Stinky lies.
"Panetta says Al Qaeda on the ropes" July 10, 2011|By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post
KABUL - The United States is “within reach’’ of defeating Al Qaeda and is targeting 10 to 20 leaders who are key to the terrorist network’s survival, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in his first trip to Afghanistan since taking charge at the Pentagon.
Panetta, who led the CIA until June and oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, strongly endorsed the Obama administration’s increasingly aggressive campaign to hunt down Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
He said he would redouble efforts by the military and the spy agency to work together on counterterrorism missions outside the traditional war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq....
Now war there is a tradition?
Related: Obama's Airstrike Scalpel
More like the CIA everyday. Even exchanging leadership.
“I’m convinced,’’ he added, “that we’re within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda.’’
Yeah, well, which "Al-CIA-Duh" would that be?
The made-up "Al-CIA-Duh?"
Or the "Al-CIA-Duh" CREATION for the COURTROOM!?
Panetta’s remarks were his first public comments since he became defense secretary July 1, as well as perhaps the most optimistic assessment by the Obama administration regarding the conflict with Al Qaeda.
Panetta argued that the longtime strategy of trying to defeat the network by focusing largely on its senior ranks - an approach that analysts refer to as “decapitation’’ - was finally paying dividends....
However....
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Now that Al-CIA-Duh is cleaned up we can come home, right?
"Panetta warns of Iranian weapons threat in Iraq; Defense chief raises alarm in Baghdad stop" July 11, 2011|By Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times
BAGHDAD - Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said yesterday that weapons he said were supplied by Iran had become a “tremendous concern’’ for the United States in recent weeks in Iraq, where more American troops died in June than in any month during the three previous years.
Now think about that for a minute. Of anyone in the region Iran wants us out the most.
So they are going to attack us and makes us stay on our way out the door?
“We’re seeing more of those weapons going in from Iran, and they’ve really hurt us,’’ Panetta said before arriving here on an unannounced trip, his first to the Iraqi capital as defense secretary.
Panetta is the third top American official to raise an alarm about Iranian influence in Iraq in recent days. The US ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, recently said that the United States had “forensic proof’’ that weapons and weapons parts from Iran were being used by Shi’ite militias against US troops. His remarks were echoed by Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Related: Prop 201 tutorial
So which intelligence agency or contractor is pulling off false flag operations to get us to stay?
Panetta’s comments, made a day before he is to meet with the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, were aimed at urging the Iraqi military to take more action against Shi’ite militias and to see Iran as the Obama administration does - not just as a threat to US troops, but as a potential cancer in a future Iraq....
I read that they did, but why let that spoil the propaganda?
Also yesterday, the United States opened a consulate in Iraq’s Kurdish region, which will try to attract more American investors to one of the most stable and fastest-growing regions in the country, the Associated Press reported.
Although it is in a relatively safe Christian neighborhood in the Kurdish capital of Irbil, the consulate is protected by blast walls. The Kurdish region in northern Iraq was largely untouched by sectarian fighting that almost drew the country into civil war several years ago.
The opening of the consulate in Irbil comes more than eight years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein but left much of Iraq shell-shocked and in turmoil.
The consulate in Irbil will largely assist US companies looking to invest. To coincide with the opening of the consulate, Marriott International signed an agreement with Kurdish officials for a 200-room hotel and 75 executive apartments in Irbil in three years.
There's oil in them hills!!
Panetta arrived in Baghdad from Helmand Province in Afghanistan, where he met with US Marines and Afghan army soldiers at Camp Dwyer, a sprawling military base and the site of a busy medevac hospital in the southern desert. Panetta said he was encouraged by what he saw. “I think the bottom line is we are on the right path here,’’ he said.
In Washington, Obama administration officials frequently cite military gains in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar as evidence that the Taliban have largely been driven from the south. But Marine commanders offered a more complex assessment.
“The war is certainly not over here,’’ said Brigadier General Lewis Craparotta, a senior commander of the 20,000 Marines in Helmand Province. Craparotta said that although the Taliban had not come back with the same strength in this summer’s fighting season as last year, Marines were still taking direct fire and were under threat from homemade bombs every day, particularly in areas like Sangin and north toward the Kajaki Dam.
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And wait until you see how many troops we are leaving in Afghanistan.
"Panetta ties war in Iraq to 9/11 attack" July 12, 2011|By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post
BAGHDAD - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta yesterday appeared to justify the US invasion of Iraq as part of the war against Al Qaeda, an argument made by the Bush administration but rejected by President Obama and many Democrats.
Panetta made the remarks during his inaugural visit to Iraq as Pentagon chief. Speaking to about 100 soldiers at Camp Victory, the largest US military installation in Baghdad, he said his primary goal as defense secretary was to defeat Al Qaeda worldwide.
“The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,’’ Panetta told the troops. “And 3,000 Americans - 3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings - got killed because of Al Qaeda. And we’ve been fighting as a result of that.’’
I'm stunned.
This guy has been involved in so many lies and cover-ups he can't keep them straight.
His statement echoed previous comments made by President George W. Bush and members of his administration, who tried to tie Saddam Hussein’s government to Al Qaeda.
But it put Panetta at odds with Obama, the 9/11 Commission, and other independent specialists, who have said there is no evidence Al Qaeda had a presence in Iraq before the US-led invasion in 2003.
This is the beauty of propaganda.
Leon tells a lie, and then it is refuted with another lie. What I mean by that is the official version is presented as truth there by making Panetta look foolish, right?
That's when you begin to realize it is ALL LIES!
And notice "Al-CIA-Duh" always follows AmeriKa into countries?
Afterward, pressed by reporters to elaborate, Panetta said: “I wasn’t saying, you know, the invasion - or going into the issues or the justification of that. It was more the fact that we really had to deal with Al Qaeda here, they developed a presence here and that tied in.’’
Douglas Wilson, a spokesman for Panetta, said the defense secretary wasn’t trying to reopen the contentious debate about the cause or justification for the Iraq war.
No, they don't even want you thinking about it. They lied, they got in, they are there, that's it.
“I don’t think he’s going down that rabbit hole,’’ Wilson said. “I don’t think he’s getting into the arguments of 2002 and 2003. He’s dealing with the security situation our country faces today.’’
That's where all the lies go when it comes to war papers.
Although US officials have blamed Al Qaeda-backed insurgents for continued instability in Iraq, their presence has shrunk substantially since the aftermath of the invasion, when thousands of Iraqis and foreign fighters allied themselves with the terrorist network....
Panetta’s remarks about Al Qaeda and the Iraq war were the second time on his war-zone tour that he has raised eyebrows for apparently unscripted comments.
On Saturday, after meeting in Kabul with President Hamid Karzai, the Pentagon chief told reporters - twice - that 70,000 US troops would remain in Afghanistan through the end of 2014....
Oops, Leon spilled the beans!
Panetta told the American troops he visited in Iraq yesterday that the United States will “do what we can unilaterally’’ to stem Iranian-backed attacks on their bases and convoys, in addition to working with Iraqi authorities.
Panetta also expressed frustration that the Iraqi government isn’t acting more quickly on military issues, including whether to ask the United States to keep some troops in the country beyond a planned December withdrawal.
And all of a sudden the Iranians start screwing around?
CUI BONO?
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"Pentagon says hackers accessed 24,000 files" July 15, 2011|By Lolita C. Baldor and Robert Burns, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon revealed yesterday it suffered one of its largest losses ever of sensitive data this spring in a cyberattack by a foreign government.
Gee, who would want to do that?
It is a dramatic example of why the military is pursuing a new strategy emphasizing deeper defenses of its computer networks, collaboration with private industry, and new steps to stop “malicious insiders.’’
We know who the insiders are now, and they are the same folks who stand to benefit from increased security.
William Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense, said the Pentagon believes the attacker was a foreign government. He did not say which nation.
Related:
"Which means Israel is behind the attack, because if it were any government other than Israel, it would be specified. Only Israel can attack the United States and be protected by the US Government.
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." -- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11. -- Wake the Flock Up
And now Murdoch's empire has been caught in a criminal hacking case that is starting to look like a spying operation?
“We have a pretty good idea’’ who did it, Lynn said before the speech. He would not elaborate.
Meaning THEY KNOW!
Many cyberattacks in the past have been blamed on China or Russia.
And would have been if they had done it.
One of the Pentagon’s fears is that eventually a terrorist group, with less at stake than a foreign government, will acquire the ability to penetrate US computer networks to steal data and to attack them in ways that damage US defenses or cause deaths.
In his speech at the National Defense University, Lynn said that sophisticated computer capabilities reside almost exclusively in states and that US military power is a strong deterrent against overtly destructive cyberattacks. Terrorist groups and rogue states, he said, are harder to deter.
“If a terrorist group gains disruptive or destructive cybertools, we have to assume they will strike with little hesitation,’’ he said.
The Pentagon has long worried about the vulnerability of its computer systems. The concern has grown as the military becomes more dependent not only on its own computers but also on those of its defense contractors, including providers of the fuel, electricity, and other resources that keep the military operating.
At his Senate confirmation hearing last month, new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cited “a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor’’ could well be a cyberattack that cripples the US power grid and financial and government systems....
Oh, we EVEN GET Project for the New American Century TERMINOLOGY!
So, WHEN are the BLOGS BEING SHUT DOWN, Leon?
You seem to be someone in the know.
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Also see:
Globe Editorial Panetta: Tripping on verbal landmines
Panetta the Prick
Yeah, he sure is.