Mr Blair has used the hearing to mount an impassioned defence of the decision to go to war, telling the panel: "This isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception.
"It's a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programmes or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?"
Blair denies 'covert' deal with Bush to invade Iraq
Holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda
Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort - never have so many ministers deployed across the globe - is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget.
What does one TRILLION dollars look like?
What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.
We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.
Does NYT's Top Israel Reporter Have a Son in the IDF?
The New York Times refuses to confirm or deny a report that its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, has a child who is an enlisted member of the Israeli Defense Force--even though such a relationship would pose a serious conflict of interest.
Revealed: See Who Was Paid Off In The AIG Bailout
An unredacted document obtained by the Huffington Post list the damage in detail. Goldman Sachs alone, for instance, got $14 billion in government money for assets worth $6 billion at the time -- a de facto $8 billion subsidy, courtesy of taxpayers.
The New York Fed initially pressured AIG to keep the list hidden from investors, regulators and the public. When it was eventually filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC allowed the Fed and AIG to keep the details secret. A heavily-redacted version was made public last March.
Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87.
DND, RCMP mum on UFO mystery
People who saw a missile-like object soaring through the sky over a small rural community in Newfoundland Monday night are getting no answers about what it was, although police say they'd gotten to the bottom of the mystery.
Darlene Stewart spotted the object while taking pictures of the sunset over Harbour Mille, a community of about 200 residents on the south coast of the province. She says she started snapping photos.
Revealed: Retired CIA agent ‘made up’ waterboarding details
According to a piece by veteran intelligence reporter Jeff Stein, Kiriakou "basically made up" details about the waterboarding of al Qaeda agent Abu Zubaydah.
Arguing that waterboarding — or simulated drowning — is actually effective in forcing prisoners to share secret information, Kiriakou told ABC News’ Nightline in April, “The next day [after his first time being waterboarded], he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate.”
Lord Goldsmith changed legal view of Iraq war in two months, says adviser
In a dramatic day at the inquiry, which Blair will face on Friday, Jack Straw's chief legal adviser at the time of the Iraq invasion also today told the inquiry that the then foreign secretary overruled his advice against military action. The revelation by Sir Michael Wood, the top Foreign Office lawyer at the time, challenges the evidence Straw, now justice secretary, gave to the inquiry last week in which he insisted that he had "very reluctantly" supported the conflict.Page 837 of 1147
