random political wonking

http://www.judicialwatch.org/071703.b_PR.shtml

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch?s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts." The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: http://www.JudicialWatch.org









pentagon punishes off-message grunts.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/18/MN248299.DTL

some good news

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1027103.html reports congress is cutting funding to "TIA", the "total information awareness" data mining program.

THE NEXT ONE WILL BE BETTER, HONEST!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-postwar18jul18,1,7035725.story?coll=la-home-headlines is an article about post-war-planning fuckups... and here's the bit at the end.

Still, [Douglas J. Feith, #3 official at the Pentagon] and other Pentagon officials said, they are studying the lessons of Iraq closely --- to ensure that the next U.S. takeover of a foreign country goes more smoothly.

"We're going to get better over time," promised Lawrence Di Rita, a special assistant to Rumsfeld. "We've always thought of post-hostilities as a phase" distinct from combat, he said. "The future of war is that these things are going to be much more of a continuum....

"This is the future for the world we're in at the moment," he said. "We'll get better as we do it more often."