State Dept. Accused Of Impeding Iraq Probe

(CBS/AP)  A House lawmaker on Tuesday complained to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the alleged muzzling of State Department officials in inquiries involving Blackwater USA and Iraq's government.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the State Department had informed the committee that State employees could not discuss potential corruption in the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unless the information was treated as a national security secret.

Blackwater USA, the North Carolina-based security contractor involved in the deaths of civilians in Iraq this month, has also claimed that the State Department had banned company communication with Waxman's investigators, the lawmaker said.

"I urge you to reconsider the unusual positions you are taking," Waxman wrote to Rice. "You are wrong to interfere with the committee's inquiry."

The State Department said it was cooperating with the committee and is providing the information requested.

"Blackwater has been informed that the State Department has no objection to it providing information to the committee," said Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman. "We have offered to make available for testimony those officials in the best position to respond to the specific issues the committee has raised."

Waxman said his staff was told Monday that State Department officials with what he called "direct knowledge of corruption within the Maliki government" were barred from giving the committee "assessments which judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance," or Baghdad's ability to address corruption, unless the material was withheld from the public.

In the Blackwater matter, Waxman said the company claimed that the State Department insisted on reviewing and approving any documents the company gave to the committee.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a letter sent last week to a senior Blackwater executive by a State Department official ordered the company "to make no disclosure of the documents or information" about its work in Iraq without approval.

Waxman also said Rice has refused to testify before his committee about the status of political reconciliation in Iraq, potential corruption or the Blackwater incident.

Rice has ordered a review of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq following the killing of 11 Iraqis this month while Blackwater guards were protecting a U.S. Embassy convoy.

Waxman has scheduled a hearing on the Blackwater incident for next Tuesday, the Times reported, but Blackwater attorneys said the State Department's letter may make it "difficult, if not impossible" for company executives to testify.

Waxman and Rice tangled earlier this year when she refused to appear in person to answer questions about the Bush administration's prewar intelligence. Rice said she already has addressed claims that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger.

[pastdue1]

POSTED BY PWRSIM AT 09:37
''Ya, it would be real smart to tell the insurgents how they work. Answer all the questions,"
Of course, they need to make it plain that they will shoot anyone who gets in their way. Obviously, that has never been a secret in Iraq ~ but it was a secret to the American taxpayer. Please, are you so simple-minded as to believe that the insurgents do not know how they work. In fact, many of the mercenaries themselves will sell whatever information is needed and, indeed, have sold many of the arms that the insurgents use against our US servicemen. Blackwater does not protect the United States of America, they protect their own company and those who specifically hire them to insure that their contract is secure. While the taxpayer does not doubt that perhaps hiring a security company to do what Blackwater is doing is necessary and frees the army to fight and die at a pittance of what the mercenaries earn; it is stupid of the USA to hire them without any oversight and have no way to stem the rogue behavior of this particular company. They are a reflection of the integrity of this administration and, unfortunately, the United States of America.

[pastdue1]

Posted by pwrslm at 09:37 AM : Sep 27, 2007
"Provide security to non-military entities working for the US Govt, and dignitaries visiting the place?"
They also provide security to the military, Gen P. and supposedly guard the oil fields among other places that is near and dear to the hearts of the administration. They are paid very well for any danger they may encounter. And, that company is paid for by the American taxpayer.

[getloud1]

**** TAKE AMERICA BACK ****
**** STOP THE WAR & Corporate Corruption****

He has NEVER voted:
* to raise taxes
* for an unbalanced budget
* to raise congressional pay
* for a federal restriction on gun ownership
* to increase the power of the executive branch

He HAS voted:
* against the Iraq war
* against the inappropriately named USA PATRIOT act
* against regulating the internet
* against the Military Commissions Act

He will eliminate the IRS, Wasteful Government Spending & Stop The Iraq War Immediately!

Most importantly, he voted NO on anything in Congress that is not allowed by the Constitution.

He is the only candidate not a member of the CFR!

Shouldn''t ALL members of Congress uphold the Constitution? Aren''t they SWORN to uphold it? You can bet Paul WON''T call the Constitution "just a G**D***ed piece of paper" like George Bush is reported to have.

If you want a candidate you can TRUST due to a proven track record, visit www.ronpaul2008.com and get busy spreading the word. The Mainstream Media is Blacking Out The Truth Spoke By Ron Paul!

Join The ReVoLuTiOn In Your City Stand Up America:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/cities/

Also checkout http://www.youtube.com search for: RON PAUL

[lars008-2009]

DEMONIC-RATS LEAD The Chorus of Useful Idiots

Leftist Support of Islamist Terror
Most shocking is the outright sympathy of many leftist-liberals for Islamic fascism. They said little about the murder of 500 Russian civilians, many of them children, but screamed week after week because some Arab savage at Abu Ghraib prison wore a bag on his head. They cared nothing about the beheadings committed by the Islamo-savages or the execution of 12 Nepalese. David Horowitz gives an excellent discussion of who this "Left" really is. He calls them neo-communist, I call them Leftist-Liberals. I''m a classical Liberal myself and I feel it''s time to remove this irrational element that has been allowed to poison our good name.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/list.htm
The Chorus of Useful Idiots
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/thornton.htm
Supporters of Muslim Terrorism on the un-Religious Left
http://www.sullivan-county.com/id2/index1.htm
Exposing Leftists'' Radical Islam Connection
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/left_islam.htm
Definitions, Lies, and Losing Your Head
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/def_lies.htm
Shocking (Liberal) Silence
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/leftist_silence.htm
See no evil: Why the Left is blind to suffering
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/no_evil.htm
When is violent speech still free speech?
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/speech.htm

[pwrslm]

When you hire someone to do a job, you have a right to expect that you will be told about every incident involving that job, even the unpleasant. We, the American taxpayer, hired these people (although many of us still don''''t know it)and we should not be refused any information we need to make an educated opinion as to the ramifications .

Posted by pastdue1

So what do these guys do? Provide security to non-military entities working for the US Govt, and dignitaries visiting the place?

Ya, it would be real smart to tell the insurgents how they work. Answer all the questions, then we can open the doors to our facilities over there and let those boys in so they can drive truck bombs up to our front door.

Wake up people, its getting so that simple mindedness is more like a contageous disease than a genetic flaw.

[pastdue1]

"The State Department%u2019s incident reports have not been made public, and Blackwater refused to provide its own data on cases in which its personnel used their weapons while guarding American diplomats. "

When you hire someone to do a job, you have a right to expect that you will be told about every incident involving that job, even the unpleasant. We, the American taxpayer, hired these people (although many of us still don''t know it)and we should not be refused any information we need to make an educated opinion as to the ramifications .

[lars008-2009]

VOTE FOR JEFFERSON,,, VOTE AGAINST FASCIST NAZI TERRORISLAM,,, VOTE GOP,,,

dnc are like john adams and want to give the jihadist their lunch money hoping they will leave us alone,,,

gop are like thomas jefferson and want to spend their lunch money on weapons and go kick the jihadists in their arses,,,

What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad,,,

Thomas Jefferson knew about fascist nazi islam,,, he killed plenty of them,,,

In 1786 Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli''s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
muslim justifies slavery and piracy%u2026
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?6bdec278-6a71-4436-bc4d-29d1c54b0ad7

[lars008-2009]

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill

It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it. Robert E. Lee

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. Simone Weil

If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. Thomas Paine

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Winston Churchill

One ought never to turn one''s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Winston Churchill

The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal warmonger. Theodore Roosevelt

[lars008-2009]

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. Ben Franklin

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Ben Franklin

We make war that we may live in peace. Aristotle

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war. John F. Kennedy

There''s a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn''t a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature. Barbara Kingsolver

They have not wanted Peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war -- as though the absence of war was the same as peace. Dorothy Thompson

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy. George Washington

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. John Adams

[lars008-2009]

Franklin D. Roosevelt''s Infamy Speech
December 8, 1941/September 12, 2001
The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.