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WASHINGTON, July 2, 2009 – Iraqi officials are learning to accept modern inspectors general in their government, and the coalition-backed investigative program is ready to stand on its own, a senior leader in that effort said. Marine Corps Col. Robert Schroeder, inspector general special staff assistant to the commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, spoke with bloggers and online journalists during a June 30 “DoDLive” bloggers roundtable about the support his office provides. The command has dedicated IG advisors to Iraq’s ministries of Defense and Interior, Joint Headquarters Staff and Counter-terrorism Bureau, Schroeder said. “Each of the advisors and...

Why isn't the Inspector General story bigger? What makes this story important is first of all the serious nature of the inspector general position - they are supposed to be INDEPENDENT, non-partisan watchdogs. Now we have the Obama administration playing hardball with them in a way that indicates a pattern of behavior and this is certainly troubling.

Most government enforcers assume a low profile after they’re sued, at least for a while. Not New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets. Within hours of being sued by Barbara and Steve Smith, and members of Meadowsweet Farm’s Limited Liability Company (as described in a posting here earlier this week), two agents showed up at the farm in Lodi, apparently looking for trouble. They found it, in the form of the Smiths, who knew exactly what the agents were entitled to, and not entitled to, and whom to call when the agents wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. I’ll let...

When agriculture inspectors come calling at 7 on a Saturday evening, watch out. That's what Barbara and Steve Smith learned last Saturday evening.

Vienna — The UN's atomic energy agency has found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country's Defence Ministry, diplomats said Friday, adding to concerns that Tehran is hiding activities aimed at making nuclear arms. The diplomats, who insisted on anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads. Still, they said, further analysis could show that the traces match...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2006 – The authors of an upcoming U.N.-sponsored report that alleges torture was committed against detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had declined an offer to observe operations at the facility, Defense and State Department officials said. "Any report that they may be writing would certainly suffer from the opportunity that was offered to them to go down there and witness firsthand the operations at Guantanamo," DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters at the Pentagon today. U.N. representatives could have visited the U.S. military-run Guantanamo detention facility, but had declined the offer because they wouldn't be allowed...

The Bush administration has justified its softly-softly approach to the Iranian nuclear program on grounds it has firm commitments from the Europeans to get tough should diplomacy fail. Those promises are about to be put to the test now that Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its intention to resume uranium enrichment. The suspension agreement was inked last November after what turns out to have been nearly 20 years of Iranian deception vis-à-vis the IAEA. And it can be argued that diplomacy has at least bought time, assuming--and it's a big assumption given how many times Iran...

It seems many may be in for the shock of their lives. But you never hear this information from mainstream ‘media’. We only hear that there is ‘no’ connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda. The ‘UN’, and New York Times are not exactly conservative ‘bastions’. But they’ve recently found evidence that may soften the most stubborn liberal idealist. Even some Christians are ‘doubting’ that the existing war on terrorism is a ‘Just War’. Lest we forget, in the beatitudes, Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers”. But that same Jesus told His disciples “let him who has no sword sell his mantle...

The 1,000 megawatt reactor is located in the southwestern Iranian city of Bushehr, a port town on the Persian Gulf. Construction of the reactor began in the 1970s and is near completion. Built and designed by Russian engineers, the facility is worth $800 million. Nuclear fuel for the reactor is also produced by Russians and is awaiting delivery. The U.S. is pressuring Russia to halt nuclear cooperation with Iran, but Russia has already built the reactor and signed a fuel deal. For years, Iran kept its nuclear activities under wraps, so its unprecedented openness comes as a surprise to U.S....

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Welds on the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge are not faulty as had been alleged by former welders who claimed the work was dangerously unsafe, the Federal Highway Administration said Wednesday. Private inspectors hired by the Federal Highway Administration have been cutting out sections of steel foundation work in the Bay Bridge to test for the allegedly faulty welding. The agency reported Wednesday it found no evidence of shoddy, unsafe welds. The FBI, the Federal Highway Administration and state attorney general's office began several weeks ago investigating allegations by former project welders that they...

ASSOCIATED PRESS An Iraqi scientist has told U.S. interrogators that her team destroyed Iraq's stock of anthrax in 1991 by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, but never told U.N. inspectors for fear of angering the dictator. Rihab Rashid Taha's decision in 2003 to remain silent stoked suspicions of those who contended Iraq still harbored biological weapons, contributing to the U.S. decision to invade Iraq two years ago this month. "Whether those involved understood the significance and disastrous consequences of their actions is unclear," the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group says of Mrs. Taha and...

In a stunning about-face, the New York Times reported Sunday that when the U.S. attacked Iraq in March 2003, Saddam Hussein possessed "stockpiles of monitored chemicals and materials," as well as sophisticated equipment to manufacture nuclear and biological weapons, which was removed to "a neighboring state" before the U.S. could secure the weapons sites. The U.N.'s Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission [UNMOVIC] "has filed regular reports to the Security Council since last May," the paper said, "about the dismantlement of important weapons installations and the export of dangerous materials to foreign states." "Officials of the commission and the [International] Atomic...

Saddam's $2m offer to WMD inspector By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 12/03/2005) Saddam Hussein's regime offered a $2 million (£1.4 million) bribe to the United Nations' chief weapons inspector to doctor his reports on the search for weapons of mass destruction

Iran blocks UN nuclear inspections Iran has refused to let UN nuclear inspectors follow up on a first visit to the Parchin military facility, where Washington charges Tehran is simulating testing of atomic weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said. Iran has also refused to answer IAEA questions about the Lavizan site in Tehran where there was suspicion of nuclear activities, Pierre Goldschmidt, the agency's deputy director-general for safeguards, told a meeting in Vienna of the 35-nation IAEA board of governors. Iran told the IAEA in a message, dated from Sunday, that "the expectation of the Safeguards...

UN inspectors in Iraq spent their working hours drinking vodka while ignoring a shadowy nocturnal fleet believed to be smuggling goods for Saddam Hussein, a former senior inspector told the US Senate yesterday. In a move that provoked fury from officials of the Swiss firm Cotecna, an Australian former inspector detailed a picture of incompetence, indifference and drunkeness among the men acting as the frontline for UN sanctions. Arthur Ventham, a former Australian army officer and customs officer, joined the operation in 2002 and worked at various sites in Iraq and neighbouring states. He said that at Iskendurun in eastern...

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. weapons inspectors are planning for possible monitoring of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile programs despite being barred from the country by the United States, according to a report to the U.N. Security Council. The quarterly report released Wednesday by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, outlines a range of activities undertaken by the U.N. inspectors to seek new information about Iraq's weapons programs and to prepare for a possible future role. U.N. inspectors were pulled out of Iraq in March, just before the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. After the...

In the scandal over the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, Kofi Annan's main line of defense has been that he didn't know. Perhaps he should take a closer look at internal U.N. Oil-for-Food audit reports, more than 50 in all, produced by his own Office of Internal Oversight Services--the same reports he's declined to share with the Security Council, or release to Congress. One of these reports has now leaked. It concerns the U.N. Secretariat's mishandling of the hiring of inspectors to authenticate the contents of relief shipments into sanctions-bound Iraq. (Obtained by a journalist specializing in the mining industry,...

Nicaraguans seize missile during stingBy Rowan ScarboroughTHE WASHINGTON TIMESNicaraguan police, with U.S. assistance in a sting operation, thwarted black marketeers trying to sell SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles capable of downing commercial aircraft earlier this month, raising fears that some missiles already have been sold to terrorists, The Washington Times has learned.     U.S. officials think the missiles are being provided by elements of the Nicaraguan military. One official said intelligence reports suggest Nicaraguan army elements are keeping a secret stash of SA-7s not inventoried by international inspectors.

Former President Jimmy Carter was a target of the clandestine lobby campaign launched by an Iraqi-American businessman who admitted he was paid millions of dollars to undermine U.S. policy toward Iraq, it was revealed yesterday. Virginia-based oilman Samir Vincent earlier this week became the first person to plead guilty in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal. He had several contacts with the former Democratic president in a bid to weaken and eventually repeal sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime, investigators said. Contacts with Vincent dated back to 1999, when Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, hosted a delegation of Iraqi religious leaders at their...

The U.S. is engaged in a bloody war in Iraq for the purpose of eliminating the remnants of a terrorist regime, foreign terrorists, and bringing democracy to Iraq and the region. It is a big gamble that has put radical Islam on the defensive around the world. But shocking evidence demonstrates that controversial former U.S. Marine and former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now writes for the anti-American Arab "news" organization Al Jazeera, was involved in a controversial effort to stop the war by enlisting prominent personalities in a "peace" campaign.