH TOLL

RED CROSS DEPLORES WORSENING CONDITIONS IN DARFUR