3. februar 2004

Tony Blair wants an inquiry, too As I expected, Tony Blair followed Bush's lead in ordering an inquiry into British intelligence about WMDs that lead up to the war. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the Hutton report, which cleared the Government of "having politically interfered with, falsified or hyped the intelligence on WMD", had opened the way for a broader inquiry. "That allows us to address - hopefully in a more rational context - the perfectly valid question that people have asked about WMD," he said. The last time a similar inquiry was held was on intelligence failures that led to the Falklands conflict in 1982. One problem of an inquiry that will easily be accused of setting up the intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic as scapegoats, is that 1) many people will not accept the responsibility to stop there; and 2) the war on terror is so reliant on intelligence services that anything leading these services into a paralysis is dangerous. On the other hand, if western intelligence services are truly clueless about the world outside, we better find out fast to do something about it. 8:52:32 PM    comment []  trackback []

I was starting to feel left out I was wondering what the fuss was about, but today I noticed that Norton stopped a piece of incoming email: W32.Novarg.A@mm virus Better known as Mydoom since journalists think that sounds cooler. It was not feasible to find out who the sender is based on the header, and smith@aol.com is not anyone I know. 3:41:48 PM    comment []  trackback []

Pakistan nuclear scandal goes to the top Khan, the Pakistani scientist accused of having sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, is dropping names, and just not any name. Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has told investigators that he helped North Korea design and equip facilities for making weapons-grade uranium with the knowledge of senior military commanders, including Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, according to a friend of Khan's and a senior Pakistani investigator. It is not very credible that the scientists involved were not acting with the knowledge of the country's leadership. On the other hand, it is obvious that Khan plays the scapegoat card to get off the hook himself. Extremely embarrassing for Musharraf at any rate. 8:09:49 AM    comment []  trackback []

Ricin found in Senate leader's office Ricing found in the office of Senator Bill Frist. Nobody has been hurt. Ricin has been linked both to al-Qaeda and its Iraqi associate Ansar al-Islam, as well as Saddam's government. But it's rather easy to make, and received a lot of advertising whern it turned up in London last year, so this could be essentially anyone with a bad attitude (Howard, fess up!). The anthrax scare just following 9/11 has never been solved either. 7:10:05 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.03.2004; 14:41:27.