] Former President Bill Clinton on Thursday said the Bush
] administration should not take action against Iraq
] without guidance from chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans
] Blix and the support of Europe.

CNN.com - Clinton: 'Follow Blix lead' on Iraq, gain support of Europe - Feb. 14, 2003

] "This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and
] therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly
] in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they
] found out that this information was not true," said Vince
] Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and
] ABCNEWS consultant.

ABCNEWS.com : Alert Partly Based on Lies

This is very good. Tony Blair is asked many of the questions that one might ask him about this Iraq situation, and is taken to task, and he defends his position. Both good critical journalism and well handled by Blair as well. However, its an hour and a half long. Be prepared.

[IP] British Prime Minister Tony Blair cross-examined on the BBC

] The U.S. government Friday raised the national threat
] level to "orange," indicating a "high risk of terrorist
] attacks."

CNN.com - Ashcroft, Ridge, Mueller announce threat level increase - Feb. 7, 2003

] The United Nations will sanction war with Iraq within
] weeks if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, UK Prime
] Minister Tony Blair has insisted.

CNN.com - Blair: U.N. will back war in weeks - Feb. 1, 2003

] The Bush administration is preparing to release
] supersensitive electronic intercepts obtained by the
] National Security Agency that officials say prove that
] Iraq has repeatedly lied to United Nations inspectors,
] plotted among themselves about how to conceal weapons
] material and even appeared to boast afterward at their
] success in doing so, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Caught on Tape: Iraq evidence to be provided to UN

] "It's scary, okay?" he says. "Let's face it: There are
] guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in
] operational planning for their entire lives, okay? . . .
] And for this wisdom, acquired during many operations,
] wars, schools, for that just to be ignored, and in its
] place have somebody who doesn't have any of that
] training, is of concern."

Schwarzkopf on the impending war. There is a lot of interesting content in this article, and there is a lot of journalistic fluff. Read the quotes from Schwarzkopf himself and the commentary at the end about heros. Skip all the stuff in the middle about Schwarzkopf's reputation. Its a labored attempt to find an unrelated reason to discount his opinion and it fails.

Desert Caution (washingtonpost.com)

] President Bush's policy toward Iraq is in distress, and
] the reason is stunningly simple: His administration
] hasn't made a very effective public case for war with
] Saddam Hussein.

[IP] When the Wall Street Journal starts asking why are we invading Iraq...

] In response to the editorial concerns about his independence,
] Mr. Kissinger said, "I think The New York Times will
] apologize for this editorial when our report is submitted."
]
] He promised that the report would be "nonpartisan, thorough
] and something that will permit the American people, when
] it is finished, to say that a full accounting has been given
] of the facts and circumstances that led to this tragedy."

Kissigner is upset with NYT over their editorial. It takes some guts to directly address such criticism. Most of these sort of people simply ignore it.

RE: Kissinger Returning to Political Stage With 9/11 Post

...sort of. People who want to believe in a conspiracy will do so regardless. And of course, I can't trust this guys reporting any better then anyone else's. However, it seems reasonably sober.

I meme this for one reason alone. I concur with the author that I want to know what the deal was with insider trading on the 911 event. No one has ever explained what the story was there. It just faded away. Its worth recalling every once in a while that there are loose ends that people are being awefully quiet about. I can't even think of a good set of circumstances that would lead them to simply trapping up about that.

As for the flight, I think its possible that they shot it down. We know that this was AUTHORIZED so if we are going to have a problem with it, we ought to. I don't. Furthermore, put yourself in their shoes, trying to figure out how to explain this, and imagine that hero story poping up. Yeah, I'd keep my mouth shut too. It doesn't matter except as a matter of policy, and if the policy issue should be debated, then we have standing to do so, because they were authorized to shoot it down. I don't disagree with the policy decision. Do you?

911 Conspiracy theories debunked...