War Glance
The last chance for victims of the bloody Nisoor Square shootings to have their day in court may rest on a Charlotte firm's lawsuit accusing Blackwater of reckless conduct in Iraq.
Mohammed Kinani, an Iraqi businessman whose 9-year-old son died in the 2007 shootings, said the North Carolina-based security firm has threatened him and offered him $20,000 to stop asking questions. "I said I don't want anything," Kinani said. "All I need is for the Blackwater president to apologize for killing of my son. They refused to apologize."
Iraqi father vows to pursue U.S. lawsuit against Blackwater
Tony Blair admits Saddam threat was overstated
Tony Blair opened himself up to a charge of misleading Parliament today when he told the Iraq inquiry that by any objective analysis the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons programme had not increased after 9/11.
That statement directly contradicted Mr Blair's warning to MPs in September 2002 – six months before the invasion – that Saddam's weapons programme was "active, detailed and growing".
TVNL Comment: Hey troops, and families of dead troops...how do you feel about that? That means George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and your hero Colin Powell also lied...but we knew that already!
Obama to seek major increase in nuclear weapons funding
The Obama administration plans to ask Congress to increase spending on the U.S. nuclear arsenal by more than $5 billion over the next five years as part of its strategy to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually rid the world of them.
Blair denies 'covert' deal with Bush to invade Iraq
Mr Blair has used the hearing to mount an impassioned defence of the decision to go to war, telling the panel: "This isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception.
"It's a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programmes or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?"
Lord Goldsmith changed legal view of Iraq war in two months, says adviser
In a dramatic day at the inquiry, which Blair will face on Friday, Jack Straw's chief legal adviser at the time of the Iraq invasion also today told the inquiry that the then foreign secretary overruled his advice against military action. The revelation by Sir Michael Wood, the top Foreign Office lawyer at the time, challenges the evidence Straw, now justice secretary, gave to the inquiry last week in which he insisted that he had "very reluctantly" supported the conflict.Western donors 'back Taliban plan'
Afghanistan's renewed efforts for reconciliation with the Taliban have the backing of the US and Europe, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said. Karzai's plans, scheduled to be discussed at a conference in London on Thursday, include reintegrating Taliban fighters into society by paying and resettling them if they lay down their weapons.
Karzai said his government had tried many times in the past to find ways of rehabilitating Taliban fighters who were not part of al-Qaeda, but had previously not had the support of its international partners.
Audit hits State Dept. on failures to monitor Iraq work
For nearly $4.5 million a year, the State Department in June assigned a 16-person security detail to protect six U.S. contractors in Iraq who already had a team of hired guards they didn't really need.
The expensive miscue is one of many described in an audit issued Monday of a $2.5 billion State Department contract with DynCorp International for training Iraq's police force. The department repeatedly failed to oversee the contract properly, according to the audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
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