Years · 2004

April 2004

40 posts

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US Strikes Mosque in Fallujah

The Associated Press is reporting that we struck a mosque in Fallujah with three missiles, killing 40 people. The Washington Post reports that a command post authorized the strike after several requests from local commanders for air strikes against the…

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Rumsfeld Grudgingly Admits Obvious

Al-Jazeera has a priceless photo of Rumsfeld admitting we have a “serious problem” in Iraq. In the “possibly fabricated evidence of a serious problem” department, alongside Iraqi WMD programs, the Evening Standard reports “Saddam Hussein has been moved out of…

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CENTCOM: No Damage to the Mosque

CENTCOM is saying they didn’t actually hit the mosque: To gain access to the compound housing the mosque, the release continued, the Marines used air support to breach a wall several hundred yards away from the actual mosque structure. One…

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Russian Arms Control Researcher Convicted

Igor Sutyagin, a scholar at Moscow’s Institute of USA and Canada Studies (ISKRAN), has been convicted on trumped-up espionage charges. Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (the old KGB) has alleged he sold unclassified information about nuclear submarines and missile warning systems…

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Zhao Ziyang Ailing

Zhao Ziyang is reportedly near death. The New York Times hits the high notes: Anointed as a successor to Deng Xiaoping, the country’s paramount leader, Mr. Zhao favored a relatively bold pace of political and economic reform. His hold on…

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Brazil Rebuffs IAEA

The Brazilian government has refused to allow IAEA inspectors to examine the Resende uranium enrichment plant near Rio de Janeiro. “We feel deeply bothered, almost offended, when suspicions are raised about Brazil,” a senior Brazilian diplomat told the Washington Post.…

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Bob Joseph Says Missile Defense Will Be Space Based

Here is the last paragraph in the Aviation Week & Space Technology article on easing export controls to improve international missile defense collaboration: Long-time missile defense advocate Robert G. Joseph, special assistant to the President and senior director for proliferation…

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NFIRE Gets Some Bad Press

ABCNews.com has a story on space weaponization, with the the Near Field Infra Red Experiment as the lead (the author called me for a comment, but alas I was in Switzerland). The story even has “one senior government official and…

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Killings in Fallujah

This morning on CNN someone asked, angrily, “Where were all the Iraqis who support our efforts during this horrific act?” The answer to that question is not unrelated to Secretary Rumsfeld’s flip declaration that he doesn’t understand soft power. International…