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CNN.COM: Pentagon-Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

Tuesday, December 28, 2004 Posted: 0254 GMT (1054 HKT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

"Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists.

The independent panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks concluded that the hijackers intentionally crashed Flight 93, apparently because they feared the passengers would overwhelm them.

NAUGHTY AND NICE 2004
The Progress Report makes this year's holiday list and checks it twice

Naughty: Ron Artest, for punching out the front row at an NBA game.
Nice: Mark Cuban and Dallas Mavericks season ticket holders, for offering 140 front row seats to American soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Naughty: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for sending U.S. soldiers into battle without the equipment and armor they need to fight.
Nice: Grassroots charity groups like "Give 2 The Troops" and "Operation Gratitude," for sending care packages, supplies and reminders of home to American troops abroad.

Naughty: Merck, for spending millions to market the pain-reliever Vioxx to consumers long after the company knew it was unsafe.
Nice: Dr. David Graham, of the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, for fighting to keep dangerous drugs off the market.  

Naughty: Bernard Kerik, for turning an apartment donated for weary Ground Zero police and rescue workers into a love nest for his adulterous affairs.
Nice: Miramax Films, for putting the kibosh on Kerik's summer blockbuster biopic.

Naughty: Congress, for underfunding the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). allocating "$164 million less than needed to cover the expected 24 percent increase in home heating costs" this winter.
Nice: Richard Hamann and his wife, Donna, for paying the electricity bills for the entire town of Anthon, Iowa, because they wanted to give something back to their community.

Naughty: NRA Radio, for broadcasting anti-gun-control propaganda and calling it legitimate news.
Nice: Ed Schultz, Arnie Arnesen, Tony Trupiano, Thom Hartmann, Wendy Wilde, Al Franken, Katherine Lanpher and the rest of the Air America crew, for showing progressive radio can be thought-provoking, hard-hitting and fun.

Naughty: Department of Homeland Security, for omitting "major sites" like chemical plants and dams from its unfinished national database of potential terrorist targets.
Nice: Department of Homeland Security, for including "water parks and miniature golf courses" in the national database. At your local putt putt, the terrorists never win.

Naughty: The Environmental Protection Agency, for using camcorders to bribe parents into offering up their toddlers as guinea pigs for a study about the dangers of pesticides on children…sponsored by the chemical industry.
Nice: The Natural Resources Defense Council, for fighting to protect kids from the harmful effects of pesticides and chemicals. 

Naughty: Right-wing conservatives in the House of Representatives, for changing ethics rules so Tom DeLay (R-TX) could one day be their indicted leader.
Nice: Whistleblowers like Bunnatine Greenhouse, Richard Foster and Paul O'Neill, for holding our government to a higher ethical standard.

Naughty: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for letting a machine do his work (and not hand-signing condolence letters to grieving families).
Nice: Ashlee Simpson, for letting a machine do her work (and not forcing us to listen to her natural singing voice).

Naughty: Medicare head Tom Scully, Rep. Billy Tauzin, Rep. James Greenwood and trade representatives Ralph Ives and Claude Burcky, for using public service for personal benefit, taking lucrative, top-dollar jobs with the pharmaceutical industry they had formerly regulated.
Nice: Rep. Henry Waxman, for using public service for public benefit, compiling reports on everything from the Halliburton to undue secrecy in the White House.

Naughty: Russian President Vladimir Putin, for single-handedly shutting down the press, jailing his political opposition and trying to validate his hand-picked, fraudulently elected lapdog in Ukraine.
Nice: Viktor Yushchenko and supporters of the Orange Revolution, for fighting against all odds  -- including poison -- to bring democracy to the Ukraine

Naughty: Bill "I Like Families" Donahue, for using his pulpit to launch partisan, hate-filled attacks.
Nice: The Reverend Jim Wallis, for teaching us something about real "moral values."

Naughty: Alberto Gonzales, for crafting memos which provided legal justification for torturing detainees.
Nice: The International Committee of the Red Cross, for exposing brutal treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.

Naughty: EPA administrator Mike Leavitt, for blaming pollution on poverty.
Nice: The Union of Concerned Scientists, for giving us the facts about global warming, pollution, clean energy and the Bush administration's ideological approach to science.

Naughty: Sinclair Media, for planning to run an hour long anti-Kerry screed as "news" just before the U.S. presidential election.
Nice: Media Matters and the blogosphere, for forcing Sinclair to change its plans. (And continuing to demand that Sinclair stop broadcasting one-sided political spin.)

Naughty: Sen. Norm Coleman, for using the oil-for-food scandal as an excuse to launch an attack against the United Nations.
Nice: U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, for launching the first serious attempt to reform the United Nations and bring it into the 21st Century.

Naughty: The Kuwaiti Hilton, for giving Halliburton's employees a place to stay while they bilked US taxpayers.
Nice: Paris Hilton, for bringing the "simple life" to Washington, D.C.

Naughty: Bill O'Reilly, for claiming Christmas is "under siege."
Nice: Americans, for not laying siege to Christmas.

Happy Holidays from The Progress Report Team and everyone at American Progress, dedicated to making America a little less naughty and a lot more nice.

Lawmakers Chide Rumsfeld for Auto-Signed Sympathy Letters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not personally sign his name on letters of condolence to families of troops killed in Iraq but instead had it done by a machine, an action lawmakers said on Sunday showed insensitivity and was inappropriate for leadership during war.

Rumsfeld acknowledged that he had not signed the letters to family members of more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in action and in a statement said he would now sign them in his own hand. "This issue of the secretary of Defense not personally signing the letters is just astounding to me and it does reflect how out of touch they are and how dismissive they are," Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"I have no confidence in Rumsfeld," Hagel added.

Rumsfeld has been under strong fire from Democrats and some Republicans recently for appearing to brush off concerns of soldiers about the lack of protective equipment in Iraq.

But President Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card emphasized White House support for Rumsfeld on Sunday.

He "is doing a spectacular job, and the president has great confidence in him," Card told ABC's "This Week" program.

Hagel noted that the families of the troops killed in Iraq have received letters signed by Bush.

"My goodness, that is the least we can expect the secretary of Defense ... If the president can find the time to do that why can't the secretary of Defense?" said Hagel, who has been a sharp critic of the way Bush has handled the Iraq war.

Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island said family members of those killed, "would like to think that at least for a moment the secretary thought about individually this young man or this young woman."

"Again it shows a lack of leadership style appropriate for the military ... This goes to his capability to continue to serve."

However, Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, said that while "this is another area in which the secretary is being insensitive," the action did not "go to his leadership."    Continued ...

Shooting Allegedly Staged to Avoid Returning to Iraq

Philadelphia police say a soldier whose unit has been ordered back to the war had his wife's cousin wound him in the leg as part of the scheme.

By David Zucchino

Times Staff Writer

December 17, 2004

PHILADELPHIA - A U.S. Army combat veteran on leave from a unit headed back to Iraq arranged for a friend to shoot him in the leg in an attempt to avoid returning to the war zone, Philadelphia police said Thursday.

Spc. Marquise Roberts, 23, told police he had been shot Tuesday afternoon as he walked past two men arguing on a North Philadelphia street. But police said their investigation found that Roberts actually was shot once in the leg by a friend as part of a scheme to avoid returning to Iraq.

Roberts, who served seven months in Iraq during the U.S. invasion in 2003, was due to report back to Ft. Stewart, Ga., on Wednesday, police said. He is a supply specialist with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), according to commanders at Ft. Stewart. They said Roberts, who has been in the Army since 2001, was on a two-week holiday leave to his home in Philadelphia.

The division, which helped topple the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad in April 2003, has been ordered to begin heading back to Iraq next month. Roberts had returned from Iraq in midsummer 2003.

Philadelphia Police Inspector William Colarulo said Roberts was shot by his wife's cousin, Roland Fuller, 28, in North Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon. Hospital officials called police after Roberts sought medical treatment — standard policy for gunshot wounds, Colarulo said.

Roberts told police he heard a gunshot as he walked past the men arguing in the street and realized he had been shot in the leg. But Fuller told detectives that Roberts had been shot during an attempted robbery, Colarulo said.

Detectives who searched the scene where Roberts said he was shot found no bullet casings, blood or witnesses who recalled seeing or hearing gunshots.

"The investigation determined that he didn't want to go back to Iraq and staged the shooting to avoid having to return," Colarulo said.

Police Lt. James Clark, who directed the investigation, said Roberts "said he had done seven months there and he didn't want to go back. He wanted to stay with his family."

Roberts was treated for the wound and handed over to police Wednesday. Roberts and Fuller were charged with conspiracy, recklessly endangering another person and filing a false police report. Fuller also was charged with aggravated assault and weapons offenses.

Roberts was shot with a handgun, police said.

Pentagon officials said they could recall no other instance in which a soldier on leave from Iraq or Afghanistan had been accused of deliberately harming himself or herself to avoid returning to duty.

"It's not National Some-of-the-Public Radio"
Tavis Smiley tells Salon why he decided to ditch NPR.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Brian Montopoli

Dec. 16, 2004  |  Thursday marks the last day that Tavis Smiley will appear on his eponymous show on National Public Radio. Smiley says he is leaving the network after three years on the air because the show, the first and only in the history of NPR with an African-American sensibility, didn't receive enough support.

In the weeks since Smiley's announcement, NPR has refused to fire back. A version of the show (though, of course, with a different name) will continue -- insiders say BET's Ed Gordon has the inside track as host -- but no new minority-themed shows have gotten past "the rough-sketch stage," according to NPR public relations manager Chad Campbell. Says NPR spokesman David Umansky: "We're very lucky and fortunate to have had Tavis as our founding host, and we agree that more needs to be done." That, however, will not be as easy as it sounds.

Saturday, December 18th 1pm
Rally in Support of Pablo Paredes!
GI Resister in San Diego
In front of Naval Headquarters
(corner of Broadway and Harbor blvd. Downtown SD)

On December 6th, 3rd class Petty Officer Pablo Paredes stood resolutely on the pier of the 32nd street naval base in San Diego, as his ship the USS Bonhomme Richard, left for Iraq without him. Sporting a simple black t-shirt with bold white letters stating: “Like a cabinet member, I resign.” anti-war sailor Paredes sent shockwaves through the military chain of command by taking a solitary stand against the war in Iraq by refusing to board his ship. "I don't want to be a part of a ship that's taking 3,000 Marines over there (to Iraq), knowing a hundred or more of them won't come back. I can't sleep at night knowing that's what I do for a living", he told the San Diego Union Tribune. Since refusing to participate in this unjust and devastating war, Pablo will now have to face the uncertainty of military punishment for being a GI with a conscience that refuses to be silent. Show support for him by joining us in a rally on his behalf this Saturday.

for more info about Pablo Paredes check out:
www.swiftsmartveterans.com
www.gifightback.org
www.michaelmoore.com

Support Committee for Pablo Paredes
solidaritywithpablo@yahoo.com