Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan today said that a former top aide to President Bush directed him to mislead the press about another administration official's involvement in the leak of a spy's name to the news media.

In testimony before the House judiciary committee, McClellan said that then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card told him to tell reporters that Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to vice-president Dick Cheney, played no part in the release of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity. He said Card told him that at the request of Bush and Cheney.

The Army official who managed the Pentagon’s largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food, housing and other services to American troops.

The official, Charles M. Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Smith said that he was forced from his job in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the Army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations.

Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company.

But he was suddenly replaced, he said, and his successors — after taking the unusual step of hiring an outside contractor to consider KBR’s claims — approved most of the payments he had tried to block.

Army officials denied that Mr. Smith had been removed because of the dispute, but confirmed that they had reversed his decision, arguing that blocking the payments to KBR would have eroded basic services to troops. They said that KBR had warned that if it was not paid, it would reduce payments to subcontractors, which in turn would cut back on services.

Wait a minute. Their excuse for giving in to KBR is that KBR threatened them?

New York Times: Lost Army Job Tied to Doubts on Contractor
May require free registrations, sorry.

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said that talks with the US on a long-term agreement allowing US forces to remain in Iraq have "reached an impasse".

Speaking in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Mr Maliki said the American demands infringed Iraqi sovereignty.

With the UN mandate for US forces to be in Iraq expiring at the end of 2008, the White House wants a deal by July.

BBC Baghdad correspondent Nick Witchell says the disagreement between Mr Maliki and US negotiators goes to the heart of the immensely sensitive issue of who is actually in charge in the country: the Americans or the Iraqis.

The Americans are trying to negotiate a new Status of Forces agreement with the Iraqis.

But the Iraqi government regards many of the American demands as infringements of Iraqi sovereignty.

"We have reached an impasse, because when we opened these negotiations we did not realise that the US demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty and this is something we can never accept," Mr Maliki said.

"We cannot allow US forces to have the right to jail Iraqis or assume, alone, the responsibility of fighting against terrorism," he said.

The Americans want to maintain military bases and, it is reported, to keep control of Iraqi airspace. They also want immunity from prosecution for their own forces and for US contractors, a proposal which Mr Maliki said Iraq "rejected totally".

Impasse in US-Iraqi forces talks

It's time to liberate Iraq - from George W. Bush.
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments