ROBERT POLLIN Professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of the forthcoming book Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity, Pollin said today: “Recently there has been much talk, and some signs, of a recovery out of the long stagnation that has gripped the U.S. economy since the stock market bubble burst three years ago. In fact the evidence of a recovery is mixed. But it is also true that economies will in some sense always recover from three years of a slump. The nature of the recovery is the…

BILL MESLER A former editor of the Seoul-based Korea Economic Journal, Mesler said today: “The upcoming talks in Beijing are a positive sign. Unfortunately the Bush administration has continued to make unacceptable demands without offering any concrete concessions, which continues to hamper the possibility of reaching a fruitful accord. The Bush administration says it wants the dismantling of the North Korean nuclear program. There already is a prudent blueprint for an agreement: the 1994 ‘agreed framework’ reached between the North Koreans and the Clinton administration. The question is: Is the Bush administration willing to return to resurrect the accord? Contrary…

SHELDON RAMPTON, JOHN STAUBER Rampton and Stauber are the authors of the just-released Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq. They said today: “In our book we report that the Bush administration’s phony claims about Iraq go well beyond those mere 16 words in the State of the Union address…. With respect to weapons of mass destruction alone, those falsehoods included the following: * “On September 7, 2002, Bush cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency which he said proved that the Iraqis were on the brink of developing nuclear weapons…. Actually,…

MARK LANCE Lance, a professor at Georgetown University, was in the West Bank in June and July with a delegation of university faculty and has written about the wall that Israel is constructing in the West Bank. He said today: “Sharon claims that Israel is building a ‘security fence’ so that it can protect itself. That is not borne out by the facts. Physically, the wall has two distinct forms. In much of the northern section, it is a 20-foot-high concrete wall, complete with guard towers — very much like the Berlin Wall. Most of the rest is a complex…

ANAS SHALLAL The Pentagon has just released pictures of dead Uday and Qusay Hussein. Shallal is founder of Iraqi-Americans for Peaceful Alternatives. He said today: “This is reminiscent to me of previous coups in Iraq. As a child, I remember seeing the killing of Abdul Karim Kassem on TV in 1963. Now, we have the U.S. writing another chapter of Iraq’s bloody history. The U.S. is usurping Iraq’s identity. Iraqis don’t want their history re-written by the U.S. military.” More Information DAVID POTORTI, BOB McILVAINE Today a report was issued on the Sept. 11 attacks by a joint committee of…

ROBERT McINTYRE McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said today: “Recently a lot of issues have come to light regarding presidential credibility about the war on Iraq. The administration also has serious credibility problems when it comes to economics. For example, the president has given numerous speeches implying that most people stand to gain $1,000 or more from his latest tax bill, but that’s not true. In fact, over the next two years, the median tax reduction will be only about $120. After 2004, the median tax cut drops to zero.” More Information DEAN BAKER Co-director of the Center…

EMAN AHMED KHAMMAS Khammas is co-director of the newly founded Occupation Watch Center in Iraq. She said today: “We are all happy that Saddam Hussein is gone, but we continue to pay a very high price with our lives, our health and our country. The security situation here is hell, I don’t know how else to describe it. The occupation force is starting to use the same procedures, the same methods we suffered under Saddam Hussein — people are asking ‘What’s the difference, is this what we suffered so much for?’ We are already exhausted mentally and bodily — the…

MEL GOODMAN Goodman, a former CIA analyst, is a professor of international security at the National War College in Washington and a senior fellow for intelligence reform at the Center for International Policy. He said today: “The administration is now asserting that statements about Iraq’s alleged attempts to obtain unenriched uranium from Africa may well be factually correct — based on Mr. Blair’s claims that the British have other sources besides the forged Niger documents to back this assertion which, somehow, they cannot share with the Americans or the International Atomic Energy Agency. During my 24 years with the CIA,…

On July 11, 2003, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told the press aboard Air Force One: “Had I known that there was a forged document here, would I put this in the State of the Union? No.” RAHUL MAHAJAN Mahajan, author of the new book Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond, has a Ph.D. in particle physics. In an IPA news release on Oct. 8, 2002 [www.accuracy.org/bush/], refuting President Bush’s claim made in his Cincinnati speech that Iraq “is seeking nuclear weapons,” Mahajan stated: “There’s no evidence that Iraq has gotten anywhere with seeking nuclear weapons. The…

GREG THIELMANN Thielmann served as director of the Office of Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research until September 2002. He said today: “I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq…. Going down the list of administration deficiencies, or distortions, one has to talk about, first and foremost, the nuclear threat being hyped. In particular I believe something was seriously amiss about President George W. Bush’s reference in his State of the Union speech to a report that Iraq…