NEWS CREW CONFIRMS WEAPONS THERE AFTER US ARRIVAL
A videotape shows a huge supply of explosives still at the Al Qaqaa munitions complex nine days after the fall of Baghdad.
FOR AN ONGOING DISCUSSION ON THIS TOPIC SEE THE TALKING POINTS BLOG

(NYT)

WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN SPIN
"As the presidential election reaches its final days, both campaigns are airing a barrage of dishonest claims in their advertisements. An examination of several prominent examples demonstrates just how bad the situation has become."
(SPINSANITY)

SWING STATE REVIEW
The blog, Election Law at Moritz is publishing a swing state review, most importantly reporting that "All eyes are, or should be, on Ohio, as the state prepares to conduct hearings later this week on the challenges raised by the Republican Party to over 20,000 newly registered voters. The vast majority of these challenges will occur in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and is predominantly Democratic territory. The county's board of elections will hold hearings at the Cleveland Convention Center to hear the more 17,000 challenges lodged by the Republicans in this county. "
(ELECTION LAW AT MORITZ, unearthed by Ed Still's VOTELAW)

IS TOO!
Minneapolis' City Pages has just posted a story with some Bush quotes, the most interesting of which is a listing of the times he has made the al Qaeda/Sadam connection.
"This is a person [Saddam] who has had contacts with al Qaeda."
--October 2002
"He's got connections with al Qaeda."
--October 2002
"This is a guy who has had connections with these shadowy terrorist networks."
--October 2002
"We know he's got ties with al Qaeda."
--November 2002
"In terms of [Iraq's] support for terrorism, we have established that Iraq has permitted al Qaeda to operate within its territory. As the president said recently, 'The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations. And there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq.' The president has made his position on Iraq eminently clear, and in the coming weeks and months we shall see what we shall see."
--John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, speech to the Hudson Institute
"We know that he's had connections with al Qaeda."
--November 2002
"He's had connections with shadowy terrorist networks like al Qaeda."
--November 2002
"We know that he has had contacts with terrorist networks like al Qaeda."
--November 2002
"And, not only that, he is--would like nothing better than to hook up with one of these shadowy terrorist networks like al Qaeda, provide some weapons and training to them, let them come and do his dirty work, and we wouldn't be able to see his fingerprints on his action."
--November 2002
"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda."
--January 2003
"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."
--GWB to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, as reported in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, June 23, 2003
"Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out."
--Speaking to Condi Rice, March 2002, a full year before the invasion of Iraq.

(CITY PAGES)

CRONKITE DOWN ON THE WAR
"Veteran newsman Walter Cronkite said Americans aren't any safer because of the U.S.-led war on Iraq. 'The problem, quite clearly, is we have excited the Arab world, the Muslim world, to take up arms against us,' Cronkite said Saturday, adding that this excitement far exceeds the anger that existed among terrorist groups prior to the war."
(FINDLAW)

HOW UNCONVENTIONAL
"A new legal opinion by the Bush administration has concluded for the first time that some non-Iraqi prisoners captured by American forces in Iraq are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, administration officials said Monday. The opinion, reached in recent months, establishes an important exception to public assertions by the Bush administration since March 2003 that the Geneva Conventions applied comprehensively to prisoners taken in the conflict in Iraq, the officials said. But, as recently as May 2004, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reiterated in public testimony the administration's view that "everyone in Iraq who was a military person" as well as "the civilians or criminal elements" who were detained by the American authorities would be "treated subject to the Geneva Conventions." "
(NYT)

THE REAL ISSUE IN MIDDLE EAST IS SUPPORT FOR MODERATES
"President Bush's 'global war on terror' is a politically expedient slogan without real substance, serving to distort rather than define. It obscures the central fact that a civil war within Islam is pitting zealous fanatics against increasingly intimidated moderates. The undiscriminating American rhetoric and actions increase the likelihood that the moderates will eventually unite with the jihadists in outraged anger and unite the world of Islam in a head-on collision with America."
(NYT OP-ED)