Thursday, November 15, 2007

Some headlines which caught my eye

The Times has an article on a report released yesterday. The report claims that the number of suicides amongst Iraq war veterans is almost double that of those killed in action whilst serving in Iraq:

"The rate of suicides among veterans prompted claims that the US was suffering from a “mental health epidemic” – often linked to post-traumatic stress."

An interesting story carried by the Independent on how a Lebanese woman was able to breeze through security checks for both the CIA and FBI and look up details of her family on their databases:

"Prouty, 37, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to using her security clearance to illegally access files on government computers about the Islamic terrorist group Hizbollah. She also confessed to fraudulently obtaining US citizenship through a sham marriage. After her wedding in 1990, Prouty worked as a waitress at Middle Eastern restaurants in Detroit, where she was recruited by the FBI in 1999. It is believed she was "talent spotted" to spy on the city's large Arab-American population. The FBI gave her full security clearance and then posted her to its Washington field office, which investigates crimes against US citizens overseas."

Yesterday the Guardian carried an article alleging that a CIA agent had met Osama Bin Laden in Dubai, interesting (Yazan has just pointed out this is dated the 1st of November 2001, oops!):

!The CIA chief was seen in the lift, on his way to see Bin Laden, and later, it is alleged, boasted to friends about his contact. He was recalled to Washington soon afterwards. Intelligence sources say that another CIA agent was also present; and that Bin Laden was also visited by Prince Turki al Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence, who had long had links with the Taliban, and Bin Laden. Soon afterwards Turki resigned, and more recently he has publicly attacked him in an open letter: "You are a rotten seed, like the son of Noah". "

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2 comments:

Yazan said...

The guardian article is dated November 1, 2001?!!

Maysaloon said...

You're right, that is so weird! I'm sure I saw it on their mainpage yesterday :-S