Below, find two Iraq Stories. One about those sent to the front lines and bear the brunt of greedy psychopathic arms manufacturers. The other is about the too-little-too-late repentence of the the Dems.
Blue Ibis
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Army made video warning about dangers of depleted uranium but never showed it to troops
David Edwards
RawStory
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:26 EST
A special investigation on the effects of depleted uranium reveals the Army made a tape warning of the effects of depleted uranium which was never shown to troops despite the fact the Pentagon knew the agent to be potentially deadly, CNN reports Tuesday.
Depleted uranium -- or DU -- was used in the Gulf War as a projectile that could penetrate tank armor. A group of soldiers are suing the US government because they are sick from exposure; despite the unshown video, the Army denies that depleted uranium represents a serious health risk.
CNN reporter Greg Hunter explains. The soldiers "report similar ailments. Painful urination, headaches and joint pain. They say Army doctors blame their symptoms on post traumatic stress. We showed them a tape the Army made in 1995, a tape the Army never distributed. It warned of potential D.U. hazards. The army's expert on D.U. training concedes some information contained on the tape is true. For instance, radioactive particles can be harmful."
A doctor who once investigated DU for the Army now believes that the health risks are serious.
"In the 1990s this doctor studied D.U. health effects for the U.S. military," Hunter says. "Now a private researcher, he says his own test of these veterans showed abnormally high levels of D.U. this their urine and that those levels pose a serious health threat."
"One doctor... calls it, quote, 'a radiological sewer,'" Hunter adds. "The Army adamantly denies that."
Go to RawStory for Video
Take the time to watch a psychopathic system in action. Not only are these five men dying from DU exposure, but thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. Thousands more Lebanese men, women and children will die from the DU weaponry, thoughtfully provided by the U.S. to Isreal. Remember, radiation contamination is for hundreds to thousands of years:
"One doctor... calls it, quote, 'a radiological sewer,'"
Where are the residents of these places to go, now that the U.S. and its allies have destroyed their land
After this I find the Dems mea culpa a little lame . . . . . .
Half of Democratic Senators Regret Iraq Vote
By: Christian Lowe and Daniel W. Reilly and Carrie Budoff
Politico.com
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:55 EST
Half of the current Democratic senators who backed President Bush's call to war in 2002 say they now regret authorizing the invasion of Iraq, according to a Politico survey.
But while nine of 18 Democrats who backed Bush now wish they had not, Republicans had fewer misgivings -- only three voiced regret. The lack of a similar GOP groundswell highlights the dilemma that some senators from the president's party face as they seek re-election amid sagging voter support for the war -- and, specifically, the president's plan to send 21,000 additional troops to Iraq.
From Maine to New Hampshire to Minnesota, potential Democratic challengers in the 2008 elections are already gearing up campaigns that will try to capitalize on the past and present congressional debates on Iraq.
"It is hard to see how Iraq does not remain a central issue," said Steve Marchand, the Democratic mayor of Portsmouth, N.H., and a potential challenger to Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., next year.
As senators began a historic debate Monday on Bush's troop surge, a majority said they were wary of its success, with 58 telling The Politico that they opposed the plan. Yet, a core group of Republicans remained undecided on whether to express that discontent with a "yes" vote on a resolution critical of the president's plan.
The survey findings underscore the volatility of the debate at the outset of the 2008 Senate campaigns. The vote on a resolution opposing a troop boost will likely emerge as a defining moment, second only to the 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq invasion that for some senators has become the most painful episode of their public careers.
While the prospect of an up-or-down vote has left senators from across the country weighing public opinion against party loyalty and political prospects against national security policy, for more than 50 senators who held office in 2002, the Iraq war vote remains a matter of conviction.
"When I made up my mind to vote no, I went home and slept like a log," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
For others, the resolution is the chance to start righting a wrong. A dozen of the 100 senators surveyed by The Politico over the last week, including nine of the 18 Democrats who backed the war in 2002, said they regret their choice.
"I have apologized to my constituents and it will be something I will regret for as long as I live," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who faces re-election next year and is supporting a non-binding, resolution crafted by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., that opposes Bush's troop boost.
Critics of a congressional rebuke of Bush say it is wrong-headed, the latest misstep in a four-year odyssey through the shifting sands of the Middle East with no simple resolution. At least 30 senators -- all Republicans, with the exception of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn. -- told The Politico that the Bush plan should be given a chance.
Many of those senators also criticize the Warner-Levin measure as a feel-good resolution that offers little concrete direction about how to steer the nation through the mounting sectarian fighting in Iraq.
"The Democratic Party is making a huge mistake," said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., also up for re-election next year. "We all embrace withdrawal at some point. But they will not talk in detail about what would happen in Iraq if we left in six months."
The senators facing the most excruciating decision in the coming days are the 20 Republicans and 12 Democrats -- particularly Sununu, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. -- who are next in line to face voters.
The three Republicans are feeling intense pressure here and in their home states, as opposition researchers catalogue their moves. Democrats in New Hampshire, Minnesota and Maine say the war -- and how their Republican senators have voted on it -- will dominate their campaign strategies.
"It will be one of the litmus test issues for Senator Sununu," said Marchand, the Portsmouth mayor. "In New Hampshire, if you look at last November, it's pretty clear that people of New Hampshire have made a statement with regard to the war in Iraq."
Sununu can't escape the question.
Reporters chase him down in the Capitol hallways, and collar him near the Senate elevators. Antiwar activists cajole him with pickets outside his Portsmouth office and television ads in the state urge him to reject the troop buildup in Iraq.
Sununu's coyness might be expected: He is considered one of the most vulnerable senators.
Five years ago, Sununu was a three-term congressman, elected to the Senate by a slim margin in a state that puts a premium on independence. As divergent as Washington is from the North Country, the wooded territory of New Hampshire that hugs the Canadian border, the political climate was far different then.
Bush, who campaigned for Sununu, enjoyed a 72 percent approval rating in the state, nearly twice what it is now. A month before the election, Sununu, like many of his colleagues, urged the passage of the war resolution, saying Saddam Hussein had shepherded the development of weapons of mass destruction.
"If we wait until Iraq succeeds in achieving these goals, we will have waited too long," Sununu said in 2002, when he voted in the House to support the move to war.
These days, Sununu's position on Iraq is hard to categorize -- and his state's electorate increasingly impatient with the war.
Sununu voices discontent with Bush's policy. "We made significant mistakes after Saddam Hussein's fall in April of 2003," Sununu wrote in a column posted on his Senate Web site last month.
But he has not backed a resolution challenging Bush's policy,and he voted against the most critical one when it came before the Foreign Relations Committee -- although even then Sununu expressed concern about the buildup.
"John Sununu is looking at what happened in New Hampshire: the decapitation of the Republicans," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political science professor who has written several books on Congress. Voters ousted the state's two congressmen, both Republicans, and turned the statehouse Democratic.
Sununu and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., "both feel the ground is shifting under them," Baker added.
As Sununu surveys his options, at least five of his fellow Republicans have signed on to Warner's compromise resolution. All are among those up for reelection next year. Coleman, who could face a Democratic challenge from liberal radio talk show host Al Franken, has been trying to carve out a middle ground, criticizing Bush in one breath, and raising questions about a quick troop withdrawal in the next.
The first-term senator grew testy with reporters last week, ruffled at the suggestion that politics was steering his decisions.
"This is not about the election, and a lot of us ... find that offensive," Coleman said. "This is about the toughest decision you make in the Senate."
[yeah, right . . . . ]
He can expect the issue to dog him.
Jessica McIntosh, spokeswoman for the Minnesota State Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said Iraq would "absolutely" be the centerpiece of the party's campaign against Coleman. And like Sununu and Collins, Coleman has been targeted by VoteVets, a political action committee that began a national campaign last week arguing that those who decline to oppose the president's plan "don't support the troops." The group has raised about $500,000, which it has spent in four states and the District of Columbia.
Collins, who voted for the war in 2002, also faces the likelihood of running for re-election against an antiwar candidate in a state that favored Democrats for president and governor during the last two elections. At least three potential challengers have emerged.
Collins, however, has been one of the most vocal critics of Bush's surge plan, resisting softer resolutions crafted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in favor of those pushed by Warner.
While she says politics has nothing to do with it, others wonder. Next year's election "certainly will be a challenge for her," said Chellie Pingree, the former president of Common Cause who got drubbed by Collins in the 2002 Senate race, and is considering another run. "Now, Collins, like a lot of Republicans, (are) looking for ways to re-craft their stand. That's the politically unpredictable part. That didn't work for everybody in this cycle."
David Edwards
RawStory
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:26 EST
A special investigation on the effects of depleted uranium reveals the Army made a tape warning of the effects of depleted uranium which was never shown to troops despite the fact the Pentagon knew the agent to be potentially deadly, CNN reports Tuesday.
Depleted uranium -- or DU -- was used in the Gulf War as a projectile that could penetrate tank armor. A group of soldiers are suing the US government because they are sick from exposure; despite the unshown video, the Army denies that depleted uranium represents a serious health risk.
CNN reporter Greg Hunter explains. The soldiers "report similar ailments. Painful urination, headaches and joint pain. They say Army doctors blame their symptoms on post traumatic stress. We showed them a tape the Army made in 1995, a tape the Army never distributed. It warned of potential D.U. hazards. The army's expert on D.U. training concedes some information contained on the tape is true. For instance, radioactive particles can be harmful."
A doctor who once investigated DU for the Army now believes that the health risks are serious.
"In the 1990s this doctor studied D.U. health effects for the U.S. military," Hunter says. "Now a private researcher, he says his own test of these veterans showed abnormally high levels of D.U. this their urine and that those levels pose a serious health threat."
"One doctor... calls it, quote, 'a radiological sewer,'" Hunter adds. "The Army adamantly denies that."
Go to RawStory for Video
Take the time to watch a psychopathic system in action. Not only are these five men dying from DU exposure, but thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. Thousands more Lebanese men, women and children will die from the DU weaponry, thoughtfully provided by the U.S. to Isreal. Remember, radiation contamination is for hundreds to thousands of years:
"One doctor... calls it, quote, 'a radiological sewer,'"
Where are the residents of these places to go, now that the U.S. and its allies have destroyed their land
After this I find the Dems mea culpa a little lame . . . . . .
Half of Democratic Senators Regret Iraq Vote
By: Christian Lowe and Daniel W. Reilly and Carrie Budoff
Politico.com
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:55 EST
Half of the current Democratic senators who backed President Bush's call to war in 2002 say they now regret authorizing the invasion of Iraq, according to a Politico survey.
But while nine of 18 Democrats who backed Bush now wish they had not, Republicans had fewer misgivings -- only three voiced regret. The lack of a similar GOP groundswell highlights the dilemma that some senators from the president's party face as they seek re-election amid sagging voter support for the war -- and, specifically, the president's plan to send 21,000 additional troops to Iraq.
From Maine to New Hampshire to Minnesota, potential Democratic challengers in the 2008 elections are already gearing up campaigns that will try to capitalize on the past and present congressional debates on Iraq.
"It is hard to see how Iraq does not remain a central issue," said Steve Marchand, the Democratic mayor of Portsmouth, N.H., and a potential challenger to Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., next year.
As senators began a historic debate Monday on Bush's troop surge, a majority said they were wary of its success, with 58 telling The Politico that they opposed the plan. Yet, a core group of Republicans remained undecided on whether to express that discontent with a "yes" vote on a resolution critical of the president's plan.
The survey findings underscore the volatility of the debate at the outset of the 2008 Senate campaigns. The vote on a resolution opposing a troop boost will likely emerge as a defining moment, second only to the 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq invasion that for some senators has become the most painful episode of their public careers.
While the prospect of an up-or-down vote has left senators from across the country weighing public opinion against party loyalty and political prospects against national security policy, for more than 50 senators who held office in 2002, the Iraq war vote remains a matter of conviction.
"When I made up my mind to vote no, I went home and slept like a log," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
For others, the resolution is the chance to start righting a wrong. A dozen of the 100 senators surveyed by The Politico over the last week, including nine of the 18 Democrats who backed the war in 2002, said they regret their choice.
"I have apologized to my constituents and it will be something I will regret for as long as I live," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who faces re-election next year and is supporting a non-binding, resolution crafted by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., that opposes Bush's troop boost.
Critics of a congressional rebuke of Bush say it is wrong-headed, the latest misstep in a four-year odyssey through the shifting sands of the Middle East with no simple resolution. At least 30 senators -- all Republicans, with the exception of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn. -- told The Politico that the Bush plan should be given a chance.
Many of those senators also criticize the Warner-Levin measure as a feel-good resolution that offers little concrete direction about how to steer the nation through the mounting sectarian fighting in Iraq.
"The Democratic Party is making a huge mistake," said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., also up for re-election next year. "We all embrace withdrawal at some point. But they will not talk in detail about what would happen in Iraq if we left in six months."
The senators facing the most excruciating decision in the coming days are the 20 Republicans and 12 Democrats -- particularly Sununu, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. -- who are next in line to face voters.
The three Republicans are feeling intense pressure here and in their home states, as opposition researchers catalogue their moves. Democrats in New Hampshire, Minnesota and Maine say the war -- and how their Republican senators have voted on it -- will dominate their campaign strategies.
"It will be one of the litmus test issues for Senator Sununu," said Marchand, the Portsmouth mayor. "In New Hampshire, if you look at last November, it's pretty clear that people of New Hampshire have made a statement with regard to the war in Iraq."
Sununu can't escape the question.
Reporters chase him down in the Capitol hallways, and collar him near the Senate elevators. Antiwar activists cajole him with pickets outside his Portsmouth office and television ads in the state urge him to reject the troop buildup in Iraq.
Sununu's coyness might be expected: He is considered one of the most vulnerable senators.
Five years ago, Sununu was a three-term congressman, elected to the Senate by a slim margin in a state that puts a premium on independence. As divergent as Washington is from the North Country, the wooded territory of New Hampshire that hugs the Canadian border, the political climate was far different then.
Bush, who campaigned for Sununu, enjoyed a 72 percent approval rating in the state, nearly twice what it is now. A month before the election, Sununu, like many of his colleagues, urged the passage of the war resolution, saying Saddam Hussein had shepherded the development of weapons of mass destruction.
"If we wait until Iraq succeeds in achieving these goals, we will have waited too long," Sununu said in 2002, when he voted in the House to support the move to war.
These days, Sununu's position on Iraq is hard to categorize -- and his state's electorate increasingly impatient with the war.
Sununu voices discontent with Bush's policy. "We made significant mistakes after Saddam Hussein's fall in April of 2003," Sununu wrote in a column posted on his Senate Web site last month.
But he has not backed a resolution challenging Bush's policy,and he voted against the most critical one when it came before the Foreign Relations Committee -- although even then Sununu expressed concern about the buildup.
"John Sununu is looking at what happened in New Hampshire: the decapitation of the Republicans," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political science professor who has written several books on Congress. Voters ousted the state's two congressmen, both Republicans, and turned the statehouse Democratic.
Sununu and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., "both feel the ground is shifting under them," Baker added.
As Sununu surveys his options, at least five of his fellow Republicans have signed on to Warner's compromise resolution. All are among those up for reelection next year. Coleman, who could face a Democratic challenge from liberal radio talk show host Al Franken, has been trying to carve out a middle ground, criticizing Bush in one breath, and raising questions about a quick troop withdrawal in the next.
The first-term senator grew testy with reporters last week, ruffled at the suggestion that politics was steering his decisions.
"This is not about the election, and a lot of us ... find that offensive," Coleman said. "This is about the toughest decision you make in the Senate."
[yeah, right . . . . ]
He can expect the issue to dog him.
Jessica McIntosh, spokeswoman for the Minnesota State Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said Iraq would "absolutely" be the centerpiece of the party's campaign against Coleman. And like Sununu and Collins, Coleman has been targeted by VoteVets, a political action committee that began a national campaign last week arguing that those who decline to oppose the president's plan "don't support the troops." The group has raised about $500,000, which it has spent in four states and the District of Columbia.
Collins, who voted for the war in 2002, also faces the likelihood of running for re-election against an antiwar candidate in a state that favored Democrats for president and governor during the last two elections. At least three potential challengers have emerged.
Collins, however, has been one of the most vocal critics of Bush's surge plan, resisting softer resolutions crafted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in favor of those pushed by Warner.
While she says politics has nothing to do with it, others wonder. Next year's election "certainly will be a challenge for her," said Chellie Pingree, the former president of Common Cause who got drubbed by Collins in the 2002 Senate race, and is considering another run. "Now, Collins, like a lot of Republicans, (are) looking for ways to re-craft their stand. That's the politically unpredictable part. That didn't work for everybody in this cycle."
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Notice there's ot a word of concern about the constituents these clowns are elected to serve. Just how to manipulate the great uwashed to they can get or keep the perks and privileges that they've become accustomed to.
Pathetic
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