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February 17th, 2005
Negroponte's Dark Past
By David Corn / The Nation
How many times can I write the same piece about John Negroponte?
Today George W. Bush named him to the new post of Director of National Intelligence. Previously, Bush had hired Negroponte to be UN ambassador and then US ambassador to the new Iraq. On each of those earlier occasions, I noted that Negroponte's past deserved scrutiny. After all, during the Reagan years, when he was ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte was involved in what was arguably an illegal covert quid pro quo connected to the Iran/contra scandal, and he refused to acknowledge significant human rights abuses committed by the pro-US military in Honduras. But each time Negroponte's appointment came before the Senate, he won easy confirmation. Now that he's been tapped to lead the effort to reorganize and reform an intelligence community that screwed up 9/11 and the WMD-in-Iraq assignment, Negroponte will likely sail through the confirmation process once again.
His previous exploits, though, warrant more attention than ever. He has been credibly accused of rigging a human rights report that was politically inconvenient. This is a bad omen. The fundamental mission of the intelligence community is to provide policymakers with unvarnished and valuable information-even if it causes the policymakers headaches. But there's reason to believe that Negroponte did the opposite in tough circumstances. If that is the case, he would not be the right man to oversee an intelligence community that needs solid leaders who are committed to truth-finding. Rather than rewrite my previous work on Negroponte, I am posting below the article I did after Bush named him the viceroy of Baghdad. It's more relevant today than when it first appeared. But I doubt Negroponte's dark history will finally trigger a confirmation debate within the Senate. He has skated in the past; he'll likely do so again.
February 17th, 2005
Bush Names Negroponte as New Intelligence Chief
By Tabassum Zakaria / Reuters
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday nominated John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to fill the new position of director of national intelligence.
"The director's responsibility is straightforward and demanding. John will make sure those whose duty it is to defend America have the information we need to make the right decisions," Bush said.
He also said Negroponte's role would be to "lead a unified community" and that the CIA director would report to him.
Negroponte, a surprise choice who had been ambassador to Baghdad for less than a year, met Bush at the White House this week.
The newly created intelligence chief position will oversee 15 U.S. intelligence agencies and emerged as a central recommendation of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks last year.
The new intelligence chief also will give Bush his daily intelligence briefing and must be confirmed by the Senate.
Some critics had said the definition of the new job was too vague to attract qualified candidates.
The new intelligence director could face struggles similar to those confronted by the Department of Homeland Security, which was also created in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and had a difficult time combining a number of government agencies.
February 16th, 2005
Syria and Iran Say Will Build 'Common Front'
By Parisa Hafezi / Reuters
TEHRAN - Iran and Syria, both locked in rows with the United States, said on Wednesday they would form a common front to face challenges and threats.
"We are ready to help Syria on all grounds to confront threats," Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref said in Tehran after meeting Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari.
Otari told reporters: "This meeting, which takes place at this sensitive time, is important, especially because Syria and Iran face several challenges and it is necessary to build a common front."
Syria's ambassador to the United States, asked by CNN what the common front with Iran entailed, stressed that it was not an anti-American alliance and said Syria was trying to improve its relations with Washington.
"Today we do not want to form a front against anybody, particularly not against the United States," Imad Moustapha said.
"Syria is trying to engage constructively with the United States ... We are not the enemies of the United States, and we do not want to be drawn into such an enmity," he added.
In a reaction to Iran and Syria's possible formation of a unified front to face threats, White House spokesman Scott McClellan called on the both countries to abide by the international commitments.
"It is a fundamental misreading of the issue because their problem is not with the United States, it's with the international community," McClellan told reporters traveling with President Bush to New Hampshire.
"Both Syria and Iran have international obligations and they need to abide by the commitments they have made to the international community."
Washington recalled its ambassador to Syria for urgent consultations on Tuesday to show its deep displeasure with Damascus after Monday's killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
U.S. officials said they were considering imposing new sanctions on Syria because of its refusal to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon and the U.S. belief that Syria lets Palestinian militants and Iraqi insurgents operate on its soil.
While acknowledging they do not know who was to blame for Hariri's car bomb assassination, U.S. officials argued Syria's military presence and its political power-broking role were generally responsible for Lebanon's instability.
Syria rejects accusations it supports terrorism.
Moustapha told CNN Damascus regarded its military presence in Lebanon as a "stabilizing factor" and said "we would be happy to withdraw the troops" if the Lebanese government asked Syria to do so.
Washington has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" along with pre-war Iraq and North Korea and accuses Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for electricity generation.
Bush has dubbed Iran "the world's primary state sponsor of terror" and has warned the United States could use military action to prevent it acquiring a nuclear bomb.
February 15th, 2005
White House Turns Tables on Former American POWs
By David G. Savage / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist.
The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money.
The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention.
Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States.
But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says.
"It seems so strange to have our own country fighting us on this," said retired Air Force Col. David W. Eberly, the senior officer among the former POWs.
The case, now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, tests whether "state sponsors of terrorism" can be sued in the U.S. courts for torture, murder or hostage-taking. The court is expected to decide in the next two months whether to hear the appeal.
Congress opened the door to such claims in 1996, when it lifted the shield of sovereign immunity — which basically prohibits lawsuits against foreign governments — for any nation that supports terrorism. At that time, Iraq was one of seven nations identified by the State Department as sponsoring terrorist activity. The 17 Gulf War POWs looked to have a very strong case when they first filed suit in 2002. They had been undeniably tortured by a tyrannical regime, one that had $1.7 billion of its assets frozen by the U.S. government.
The picture changed, however, when the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein from power nearly two years ago. On July 21, 2003, two weeks after the Gulf War POWs won their court case in U.S. District Court, the Bush administration intervened to argue that their claims should be dismissed.
"No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of this very brutal regime and at the hands of Saddam Hussein," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters when asked about the case in November 2003.
Government lawyers have insisted, literally, on "no amount of money" going to the Gulf War POWs. "These resources are required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq," McClellan said.
The case also tests a key provision of the Geneva Convention, the international law that governs the treatment of prisoners of war. The United States and other signers pledged never to "absolve" a state of "any liability" for the torture of POWs.
Former military lawyers and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have been among those who have urged the Supreme Court to take up the case and to strengthen the law against torturers and tyrannical regimes.
"Our government is on the wrong side of this issue," said Jeffrey F. Addicott, a former Army lawyer and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University in San Antonio. "A lot of Americans would scratch their heads and ask why is our government taking the side of Iraq against our POWs."
The POWs' journey through the court system began with the events of Jan. 17, 1991 — the first day of the Gulf War. In response to Hussein's invasion of Kuwait five months earlier, the United States, as head of a United Nations coalition, launched an air attack on Iraq, determined to drive Iraqi forces from the oil-rich Gulf state. On the first day of the fighting, a jet piloted by Marine Corps Lt. Col. Clifford Acree was downed over Iraq by a surface-to-air missile. He suffered a neck injury ejecting from the plane and was soon taken prisoner by the Iraqis. Blindfolded and handcuffed, he was beaten until he lost consciousness. His nose was broken, his skull was fractured, and he was threatened with having his fingers cut off. He lost 30 pounds during his 47 days of captivity.
Eberly was shot down two days later and lost 45 pounds during his ordeal. He and several other U.S. service members were near starvation when they were freed. Other POWs had their eardrums ruptured and were urinated on during their captivity at Abu Ghraib.
All the while, their families thought they were dead because the Iraqis did not notify the U.S. government of their capture.
In April 2002, the Washington law firm of Steptoe & Johnson filed suit on behalf of the 17 former POWs and 37 of their family members. The suit, Acree vs. Republic of Iraq, sought monetary damages for the "acts of torture committed against them and for pain, suffering and severe mental distress of their families."
Usually, foreign states have a sovereign immunity that shields them from being sued. But in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, Congress authorized U.S. courts to award "money damages … against a foreign state for personal injury or death that was caused by an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage [or] hostage taking."
This provision was "designed to hold terrorist nations accountable for the torture of Americans and to deter rogue nations from engaging in such actions in the future," Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and George Allen (R-Va.) said last year in a letter to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft that urged him to support the POWs' claim.
The case came before U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts. There was no trial; Hussein's regime ignored the suit, and the U.S. State Department chose to take no part in the case.
On July 7, 2003, the judge handed down a long opinion that described the abuse suffered by the Gulf War POWs, and he awarded them $653 million in compensatory damages. He also assessed $306 million in punitive damages against Iraq. Lawyers for the POWs asked him to put a hold on some of Iraq's frozen assets.
No sooner had the POWs celebrated their victory than they came up against a new roadblock: Bush administration lawyers argued that the case should be thrown out of court on the grounds that Bush had voided any such claims against Iraq, which was now under U.S. occupation. The administration lawyers based their argument on language in an emergency bill, passed shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, approving the expenditure of $80 billion for military operations and reconstruction efforts. One clause in the legislation authorized the president to suspend the sanctions against Iraq that had been imposed as punishment for the invasion of Kuwait more than a decade earlier.
The president's lawyers said this clause also allowed Bush to remove Iraq from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism and to set aside pending monetary judgments against Iraq.
When the POWs' case went before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the three-judge panel ruled unanimously for the Bush administration and threw out the lawsuit.
"The United States possesses weighty foreign policy interests that are clearly threatened by the entry of judgment for [the POWs] in this case," the appeals court said.
The administration also succeeding in killing a congressional resolution supporting the POWs' suit. "U.S. courts no longer have jurisdiction to hear cases such as those filed by the Gulf War POWs," then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said in a letter to lawmakers. "Moreover, the president has ordered the vesting of blocked Iraqi assets for use by the Iraqi people and for reconstruction."
Already frustrated by the turn of events, the former POWs were startled when Rumsfeld said he favored awarding compensation to the Iraqi prisoners who were abused by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib.
"I am seeking a way to provide appropriate compensation to those detainees who suffered grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty at the hands of a few members of the U.S. military. It is the right thing to do," Rumsfeld told a Senate committee last year.
By contrast, the government's lawyers have refused to even discuss a settlement in the POWs' case, say lawyers for the Gulf War veterans. "They were willing to settle this for pennies on the dollar," said Addicott, the former Army lawyer.
The last hope for the POWs rests with the Supreme Court. Their lawyers petitioned the high court last month to hear the case. Significantly, it has been renamed Acree vs. Iraq and the United States.
The POWs say the justices should decide the "important and recurring question [of] whether U.S. citizens who are victims of state-sponsored terrorism [may] seek redress against terrorist states in federal court."
This week, Justice Department lawyers are expected to file a brief urging the court to turn away the appeal.
February 15th, 2005
Rumsfeld to Face a Wary Congress
By Liz Sidoti / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in his second consecutive tour of duty, has to sell a half-trillion dollar military budget to a skeptical Congress and answer repeated calls to bring the troops home from Iraq.
It won't be easy. Often testy, his political capital with lawmakers has found new limits.
Old Europe, hillbilly armor and his use of an automatic pen to sign condolence letters were among the Pentagon chief's first-term missteps that have alienated longtime allies, frustrated soldiers and angered military families.
Democrats called for Rumsfeld's resignation after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Even some Republicans expressed little confidence in the defense secretary. Said Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi: "I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld."
In his second act as Bush's defense chief, Rumsfeld, a divisive figure kept under wraps for much of the 2004 presidential campaign, has been the Bush administration's point man in talking up the Iraqi elections on the Sunday talk shows.
He recently traveled to countries that strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — France and Germany — made a surprise visit to Iraq and attended an international security conference in Munich where in a rare moment of self-deprecation and rapprochement sought to explain his "Old Europe" jab with a quip.
"That was old Rumsfeld," said the Pentagon chief, who also served as defense secretary and U.S. ambassador to NATO in the '70s.
This week, Rumsfeld will try to sell Bush's military blueprint — some $500 billion, including about $82 billion for a new supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan — to lawmakers at back-to-back hearings. It will mark his first public testimony before Congress since September.
While Republican critics grumble about Rumsfeld quietly and Democrats have stopped calling for his ouster, lawmakers say it's not that they support him more than they did before. Rather, they are resigned to the fact that they're stuck with him, whether they like it or not, because Bush asked him to stay.
Rumsfeld recently said he offered to resign twice; Bush turned him down.
"Look, the president chooses who he wants in that position," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican on the Armed Services Committee. In December, it was McCain who said he had "no confidence" in the Pentagon chief.
As for the calls for Rumsfeld's resignation, "The water's under that bridge," said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
"He's carrying out policy, essentially," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Those are administration and presidential policies."
Still, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the former Democratic presidential candidate, said Tuesday he stands by his long-held position that Rumsfeld should resign, saying "the miscalculations are of an unprecedented level."
When he testifies this week, Rumsfeld also will face questions about proposed cuts in weapons programs, including a reduction in the number of aircraft carriers; an exit strategy for U.S. forces in Iraq and the demands on National Guard and reserve units already stretched thin.
The architect of the Iraq war also will appear before lawmakers whose constituents are mourning the deaths of more than 1,450 U.S. troops.
"His stock has gone up and down over time," said John Pike, a military expert with globalsecurity.org. "It's about at even keel. On one hand, he's got a bunch of explaining to do. On the other hand, it's clear he's going to be around for some time and they're going to have to deal with him."
Rumsfeld's stock was near the bottom last November. In Kuwait, he told U.S. troops who questioned him about vehicles that lacked armor — and said they used scraps of metal from a junkyard to outfit humvees — that, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have."
His political enemies seized on the comment, in part of a longer response, and the lethal post-invasion insurgency to claim that Rumsfeld was unnecessarily putting U.S. forces in harm's way.
Adding to Rumsfeld's problems was the disclosure that he used an automatic ink machine to put his name on condolence letters sent to families of troops killed in Iraq. He quickly announced he would personally sign all such future letters.
"His relationship on Capitol Hill is going to be mediocre for as long as he stays in the job," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution.
Still, Rumsfeld has an obvious trump card in negotiating the budget.
In May, the Pentagon chief will strike fear in congressional districts as he offers his proposed list of military base closings to an independent commission, the first process in 10 years.
February 15th, 2005
Bush Requests $82B for Iraq, Afghan Wars
By Alan Fram / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Democrats are using President Bush's request for $81.9 billion for conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to criticize his war policies and soaring federal deficits, but congressional approval of something very much like his plan seems inevitable.
Bush sent the package to Capitol Hill on Monday. It included money for tsunami aid to battered Indian Ocean countries, new broadcasts aimed at Europe's Muslims, and offices for the newly created director of national intelligence.
Of the total, the White House said $77 billion was directly related to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of that — $74.9 billion — would go to the Defense Department, with the State Department getting most of the rest to build and staff a new embassy in Baghdad.
Bush said the additional money for the remainder of the 2005 budget year would help Iraq and Afghanistan pursue "the path of democracy and freedom." He said the funds would help protect U.S. troops, track down terrorists and enhance Middle East peace prospects.
Democrats said the proposal did little to correct the problems surrounding the U.S. effort in Iraq, where national elections were held last month amid a relentless insurgency that has slowed reconstruction efforts.
"This supplemental request provides support for our men and women in uniform, but it provides little basis for optimism for a stable and secure Iraq," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., one of the president's most persistent war critics.
Democrats also said the request, which Bush wants to be financed through borrowing, underscores the budget's problems.
The $2.57 trillion budget Bush sent Congress last week projected a record $427 billion deficit this year and $390 billion in red ink in 2006. While it included Bush's latest request, the budget omitted any new war funds next year, which are considered certain to be needed.
"It's going to get bigger," Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., said of the shortfall.
The new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said he hoped to ship the bill to Bush's desk by early April. But he added, "Congress will exercise our constitutional obligations" — code words for the likelihood that some changes will be made.
Approval would push the total spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and other efforts against terrorism beyond $300 billion, including the costs of fighting and reconstruction. It stood at about $228 billion before Bush's latest request, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for Congress.
Congress gave Bush a $25 billion down payment last summer for this year's costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which lasted more than a decade when it ended in 1975, cost $623 billion when that era's expenditures are converted to the value of today's dollars, according to the research service.
The request spotlighted how the growing costs of war and reconstruction have exceeded initial administration characterizations. White House officials derided former Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey's early estimate of a $100 billion to $200 billion price tag.
Some $12 billion was requested to replace or repair worn-out and damaged equipment, including $3.3 billion for extra armor for trucks and other protective gear — highlighting a sensitivity to earlier complaints by troops.
There was money for more generous death benefits for the families of slain American soldiers, to improve troops' health coverage and bonuses for staying in the reserves. Many U.S. troops have been forced to serve prolonged periods in Iraq.
In addition, there was $5.7 billion to train Iraqi forces and $1.3 billion to train Afghan security agencies. Another $5 billion was for the Army to redesign many of its own combat brigades to make them more flexible and less reliant on other units.
Bush requested $658 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Iraq that could house a staff of 1,000, plus $717 million to staff it. He wants $4.8 million to enhance U.S.-backed broadcasting to Arabs, including new television broadcasts aimed at Muslims living in Europe, and $250 million to build offices for the director of national intelligence and for other intelligence costs.
Afghanistan would get almost $2 billion more for its own reconstruction, including money to build roads and schools, combat illegal drugs and prepare for parliamentary elections.
There was money for other U.S. allies, including $150 million for Pakistan, $300 million for Jordan and $60 million for the Ukraine. The Palestinians — engaged in a new peace effort with Israel — would get $200 million for economic development and to help them create democratic institutions.
One possible flashpoint with Congress was two $200 million funds the State Department would control to provide economic and security aid to unspecified U.S. allies.
A total of $950 million would be provided for the tsunami-damaged Indian Ocean countries, including $350 million to replenish U.S. accounts tapped earlier for initial tsunami aid.
Also requested was $242 million for aid for Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region.
February 15th, 2005
U.N. Team Predicts Rise in Terror Attacks
By Leyla Linton / Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. team investigating compliance with sanctions against al-Qaida and the Taliban predicted Tuesday that brutal attacks by Osama bin Laden's followers will escalate as they still have easy access to bombmaking materials and money.
Terror attacks sponsored by al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction are among the chief threats confronting the world, according to the team's report to a U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Al-Qaida remains capable of mounting "devastating attacks" and sanctions are only having a limited effect on the group, which is still keen to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, a U.N. report said.
It is only "a matter of time" before a successful attack occurs, the report said.
U.N. sanctions require all 191 U.N. member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against a list of those linked to Osama bin Laden's terror network and the former Afghan rulers and to freeze their financial assets. The list includes more than 430 individuals and groups.
The semiannual report, which will be considered by the full Security Council at a later stage, painted a grim picture of a terror group determined to spread its influence, constantly evolving to evade detection.
"The biggest fear we all have is terrorists getting hold of the means to cause a mass attack," said Richard Barrett, the team's coordinator. "Al-Qaida is a phenomenon that observes no borders. It is even harder to track now than it was a year or two ago when it had a more coherent structure and leadership."
He added that he did not think al-Qaida was likely to obtain an entire bomb, but rather components of weapons of mass destruction, for example, toxic or radioactive material.
Despite steps taken by U.N. member states to impose military-style weapon embargoes, attacks with small arms and explosives have continued, the team said.
It said measures should be taken to counter the threat of portable anti-aircraft missile systems and materials that can be turned into explosives.
Financial sanctions, such as an assets freeze, may be the most effective way to stop large-scale terrorist operations, and many countries had implemented banking reforms to stop terror groups from moving money around, the report said.
"But there are many unofficial ways available to circumvent these restrictions," it added.
The team also said a travel ban imposed on people listed as being members of the Taliban and al-Qaida or their associates should be tightened and it called on the United Nations to work with Interpol on problem areas like forged travel documents.
No member state reported a violation of the ban for the three years the sanctions had been in force, but it was "difficult to believe" no al-Qaida or Taliban member had crossed a national border, the report said.
Barrett said he did not know where bin Laden was. But despite the lack of knowledge about the al-Qaida leader's whereabouts, the group he led continues to thrive.
"The team sees no let-up in the determination of al-Qaida, the Taliban and their associates to continue their campaign of terror," the report said, warning of "a further escalation in terms of brutality of attacks."
"Building on the appeal of its message, al-Qaida is actively seeking new areas in which to expand, both to recruit and to base itself. It aims to radicalize Muslim communities through propaganda and to create and exploit a sense of injustice whether political, social or economic," it added.
Barrett also said the terror group was using the conflict in Iraq to boost its standing. "There is no doubt al-Qaida is using the situation in Iraq to promote themselves and recruit people," he said.
February 14th, 2005
US Missile Defense Flunks Test
By John J. Lumpkin / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A test of the national missile defense system failed Monday when an interceptor missile did not launch from its island base in the Pacific Ocean, the military said. It was the second failure in months for the experimental program.
A statement from the Missile Defense Agency said the cause of the failure was under investigation.
A spokesman for the agency, Rick Lehner, said the early indications was that there was a malfunction with the ground support equipment at the test range on Kwajalein Island, not with the interceptor missile itself.
If verified, that would be a relief for program officials because it would mean no new problems had been discovered with the missile. Previous failures of these high-profile, $85 million test launches have been regarded as significant setbacks by critics of the program.
In Monday's test, the interceptor missile was to target a mock ICBM fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska. The target missile launched at 1:22 a.m. Monday EST without any problems, but the interceptor did not launch.
The previous test, on Dec. 15, failed under almost identical circumstances. The target missile launched, but the interceptor did not. Military officials later blamed that failure on fault-tolerance software that was oversensitive to small errors in the flow of data between the missile and a flight computer. The software shut down the launch; officials said they would decrease the sensitivity in future launches.
Before the Dec. 15 launch, it had been two years since a test. The program had gone five-for-eight in previous attempts to intercept a target.
No date for the next test has been announced. It is unclear how continued test failures would affect two experimental interceptor bases in Alaska and California.
Those two bases, Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., are positioned to oppose the threat of attack from North Korea. Both are still classified as experimental but, officials say, they could fire interceptors in an emergency.
The Pentagon has not declared those bases "operational," but officials say they would work anyway once certain mechanical blocks are removed from the interceptors themselves. Six interceptors are at the Alaska site, with two more in California as a backup. Up to 10 more will go into silos in Alaska this year, officials say.
February 14th, 2005
George Pushes for Patriot Act Renewal
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Monday urged Congress to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, the Justice Department's widely criticized anti-terrorism law.
"We must not allow the passage of time or the illusion of safety to weaken our resolve in this new war" on terrorism, Bush said at a swearing-in ceremony for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the Justice Department.
The president also argued that the Senate must give his nominees for the federal bench up-or-down votes without delay to fill vacancies in the courts.
The Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, bolstered FBI surveillance and law-enforcement powers in terror cases, increased use of material witness warrants to hold suspects incommunicado for months, and allowed secret proceedings in immigration cases.
Civil liberties groups and privacy advocates lambasted the law because they said it undermines freedom. But Bush said the act "has been vital to our success in tracking terrorists and disrupting their plans."
He noted that many key elements of the law are set to expire at the end of the year and said Congress must act quickly to renew it.
The Patriot Act was pushed by Gonzales' predecessor, John Ashcroft, who was in the audience as Gonzales took his oath from Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Bush lauded Ashcroft's tireless efforts to make America safer as he oversaw a drop in violent crime besides his counterterrorism work.
Gonzales, who served as White House counsel during the last four years, said he would be a part of Bush's team but his first allegiance will be to the Constitution.
"I am confident that in the days and years ahead we in the department will work together tirelessly to address terrorism and other threats to our nation and to confront injustice with integrity and devotion to our highest ideals," Gonzales said.
February 13th, 2005
Uniter, Not Divider: Bush Cuts Hit Blue States
WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts and other traditionally Democratic states would see their share of federal grant money shrink under President Bush's 2006 budget, compared to Republican states in the South and West, according to a Globe analysis of funding projections compiled by the White House budget office.
Critics and defenders of the president's $2.6 trillion budget say they do not believe the budget proposal represents a deliberate attack on states that voted for Democrat John F. Kerry, but rather that Bush's budget priorities tend to hurt those states that rely more on the health, community development, and housing programs that are targeted for reductions.
The result is that the highest percentage increases in state and local grant money would go to Arkansas, North Carolina, Arizona, and Missouri, while New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Vermont would be among the states with the smallest increases. Massachusetts -- with a projected 1.9 percent increase -- is tied for 35th, while liberal-leaning California and Washington state (along with conservative-leaning North Dakota) would see a reduction in federal grants next year.
With the proposal to eliminate or reduce funding for home-heating assistance, the Northeast would be especially hard hit by the president's budget-cutting, said Senator Jon Corzine, Democrat of New Jersey.
''People will ask me whether I think it's political or not," Corzine said. ''I think it's just the philosophy of this administration not to have the government involved."
Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, said that while the budget may not have been designed to hurt Democratic-leaning ''blue" states, ''they can do it without trying," because many of the budget cuts tend to hit urbanized areas. ''It's not just red state/blue state, but blue communities within the red states," he said. ''Their ideology reflects that."
Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said much of the trend is due to demographics. ''It's not a reflection of any political decision, by and large, because these tend to be mandatory [funding] programs," such as Medicaid, he said. Kolton and independent budget analysts also noted that the funding projections do not include Bush's proposed cuts in farm assistance, a highly controversial idea that -- if approved by Congress -- would probably hit rural, Republican-voting states with large grain farms the hardest.
But representatives of Northeastern states note that the funding projections also do not include the proposed elimination of Amtrak funding -- which they say could hurt the Northeast where the train service is most popular -- or increases in defense spending, which tend to favor the South and West because of the large number of military bases in those regions. In all, they say, the budget heavily favors Republican-leaning ''red" states, which constitute 19 of the top 25 states to receive the biggest percentage increases.
Northeast and industrial states historically have benefited from the types of programs that Bush wants to cut, such as urban block grants, home-heating assistance and Medicaid, said Matt Kane, an analyst with the Northeast-Midwest Institute, a nonpartisan group that advocates for the region in Washington.
Community Development Block Grants, one of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development's oldest programs that helps distressed communities with economic development, have helped the Northeast, since funding relies partly on the age of a city's infrastructure. That and other factors have tended to steer money to cities like Boston, which this year got $23 million.
Under the Bush budget, block grants would be combined with 18 other community development initiatives, and overall funding would be cut to $3.7 billion from $5.4 billion. Boston would lose an estimated $8 million, according to projections by the staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Further, the formula would change, directing aid toward high-poverty areas and making it harder for relatively prosperous Massachusetts to get money, Kane said.
Kolton said the block grants were being cut because too much of the money was going to prosperous areas that did not need it. He said the scaled-down program would help bring the program back to what it was meant to be -- aid to struggling communities.
Brian Reidl, a budget analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation said the block-grant program has been expanded to win the support of more members of Congress, and should be targeted more closely to help the poor. The program ''ends up funding wasteful projects local governments wouldn't dream of wasting tax dollars on," he said. ''It's not as much of a poverty program as it is a pork program."
Meanwhile, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a loan program that helps states improve their wastewater treatment systems, would be trimmed to $730 million from $1.09 billion. The OMB, in its budget summary, said that no more money is needed, since loan repayments have kept the fund flush. But Kane said the cutback would be especially hard on the Northeast and Midwest. Massachusetts would lose an estimated $12.2 million if the proposal is approved, he said.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps pay for home heating for needy families, would be cut to $2 billion from $2.2 billion.
The program, which the Northeast-Midwest Institute says is reaching only 20 percent of eligible families, is especially weighted to states with colder weather like the Northeast.
The administration also has proposed ending federal subsidies for Amtrak, which critics say is inefficiently run and should be profitable. While Amtrak serves the entire country, the Northeast is particularly reliant on it, with its heavily traveled Northeast Corridor serving Boston, New York, and Washington.
''We are the United States of America, not a series of red vs. blue states," said Kennedy, who said he will fight the proposed cuts. ''Unfortunately, the president's budget divides America by undervaluing our cities and demonstrating that education and health care are not national priorities."
But even the feared elimination of Amtrak funding might ultimately help the Northeast, Reidl said, because the routes there are more commercially viable. The service in the West, for example, is more likely to die if it stops getting federal funds, while the Northeast Corridor service has a better chance of making it on its own, he said.
The Northeast is likely to benefit from one formula change: homeland security money would be allocated according to where the risk is highest, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill assume that large cities will benefit. Further, Democratic states would not be hit as hard as Republican states if the reduction and change in farm aid is approved.
That proposal would cut farm aid by 5 percent, and cap the amount a farm can receive. However, the plan faces a wary audience on Capitol Hill, because lawmakers mulling a presidential run in 2008 would need to explain to voters in Iowa -- who are first to vote in the nominating process -- why they voted to trim the aid.
Bush's budget director, Joshua Bolten, said support for the changes in farm assistance will come ''probably not from members who are in, or will be visiting, farm states. . . . Are we going to get everything we asked for? No. But I think we will get a lot of this."
February 11th, 2005
January 2001 Memo Warned Bush of Al Qaeda Threat
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A newly released memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The memo dated Jan. 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush took office -- was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures before the attacks on New York and Washington. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive Web site on Thursday.
The memo, from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, had been described during the hearings but its full contents had not been disclosed.
Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration, had requested an immediate meeting of top national security officials as soon as possible after Bush took office to discuss combating al Qaeda. He described the network as a threat with broad reach.
"Al Qaeda affects centrally our policies on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, North Africa and the GCC (Gulf Arab states). Leaders in Jordan and Saudi Arabia see al Qaeda as a direct threat to them," Clarke wrote.
"The strength of the network of organizations limits the scope of support friendly Arab regimes can give to a range of U.S. policies, including Iraq policy and the (Israeli-Palestinian) Peace Process. We would make a major error if we underestimated the challenge al Qaeda poses."
The memo also warned of overestimating the stability of moderate regional allies threatened by al Qaeda.
It recommended that the new administration urgently discuss the al Qaeda network, including the magnitude of the threat it posed and strategy for dealing with it.
The document was declassified on April 7, 2004, one day before Rice's testimony before the Sept. 11 commission. It was released recently by the National Security Council to the National Security Archive -- a private library of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The meeting on al Qaeda requested by Clarke did not take place until Sept. 4, 2001.
February 11th, 2005
Older Americans Are Skeptical About Bush
Associated Press
Confidence in President Bush's job performance and the nation's direction differed sharply among different age groups, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. The poll of 1,000 adults was taken Monday through Wednesday at the same time major changes to Social Security were being debated and news of Bush's proposed 2006 budget cuts was starting to be released.
The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, larger for subgroups.
_Overall, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?
Approve, 45 percent
Disapprove, 54 percent
Not sure, 1 percent
How different age groups feel about Bush's job performance.
Age 18-29: Approve 43 percent; disapprove 57 percent
Age 30-39: Approve, 51 percent; disapprove, 49 percent
Age 40-49: Approve, 48 percent; disapprove, 50 percent
Age 50-64: Approve, 43 percent; disapprove, 56 percent
Age 65 and over: approve, 42 percent; disapprove 57 percent
_Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction or are they off on the wrong track?
Right direction, 38 percent
Wrong track, 58 percent
Not sure, 4 percent
How different age groups feel about the nation's direction.
Age 18-29: Right direction, 34 percent; wrong track, 62 percent
Age 30-39: Right direction, 43 percent; wrong track, 53 percent
Age 40-49: Right direction, 42 percent; wrong track, 54 percent
Age 50-64: Right direction, 37 percent; wrong track, 61 percent
Age 65 and over: Right direction, 36 percent; wrong track, 60 percent
February 10th, 2005
9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings
By Eric Lichtblau / The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.
But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded.
The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."
The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.
Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. Bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.
Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.
A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.
"We had a lot of information about threats," said the spokeswoman, Laura J. Brown. "But we didn't have specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures."
She added: "After 9/11, the F.A..A. and the entire aviation community took bold steps to improve aviation security, such as fortifying cockpit doors on 6,000 airplanes, and those steps took hundreds of millions of dollars to implement."
The report, like previous commission documents, finds no evidence that the government had specific warning of a domestic attack and says that the aviation industry considered the hijacking threat to be more worrisome overseas.
"The fact that the civil aviation system seems to have been lulled into a false sense of security is striking not only because of what happened on 9/11 but also in light of the intelligence assessments, including those conducted by the F.A.A.'s own security branch, that raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990's and into the new century," the report said.
In its previous findings, including a final report last July that became a best-selling book, the 9/11 commission detailed the harrowing events aboard the four hijacked flights that crashed on Sept. 11 and the communications problems between civil aviation and military officials that hampered the response. But the new report goes further in revealing the scope and depth of intelligence collected by federal aviation officials about the threat of a terrorist attack.
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said. Previous commission documents have quoted the CD's reassurance that "fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction."
Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden, the report said.
Still, the 9/11 commission concluded that aviation officials did not direct adequate resources or attention to the problem.
"Throughout 2001, the senior leadership of the F.A.A. was focused on congestion and delays within the system and the ever-present issue of safety, but they were not as focused on security," the report said.
The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat, and one aviation official told the commission said that airlines did not want to give up revenues by providing free seats to marshals.
The F.A.A. also made no concerted effort to expand their list of terror suspects, which included a dozen names on Sept. 11, the report said. The former head of the F.A.A.'s civil aviation security branch said he was not aware of the government's main watch list, called Tipoff, which included the names of two hijackers who were living in the San Diego area, the report said.
Nor was there evidence that a senior F.A.A. working group on security had ever met in 2001 to discuss "the high threat period that summer," the report said.
Jane F. Garvey, the F.A.A. administrator at the time, told the commission "that she was aware of the heightened threat during the summer of 2001," the report said. But several other senior agency officials "were basically unaware of the threat," as were senior airline operations officials and veteran pilots, the report said.
The classified version of the commission report quotes extensively from circulars prepared by the F.A.A. about the threat of terrorism, but many of those references have been blacked out in the declassified version, officials said.
Several former commissioners and staff members said they were upset and disappointed by the administration's refusal to release the full report publicly.
"Our intention was to make as much information available to the public as soon as possible," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Sept. 11 commission member.
February 10th, 2005
D.C. Anti-War Activists Protest Against Human Rights Violations at Abu Ghraib
Reuters
D.C. Anti-War Network activists take part in a demonstration to oppose 'American violations of international human rights' at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by U.S. military personnel in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, February 9, 2005. Activists wore black hoods to represent the victims at the prison.
February 9th, 2005
BUSH: You work three jobs?
MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.
BUSH: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)
February 10th, 2005
Bush’s cuts will hurt poor, advocates warn
Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON - Programs serving the poor, elderly and disadvantaged would feel a significant impact under President George W. Bush’s plan for the coming fiscal year.
Facing cuts are Medicaid, education, food stamps and veterans health programs.
The White House plans to cut 150 domestic programs to save $20 billion annually. Some cuts have been tried before, and many of the programs have vocal constituencies who will fight to preserve their benefits.
Administration officials said the programs cut were ineffective and inefficient. By comparison, they pointed to areas getting more money - fighting AIDS, expanding No Child Left Behind in high schools and providing health care to the uninsured.
But advocacy groups said the proposals would undercut programs for children and the poor to pay for Bush’s 10-year, $1.8 trillion tax cut.
"If the question is how do low-income families fare under this budget, the answer is that they ultimately fare very poorly," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The proposed cuts would cut $45 billion over the next decade from the rapidly expanding Medicaid health-care program for the poor. The savings would be achieved by paying less for pharmaceuticals, toughening requirements on beneficiaries who hide assets to qualify for home health care and cracking down on states that manipulate funding mechanisms to get extra money for hospital care.
The cuts would eliminate up to 300,000 food stamp recipients in 41 states. Eligibility would be tightened to return asset tests on automobiles and bank account balances to levels before the 1996 welfare reform.
Overall, the administration said food stamp spending would increase by $3.5 billion. The total outlay of $36 billion would cover 2.7 million new recipients and cover increasing food prices.
The proposed cuts would also ask up to 2 million higher-income veterans without service-related illnesses to pay more for their health care costs.
February 9th, 2005
Rumsfeld Warns of 'Bumpy Road' in Iraq
By Will Dunham / Reuters
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told sailors on a destroyer off the French coast on Wednesday to expect a "bumpy road" in Iraq as he prepared to press NATO allies to do more to train Iraqi forces.
Separately, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said talks with NATO allies in Brussels had been their most harmonious yet on Iraq and had produced a number offers of troops to help get the NATO training mission off the ground.
Rumsfeld arrived in Nice on the French Riviera ahead of an informal meeting of NATO defense ministers, with the alliance's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan also on the agenda.
U.S. officials said Rumsfeld would urge alliance members to provide more military personnel, equipment and funds to accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces, or help in training Iraqis outside Iraq.
NATO has sent about 80 out of a planned 300 military officers to Iraq to train officers intended ultimately to provide security for their own country in place of U.S., British and other foreign troops.
Millions of Iraqis braved insurgent threats to vote in elections on June 30, but violence has continued since.
"I wish I could assure you that everything was going to turn out well (in Iraq). But I can't. I suspect that there are going to be more people killed, that there'll be more difficulties, that it will be a bumpy road, a tough road," Rumsfeld said aboard the USS O'Bannon.
"But I don't believe in the history of the world there's ever been a country that has gone from a dictatorship, or a repressive regime, or an authoritarian regime to a democracy smoothly," he added.
"We need moderate Muslim leadership in this world to help in this struggle against extremism," he said, citing Pakistan and Afghanistan as examples of such governments.
"We'll have new leadership in Iraq that will be moderate Muslim leadership in my view."
TRAINING IRAQI FORCES
U.S. officials said last week 136,000 Iraqi security personnel had been trained and equipped, but added that the process was behind schedule.
Rumsfeld meets NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Wednesday, at the first NATO defense ministers' meeting in France for four decades.
NATO officials last June agreed to form a mission in Iraq to train 1,000 Iraqi officers annually, but the alliance has not yet raised enough staff for formal training to commence.
De Hoop Scheffer has urged NATO's 26 members to contribute to the mission in some form by the time President Bush visits the alliance's headquarters in Brussels on Feb. 22.
They can do this either with troops inside Iraq, by offering separate programs outside Iraq, or by contributing to the funding of the operation. So far it is not clear what a number of countries, among them France, are planning to offer.
After meeting other NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Rice did not say whether the alliance was now closer to being able to start the training mission but described her talks as the "best discussion of Iraq we've had as an alliance."
"A number of countries immediately agreed to contribute and a number of others said they would intend to contribute because everyone understands the importance of training Iraqis to control their own future," she told a news conference.
February 8th, 2005
Back from Iraq - and suddenly out on the streets
By Alexandra Marks / Christian Science Monitor
NEW YORK - Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are now showing up in the nation's homeless shelters.
While the numbers are still small, they're steadily rising, and raising alarms in both the homeless and veterans' communities. The concern is that these returning veterans - some of whom can't find jobs after leaving the military, others of whom are still struggling psychologically with the war - may be just the beginning of an influx of new veterans in need. Currently, there are 150,000 troops in Iraq and 16,000 in Afghanistan. More than 130,000 have already served and returned home.
So far, dozens of them, like Herold Noel, a married father of three, have found themselves sleeping on the streets, on friends' couches, or in their cars within weeks of returning home. Two years ago, Black Veterans for Social Justice (BVSJ) in the borough of Brooklyn, saw only a handful of recent returnees. Now the group is aiding more than 100 Iraq veterans, 30 of whom are homeless.
"It's horrible to put your life on the line and then come back home to nothing, that's what I came home to: nothing. I didn't know where to go or where to turn," says Mr. Noel. "I thought I was alone, but I found out there are a whole lot of other soldiers in the same situation. Now I want people to know what's really going on."
After the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of veterans came home to a hostile culture that offered little gratitude and inadequate services, particularly to deal with the stresses of war. As a result, tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans still struggle with homelessness and drug addiction.
Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are coming home to a very different America. While the Iraq war remains controversial, there is almost unanimous support for the soldiers overseas. And in the years since Vietnam, more than 250 nonprofit veterans' service organizations have sprouted up, many of them created by people like Peter Cameron, a Vietnam veteran who is determined that what happened to his fellow soldiers will not happen again.
But he and dozens of other veterans' service providers are concerned by the increasing numbers of new veterans ending up on streets and in shelters.
Part of the reason for these new veterans' struggles is that housing costs have skyrocketed at the same time real wages have remained relatively stable, often putting rental prices out of reach. And for many, there is a gap of months, sometimes years, between when military benefits end and veterans benefits begin.
"We are very much committed to helping veterans coming back from this war," says Mr. Cameron, executive director of Vietnam Veterans of California. "But the [Department of Veterans Affairs] already has needs it can't meet and there's a lot of fear out there that programs are going to be cut even further."
February 8th, 2005
Bush seeks regime change in Iran, but his route is unclear, experts say
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush has been actively behind "regime change" for Iran but the route to that end has yet to be defined and the perils are great, US experts said.
Bush and his top aides have turned up the volume in their verbal attacks on the Islamic republic, calling it an "outpost of tyranny" and one of the principal backers of international terror, on its way to developing a nuclear weapon.
It was three years ago that Bush plotted Iran on an "axis of evil," alongside North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
US officials shy away from pronouncing "regime change," a controversial phrase on the international scene, but their intentions are clear, analysts said.
"I have no doubt the president and his closest advisers believe that the way both to solve the nuclear problem but also to deal with terrorism and improve the lives of the Iranian people is regime change," said George Perkovich, an Iran specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.
"The question is how this regime change happens, and that's the issue.
"It's very important to distinguish between the idea of regime change and the means. And on the means I think there is a division in the administration, but that (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice made very clear that the means that they will pursue would be non-coercive and more political."
Bush clearly encouraged opponents to the regime last week, during his annual State of the Union address before Congress: "To the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."
Bush also said Iran "remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve."
Administration "hawks" have been promoting the idea that the regime is teetering and easy to topple.
"I think it's much easier than in most of the other cases, because we know from the public opinion polls conducted by the mullahs themselves that more than 70 percent of people hate this regime and want it changed, they want to be free," said Michael Ledeen, of the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank.
How to get there is the subject of much Washington speculation.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not ruled out the use of force, not only to potentially destroy Iran's nuclear sites, but also to weaken the regime.
But they have also said they would give a chance for mediation by Britain, France and Germany to wean Iran away from its nuclear ambitions, while being skeptical about chances for a diplomatic success.
A group of legislators has introduced in the US House of Representatives a draft bill, the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would provide further political and financial support for so-called pro-democracy elements, especially opposition television and radio.
The Committee on the Present Danger, a group of Washington heavyweights, including former Republican secretary of state George Shultz and former Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman, have released a document saying, "We recommend a peaceful but forceful strategy to engage the Iranian people to remove the threat and establish a strong relationship, which is in both nations' and the regions's interests."
February 7th, 2005
Bush's budget axe to fall on poor
By Julian Borger / Guardian
President Bush is proposing to reduce spending on public health and social welfare in the US to help pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq, according to early reports of today's White House budget.
In an attempt to keep government spending under control at a time of record deficits, Mr Bush's proposals to Congress will include cuts in public housing subsidies, in health projects aimed at diseases related to poverty, and in food stamps, which help America's poorest buy groceries.
Mr Bush inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton but is now running deficits of over $400bn (£215bn) a year, partly as a result of an economic slump and the September 11 attacks. But the turnaround is also due to huge tax cuts which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest 1% of Americans, and the war in Iraq, for which the administration has asked for another $80bn this year.
Some state governments provide food stamps not only to families on welfare but also to those receiving job-related aid such as for childcare. The new budget would restrict that practice, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
A programme that helps the poor pay heating bills is to be cut by more than 8%, while 18 housing and community programmes will be consolidated with total savings of about 40% - almost $3bn.
The administration has also said it will save $60bn over 10 years on the Medicaid programme, which provides health services to the poor. It argues that the savings will largely come from administrative costs, but there will be severe cuts in several health programmes.
A health department preventative programme aimed at obesity and other chronic diseases is to be cut by 6.5% to $841m, according to the New York Times. Health training schemes will be slashed. One such scheme for nurses, dentists and other health professionals will be reduced by 64% and another to train doctors for children's hospitals will be cut by a third.
The targeting of social welfare programmes is not a political risk for a Republican administration, as few of the very poor vote for the party, but the White House is also taking on an important political constituency by threatening to cut farm subsidies.
The government pays out $15bn a year to farms growing cotton, rice, corn and wheat. A cut in those subsidies would be a boon to developing countries but would bring protests from the agro-industrial sector, which profits most from the subsidies.
February 7th, 2005
Bush Budget Raises Drug Prices for Many Veterans
By Robert Pear and Carl Hulse / New York Times
President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.
The proposals, they said, are in the $2.5 trillion budget that Mr. Bush plans to unveil on Monday. White House officials said the budget advanced his goal of cutting the deficit, which hit a record last year.
"We are being tight," Vice President Dick Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here."
The proposals to increase charges to veterans face stiff opposition from veterans organizations, Democratic members of Congress and some Republicans.
Mr. Cheney said the White House had judiciously identified scores of domestic programs to be cut or eliminated. "It's not something we've done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in our society."
The proposals could provoke months of furious debate on Capitol Hill. Democrats have already indicated that they are poised to pounce on any sign that the Bush administration is stinting on veterans' benefits.
Over all, the president is seeking $70.8 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, say Congressional aides who have seen budget documents from the agency.
The total consists of $33.4 billion in discretionary spending, which is subject to annual appropriation by Congress, and $37.4 billion for entitlements, like disability compensation, survivor benefits and pensions, which are authorized under prior laws.
Health care accounts for almost all of the agency's discretionary spending. Mr. Bush is seeking an increase of 2.7 percent, or $880 million, in such spending.
The president would increase the co-payment for a month's supply of a prescription drug to $15, from the current $7. The administration says the co-payment and the $250 "user fee" would apply mainly to veterans in lower-priority categories, who have higher incomes and do not have service-related disabilities.
The government had no immediate estimate of how many veterans would be affected if the user fee and co-payment proposals were adopted. But veterans' groups said that hundreds of thousands of people would end up paying more and that many would be affected by both changes.
Veterans groups attacked the proposals. Richard B. Fuller, legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, said: "The proposed increase in health spending is not sufficient at a time when the number of patients is increasing and there has been a huge increase in health care costs. It will not cover the need. The enrollment fee is a health care tax, designed to raise revenue and to discourage people from enrolling."
Mr. Fuller added that the budget would force veterans hospitals and clinics to limit services. "We are already seeing an increase in waiting lists, even for some Iraq veterans," he said.
In Michigan, for example, thousands of veterans are on waiting lists for medical services, and some reservists returning from Iraq say they have been unable to obtain the care they were promised. A veterans clinic in Pontiac, Mich., put a limit on new enrollment. Cutbacks at a veterans hospital in Altoona, Pa., are forcing some veterans to seek treatment elsewhere.
But Cynthia R. Church, a spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, defended the administration's record. "Our budget increase from 2001 to 2005 for health care alone has been more than 40 percent," Ms. Church said. "President Bush has kept his commitment to veterans."
The department expects to care for five million people at its hospitals and clinics this year. Under the new budget, the agency will focus on what officials describe as their "core constituency," including veterans with service-related disabilities or low incomes.
The budget also advances previously announced plans to close or scale back some veterans hospitals. Money spent on underused buildings and excess land could be better spent providing care to veterans, the agency said.
Veterans groups want a $3.5 billion increase in the department's health care budget next year, but Congressional aides said the request was unrealistic.
Other budget details came to light over the weekend as well. Sifting through documents, Tobin L. Smith, a policy analyst at the Association of American Universities, which represents 60 large research universities, found a shift in priorities at the Pentagon.
"In the budget request for 2006," Mr. Smith said, "Defense Department spending for science and technology is significantly reduced, while the budget for development, testing and evaluation of major weapons systems increases."
The Pentagon budget provides $10.5 billion for science and technology in 2006, a reduction of $2.5 billion from this year's level, he said.
"We are concerned about that change because it means the Defense Department will be providing less support for university research," Mr. Smith said. "Engineering and computer science will be particularly hard hit."
The new budget will not show the costs of the president's top domestic priority, revamping Social Security to let people divert some of their payroll taxes to individual investment accounts.
To finance the change, Mr. Cheney said, the federal government would need to borrow $750 billion in the next 10 years and "trillions more after that." But, he said, "the personal accounts will themselves provide a significant return for those who hold them, so that they'll get a better deal."
Any effort to restrain spending on veterans programs is sure to provoke strong criticism from Democrats, who contend that the Republican-led Congress and the Bush administration have already shortchanged current and former members of the military.
In recent years, Democrats have been trying to emphasize their support of veterans programs, taking aim at a constituency that has been seen as reliably Republican. The administration's effort has caused some discomfort for Republicans.
In early January, House leaders ousted the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, who was seen as a strong advocate of veterans programs and higher spending. Mr. Smith was replaced by Representative Steve Buyer, Republican of Indiana.
Jim Nicholson, the new secretary of veterans affairs, heard many concerns about veterans' health care when he had his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee last month.
Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, chairman of the panel, the Committee on Veterans Affairs, told Mr. Nicholson, "The fiscal environment that you inherit will be considerably less friendly than the relatively flush times the V.A. has enjoyed over the last four years."
February 5th, 2005
Bush Is Said to Seek Deep Cuts in Farm and Commodity Programs
By Robert Pear / New York Times
President Bush will seek deep cuts in farm and commodity programs in his new budget and in a major policy shift will propose overall limits on subsidy payments to farmers, administration officials said Saturday.
Such limits would help reduce the federal budget deficit and would inject market forces into the farm economy, the officials said.
The proposal puts Mr. Bush at odds with some of his most ardent supporters in the rural South, including cotton and rice growers in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, and more than 100 farm groups are gearing up to fight the White House proposal. The administration's willingness to push the proposal, despite such protests, suggests how tight the new budget will be.
Most of the subsidies are paid to large farm operators growing cotton and rice and, to a lesser degree, corn, soybeans and wheat.
Mr. Bush would set a firm overall limit of $250,000 on subsidies that can now exceed $1 million in some cases.
The proposal comes as the administration is seeking significant changes in other programs long considered sacrosanct, with the proposed revamping of Social Security to allow personal investment accounts and a move to shake up the Civil Service system.
Mr. Bush's farm proposal found support from some people who frequently criticize his policies.
For example, Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy group, said that it would reduce payments to large agribusiness operations and that the savings would reduce pressure on Congress to cut conservation programs.
"This proposal is a very big deal," Mr. Cook said. "I am stunned and impressed. The Bush administration is opening the door to reform on the most contested issue in agriculture policy today. Taxpayers will no longer have to subsidize every bushel of grain or bale of cotton. They will no longer have to subsidize the demise of the family farm."
In the past, when Congress considered limits on payments, Mr. Cook said, the administration took no position. The Senate approved a $275,000 limit in 2002 but dropped it in negotiations with the House.
Agriculture Department officials said Mr. Bush's proposals would cut federal payments to farmers by $587 million, or about 5 percent, next year and would save $5.7 billion in the coming decade. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to upstage release of the president's budget, scheduled for Monday.
The budget includes other proposals intended to produce large savings in farm programs, the officials said, but they refused to give details.
In theory, the maximum payment to a farmer, through multiple entities, is now $360,000 a year. But Keith J. Collins, chief economist at the Agriculture Department, said that growers had found many legal ways to get around the limit and that some growers received several times that amount. One type of aid, which involves marketing assistance loans, is not subject to any limit, he said.
In setting a firm overall limit of $250,000, the president's plan would tighten requirements for the recipients of such payments to be "actively engaged" in agriculture, and it would generally prevent farmers from claiming additional payments through multiple entities.
Farm subsidies have been a major issue in global trade talks, as poor farmers in the developing world demand that the United States and other wealthy countries cut back subsidies for their domestic producers.
Efforts to cap farm payments have produced odd alliances. Fiscal conservatives like the Heritage Foundation have joined some environmental groups and family farmers in the Midwest in supporting stricter limits. Opponents include the American Farm Bureau Federation. the nation's largest farm organization, as well as many commodity groups and politicians of both parties from rice and cotton states.
Mr. Cochran, the former chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said he would "work as hard as I can to oppose any changes" in current payments limits, set by Congress three years ago.
Speaking this week to the National Cotton Council, a trade group, Mr. Cochran said he knew that some people wanted to reduce farm program payments.
"We always know there is a threat to lower levels of payments to producers from some in the Congress," he said. But, he added, the payments are economically important to rural communities, and "the risk caused by changing payment limits far outweighs the benefits."
In a letter to Mike Johanns, the new secretary of agriculture, a coalition of more than 100 farm groups said they too would resist such cuts.
"With prices for many major commodities falling sharply from last year, reductions to farm programs would come at precisely the time that these supports are most needed in rural America," the coalition said.
The White House proposal is a vindication of sorts for Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who has advocated "reasonable payment limits" for three decades.
"When 10 percent of the nation's farmers receive 60 percent of the payments, it erodes public confidence in federal farm programs," said Mr. Grassley, who describes himself as the only family farmer in the Senate. "Unlimited farm payments have placed upward pressure on land prices and contributed to overproduction and lower commodity prices, driving many family farmers off the farm."
Mr. Collins, the Agriculture Department economist, said, "When the government subsidizes every bushel and every acre, it encourages large farm operations to grow larger."
Subsidy payments take several forms and are computed according to complex formulas that take account of "base acres," "target prices" and other factors. In some cases, the government makes direct payments to farmers. In others, it lends money to farmers and assures them, in effect, that they can receive more than the market price for their crops, if that price declines.
In a report last year, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said farmers used many "schemes or devices" to circumvent existing payment limits. Under federal law, payments are supposed to go only to people who are "actively engaged in farming," but, the report said, many people not involved in farm operations have received large subsidies.
Moreover, it said, individuals who on their own could receive no more than $180,000 for a farming operation sometimes set up a partnership composed of three partners, each of whom receives $180,000 in subsidies, thus tripling the total amount of payments to the farming operation. A federal advisory commission, said many of the largest farms had changed their business structure to "avoid payment limits."
An exhaustive study by the Agriculture Department found that "government payments increase with farm size and sales," so "payments tend to be concentrated among the larger farms." In 2001, it said, "59 percent of government payments went to producers on farms with a net worth of $600,000 or more." But, it added, about one-third of all farms receive commodity subsidies, and the "government payments often make a significant contribution to farm income, regardless of the farm's size."
Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, said payment limits would be particularly unfair to rice and cotton farmers because production costs were higher for those crops than for others.
Mrs. Lincoln, the daughter of a rice farmer, said some farmers would have difficulty surviving under stringent payment limits.
But Brian M. Riedl, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said stricter payment limits were needed because farm subsidies had become "America's largest corporate welfare program."
February 5th, 2005
Bush called war-monger by Iran's conservative press
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's press hit back at George W. Bush as Washington increases the pressure on the Islamic Republic, with one hard-line daily accusing the US president of being a war-monger.
Jomhouri Eslami, in an editorial alluding to the US-led invasion of neighboring Iraq two years ago, said an assault on Iran would be like "falling out of the frying pan into the fire."
It said "Iranians do not seek war, but if Bush Junior fancies invading Iran, they will face him with an iron will to bury him and his remaining superpower government.
The editorial called Bush "stupid, wicked, a war-monger."
In his State of the Union address on Wednesday, the US president told the Iranian people: "As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."
In reaction, Jomhouri Eslami said: "Picturing a freedom seeker and fighter from such a savage is the most ridiculous claim of the century."
The US president, who three years ago said Iran was part of an "axis of evil" alongside Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea, has said he could not rule out using force if Tehran failed to rein in its nuclear plans.
In his address on Wednesday, he charged that Iran "remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve".
Tehran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that Iran's behaviour over its nuclear program was of international concern and urged Tehran to take the diplomatic opportunity that was on offer.
However, she said an attack "is simply not on the agenda at this point", seeking to allay European fears of a preemptive US strike on Iran's nuclear sites.
Asked to react to that, government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh told AFP Saturday that "there is no need for us to respond to America's propaganda every day."
But moderate Hamshahri newspaper said the comments by the new chief US diplomat were indicative of "retreat" and "flexibility".
Meanwhile, Keyhan International, a hardline English-language newspaper, ran an editorial entitled "Hallucinations Take Hold of US Administration."
It recommended that Bush "seek the advice of his father as well as that of his Democrat predecessors Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, or better still, sit beside the grave of Ronald Reagan to reflect on realities, instead of howling meaningless threats."
Other newspapers ran varying headlines such as: "Bush Never Can", "If Previous US Presidents Could Do Nothing, Neither Can Bush," "No One Supported Bush's Anti-Iran Remarks" and "Stimulation of Washington's Psychological War Against Iran."
Washington -- decried in Iran as the Great Satan -- cut diplomatic relations with Tehran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The two powers have engaged in increasingly barbed exchanges, and Iranian leaders have urged the population to turn out in force for mass anti-US demonstrations next Thursday to mark the 26th anniversary of the revolution.
February 5th, 2005
UN warns Guantanamo could worsen 'war on terror'
Reuters
The United States has done too little to improve treatment of prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay naval base and risks doing more harm than good in the battle against terrorism, UN human rights investigators said on Friday.
Investigators also warned conditions at the detention facility, where South Australian David Hicks is being held, put detainees at risk of psychiatric deterioration with irreversible damage, United Nations experts have warned.
In a joint statement, six inspectors voiced fresh concern at reports of inhuman and degrading treatment of inmates at Guantanamo, saying the global fight against terrorism would be weakened if countries failed to uphold basic legal protections.
"The right and duty of all states to use all lawful means to protect their citizens against death and destruction brought about by terrorists must be exercised in conformity with international law, lest the whole cause of the international fight against terrorism be compromised," the UN experts said.
Recent moves, including the "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" created by the Pentagon last year following a Supreme Court rebuke and the release of four Britons and Sydney man Mamdouh Habib held as terrorism suspects, were "insufficient to dispel the serious concerns" over conditions, the inspectors added.
At Guantanamo, there was "the need to objectively assess the allegations of torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, particularly in relation to methods of interrogation of detainees".
The statement noted that many Guantanamo inmates had been held virtually incommunicado for nearly three years, without legal advice or information about how long they were likely to remain incarcerated.
Most did not know whether criminal charges would be laid against them.
"The conditions of detention, especially of those in solitary confinement, place the detainees at significant risk of psychiatric deterioration, possibly including the development of irreversible psychiatric symptoms," the statement said.
More than 500 Al Qaeda suspects and accused Taliban fighters are being held at the remote base on the south-eastern tip of Cuba after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and from operations in the US "war on terror".
The United States long has faced international criticism for its treatment of Guantanamo prisoners, with even FBI memos made public accusing Pentagon interrogators of using "torture techniques".
The UN investigators said the legal basis for the prisoners' continued detention remained unclear, and that even the exact number and names of those detained was unknown.
A US District judge ruled on Monday that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals still violated the prisoners' constitutional rights because they did not have access to lawyers or secret evidence, including evidence that may have been obtained through torture or coercion.
Another federal judge in Washington recently came to the opposite conclusion, and the issue is still pending before the appeals courts.
February 4th, 2005
U.S. 'in for a shock'; In early election results, Shiite cleric's alliance trouncing Washington's favorite
By Borzou Daragahi / San Francisco Chronicle
Partial results from Sunday's election suggest that U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's coalition is being roundly defeated by a list with the backing of Iraq's senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani, diminishing Allawi's chances of retaining his post in the next government.
Sharif Ali bin Hussein, head of the Constitutional Monarchy Party, likened the vote outcome to a "Sistani tsunami" that would shake the nation.
"Americans are in for a shock," he said, adding that one day they would realize, "We've got 150,000 troops here protecting a country that's extremely friendly to Iran, and training their troops."
The partial totals so far show the Iraqi List headed by Allawi, a secular Shiite and onetime CIA protege, trailed far behind with only 18 percent of the votes, despite an aggressive television ad campaign waged with U.S. aid. A lopsided majority of votes, 72 percent, went to the United Iraqi Alliance list, topped by a Shiite cleric who lived in Iran for many years and whose Sciri party has close ties to Iran's clerical regime. More than a third of the alliance's vote came from Baghdad, the cosmopolitan capital where Allawi had been expected to fare well.
Although the results are only from Baghdad and five southern provinces where the Shiite parties were expected to score strongly, and from only 10 percent of the country's 5,216 polling stations, the scale of the alliance's vote underscored the probability of a historic shift in the Shiites' favor from decades of Sunni minority rule in Iraq.
Safwat Rashid, a member of Iraq's Independent Election Commission, and international election officials warned observers not to read too much into the early numbers, which did not include tallies in the country's Sunni or Kurdish provinces.
Rashid said the Baghdad numbers came from "mixed" -- meaning Sunni and Shiite -- neighborhoods in the city where Allawi was expected to perform well. Hussein said Allawi had also performed poorly in Babil province, a relatively urbanized, mixed Shiite-Sunni area south of Baghdad.
He said the vote total and the total turnout numbers wouldn't be known for another 10 days.
Already, Western officials in Baghdad appeared to be downplaying worries about the possible victory by the alliance, topped by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a cleric who spent years exiled in Iran.
The alliance "is a very diverse group of people, from Westernized independents to Sunni sheikhs to people who really believe in an Islamic state, " one Western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said of the alliance on Wednesday. "It will be hard to maintain unity."
The election commission also released final vote tallies from overseas voters in eight countries, the United States, Britain, France, Iran, Syria, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Australia. The alliance won of 44 percent of the 170,000 votes cast in those countries, the Kurds 18 percent and Allawi's list 12 percent. In U.S. voting, Allawi garnered just 5 percent of the vote, less than the Communist Party total.
Some Sunni leaders said the Shiite coalition's strong showing to date did little more than validate the deep sense of alienation felt by Iraq's Sunnis, most of whom did not cast ballots Sunday.
"The Shia were determined and encouraged their supporters to vote and to register, and the Sunnis didn't care that much, either out of fear or apathy," said Adnan Pachachi, a foreign minister in the years before Saddam Hussein who is a prominent Sunni leader. "This is the story, really."
But signs also have emerged that some Sunni leaders are ready to involve themselves at least in a limited way in the country's political debate. The leaders of 13 mostly Sunni political parties that stayed out of the election agreed earlier this week that they would take part in writing a permanent constitution for Iraq.
When the vote count is final, the 275 seats in the National Assembly will be divided up among the 111 parties, individuals and coalitions that ran in the election, with each ticket getting seats according to its proportion of the vote. Each list that receives one-275th or more of the vote total gets at least a seat.
A two-thirds majority of the parliament must approve a president and two deputy presidents, who will be in charge of naming a Cabinet. The new assembly is also responsible for writing the constitution, a process that could be adjusted in order to include Sunni representatives.
Presuming the constitution is approved by referendum next autumn, new elections for a permanent government will be held by year's end.
None of the votes announced Thursday came from the Kurdish north, where heavy turnout is sure to guarantee a strong Kurdish presence in the assembly.
Kurdish political leader Jalal Talabani said he would seek the office of either president or prime minister when the legislature convenes. "We, as Kurds, want one of those two posts, and we will not give it up," Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a candidate on the unified Kurdish list of candidates, told reporters.
Now that the election is over, Pentagon authorities have decided to start reducing the level of U.S. forces in Iraq next month by about 15,000 troops, down to about 135,000, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress Thursday. "I think we'll be able to come down to the level that was projected before this election," he said.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that about 40,000 of Iraq's best forces "can go anywhere in the country and take on almost any threat." But he acknowledged that more than two-thirds of the 136, 000 members of Iraqi security forces that the United States and its allies have trained and equipped were unready to tackle the insurgency.
That uprising began rattling the nation anew Thursday as at least 26 Iraqis and three U.S. Marines died in an uptick of violence following days of post-election calm.
Insurgents stopped a minibus south of Kirkuk, ordered army recruits off the vehicle and killed 12 of them. Gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying Iraqi contractors to jobs at a U.S. military base in Baquba, killing two.
A suicide bomber struck a foreign convoy escorted by military humvees on Baghdad's airport road. Rebels attacked Iraqi police Thursday in the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, killing one policeman and wounding five, the Interior Ministry said.
One U.S. Marine was killed Thursday in Babil province, the U.S. command said. Two other Marines were killed in action Wednesday night in Anbar province.
February 4th, 2005
Iran and Syria hit back at Bush
President's vow to target Tehran and Damascus in push for peace and democracy causes anger and fear in region
By Julian Borger / Guardian
The Syrian and Iranian governments reacted angrily yesterday to George Bush's vow to confront them over their alleged harbouring of terrorists and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
The American president's state of the union speech on Wednesday night identified Syria and Iran as the primary obstacles to the Bush administration's declared mission to spread peace and democracy in the Middle East.
It sent tremors through the region, raising fears that the administration might have more military action on its second-term agenda.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denounced the United States as "like one of the big heads of a seven-headed dragon", menacing his country under the direction of "Zionist and non-Zionist capitalists".
"Bush is the fifth US president seeking to uproot the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Carter, Reagan and father Bush and Clinton failed. This president will also fail," the Associated Press quoted him as saying.
The response from Damascus also reflected growing nervousness at Mr Bush's intentions. "Freedoms cannot be exported by tanks and planes, death and destruction," said Syria's information minister, Mehdi Dakhlallah.
"Everyone knows that Syria is cooperating in fighting terrorism, but the definition of terrorism cannot be selective and based on ideology and politics," he said.
In his speech, Mr Bush restated the commitment he made in last month's inaugural address to dedicate foreign policy to spreading democracy - particularly in the Middle East.
In this speech, he pledged $350m (£186m) in support for Palestinian nation-building. He also made a distinction between non-democratic allies, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to whom Mr Bush offered encouragement for democratic reforms, and adversaries such as Syria and Iran, for whom he reserved tougher words.
Using the sort of rhetoric once applied to Saddam Hussein, he said: "To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbour terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder."
He said Syria was harbouring terrorists, and dubbed Iran "the world's primary state sponsor of terror", accusing it of pursuing nuclear weapons.
In an apparent call for an Iranian democratic uprising, he declared: "To the Iranian people, I say tonight, 'As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.'"
Flynt Leverett, a Middle East expert in the national security council during Mr Bush's first term, pointed to a difference in tone between the warnings aimed at Syria and at Iran.
"He still is basically addressing the Syrian regime," said Mr Leverett. "With Iran, it struck me that ... this president is not going to do a deal that would legitimise the regime."
If that analysis proves accurate, the speech is bad news for Europe's hopes of getting the US more involved in talks with Iran over suspending uranium enrichment - one of the requests likely to be put to Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's new secretary of state, as she tours Europe in the next few days.
"Bush and Rice believe that Iran is in a pre-revolutionary state. They'll let this European thing play out because it buys time, but ultimately they think these internal contradictions will bring a revolution in Iran," said Mr Leverett.
Judith Kipper, a Middle East specialist at the independent, New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said: "The message for Iran was not constructive. This idea that the population will somehow rise up against the government is not going to happen and, in terms of getting the Iranians to cooperate on nuclear questions and to look at the whole basket of things the US wants, it's counter-productive."
Mr Bush said that an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on two independent states was "within reach" with US help. Ms Rice is due to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the region on Monday, to restate US eagerness to do more to push the peace process along.
February 3rd, 2005
Democrats Take Aim at Social Security Proposal, Calling It a Risky Gamble
By Carl Hulse and Adam Nagourney / New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 - President Bush's address on Wednesday left some already-anxious Republicans worried about the difficulties of pushing through a Social Security overhaul, as Democrats hammered Mr. Bush's cornerstone proposal as a risky gamble that would swell the nation's deficit and imperil the retirement of millions of Americans.
"There's a long way to go," said Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia. "I'm certainly not there yet by a long shot."
Another Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, warned that Democrats would derail the plan if they successfully made the argument that it would explode the deficit.
"If we are arguing about the effect personal accounts have on the deficit, then we lose," Mr. Graham said. "The biggest Achilles' heel we face as reformers is transition costs."
And Senator Tom Coburn, a newly elected Republican from Oklahoma, said: "Nobody said this was supposed to be easy. Nobody said you were supposed to get automatically re-elected if you do the right thing."
From the moment Mr. Bush turned to the subject of Social Security in his speech, there was no doubt of the intensely partisan battle his proposal had spawned. Democrats hollered "no, no!" as a Mr. Bush asserted that the Social Security system "would be exhausted and bankrupt" in 40 years, making it appear for a moment that Mr. Bush was standing in the well at the House of Commons.
They said they would set out to undercut Mr. Bush's proposal with a broad, concerted attack coinciding with Mr. Bush's trip selling the program across the country. They began with speeches and statements on Wednesday and plan a news conference with Democratic senators set Thursday at the Washington memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the originator of the program.
"There's a lot we can do to improve American's retirement security, but it's wrong to replace the guaranteed benefit that Americans have earned with a guaranteed benefit cut of 40 percent or more," said Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader.
"The president's plan is so dangerous," Mr. Reid said. "There's a lot we can do to improve American's retirement security, but it's wrong to replace the guaranteed benefit that Americans have earned with a guaranteed benefit cut of forty percent or more. Make no mistake, that's exactly what President Bush is proposing."
Representative Sander Levin of Michigan warned that Mr. Bush's proposal would result in "massive benefit cuts and massive borrowing."
"Far from resolving the long-term challenges facing Social Security in 40 to 50 years, the president's privatization would make it worse, and bring about the dismantling of Social Security through benefit cuts and massive borrowing," he said.
Many Republicans moved to rally around Mr. Bush and the first State of the Union speech of his second term, though the enthusiasm was clearly much more evident when he talked about Iraq than when he discussed the issue with which he is seeking to define his second term as president. And while some Republicans were uncomfortable with the deficit argument pushed by Democrats in trying to discredit the Social Security idea, a number argued that the short-term cost of Mr. Bush's program was trumped by the need to ensure its long-term fiscal solvency
"Social Security has to be addressed in the context of generations, not in the context of five years," said Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
But there were Republicans who grew visibly uncomfortable as the president talked about overhauling Social Security. After the speech, a number of Republicans who said they had been on the fence on the issue said their minds had not been changed.
And when Mr. Bush declared that the best way to change the system for young workers was to create personal retirement accounts, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a moderate Maine Republican who has voiced skepticism about Mr. Bush's plan, perched on her seat, smiling but not clapping, as the rest of her Republican colleagues rose around her.
"We can't just rush pell-mell into making dramatic changes," she said earlier in the day, at a Senate Finance Committee session where Democrats took turns pummeling the program. "We have to exercise due diligence with respect to this system."
The signs of Republican queasiness came as Democrats said they sensed vulnerability as Mr. Bush pushed ahead with his ambitious plan, and would keep trying to put Mr. Bush and Republican majorities in both houses on the defensive.
February 1st, 2005
The Vietnam turnout was good as well
No amount of spin can conceal Iraqis' hostility to US occupation
By Sami Ramadani / Guardian
On September 4 1967 the New York Times published an upbeat story on presidential elections held by the South Vietnamese puppet regime at the height of the Vietnam war. Under the heading "US encouraged by Vietnam vote: Officials cite 83% turnout despite Vietcong terror", the paper reported that the Americans had been "surprised and heartened" by the size of the turnout "despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting". A successful election, it went on, "has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam". The echoes of this weekend's propaganda about Iraq's elections are so close as to be uncanny.
With the past few days' avalanche of spin, you could be forgiven for thinking that on January 30 2005 the US-led occupation of Iraq ended and the people won their freedom and democratic rights. This has been a multi-layered campaign, reminiscent of the pre-war WMD frenzy and fantasies about the flowers Iraqis were collecting to throw at the invasion forces. How you could square the words democracy, free and fair with the brutal reality of occupation, martial law, a US-appointed election commission and secret candidates has rarely been allowed to get in the way of the hype.
If truth is the first casualty of war, reliable numbers must be the first casualty of an occupation-controlled election. The second layer of spin has been designed to convince us that an overwhelming majority of Iraqis participated. The initial claim of 72% having voted was quickly downgraded to 57% of those registered to vote. So what percentage of the adult population is registered to vote? The Iraqi ambassador in London was unable to enlighten me. In fact, as UN sources confirm, there has been no registration or published list of electors - all we are told is that about 14 million people were entitled to vote.
As for Iraqis abroad, the up to 4 million strong exiled community (with perhaps a little over 2 million entitled to vote) produced a 280,000 registration figure. Of those, 265,000 actually voted.
The Iraqi south, more religious than Baghdad, responded positively to Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani's position: to call the bluff of the US and vote for a list that was proclaimed to be hostile to the occupation. Sistani's supporters declared that voting on Sunday was the first step to kicking out the occupiers. The months ahead will put these declarations to a severe test. Meanwhile Moqtada al-Sadr's popular movement, which rejected the elections as a sham, is likely to make a comeback in its open resistance to the occupation.
The big vote in Kurdistan primarily reflects the Kurdish people's demand for national self-determination. The US administration has hitherto clamped down on these pressures. Henry Kissinger's recent proposal to divide Iraq into three states reflects a major shift among influential figures in the US who, led by Kissinger as secretary of state, ditched the Kurds in the 70s and brokered a deal between Saddam and the Shah of Iran.
George Bush and Tony Blair made heroic speeches on Sunday implying that Iraqis had voted to approve the occupation. Those who insist that the US is desperate for an exit strategy are misreading its intentions. The facts on the ground, including the construction of massive military bases in Iraq, indicate that the US is digging in to install and back a long-term puppet regime. For this reason, the US-led presence will continue, with all that entails in terms of bloodshed and destruction.
In the run-up to the poll, much of the western media presented it as a high-noon shootout between the terrorist Zarqawi and the Iraqi people, with the occupation forces doing their best to enable the people to defeat the fiendish, one-legged Jordanian murderer. In reality, Zarqawi-style sectarian violence is not only condemned by Iraqis across the political spectrum, including supporters of the resistance, but is widely seen as having had a blind eye turned to it by the occupation authorities. Such attitudes are dismissed by outsiders, but the record of John Negroponte, the US ambassador in Baghdad, of backing terror gangs in central America in the 80s has fuelled these fears, as has Seymour Hirsh's reports on the Pentagon's assassination squads and enthusiasm for the "Salvador option".
An honest analysis of the social and political map of Iraq reveals that Iraqis are increasingly united in their determination to end the occupation. Whether they participated in or boycotted Sunday's exercise, this political bond will soon reassert itself - just as it did in Vietnam - despite tactical differences, and despite the US-led occupation's attempts to dominate Iraqis by inflaming sectarian and ethnic divisions.
· Sami Ramadani was a political refugee from Saddam Hussein's regime and is a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University
January 29th, 2005
Sen. Barbara Boxer Steps Into Spotlight
By Erica Werner / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Sen. Barbara Boxer has always spoken up, but the California Democrat seems to have gotten a lot louder lately. Her opposition to Condoleezza Rice's secretary of state nomination was so combative that it was parodied on Saturday Night Live. That came on the heels of her decision to sign onto a House member's complaint about Ohio voting problems, forcing Congress to debate them before certifying President Bush's re-election victory.
She's being touted on liberal blogs as the Democrats' best hope for president in 2008. Conservatives are excoriating her as — in House Minority Leader Tom DeLay's phrase — the leader of the "'X-Files' wing" of the Democratic Party.
But Boxer says she is just standing up for what she believes.
"I've always been this way," she says, "and I'm trying to figure out exactly why people suddenly find this to be interesting, you know. Somehow I have touched something inside people, and I have not ever had this happen before. The only thing I can think, after reading what people said, is a feeling that I'm asking the kind of questions and saying the kind of things that they are feeling."
Maybe she's becoming a spokeswoman, or even a symbol, for voters who oppose the Iraq war or feel shut out by the Bush administration. Maybe, with the Democratic Party at sea after November's election losses, some people sense a leadership void and are looking to her to fill it.
Maybe it's not that Boxer's gotten louder but that other Democrats can barely be heard at all. At least, that's what some of her supporters are saying.
Whatever the explanation, Boxer, 64, has never been more in the spotlight. At a time when Republican dominance of Washington politics is nearly complete, a Marin County liberal who drives a hybrid car and opposes almost everything the GOP does has become a newly prominent face of the Democratic Party.
"She seems to be assuming the position of being an outspoken voice for, as someone else said, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," says Los Angeles Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, echoing a phrase adopted by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
"In the wake of the losses in November ... there is a vacuum, there's handwringing, there's self-reflection, and she seems to have pretty sure footing as a determined, committed spokesperson for the liberals in the party," Sragow says. "Part of the handwringing will be over whether that's a good thing or a bad thing."
Barely five feet tall, Boxer must stand on a box — which she sometimes refers to as "the Boxer Box" — to see over the podium at press conferences. Fond of gold jewelry and colorful, occasionally mismatched outfits, she's energetic and aggressive, given to dressing down government officials at hearings, especially when reporters are within earshot.
That rankles Republicans, who say she's more show horse than work horse in the Senate. But sometimes, she can make even fellow Democrats squirm.
In the ongoing Democratic debate about how to effectively oppose the Republicans, Boxer represents a solution not everyone can embrace: She simply opposes, often without bothering to compromise. To some, she's too extreme and risks alienating moderate voters without producing legislative results.
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, perhaps the most conservative Senate Democrat, is diplomatic in describing Boxer's role in the party: "You don't get a center if you don't get a left or right."
Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, a fellow liberal who stood with Boxer in opposing Rice, criticized her on the Senate floor over her decision to bring the November election certification to a halt. He called it "seriously misguided."
But the combative qualities that turn some people off endear her to others.
"Democrats are so afraid of being criticized, or so afraid that they'll be accused of being too liberal, that they don't really act with the courage of their convictions. And then comes Barbara Boxer," says Madeleine Begun Kane, a writer from Queens, N.Y., who created a "President Boxer" blog. "She's been a shining light during an otherwise very depressing period."
For the record, Boxer says she has no interest in running for president. But she's gratified by the blogs and the Boxer for President bumper stickers selling for $3.95 on the Internet.
If she did ever want to try for president, she could point to some compelling evidence of electability.
In winning her third Senate term in November, Boxer was the nation's third-highest vote-getter, behind only Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. She squashed Republican opponent Bill Jones by 20 percentage points, scoring a bigger share of the electorate than Dianne Feinstein, the state's other Democratic senator, got in her last election.
Since she left the House to run for Senate, Republicans have targeted Boxer as too liberal for California. She had tough races in 1992, when she beat a conservative television commentator by 5 percentage points, and 1998, when she defeated a former state treasurer by 10.
Republicans talked tough about taking her on in 2004 as well, but in the end they hardly even tried. Jones, a social conservative and former California secretary of state, was endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; but he ran a weak campaign and never raised enough money to air a single television commercial.
"It's impossible for my opponents to say, 'Well she just squeaked by, she doesn't really represent a lot of people, she's a fluke.'" Boxer says. "Which is what they said the first two times."
Since Boxer and Feinstein joined the Senate in 1992's Year of the Woman, Feinstein has been the more prominent. Although they have cooperated on initiatives and vote together more often than not, they do not have a close relationship and part ways on some issues, including the Iraq war and the Rice nomination.
Republicans say they can work with Feinstein. Her advice and endorsement are courted by Schwarzenegger and others on issues while Boxer, whom they generally despise, is left on the sidelines.
"I don't think attack dogs are ever useful," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who lost a 1998 GOP primary election for the chance to run against Boxer.
But lately it's been Boxer in the headlines, sought out by reporters from The New York Times and Rolling Stone, and parodied on SNL.
In the skit that aired Jan. 22, Boxer, as portrayed by actress Amy Poehler, used a series of props to interrogate Rice — among them a packet of baloney, a poster of the number zero (representing weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq), and a bar graph with one barely visible bar ("the truth") and another bar stretching the length of the chart ("what you say").
Boxer, who did arm herself with several enlarged maps and quotations during Rice's confirmation hearing, loved the skit. "They really nailed me," she says. "It was the funniest thing I've ever seen."
Leading the charge for the opposition isn't new for Boxer. As a Brooklyn newlywed, she once organized fellow apartment building tenants to petition for carpeting. As a House member in 1991, she led fellow congresswomen up the steps of the Senate to demand hearings into Anita Hill's sexual harassment claims against Clarence Thomas. She led recent opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (successfully), and against the ban on what opponents call partial birth abortion (unsuccessfully).
Some Republicans have suggested that Boxer should have accepted Bush's re-election victory as a sign of acceptance for his secretary of state nominee, and kept her mouth shut on the Rice nomination.
She's in no danger of doing that — on any issue.
"Bush got 60 million votes plus and Kerry got 57 million votes plus, so you can't say it isn't a sizable portion of the country that doesn't deserve to be heard," Boxer said. "They do deserve to be heard; and even if they are far left, they deserve to be heard."
January 28th, 2005
2020 Vision; A CIA report predicts that American global dominance could end in 15 years
By Fred Kaplan / Slate
Who will be the first politician brave enough to declare publicly that the United States is a declining power and that America's leaders must urgently discuss what to do about it? This prognosis of decline comes not (or not only) from leftist scribes rooting for imperialism's downfall, but from the National Intelligence Council—the "center of strategic thinking" inside the U.S. intelligence community.
The NIC's conclusions are starkly presented in a new 119-page document, "Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project." It is unclassified and available on the CIA's Web site. The report has received modest press attention the past couple weeks, mainly for its prediction that, in the year 2020, "political Islam" will still be "a potent force." Only a few stories or columns have taken note of its central conclusion:
The likely emergence of China and India ... as new major global players—similar to the advent of a united Germany in the 19th century and a powerful United States in the early 20th century—will transform the geopolitical landscape with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries.
In this new world, a mere 15 years away, the United States will remain "an important shaper of the international order"—probably the single most powerful country—but its "relative power position" will have "eroded." The new "arriviste powers"—not only China and India, but also Brazil, Indonesia, and perhaps others—will accelerate this erosion by pursuing "strategies designed to exclude or isolate the United States" in order to "force or cajole" us into playing by their rules.
America's current foreign policy is encouraging this trend, the NIC concluded. "U.S. preoccupation with the war on terrorism is largely irrelevant to the security concerns of most Asians," the report states. The authors don't dismiss the importance of the terror war—far from it. But they do write that a "key question" for the future of America's power and influence is whether U.S. policy-makers "can offer Asian states an appealing vision of regional security and order that will rival and perhaps exceed that offered by China." If not, "U.S. disengagement from what matters to U.S. Asian allies would increase the likelihood that they will climb on Beijing's bandwagon and allow China to create its own regional security that excludes the United States."
To the extent that these new powers seek others to emulate, they may look to the European Union, not the United States, as "a model of global and regional governance."
This shift to a multipolar world "will not be painless," the report goes on, "and will hit the middle classes of the developed world in particular" with further outsourcing of jobs and outflow of capital investment. In short, the NIC's forecast involves not merely a recalibration in the balance of world power, but also—as these things do—a loss of wealth, income, and, in every sense of the word, security.
The trends should already be apparent to anyone who reads a newspaper. Not a day goes by without another story about how we're mortgaging our future to the central banks of China and Japan. The U.S. budget deficit, approaching a half-trillion dollars, is financed by their purchase of Treasury notes. The U.S. trade deficit—much of it amassed by the purchase of Chinese-made goods—now exceeds $3 trillion. Meanwhile, China is displacing the United States all across Asia—in trade, investment, education, culture, and tourism. It's also cutting into the trade markets of Latin America. (China is now Chile's No. 1 export market and Brazil's No. 2 trade partner.) Asian engineering students who might once have gone to MIT or Cal Tech are now going to universities in Beijing.
Meanwhile, as the European Union becomes a coherent entity, the dollar's value against the euro has fallen by one-third in the past two years (one-eighth just since September). As the dollar's rate of return declines, currency investors—including those who have been financing our deficit—begin to diversify their holdings. In China, Japan, Russia, and the Middle East, central bankers have been unloading dollars in favor of euros. The Bush policies that have deepened our debt have endangered the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.
What is the Bush administration doing to alter course or at least cushion the blow? It's hard to say. During Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings last week, Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D–Md., raised some questions about the nexus between international economics and political power. Rice referred him to the secretary of the treasury.
The NIC issued the report a few weeks before Bush’s inaugural address, but it serves to dump still more cold water on the lofty fantasy of America delivering freedom to oppressed people everywhere. In Asia, the report states, "present and future leaders are agnostic on the issue of democracy and are more interested in developing what they perceive to be the most effective model of governance." If the president really wanted to spread freedom and democracy around the planet, he would (among other things) need to present America as that "model of governance"—to show the world, by its example, that free democracies are successful and worth emulating. Yet the NIC report paints a world where fewer and fewer people look to America as a model of anything. We can't sell freedom if we can't sell ourselves.
January 28th, 2005
Democrats Bash Bush Social Security Plan
By Laura Meckler / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats on Friday criticized President Bush's plan to add personal accounts to Social Security and accused his administration of improperly using the Social Security Administration to promote the idea.
A pair of Social Security employees told the Democratic Policy Committee they objected to internal agency documents that direct employees to talk about the system's problems and a need for reform.
"That is a political message, and it's not my job as an agency employee to project a political message," said Debbie Fredericksen, who works in the Minneapolis field office and is a union representative.
Bush hopes to let younger workers divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into private retirement accounts that supporters hope would be more profitable than traditional government bonds because they could be invested in the stock market.
Later Friday, Bush met privately with congressional Republicans at a retreat in West Virginia to discuss Social Security and other issues.
Congressional Republicans have said they will need Democratic support to pass legislation, and a handful of Senate Democrats have been meeting with supporters of private accounts to discuss the issue.
Most Senate Democrats have said they oppose carving private accounts out of the existing system. They held the session Friday to highlight their opposition to the Bush plan and to what they say is the administration's improper use of a government agency.
"These messages serve no other purpose than to sear the idea of crisis into the public's mind," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
Specifically:
_The agency's communications plan directs workers to spread this message: "In order for Social Security to be there for future generations, necessary reforms must take place."
_Talking points distributed internally reflect Bush's political messages about Social Security and the need for personal accounts. It includes Bush's principles for overhauling the system, including that "modernization must include individually controlled, voluntary personal retirement accounts to augment Social Security."
_Mailings to Americans detailing the benefits they can expect to receive also warn that "the Social Security system is facing serious financial problems, and action is needed soon to make sure that the system is sound."
_The agency's Web site and customer service telephone lines push the need to "modernize and reform" the system, saying the future shortfall is "massive and growing."
"We feel that this is a gross misuse and waste of government funds and government personnel," said Steve Kofahl, a claims representative from Seattle and also a union representative.
The Social Security Administration responded that its actions were appropriate and said similar messages were used during the Clinton administration.
"I have never, nor will I ever, ask or direct Social Security employees to promote or advance any specific proposal for Social Security reform," Jo Anne Barnhart, commissioner of Social Security, said in a statement. "Our job at Social Security is to provide services and benefits and to educate the American public about the programs and finances of Social Security."
At Friday's session, several Democrats said they would not support the Bush plan because it undercuts the nature of Social Security as an insurance program that guards against poverty in old age.
"We want a guaranteed benefit, not a guaranteed gamble," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.
Also objecting was James Roosevelt Jr., whose grandfather, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed the Social Security Act into law. "He was adamant that Social Security was an insurance program ... not an investment plan," James Roosevelt said.
January 28th, 2005
Senators to Introduce 'Stop Government Propaganda Act'
By Brian Orloff / Editor & Publisher
In response to continued revelations of government-funded "journalism" -- ranging from the purported video news releases put out by the drug czar's office and the Department of Health and Human Services to the recently uncovered payments to columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher,who flacked administration programs -- Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will introduce a bill, The Stop Government Propaganda Act, in the Senate next week.
"It's just not enough to say, 'Please don't do it anymore,'" Alex Formuzis, Lautenberg's spokesman, told E&P. "Legislation sometimes is required and we believe it is in this case."
The Stop Government Propaganda Act states, "Funds appropriated to an Executive branch agency may not be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States unless authorized by law."
"It's time for Congress to shut down the Administration's propaganda mill," Lautenberg said in a statement. "It has no place in the United States Government." The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.).
Formuzis told E&P that while the bill is being introduced by Democrats, its message and intent is something endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
"We only have a few senators on the bill so far, but we hope and expect that we'll get a number of others to sign on to the legislation once we introduce it," he said. "This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an issue about an independent press, and I think that's something that will cross party lines."
The act would allow citizens to bring qui tam lawsuits on behalf of the United States government when the Department of Justice does not respond.
If the matter is taken to court, the bill proposes that the senior official responsible would be fined three times the amount of the "misspent taxpayer funds" plus an additional fine ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. And if a citizen's qui tam suit is accepted, the bill proposes that the plaintiff receives between 25 and 30% of the proceeds of the fine.
"The President said that his cabinet agencies made a mistake when they paid commentators to promote his agenda," Kennedy said in a statement. "It's more than just a mistake, it's an abuse of taxpayer funds and an abuse of the First Amendment and freedom of the press. ... If the President is serious about stopping these abuses, he will support this legislation."
According to a release, publicity or propaganda is defined in the bill as: news releases or publications that do not clearly identify the government agency responsible for the content; audio/visual or Internet presentations that do not identify the responsible government agency; any attempt to manipulate journalists or news organizations; messages created to aid a political party or candidate; messages with a "self-aggrandizing" purpose or "puffery of the Administration, agency, executive branch programs or policies or pending legislation"; and, finally, messages that are "so misleading or inaccurate that they constitute propaganda."
January 27th, 2005
Ted Turner Calls Fox a 'Propaganda Voice'
By Ken Ritter / Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - CNN founder Ted Turner has called the Fox television network a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and compared Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise in Germany before World War II.
Turner, in a speech Tuesday to the National Association of Television Programming Executives, also targeted "gigantic companies whose agenda goes beyond broadcasting" for timidity in challenging the Bush White House.
"There's one network, Fox, that's a propaganda voice for them," the cable news pioneer said. "It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy when the news is 'dumbed-down.'"
Fox News in New York issued a statement saying, "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind — we wish him well."
Turner, 66, stepped down as vice chairman of AOL Time Warner in May 2003.
During a question-and-answer session moderated by former CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw, Turner called it "not necessarily a bad thing" that Fox ratings top CNN and other cable news networks.
"Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany in the early '30s than ... people that were running against him," Turner said in remarks videotaped by conference administrators. "So just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're right."
Convention spokeswoman Michelle Mikoljak said the association had no comment about Turner's comments.
Turner heads an Atlanta-based philanthropic and business empire.January 27th, 2005 4:53 pm
Kennedy Lays Out Plan for Withdrawal from Iraq
t r u t h o u t
Today, in a speech before the Johns' Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, Senator Edward M. Kennedy laid out a realistic and responsible course for America's future in Iraq. In his speech, he called for a serious course correction in Iraq, and invoked history's lessons about the dangers of fighting a political war with a military solution, concluding that America's overwhelming military presence has become a part of the problem, not part of the solution in Iraq.
"We must learn from our mistakes in Vietnam and in Iraq," Kennedy continued."We must recognize what a large and growing number of Iraqis now believe the war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation."
"We thought in those early days in Vietnam that we were winning. We thought the skill and courage of our troops was enough. We thought that victory on the battlefield would lead to victory in war, and peace and democracy for the people of Vietnam," Kennedy said."In the name of a misguided cause, we continued in a war too long. We failed to comprehend the events around us. We did not understand that our very presence was creating new enemies and defeating the very goals we set out to achieve."
Kennedy said that the elections in Iraq this weekend provide an opportunity for a fresh and honest approach.
"President Bush has left us with few good choices. There are costs to staying, and costs to leaving. There may well be violence as we disengage militarily from Iraq and Iraq disengages politically from us, but there will be much more violence if we continue our present dangerous and destabilizing course. It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin."
The Iraqi's have a right to determine their own future. But Sunday's election is not a panacea for the violence and instability.
To move forward, we must acknowledge that the violence is not driven by foreign terrorists, but by Iraqi citizens. Their strength has increased four-fold since the transfer of sovereignty six months ago, and is still growing. Kennedy stated that we must recognize what a large number of Iraqi's now believe: that this has become a war against an American occupation. Our military has become part of the problem, rather than the solution.
Kennedy said, "We need to rethink the Pottery Barn rule. America cannot forever be the potter that sculpts Iraq's future. President Bush broke Iraq, but if we want Iraq to be fixed, the Iraqis must feel that they own it."
Kennedy laid out a five point plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces.
First, the Iraqis need to disengage from the United States politically, and we from them. The Bush Administration can't continue to pull the strings in Iraq. We need to let them make their own decisions, reach their own consensus, and govern their own country. The first point in a new plan would be for the United Nations, not the United States, to provide assistance and advice on establishing a system of government and drafting a Constitution. An international meeting, led by the United Nations and the new Iraqi Government, should be convened immediately in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East to begin that process.
Second, for democracy to take root, the Iraqis need a clear signal that America has a clear exit strategy. The President should say immediately that America intends no long-term presence.
Third, once the elections are behind us, we need to disengage military, and negotiate a withdrawal. At least 12,000 American troops and probably more should leave immediately to send a signal about our intention. America's goal should be to complete the drawdown as early as possible in 2006.
Fourth, we need to conduct serious regional diplomacy with the Arab League and Iraq's neighbors to head off external intervention in Iraq or the large-scale revenge killing of any group.
Fifth, we need to train and equip an effective security force. The way to strengthen their allegiance is to give them a worthy cause to defend - a truly free, independent, and sovereign Iraq.
Through this plan, a democratic and stable Iraq emerge.
January 27th, 2005
How the U.S. Became the World's Dispensable Nation
By Michael Lind / Financial Times
In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited.
Consider Asean Plus Three (APT), which unites the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations with China, Japan and South Korea. This group has the potential to be the world's largest trade bloc, dwarfing the European Union and North American Free Trade Association. The deepening ties of the APT member states represent a major diplomatic defeat for the US, which hoped to use the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum to limit the growth of Asian economic regionalism at American expense. In the same way, recent moves by South American countries to bolster an economic community represent a clear rejection of US aims to dominate a western-hemisphere free trade zone.
Consider, as well, the EU's rapid progress toward military independence. American protests failed to prevent the EU establishing its own military planning agency, independent of the Nato alliance (and thus of Washington). Europe is building up its own rapid reaction force. And despite US resistance, the EU is developing Galileo, its own satellite network, which will break the monopoly of the US global positioning satellite system.
The participation of China in Europe's Galileo project has alarmed the US military. But China shares an interest with other aspiring space powers in preventing American control of space for military and commercial uses. Even while collaborating with Europe on Galileo, China is partnering Brazil to launch satellites. And in an unprecedented move, China recently agreed to host Russian forces for joint Russo-Chinese military exercises.
The US is being sidelined even in the area that Mr Bush identified in last week's address as America's mission: the promotion of democracy and human rights. The EU has devoted far more resources to consolidating democracy in post-communist Europe than has the US. By contrast, under Mr Bush, the US hypocritically uses the promotion of democracy as the rationale for campaigns against states it opposes for strategic reasons. Washington denounces tyranny in Iran but tolerates it in Pakistan. In Iraq, the goal of democratisation was invoked only after the invasion, which was justified earlier by claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was collaborating with al-Qaeda.
Nor is American democracy a shining example to mankind. The present one-party rule in the US has been produced in part by the artificial redrawing of political districts to favour Republicans, reinforcing the domination of money in American politics. America's judges -- many of whom will be appointed by Mr Bush -- increasingly behave as partisan political activists in black robes. America's antiquated winner-take-all electoral system has been abandoned by most other democracies for more inclusive versions of proportional representation.
In other areas of global moral and institutional reform, the US today is a follower rather than a leader. Human rights? Europe has banned the death penalty and torture, while the US is a leading practitioner of execution. Under Mr Bush, the US has constructed an international military gulag in which the torture of suspects has frequently occurred. The international rule of law? For generations, promoting international law in collaboration with other nations was a US goal. But the neoconservatives who dominate Washington today mock the very idea of international law. The next US attorney general will be the White House counsel who scorned the Geneva Conventions as obsolete.
A decade ago, American triumphalists mocked those who argued that the world was becoming multipolar, rather than unipolar. Where was the evidence of balancing against the US, they asked. Today the evidence of foreign co-operation to reduce American primacy is everywhere -- from the increasing importance of regional trade blocs that exclude the US to international space projects and military exercises in which the US is conspicuous by its absence.
It is true that the US remains the only country capable of projecting military power throughout the world. But unipolarity in the military sphere, narrowly defined, is not preventing the rapid development of multipolarity in the geopolitical and economic arenas -- far from it. And the other great powers are content to let the US waste blood and treasure on its doomed attempt to recreate the post-first world war British imperium in the Middle East.
That the rest of the world is building institutions and alliances that shut out the US should come as no surprise. The view that American leaders can be trusted to use a monopoly of military and economic power for the good of humanity has never been widely shared outside of the US. The trend toward multipolarity has probably been accelerated by the truculent unilateralism of the Bush administration, whose motto seems to be that of the Hollywood mogul: "Include me out."
In recent memory, nothing could be done without the US. Today, however, practically all new international institution-building of any long-term importance in global diplomacy and trade occurs without American participation.
In 1998 Madeleine Albright, then US secretary of state, said of the U.S.: "We are the indispensable nation." By backfiring, the unilateralism of Mr Bush has proven her wrong. The US, it turns out, is a dispensable nation.
Europe, China, Russia, Latin America and other regions and nations are quietly taking measures whose effect if not sole purpose will be to cut America down to size.
Ironically, the US, having won the cold war, is adopting the strategy that led the Soviet Union to lose it: hoping that raw military power will be sufficient to intimidate other great powers alienated by its belligerence. To compound the irony, these other great powers are drafting the blueprints for new international institutions and alliances. That is what the US did during and after the second world war.
But that was a different America, led by wise and constructive statesmen like Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who wrote of being "present at the creation." The bullying approach of the Bush administration has ensured that the US will not be invited to take part in designing the international architecture of Europe and Asia in the 21st century. This time, the US is absent at the creation.
January 26th, 2005
Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract
By Howard Kurtz / Washington Post
In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.
"The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples" and "educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage," she wrote in National Review Online, for example, adding that this could "carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children."
But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal. Her work under the contract, which ran from January through October 2002, included drafting a magazine article for the HHS official overseeing the initiative, writing brochures for the program and conducting a briefing for department officials.
"Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it?" Gallagher said yesterday. "I don't know. You tell me." She said she would have "been happy to tell anyone who called me" about the contract but that "frankly, it never occurred to me" to disclose it.
Later in the day, Gallagher filed a column in which she said that "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers."
In the interview, Gallagher said her situation was "not really anything near" the recent controversy involving conservative commentator Armstrong Williams. Earlier this month Williams apologized for not disclosing a $241,000 contract with the Education Department, awarded through the Ketchum public relations firm, to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind law through advertising on his cable TV and syndicated radio shows and other efforts.
Gallagher received an additional $20,000 from the Bush administration in 2002 and 2003 for writing a report, titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?", for a private organization called the National Fatherhood Initiative. That report, published last year, was funded by a Justice Department grant, said NFI spokesman Vincent DiCaro. Gallagher said she was "aware vaguely" that her work was federally funded.
In columns, television appearances and interviews with such newspapers as The Washington Post, Gallagher last year defended Bush's proposal for a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage.
Wade Horn, HHS assistant secretary for children and families, said his division hired Gallagher as "a well-known national expert," along with other specialists in the field, to help devise the president's healthy marriage initiative. "It's not unusual in the federal government to do that," he said.
The essay Gallagher drafted appeared under Horn's byline -- with the headline "Closing the Marriage Gap" -- and ran in Crisis magazine, which promotes humanism rooted in Catholic Church teachings. Horn said most of the brochures written by Gallagher -- such as "The Top Ten Reasons Marriage Matters" -- were not used as the program evolved.
"I don't see any comparison between what has been alleged with Armstrong Williams and what we did with Maggie Gallagher," said Horn, who founded the National Fatherhood Initiative before entering government. "We didn't pay her to write columns. We didn't pay her to promote the president's healthy marriage initiative at all. What we wanted to do was use her expertise." The Education Department is now investigating the Williams contract.
The author of three books on marriage, Gallagher is president of the Washington-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, a frequent television guest and has written on the subject for such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard.
While she was being paid by HHS in 2002, Gallagher in her syndicated column dismissed the arguments against "President Bush's modest marriage initiative" as "nonsense," writing: "Bush plans to use a tiny fraction of surplus welfare dollars to fund marriage education services for at-risk couples."
In a column later that year that appeared in the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Sun News, Gallagher said Bush's welfare-revision bill would, among other things, encourage "stable marriages," and that it was a "scandal" for Democrats to reject the president's plan and fail to offer an alternative.
National Review Editor Rich Lowry said of the HHS contract: "We would have preferred that she told us, and we would have disclosed it in her bio."
Tribune Media Services dropped Williams's column after his administration contract was disclosed. Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes Gallagher's column, plans no such action.
"We did not know about the contract," spokeswoman Kathie Kerr said. "We would have probably liked to have known." But, Kerr said, "this is what we hired Maggie to write about. It probably wouldn't have changed our mind to distribute it."
January 25th, 2005
Democrats Say Rice Misled About Iraq War
By Anne Gearan / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats said Tuesday that Condoleezza Rice lied to them, misled Americans about the Iraq war or served as an apologist for Bush administration failures in Iraq, but she remained on track for confirmation as secretary of state.
Rice, who has been President Bush's national security adviser for four years, was one of the loudest voices urging war, Democrats said. She repeatedly deceived members of Congress and Americans at large about justifications for the war, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
"I don't like impugning anyone's integrity, but I really don't like being lied to," Dayton said in opposing Rice's nomination on the Senate floor. "Repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."
Rice is expected to win confirmation on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that Rice would have "an overwhelming majority" of votes.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., cautioned against "inflammatory rhetoric that is designed merely to create partisan advantage or to settle partisan scores."
Rice would succeed Colin Powell, who often found himself on the outside looking in with Bush's close circle of war and national security advisers.
By contrast, Rice is a trusted Bush loyalist. As a principal architect of the Iraq invasion and the administration's war on terrorism, she shares blame for overstating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, Democrats said.
Dayton accused Rice and other Bush administration officials of "lying to Congress, lying to our committees, lying to the American people."
Politicians rarely use the word "lie," preferring some of the milder terms other Democrats used Tuesday.
"There was no reason to go to war in Iraq when we did, the way we did and for the false reasons we were given," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
Rice is not directly responsible for intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war that overestimated Saddam's nuclear capability, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "But she is responsible for her own distortions and exaggerations of the intelligence which was provided to her," Levin said.
"Dr. Rice is responsible for some of the most overblown rhetoric that the administration used to scare the American people," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said.
The Senate set aside most of the day Tuesday to debate the Rice nomination after Democrats revolted against a plan to confirm Rice last week, on the same day that Bush took his oath for a second term.
"We should have been done last week," Frist said. "I was disappointed that we are having to march through the debate today. But ultimately the vote will occur."
Republicans who took the floor to endorse Rice included Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who has been a sometime critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policies.
"Dr. Rice has the intelligence, the integrity and the experience for this job. She has the president's confidence," Hagel said.
In his dealings with Rice, "she's always been candid and honest, and she listened," Hagel said.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Tuesday sought to capitalize on sharp questioning of Rice during her confirmation hearings. The DSCC sent a fund-raising e-mail signed by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., with the subject line "Taking a Stand."
"I will continue to make my voice heard on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, but in order to put the brakes on four more years of misdirection in Iraq and reckless policies at home, we need to elect more Democrats to the Senate during the 2006 midterm elections," Boxer wrote, noting her questioning of Rice. "Click here to contribute to the DSCC today."
"This disturbing letter puts to rest any doubts some may have had that this is all about politics," Rice spokesman Jim Wilkinson said.
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee sent an e-mail to its supporters with the subject line "Meet the New Face of the Democratic Party." It portrayed Boxer as having a "left of liberal" voting record and being closely tied to the Hollywood elite. The e-mail included a link for supporters to "support the Bush agenda by becoming a team leader today."
Democrats, in the minority in Congress, often resort to delaying what they cannot defeat.
Byrd, the longest-serving Democratic senator and a student of the Constitution, insisted that his party is merely doing its duty.
"I am particularly dismayed by criticism I have read that Senate Democrats by insisting on having the opportunity to debate this nomination have somehow been engaged in nothing more substantial than petty politics or partisan delaying tactics," Byrd said, his voice rising in anger.
January 25th, 2005
White House: Deficit Will Hit Record $427B
By Alan Fram / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The White House will project that this year's federal deficit will hit $427 billion, a senior administration official said Tuesday, a record amount partly driven by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The official, among three who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the estimate was a conservative one that assumed some higher spending than other analysts use. Last February, the White House projected that the 2004 shortfall would hit $521 billion, only to see it come in at $412 billion.
The official said the figure represented progress because it would be smaller than last year's record $412 billion shortfall when compared to the size of the growing U.S. economy. That ratio is a key measure of the deficit's potency.
"Our projections will show we remain on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009," one of President Bush's budget goals, the official told reporters.
Even so, the number was among a blizzard of figures released Tuesday that illustrated how federal deficits remain a problem that Bush and Congress must reckon with.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that thanks to tax cuts and hurricane aid passed since its last calculations in September, the 10-year deficit had worsened since then by $503 billion, not counting war expenditures.
The congressional analysts projected that this year's deficit would hit $368 billion — which would be the third highest ever — excluding war costs. Adding expenditures for Iraq and Afghanistan operations would push this year's red ink to about $400 billion, said Congress' nonpartisan budget analyst.
Underscoring budget pressures hounding lawmakers, senior administration officials invited reporters to the White House to outline their upcoming request for an additional $80 billion, or slightly more, to help pay this year's costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I am grateful that Congress in a strong bipartisan fashion has consistently voted to support our troops, and I urge it to do so again," Bush said in a written statement.
There is little doubt lawmakers will follow Bush's lead, as they have repeatedly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The latest proposal would bring war spending so far to about $308 billion, including $25 billion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service, which provides reports to lawmakers.
Bush plans to send his 2006 budget to Congress on Feb. 7. It will not include a request for more war funds for that year, the officials said, saving that request for later.
Tuesday's forecast by the Congressional Budget Office was widely awaited at the start of a year when Bush and Republicans are likely to propose tight spending restraints — and battle Democrats and some GOP lawmakers over those plans.
The budget office projected $855 billion in shortfalls for the decade ending in 2015. The office estimated that deficits would gradually fade into slight surpluses by 2012 — but not many were taking that forecast at face value.
In making those estimates, the budget office assumed that current tax and spending laws would be unchanged, as it is required to do by law. The practice is designed to give lawmakers a neutral starting point to work from when crafting legislation.
As a result, the budget office projections omitted war costs and some of Bush's top legislative priorities.
The budget office said assuming U.S. troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan stays steady through next year and then declines gradually, those wars would add $590 billion to the decade's deficits.
Bush's proposal to prevent his tax cuts from expiring — and easing the impact of the alternative minimum tax on middle-income Americans, a move both parties favor — could add red ink exceeding $2.3 trillion, the budget office said.
The budget office did not say how much Bush's plans to revamp Social Security would cost, but it has been estimated at $1 trillion to $2 trillion.
On the other hand, the budget office assumed most domestic programs would grow at the same rate as inflation. Keeping such spending at about the same level as this year for the entire decade — which Bush may come close to proposing — could reduce deficits by $1.3 trillion over the period, the budget office said.
Republicans used the deficit figures to argue that budget savings must be found this year, including from popular benefit programs.
"If we do nothing, our kids and grandkids will be overwhelmed by the costs of our inaction," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
Democrats blamed Bush and the GOP for the daunting piles of red ink.
"Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House, but they can't control the budget and they can't escape responsibility for its dismal condition," said Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
The administration officials provided little new detail about their war package.
They said of the $80 billion, about $75 billion would be for the Defense Department, with most of it for the Army. They said such spending would include personnel costs, the start of an effort to add at least 17 combat brigades to the Army and replacing worn out equipment.
The rest of the money would largely be for aid the State Department would give to U.S. allies and for other expenses. Included would be money to help new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, to build an embassy in Baghdad and to aid victims of fighting in Sudan's Darfur province. The cost of the embassy alone has been estimated at $1.5 billion.
They did not state whether the request would include aid for Indian Ocean countries staggered by the tsunami. But one said the United States was spending $5 million daily there, and the administration would seek a "significant request, very generous assistance."
The United States has already committed $350 million to tsunami recovery efforts.
January 25th, 2005
Democrats Call Rice Liar, Bush Apologist
By Anne Gearan / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - One Senate Democrat called Condoleezza Rice a liar Tuesday and others said she was an apologist for Bush administration failures in Iraq, but she remained on track for confirmation as secretary of state.
Rice, who has been President Bush's White House national security adviser for four years, was one of the loudest voices urging war, Democrats said. She repeatedly deceived members of Congress and Americans at large about justifications for the war, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
"I don't like impugning anyone's integrity, but I really don't like being lied to," Dayton said. "Repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."
Rice is expected to win confirmation on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that Rice would have "an overwhelming majority" of votes.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., cautioned against "inflammatory rhetoric that is designed merely to create partisan advantage or to settle partisan scores."
Rice would succeed Colin Powell, who often found himself on the outside looking in with Bush's close circle of war and national security advisers.
By contrast, Rice is a trusted Bush loyalist. As a principal architect of the Iraq invasion and the administration's war on terrorism, she shares blame for overstating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, Democrats said.
"My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration's lies must stop now," Dayton said in opposing Rice's nomination on the Senate floor.
Politicians rarely use the word "lie," preferring some of the milder terms other Democrats used Tuesday.
"There was no reason to go to war in Iraq when we did, the way we did and for the false reasons we were given," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
Rice is not directly responsible for intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war that overestimated Saddam's nuclear capability, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "But she is responsible for her own distortions and exaggerations of the intelligence which was provided to her," Levin said.
"Dr. Rice is responsible for some of the most overblown rhetoric that the administration used to scare the American people," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said.
The Senate set aside most of the day Tuesday to debate the Rice nomination after Democrats revolted against a plan to confirm Rice last week, on the same day that Bush took his oath for a second term.
"We should have been done last week," Frist said. "I was disappointed that we are having to march through the debate today. But ultimately the vote will occur."
Republicans who took the floor to endorse Rice included Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who has been a sometime critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policies.
"Dr. Rice has the intelligence, the integrity and the experience for this job. She has the president's confidence," Hagel said.
In his dealings with Rice, "she's always been candid and honest, and she listened," Hagel said.
Rice answered 199 questions during two days of hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, Lugar said. She answered almost as many in writing, a record nearly unmatched by other Cabinet nominees through history, Lugar said.
Democrats on the committee and off it, however, said Rice dodged hard questions.
Democrats, in the minority in Congress, often resort to delaying what they cannot defeat.
Byrd, the longest-serving Democratic senator and a student of the Constitution, insisted that his party is merely doing its duty.
"I am particularly dismayed by criticism I have read that Senate Democrats by insisting on having the opportunity to debate this nomination have somehow been engaged in nothing more substantial than petty politics or partisan delaying tactics," Byrd said, his voice rising in anger.
January 25th, 2005
Torture in Iraq Still Routine, Report Says
Detainees Beaten, Hung by Wrists, Shocked by Security Forces, Rights Group Finds
By Doug Struck / Washington Post
BAGHDAD, Jan. 24 -- Twenty months after Saddam Hussein's government was toppled and its torture chambers unlocked, Iraqis are again being routinely beaten, hung by their wrists and shocked with electrical wires, according to a report by a human rights organization.
Iraqi police, jailers and intelligence agents, many of them holding the same jobs they had under Hussein, are "committing systematic torture and other abuses" of detainees, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be released Tuesday.
Legal safeguards are being ignored, political opponents are targeted for arrest, and the government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi "appears to be actively taking part, or is at least complicit, in these grave violations of fundamental human rights," the report concludes.
A spokesman for Allawi declined to comment, Monday and said "I will put this report on the prime minister's desk tomorrow to see if he has any reaction."
Ibrahim Jafari, an interim vice president, said in an interview that security forces needed to be tougher to combat the campaign of violence by opponents of the election.
"I think the security people are not arresting enough and are releasing them too quickly," Jafari said. "And many of the security people are cooperating with the criminals. I think we have to put security as our priority."
The Human Rights Watch report acknowledged that Iraq was "in the throes of a significant insurgency" in which 1,300 police officers and thousands of civilians were killed in the last four months of 2004. But it argued that "no government, not Saddam Hussein's, not the occupying powers and not the Iraqi Interim Government, can justify ill-treatment of persons in custody in the name of security."
The report was based on interviews with 90 current and former detainees in Iraq conducted between July and October last year, many of them interviewed when they were brought to court for initial proceedings. Of those, 72 said they were "tortured or ill-treated," the report says. It recounts numerous individual cases of torture, and says the victims often had fresh scars or bruises.
"I was beaten with cables and suspended by my hands tied behind my back," Dhia Fawzi Shaid, 30, a resident of Baghdad, told the human rights investigators, according to the report. "I saw young men there lying on the floor while police [stepped] on their heads with boots. It was worse than Saddam's regime."
Another, identified in the report as Ali Rashid Abbadi, 21, said he was arrested by police after the bombing of a liquor store on July 11. "The police came and started hitting us," he told Human Rights Watch. "They shouted at us to confess. . . . We were blindfolded and our hands were tied behind our backs. They poured cold water over me and applied electric shocks to my genitals."
Abbadi was later released by a judge for lack of evidence, the report says.
The report deals with the conduct of Iraqi authorities but not that of U.S. military forces at three U.S.-run detention facilities in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. The three sites currently hold about 9,000 prisoners.
The Washington Post contacted several people whose cases were included in the report. They declined to speak to a reporter, saying they feared retaliation by police.
"The majority of detainees . . . stated that torture and ill-treatment during the initial period was commonplace" in jails run by the Interior Ministry, the report says. The abuses included "routine beatings . . . using cables, [rubber] hosepipes and metal rods . . . kicking, slapping and punching, prolonged suspension from the wrists," as well as electric shocks to the genitals and long periods spent blindfolded and handcuffed.
Hania Mufti, the Baghdad director of Human Rights Watch and chief author of the report, said she did not find examples of abuses that were on a par with the worst atrocities committed under Hussein's rule, such as mock executions, disfigurement with acid or sexual assaults on family members in front of prisoners. But in many other respects, she said, treatment of those swept up by police had changed little.
"Many of the same people who worked in Saddam's time are still doing those jobs today. So there is a continuity of personnel and of mind-set," she said in an interview. "I think the Iraqi people themselves thought there was going to be a different system. Every day, they are finding it is not so different."
The report also says authorities made a mockery of legal safeguards. People said they were arrested without warrants and held without charges for days, weeks or months. Police officials ignored summonses from judges, and judges who became too demanding of authorities were removed from their jobs.
"The message has not gone out from the government that torture will not be tolerated," Mufti said. And foreign advisers hired to assist the Iraqi police have failed to object, she said.
The report relates "the only known case in which U.S. forces intervened to stop detainee abuse." It said scouts from an Oregon Army National Guard unit saw Iraqi guards at an Interior Ministry compound abusing detainees on June 29. A soldier took pictures through his rifle scope of detainees who were blindfolded and bound.
According to an account related in the report by Capt. Jarrell Southal of the National Guard, his soldiers entered the compound and found bound prisoners "writhing in pain" and complaining of lack of water. They gave water to the men, moved them out of the sun and then disarmed the Iraqi police. But when the Oregon soldiers radioed up their chain of command for instructions, they were ordered to "return the prisoners to the Iraqi authorities and leave the detention yard."
January 25th, 2005
Budget Office Puts Deficit at $855 Billion Over 10 Years
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As Congress started to digest a new Bush administration request of $80 billion to bankroll wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its top budget analyst on Tuesday projected $855 billion in deficits for the next decade even without the costs of war and Bush's Social Security plan.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration would outline its request for more money for Iraq and Afghanistan later Tuesday. He would provide no detail, but congressional aides said the package would total about $80 billion and be mostly for U.S. military operations in the two countries.
Congress approved $25 billion for the wars last summer. Using figures compiled by the Congressional Research Service, which prepares reports for lawmakers, the newest request would push the totals provided for the conflicts and worldwide efforts against terrorism past $300 billion. That includes $25 billion already provided for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan.
McClellan said the administration would request what is needed for U.S. troops and ``to support the Iraqi people as they move forward on building a democratic and peaceful future.''
Amid the White House's preparations, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the government will accumulate another $855 billion in deficits over the next decade.
The projection, for the years 2006 through 2015, is almost two-thirds smaller than what congressional budget analysts predicted last fall. But the drop is largely due to estimating quirks that required it to exclude future Iraq and Afghanistan war costs and other expenses. Last September, their 10-year deficit estimate was $2.3 trillion.
The CBO also projected this year's shortfall will be $368 billion. That was close to the $348 billion deficit for 2005 that it had forecast last fall. The two largest deficits ever in dollar terms were last year's $412 billion and the $377 billion gap of 2003.
The budget office estimated if U.S. troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan declines gradually after 2006, those wars would add $590 billion to deficits over the next decade. Including war costs, this year's shortfall should hit about $400 billion, the budget office said.
Besides lacking war costs, the budget office's deficit estimates also omitted the price tags of Bush's goal of revamping Social Security, which could cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion and dominate this year's legislative agenda.
Also left out were the price of extending Bush's tax cuts and easing the impact the alternative minimum tax would have on middle-income Americans, which could exceed $2.3 trillion, the report said.
When those items are included, Bush is a long way from his goal of cutting deficits in half by 2009, Democrats said.
``Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House, but they can't control the budget and they can't escape responsibility for its dismal condition,'' said Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
Republicans used the deficit figures to underscore the need to find budget savings this year, including from popular benefit programs, which include Medicaid.
``If we do nothing, our kids and grandkids will be overwhelmed by the costs of our inaction,'' said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
Bush won't send the war financing package to Congress until after he unveils his full 2006 budget on Feb. 7, congressional aides said.
White House officials declined to comment on the war package, which will come as the United States confronts continued violence in Iraq leading up to that country's Jan. 30 elections.
Aides said about three-fourths of the $80 billion was expected to be for the Army, which is bearing the brunt of the fighting in Iraq. It also was expected to include money for building a U.S. embassy in Baghdad, estimated to cost $1.5 billion.
One aide said the request will also include funds to help the new Afghan government combat drug trafficking. It might also have money to help two new leaders the U.S. hopes will be allies, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko.
The aides said the package Bush eventually submits to Congress will also include money to help Indian Ocean countries hit by the devastating December tsunami.
The forthcoming request highlights how much war spending has soared past initial White House estimates. Early on, then-presidential economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey placed Iraq costs at $100 billion to $200 billion, only to see his comments derided by administration colleagues.
By pushing war spending beyond $300 billion, the latest proposal would approach nearly half the $613 billion the United States spent for World War I or the $623 billion it expended for the Vietnam War, when the costs of those conflicts are translated into 2005 dollars.
The White House had not been expected to reveal details of the war package until after the release of the full budget.
But lawmakers, as they did last year, want to include war costs in the budgets they will write. They argue that withholding the war costs from Bush's budget would open it to criticism that it was an unrealistic document, one aide said. Last year, the spending plan omitted war expenditures and received just that critique.
January 25th, 2005
Iran rules out US talks as Israel warns on nuclear plan
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran ruled out direct talks with Washington as Israel urged the world to take action against the Islamic republic's nuclear programme, warning it could destablise the Middle East.
US President George W. Bush, just into his second term of office, has warned Tehran not to develop nuclear weapons or risk possible military action, in an escalating round of tit-for-tat rhetoric between Iran and its archfoe.
"We have said before that if anyone wants to talks to us in a threatening language, we will adopt the same tone," Iranian government spokesman and cabinet secretary Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told reporters.
Last week, Bush -- who once lumped Iran in an "axis of evil" with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea -- said he could not rule out using force if Tehran failed to rein in its nuclear plans.
US Vice President Dick Cheney also warned that Israel might launch its own pre-emptive strike to end Iran's nuclear programme and he put Iran "right at the top of the list" of global trouble spots.
While Iran insists its nuclear activities are strictly for peaceful energy purposes, the European Union's "big three" -- Britain, France and Germany -- are engaged in a diplomatic effort aimed at securing long-term guarantees the clerical regime will not seek the bomb.
In an interview on Monday, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said: "The world must mobilise against the Iranian nuclear option."
"Iran has become the focal point of all the dangers of the Middle East... This problem should be of concern to the whole world and not just Israel," said Peres, the founder of Israel's nuclear programme.
Since the downfall of Saddam in 2003, Israel has come to regard the Islamic republic as its number one enemy.
Israel's chief spy Meir Dagan told the parliamentary foreign affairs and defence committee that Iran's nuclear ambitions were close to "the point of no return".
Iran, he said, was nearly able to manufacture enriched uranium without any external help, Israel's army radio quoted him as telling the committee.
"From there, the route to building a bomb is a short one, and so it is up to the international community to increase its efforts in order to prevent the arming of Tehran," Dagan said.
On Sunday, Iran warned any attack on its soil would be a "major strategic blunder" and has insisted that its nuclear activities are strictly peaceful.
"If they (the Americans) stop these threats and deal with us as equals and forget preconditions, we will think about the possibility of negotiating with this government," Ramazanzadeh said on Monday.
The New Yorker magazine reported that US commandos have been operating inside Iran since mid-2004, secretly scouting targets for possible air strikes targetting what the US says is a covert weapons programme.
Although Iran and the United States cut off direct diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, Britain, France and Germany are working to secure long-term guarantees that Tehran will not manufacture an atomic bomb.
Iran has agreed to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel cycle work, which can be geared to both civil and military purposes, for the duration of the talks.
Israel itself has never publicly acknowledged having a nuclear arsenal but foreign experts believe it has produced between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads.
January 24th, 2005
Bush to Seek About $80 Bln for Military Operations
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration plans to announce as early as Tuesday that it will seek about $80 billion in new funding for military operations this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration and congressional sources said on Monday.
The new supplemental budget request would come on top of the $25 billion in emergency spending already approved for the current fiscal year, pushing total 2005 funding for military operations and equipment close to a record $105 billion.
Up to $650 million is expected to be included in the package to fund humanitarian aid, reconstruction efforts and military operations in Asian nations devastated by last month's tsunami, congressional aides said. The administration is also considering providing debt relief to Indonesia, the hardest-hit country, they said.
White House officials declined to comment on the size of the package or when it would be unveiled. But administration and congressional sources said they expected a White House announcement as early as Tuesday.
The funding request is expected to be formally submitted to Congress for approval next month after President Bush sends up his fiscal 2006 budget on Feb. 7.
Congressional sources said the White House, for the first time, was expected to incorporate the spending request into the budget's deficit projections.
At nearly $105 billion, total funding for military operations in 2005 would be more than 13 times larger than Bush's budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, which is charged with keeping the nation's air, water and land pollution-free, and would be nearly as big as the state of California's annual budget.
January 23rd, 2005
Iran says U.S. attack would be big mistake
By Parisa Hafezi / Reuters
TEHRAN - Iran, responding to comments by senior U.S. officials, says Washington would be making a major strategic mistake if it attacked the Islamic state.
U.S. President George W. Bush last week said military action had not been ruled out to deal with Iran's nuclear programme and Vice President Dick Cheney said Iran topped the list of world trouble spots and warned Israel could decide to bomb its nuclear facilities.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said: "We think the chance (of a U.S. military attack) is very low unless someone wants to make a major strategic mistake."
"Logically speaking, we don't think this is going to happen," he told a weekly news conference on Sunday.
Iranian officials, including President Mohammad Khatami, said last week Iran would respond vigorously to any attack.
Analysts have said Tehran has ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf and can easily stir up violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine through proxy agents and militant groups it backs.
Asefi, echoing comments by other senior Iranian officials, dismissed the U.S. remarks as "psychological warfare".
"These kind of remarks are clear examples of cultural and religious war which will only lead to people's hatred of U.S. policies ... and will isolate America more than before," he said.
He said Cheney's comments about Israel attacking Iran's nuclear facilities underscored the influence Israel had on U.S. foreign policy.
"Iran has always said that Tel Aviv decides U.S. policies and that the Zionist lobby is so powerful in the United States, therefore we were not surprised by such remarks," he said.
Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and will be used only to generate electricity, not to build atomic bombs.
"The Americans believe they can impose their demands and use force," Asefi said.
"We're expecting Bush in his second term to pay more attention to the international community and organisations which were created to solve international problems and to handle the countries that are not following international demands."
January 21st, 2005
Smiles for the family, a fiery warning for the world
By Julian Borger / Guardian
George Bush began his second presidential term yesterday with a call to American action abroad, committing the US to the spread of global democracy and "ending tyranny in our world".
In arguably the most combative inauguration speech for 50 years, Mr Bush made clear that the Afghan and Iraqi wars had not diminished his determination to take the counter-terrorism campaign to America's enemies. He depicted those conflicts as part of a much broader mission, which he phrased in almost messianic terms.
"By our efforts, we have lit ... a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world," Mr Bush said on the steps of the Capitol, tens of thousands listening rapt on Washington's snow-covered National Mall and along Pennsylvania Avenue.
The speech, steeped in religious language, was addressed first to the world and only secondly to the American people. Mr Bush portrayed a planet consumed by the struggle between liberty and tyranny in which the US would not stand aside.
"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," he said.
The confrontations to come would not necessarily be "the task of arms", Mr Bush said, but at a time of rising speculation over his second-term plans for Iran, the president did not exclude the possibility of further battles. He pledged: "We will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary." To the American people, concerned at the US death toll in Iraq, he argued that the only way to defend the country was to promote democracy overseas and thus uproot the source of threats to the homeland.
"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands," America's 43rd president told the crowds on a cool, bright Washington day. "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
He also suggested the struggle against oppression was ordained by God, exporting the ideas enshrined in the US constitution that all people have God-given rights.
"History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction set by liberty and the author of liberty," the president said. The deliberate use of language familiar to evangelical Christians won more cheers from the crowd than any other phrase.
With this radical address, Mr Bush nailed his colours once and for all to the neoconservative mast, committing himself to an activist foreign policy. He went out of his way to reject the more traditional "realist" Republican philosophy associated with his father, which argues that democracy cannot be exported to regions like the Middle East and that US foreign policy should be guided by narrowly defined national self-interest.
"Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals," the president said. "Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul."
The second half of yesterday's address was aimed at domestic policy. The Bush administration would also pursue the spread of freedom at home, by promoting an "ownership society" built on private ownership of homes, private pension schemes and health insurance.
"By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear and make our society more prosperous and just and equal," he said.
The president's message was embraced by an overwhelmingly supportive crowd there to witness what many saw as the triumph of a new strain of Christian conservatism.
Scott Hennen from Fargo, North Dakota, had been in Washington for Mr Bush's 2001 inaugural address. "I think there is a certain wind at the back of the president that was not there the last time," he said. "This president is not marking time."
January 21st, 2005
Soldier charged for refusing return to Iraq
SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) -- The U.S. Army has brought charges against a soldier who refused to return to Iraq for a second combat tour because he now objects to war, officials said.
Sgt. Kevin Benderman notified his commanders December 28 that he was seeking a discharge as a conscientious objector. He then refused orders to deploy with his unit January 8 while the Army processed his objector claim.
Benderman was charged with desertion and a second count that accuses him of intentionally skipping his deployment flight.
"My response to those charges is not guilty," said Benderman, 40. "I am prepared to deal with whatever consequences my action brings."
Benderman, an Army mechanic with 10 years in the military, spent eight months in Iraq in 2003 with the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. He transferred to Fort Stewart after returning from the war.
Though he never fired a gun in combat, Benderman says the misery he saw firsthand -- including a badly burned young girl and mass graves filled with men, women and children -- led him to seek objector status.
Fort Stewart commanders contend Benderman still had an obligation to deploy with his unit while they considered his conscientious objector application.
"The people that it hurts the most are those people who are a close-knit part of his team," Maj. Gen. William G. Webster, the 3rd Infantry commander, told reporters Thursday. "But if you talk to these soldiers here, it's sort of below the noise level."
Army investigators must now decide whether to prosecute Benderman in a court-martial or allow his case to be handled administratively, said Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone, a Fort Stewart spokesman.
If convicted by a court-martial, Benderman faces up to seven years in a military prison, reduction in rank and a dishonorable discharge, Whetstone said. Military courts can also opt for no punishment, even for defendants found guilty.
Benderman has since been assigned to a rear-detachment unit with no restrictions. He said he has even been granted two weeks of leave that he will use to prepare his case.
"We're still going to treat him with honor and respect. He's a soldier, he's wearing the uniform and he's a veteran," Whetstone said. "But when regulations are broken and orders are disobeyed, we've got to do what we've got to do."
January 21st, 2005
Police Use Tear Gas at Bush Inauguration
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police sprayed tear gas to disperse demonstrators who hurled debris and tried to break through a security fence keeping protesters away from President Bush's inaugural parade on Thursday.
Several dozen protesters thronged toward the security fence, lobbing bottles, trash and snowballs at police, witnesses said. More than 100 police officers were at the scene where hundreds of protesters had gathered.
A small group of anti-Bush demonstrators overturned several of the metal security barricades, and a handful of protesters broke through.
Witnesses said they saw police use tear gas against some of the protesters.
Also along the route toward the White House, protesters set a small fire close to the barricades.
The motorcade sped up as it passed the commotion.
January 20th, 2005
Protesters Mourn Those Killed in Iraq
By Jeannine Aversa / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Anti-war protesters, including some who carried coffin-like cardboard boxes to signify the death of U.S. troops in Iraq, descended on the capital Thursday.
About 300 people rallied in a park several miles from the Capitol, where George W. Bush was taking the oath of office for a second term.
"Worst President Ever" and "Four more years: God HELP America" were on some of the signs. Protesters covered hundreds of cardboard boxes with black cloth and American flags to symbolize U.S. troops and others killed in Iraq.
"It's important to show that when Bush's second inauguration goes into the record books, there was healthy dissent" said Jared Maslin, 19 of Hanover, N.H.
Aidan Delgado, 23, of Sarasota, Fla., returned to the United States last April after his military service. He said he was a mechanic at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, which gained notoriety as a place of torture during Saddam Hussein's rule and was the scene of alleged prisoner abuse by U.S. troops.
"What I experienced in Iraq fills me with remorse," Delgado told the crowd of protesters. "If we are going to preserve our nation at all, we need to criticize what we did wrong and we have to criticize ourselves," he said.
Several police cars lined the perimeter of the park, but the event remained peaceful.
Protests for Bush's second inauguration were mostly subdued, a marked contrast from 2001.
January 20th, 2005
Snowballed
A snowball melts on the side of a limousine as Vice President Richard Cheney waves during the inaugural parade in Washington, January 20, 2005. Flag-draped coffins and anti-war chants competed with pomp and circumstance on Thursday at the inauguration of President George W. Bush along the snow-dusted, barricaded streets of central Washington.
January 20th, 2005
World fears new Bush era; Blair urges more consensual US approach as poll shows unease in 18 out of 21 nations
By Ewen MacAskill / Guardian
George Bush will be sworn in as president of the United States for a second term today in a lavish Washington ceremony, amid mounting international concern that his new administration will make the world a more dangerous place.
A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.
Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.
The survey also indicated for the first time that dislike of Mr Bush is translating into a dislike of Americans in general.
Tony Blair, in an interview with the Guardian, expressed hope that Mr Bush's second term would prove to be more consensual than the first.
He said there had been an evolution in US policy, witnessed by him in successive conversations with Mr Bush.
"Evolution comes from experience," he said.
Mr Blair said that, as part of a learning process that began with the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the US administration had reached the conclusion that "in the end, we can take security and military measures against terrorism but... the best prospect of peaceful coexistence lies in the spread of democracy and human rights".
Asked if Mr Bush had become a multilateralist, Mr Blair said he could not speak for the president but "it is significant, in my view, that he is coming to Europe as his first foreign visit".
Mr Bush is due in Europe at the end of next month.
The inauguration is taking place amid unprecedented security in Washington as luminaries from across the country converge on the capital.
Mr Bush spent the eve of the ceremony to mark the start of his second term shuttling between a series of events: from three candlelit dinners to thank his biggest campaign donors through to a "Celebration of Freedom" fireworks concert.
He described the elections in Afghanistan late last year and in Iraq planned for next week as "landmark events in the history of liberty".
Mr Bush also proclaimed his inauguration as "a sign of hope for freedom-loving people everywhere".
Aware of the damage that has been done to America's reputation over the war in Iraq and the Kyoto protocol on global warming, the new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, whose appointment was confirmed by the Senate yesterday, promised to try to repair relations with France, Germany and other countries bruised during the first term.
But yesterday's poll pointed to the deep suspicion of Mr Bush that exists across the world. It found that the bulk of people in 18 of the 21 countries surveyed had negative feelings towards the president.
Traditional US allies in western Europe were among those expressing the most negative feelings about the re-election.
In Britain, 64% of those polled said they disagreed with the proposition that the US would have a mainly positive impact on the world. The figures were even higher in France (75%) and Germany (77%).
Mr Bush's victory was viewed positively in only three of the 21 countries: the Philippines, Poland and India.
One of the organisers of the poll, Steven Kull, the director of the Programme on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, said: "This is quite a grim picture for the US."
Another of the organisers, Doug Miller, president of the polling firm GlobeScan, said he had been monitoring trends since the start of 2003 and the figure for those who disagreed that the US was having a mainly positive impact on the world had risen from 46% then to 49% last year, and had now jumped to 58%.
"Our research makes very clear that the re-election of President Bush has further isolated America from the world," he said. "It also supports the view of some Americans that unless his administration changes its approach to world affairs in its second term, it will continue to erode America's good name, and hence its ability to effectively influence world affairs."
Asked how Mr Bush's re-election had affected their feelings towards Americans, 72% of those polled in Turkey said it made them feel worse about Americans, 65% in France, 59% in Brazil and 56% in Germany.
There was also overwhelming opposition to sending troops to Iraq, even among close allies such as Britain.
"Fully one in four British citizens say the Bush re-election has made them more opposed to sending troops to Iraq, resulting in a total of 63% now opposed," Mr Miller said.
The poll was conducted between November 15 and January 3 in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the UK. A separate poll, for the Los Angeles Times, shows Americans are also polarised over the prospect of a second term, including over the conduct of the war in Iraq.
Mr Bush's job approval rating stands at 50%, with 47% disapproving. In recent times, only Richard Nixon at the start of his second term in 1972 recorded poll ratings as poor.
January 20th, 2005
Low expectations held for Bush term
By Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder / New York Times
Poll results reveal continuing divides
As President George W. Bush's second term begins, most Americans say they do not expect the economy to improve or that American troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the time Bush leaves the White House, and many have reservations about his signature plan to overhaul Social Security, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
The poll found that concern about the war in Iraq is rising: 75 percent said Bush had no clear plan for getting out of Iraq, a sharp jump up from 58 percent last fall, and a majority said that he routinely exaggerates conditions there. And 75 percent said they believe a significant number of American troops will still be stationed in Iraq when Bush leaves the presidency.
The poll found that 53 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq will not have been worth the loss of American life if weapons of mass destruction are never found.
A majority said that Iraq, which has been plagued by violence over the past week, is not secure enough to proceed with elections in two weeks, as scheduled. However, they are divided over whether the elections should be postponed in the hopes of some sense of order being restored there.
In any event, only 15 percent said that elections would produce a decline in violence in Iraq; 40 percent said it would create more violence.
Seventy percent said they thought Bush would succeed in changing the Social Security system. And the poll found that 43 percent of respondents expect most forms of abortion to be illegal by the time Bush leaves the White House, given Bush's expected appointments to the Supreme Court.
The Times/CBS News poll offered the kind of conflicting portrait of the nation's view of Bush that was evident throughout last year's presidential campaign. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were generally optimistic on the eve of Bush's swearing-in about the next four years, but clear majorities disapproved of Bush's management of the economy and the war in Iraq. Nearly two-thirds said a second Bush term would leave the country with a larger deficit, while 47 percent said that a second Bush term would divide Americans. Americans said that they did not expect any improvement in health care, education, or in reducing the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly by January of 2009.
Just under 80 percent, including a majority of those who said they voted for Bush in November, said it would not be possible to overhaul Social Security, cut taxes, and finance the war in Iraq without increasing the budget deficit, despite Bush's promises to the contrary.
The findings, coming after a tensely competitive election, suggest that Bush does not have broad popular support as he embarks on what the White House has signaled would be an extraordinarily ambitious second term, which in many ways will commence with Bush's swearing-in and speech on Thursday. That could undermine his leverage in Congress, where even some Republicans have expressed concern about major aspects of Bush's Social Security plans.
Bush's job approval rating is at 49 percent as he heads into his second term - significantly lower than the ratings at the start of the second term of the last two presidents who served eight years, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. And 56 percent said the country has gone off on the wrong track, about as bad a rating Bush has received on this measure since entering the White House.
Still, as Bush enters what the White House views as a critical two-year window before his power begins to wane, the poll suggests that the president's effort to lay the groundwork to reshape the Social Security system has had some success. Fifty percent said Social Security is in crisis, echoing an assertion that Bush has made and that has been disputed by Democrats and independent analysts.
Answering another question, 51 percent said that while there were good things about Social Security, the system needed "fundamental changes," while 24 percent said it needs a complete overhaul.
But 50 percent said it was a "bad idea" to permit workers to divert part of their payroll taxes into the stock market, as Bush is expected to propose. That number leaps to 70 percent when the question includes the possibility that future guaranteed benefits would be reduced by as much as one-third.
Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were not likely to put their own Social Security funds into the stock market, and a majority said that in pushing for a Social Security overhaul, Bush was more interested in helping Wall Street than protecting the average American.
"I think it's a bad idea," said Tina DeSantis, 46, of Pennsylvania, who identified herself as a Republican. "People that I've encountered don't necessarily have the tools necessary to make proper decisions with them and end up losing money."
The nationwide telephone poll was taken Friday through Tuesday with 1,118 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The poll suggests that in some ways, many Americans are expecting Bush to succeed in making major changes in the political landscape over the next four years. That is most notable on the question of abortion; 71 percent expect Bush to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to outlaw abortion. A majority of Americans, 71 percent, support some forms of legal abortion, albeit some with more restrictions than now exist.
Americans do not appear to share Bush's concern about the urgency of the Social Security problem, in the context of other problems facing the nation. Asked to name the most important problem facing the country, just 3 percent named Social Security, while 10 percent identified "war" and the economy.
Still, 54 percent of respondents said they did not expect the system to have enough money to pay them pensions when they retire, a figure that has not varied much since the Times/CBS News started asking the question in 1981.
January 19th, 2005
Back in Senate, Kerry Still Opposing Bush
By Vicki Allen / Reuters
WASHINGTON - Democrat John Kerry, back in Congress after failing to wrest the U.S. presidency from George W. Bush in the November election, cast one of two votes on Wednesday against Bush's choice for secretary of state.
Kerry and California Democrat Barbara Boxer were the only members on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote against the nomination of Condoleezza Rice, currently Bush's national security advisor.
Kerry, whose election battle with Bush focused largely on the Iraq war, said Rice would perpetuate floundering policies in Iraq and elsewhere and represented policies that failed to make America safer after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Kerry called Rice "one of the principal architects, implementers and defenders of a series of administration policies and choices that, in my judgment, have not made our country as secure as we ought to be in the aftermath of 9/11."
His stand will have little effect as the Republican-led Senate is expected to vote by a big margin to confirm her.
While saying he came to her confirmation hearing "genuinely open-minded," Kerry said he did not hear from Rice "an acknowledgment of the need for a fundamental, bipartisan change" in policies "that can make us stronger and help us win the war on terror."
"On Iraq, on North Korea and on Iran, to name just a few, what I heard was really a policy that predicts more of the same," Kerry said.
Kerry's first appearance on the committee since the Nov. 2 election had a bittersweet quality.
"I guess it's sort of good to be back," he said to laughter on Tuesday as other senators greeted him before his opening statement.
Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican committee chairman, said he was "proud that a member of our committee was a candidate for president of the United States."
Kerry responded somewhat ruefully, "Well, Mr. Chairman, I wish we could have translated your pride into some votes, but thank you anyway."
January 19th, 2005
Democrats to Delay Rice Confirmation Vote
By Barry Schweid / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats intend to delay Condoleezza Rice's confirmation as secretary of state at least until next week rather than grant her Inauguration Day approval, a spokesman said Wednesday.
"There are a number of Democrats not on the committee that want to have a chance to debate her nomination a couple of hours," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
He said Democrats would not seek to prevent Rice's confirmation as the nation's top diplomat, and he predicted her approval within a matter of days. Rice cleared the Foreign Relations Committee earlier in the day, 16-2, a lopsided vote that belied hours of skeptical questioning by Democrats critical of President Bush's foreign policy and his conduct of the war in Iraq.
By contrast, Manley said he expected that Democrats would assent to confirmation on Thursday just after the inauguration of two members of Bush's second-term Cabinet. They are Mike Johanns, nominated as secretary of agriculture, and Margaret Spellings, named to take over as education secretary.
The Senate developments unfolded as the nation's outgoing top diplomat, Secretary of State Colin Powell, bid farewell to the workers he called his "family" at the State Department. Powell has not yet formally resigned his post, and isn't expected to do so until Rice is formally sworn in.
"You were my troops, you were America's troops," the former Army general told the workers. "You are the carriers of America's values."
He called Rice "a dear friend" and said she would bring "gifted leadership" to the department.
Rice surmounted two days of sometimes contentious questioning — mostly by Democrats — on the administration's prosecution of the war.
Pending approval by the full Senate, Rice would be the first black woman to hold the job. The committee supported her with Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California voting no.
Other Democrats, including ranking member Joseph Biden of Delaware, had said they were reluctantly voting to elevate Rice to the nation's top diplomatic job.
At her hearing Wednesday, Rice acknowledged "there were some bad decisions" by the administration on Iraq, as Democrats pressed her on whether the reasons for going to war were misleading.
Rice insisted that Saddam Hussein was a dictator who refused to account for weapons of mass destruction. And it was impossible to change the nature of a terror threat in the Middle East with him leading Iraq, she testified.
Accused by Boxer of "rigidness," Rice responded that as national security adviser she had "no difficulty telling the president what I think."
But she also told the committee not to expect her to reveal any differences with Bush as secretary of state. "I want to be clearly understood — we are one administration, with the president in the lead," she said.
At the same time, though, Rice told the committee "I will tell you what I think. that is a promise I make to you today."
Biden suggested Rice also advise the president "to read a little bit of history" and to inform him that in Iraq "it isn't going that well."
Boxer would not be shaken off, even after Rice acknowledged to the Senate committee that "there were some bad decisions" taken by the administration on Iraq.
She accused Rice of "an unwillingness to give Americans the full story because selling the war was so important to Dr. Rice. That was her job."
And now, Boxer said, the toll of American dead and wounded is the "direct result" of Bush administration "rigidness" and misstatements.
Biden challenged Rice to acknowledge administration mistakes on Iraq and said he would vote for her confirmation, but only with "some frustration and reservation."
The Delaware senator, zeroing in on U.S. policy in Iraq as he had during Tuesday's initial hearing, accused the administration of giving shifting reasons to justify the war to oust Saddam.
Rice had steadfastly refused Tuesday to say when U.S. forces might be withdrawn from Iraq. And on Wednesday, Biden cited various rationales for the war, saying "you danced around it, stuck to the party line."
He told Rice that acknowledging mistakes — such as the claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was poised to use them — should not be considered "a sign of weakness."
Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., meanwhile, urged Rice to consider reconciliation with Iran, which he said was about as repressive as China was when the Nixon administration approached Beijing for better relations.
But Rice said, "It is really hard to find common ground with a government that thinks Israel should be extinguished," supports terror groups and is undercutting U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East.
More than 1,365 members of the U.S. military have died since U.S. troops led an invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
But Rice has declined to estimate when even some of the 150,000 U.S. troops may return home.
"I am really reluctant to try to put a timetable on that, because I think the goal is to get the mission accomplished," she had said Tuesday, "and that means that the Iraqis have to be capable of some things before we lessen our own responsibility," she said.
January 19th, 2005
Hold Bush and Rumsfeld Accountable!
Dear Supporter,
I have just come back from Iraq. After several months consumed by the campaign trail, I wanted to make contact with our soldiers on the ground there. The first thing I want you to know is that, in very difficult circumstances, our brave soldiers are serving America with enormous skill and great courage.
In the Senate, we have a duty during times like these to hold our Defense Department accountable for the well-being of our troops. It's one of the ways that our democracy makes our military the strongest in the world. And I can't tell you how comforting it is as a soldier to know even if you don't have a say over your own situation, the folks back home do.
I knew our soldiers were still facing hold ups getting the equipment they need, but I wanted to see it for myself. American troops deserve the best gear and equipment we can provide. But adequate vehicle armor remains in short supply.
A soldier who spoke up about these problems was told by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, "you have to go to war with the army you have, not the army you want."1 Well, it's been over two years since Rumsfeld planned this war. And whether he has the army he wants or not, he should at least have basic armor for army vehicles.
I'll say this in the Senate, but I'm asking you to add your voice to mine:
"President Bush, for the sake of our troops, replace Rumsfeld now."
http://www.johnkerry.com/replacerumsfeld
More than 500,000 called for Rumsfeld to resign during the presidential campaign. I'm renewing my call now -- please renew yours too, and forward this email to friends to bring them on board. Add your name to mine here, and add your voice to mine by speaking out in your community as I will do in the US Senate for as long as it takes to remove Secretary Rumsfeld from his post:
http://www.johnkerry.com/replacerumsfeld
It's a question of competence. Poor planning at the Pentagon is letting American soldiers down. According to the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank, Iraq is now providing the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, [and] the opportunity for enhancing technical skills."2 Our troops need a capable Secretary of Defense. At the very least, they absolutely need that.
I believe that together, the three million of us who worked together on the campaign can help the troops. We not only have a right to speak out against failed Bush policies: we have a duty to defend this country from a President who refuses to recognize the total inadequacy of his own Defense Secretary. That's how democracy works. And that's why America has worked all these years.
The campaign season is over, but our citizenship continues. I know from personal experience that citizens and Senators standing up for the truth can be a powerful combination. Now, with email and the Web as citizenship tools, we can make ourselves heard even more clearly. And I can't tell you how inspired I am that you and I are using these tools to fight side-by-side for the things we believe in.
One more time: please join me in my call for President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld. He's the man responsible for the well-being of our troops. He's neglected his duty. He's made excuses. It's time for him to go.
Add your voice to mine in the Senate in calling for President Bush to replace Rumsfeld today.
http://www.johnkerry.com/replacerumsfeld
Thank you,
John Kerry.
_______________________
WHY RUMSFELD HAS TO GO!
1) Rumsfeld Blamed The Troops for Problems in IRAQ
Rumsfeld: "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." [CNN, 12/9/04]
2) Rumsfeld Admitted Bush Administration Was Not Prepared for Iraqi Resistance
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that "I am saying that -- if you had said to me a year ago, 'describe the situation you'll be in today, one year later,' I don't know many people who would have described it -- I would not have described it -- the way it happens to be today. ... I certainly would not have estimated that we would have had the number of individuals lost that we have had lost in the last week." [Rumsfeld News Conference, 4/15/04]
3) Rumsfeld Failed to Equip Troops in Iraq
Army Study Suggests One-Fourth of Casualties in Iraq Could Have Been Prevented If Troops Were Properly-Equipped at Beginning of War. Newsweek reported, "A breakdown of the casualty figures suggests that many U.S. deaths and wounds in Iraq simply did not need to occur. According to an unofficial study by a defense consultant that is now circulating through the Army, of a total of 789 Coalition deaths as of April 15 (686 of them Americans), 142 were killed by land mines or improvised explosive devices, while 48 others died in rocket-propelled-grenade attacks. Almost all those soldiers were killed while in unprotected vehicles, which means that perhaps one in four of those killed in combat in Iraq might be alive if they had had stronger armor around them, the study suggested. Thousands more who were unprotected have suffered grievous wounds, such as the loss of limbs." [Newsweek, 5/3/04]
4) Rumsfeld Failed to Plan for Iraq War
In August 2003, the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared a secret report assessing the post-war planning for Iraq. The report blamed "setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process." It also said "planners were not given enough time" to plan for reconstruction. [Washington Times, 9/3/03]
5) Rumsfeld Failed To Sign Condolence Letters to Families of Soldiers Killed in War on Terror
ABC World News Tonight, "Now on the home front here, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is under fire from some military families and members of the Congress. They're upset that he has used a machine to attach his signature to some letters of condolence. More than a thousand of those letters have been sent to families who have lost sons and daughters in the global war on terror." ABC (Yang) added, "After Ivan Medina's twin brother Irving an Army Specialist was killed in Baghdad last year he got a letter of condolence from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Today, Medina himself a veteran of Iraq said he was angered to learn that Rumsfeld never actually signed the letter or even saw it." Medina: "Our commanders here in the United States who include the President and the Secretary of Defense don't care about the troops. We're just a number to them and that's the wrong message to send back to our troops." Yang: "In a statement Rumsfeld said he used a machine." [ABC World News Tonight, 12/19/04]
Notes:
1. MSNBC, January 13, 2005
2. CNN, December 9, 2004
January 19th, 2005
Global poll slams Bush leadership
BBC
More than half of people surveyed in a BBC World Service poll say the re-election of US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Only three countries - India, Poland and the Philippines - out of 21 polled believed the world was now safer.
The survey found that 47% now viewed US influence in the world as largely negative and such unfavourable feelings extended towards Americans as a whole.
None of the countries polled supported contributing their troops to Iraq.
"This is quite a grim picture for the US," said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), which carried out the poll with GlobeScan.
"Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalising to the American people who re-elected him."
On average across all countries, 58% of people - and 16 out of 21 countries polled - said they believed Mr Bush's re-election to the White House made the world more dangerous.
Traditional allies
Most negative feelings were found in Western European, Latin American and Muslim countries.
They include traditional US allies such as Germany, France, Britain and Italy as well as neighbours Canada and Mexico.
The only European country to buck the trend was Poland, one of the new members of the European Union, which gave the thumbs up to both President Bush and the US.
Turkey topped the anti-Bush list, with 82% believing his re-election would be negative for global security.
The result is bad news for the president as Turkey is a US ally and the only Muslim member of Nato, says the BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels.
Other predominantly Muslim countries - Indonesia and Lebanon - were also high up the list.
But, any warmer feelings in Indonesia towards the US following its tsunami relief operations would not show up as the poll was carried out before the disaster struck, says the BBC's Dan Isaacs.
Economic boom
Anti-Bush sentiments also appeared to be strong in Latin America. Argentina, with 79%, and Brazil, with 78%, follow Turkey in the list.
This seems surprising given that the region has had less direct involvement in US foreign policy issues, says our correspondent.
Another surprise was India's support for Mr Bush. The poll found 62% believed his administration was positive for global security.
The BBC's Nick Bryant says the reason for this may be because the poll was carried out in cities where people have benefited economically from closer trade ties with the US.
Doug Miller, President of Globescan, said the findings "supports the view of some Americans that unless his administration changes its approach to world affairs in its second term, it will continue to erode America's good name, and hence its ability to effectively influence world affairs".
But Mr Kull says the results do not constitute a definitive world-wide majority, "suggesting there may be some underlying openness to repairing relations with the US".
January 18th, 2005
Now US ponders attack on Iran; Hardliners in Pentagon ready to neutralise 'nuclear threat' posed by Tehran
By Julian Borger in Washington and Ian Traynor / Guardian
President Bush's second inauguration on Thursday will provide the signal for an intense and urgent debate in Washington over whether or when to extend the "global war on terror" to Iran, according to officials and foreign policy analysts in Washington.
That debate is being driven by "neo-conservatives" at the Pentagon who emerged from the post-election Bush reshuffle unscathed, despite their involvement in collecting misleading intelligence on Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.
Washington has stood aside from recent European negotiations with Iran and Pentagon hardliners are convinced that the current European-brokered deal suspending nuclear enrichment and intensifying weapons inspections is unenforceable and will collapse in months.
Only the credible threat, and if necessary the use, of air and special operations attacks against Iran's suspected nuclear facilities will stop the ruling clerics in Tehran acquiring warheads, many in the administration argue.
Moderates, who are far fewer in the second Bush administration than the first, insist that if Iran does have a secret weapons programme, it is likely to be dispersed and buried in places almost certainly unknown to US intelligence. The potential for Iranian retaliation inside Iraq and elsewhere is so great, the argument runs, that there is in effect no military option.
A senior administration official involved in developing Iran policy rejected that argument. "It is not as simple as that," he told the Guardian at a recent foreign policy forum in Washington. "It is not a straightforward problem but at some point the costs of doing nothing may just become too high. In Iran you have the intersection of nuclear weapons and proven ties to terrorism. That is what we are looking at now."
The New Yorker reported this week that the Pentagon has already sent special operations teams into Iran to locate possible nuclear weapons sites. The report by Seymour Hersh, a veteran investigative journalist, was played down by the White House and the Pentagon, with comments that stopped short of an outright denial.
"The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organisations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides," Lawrence DiRita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said yesterday: "Mr Hersh's article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed."
However, the Guardian has learned the Pentagon was recently contemplating the infiltration of members of the Iranian rebel group, Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) over the Iraq-Iran border, to collect intelligence. The group, based at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, was under the protection of Saddam Hussein, and is under US guard while Washington decides on its strategy.
The MEK has been declared a terrorist group by the state department, but a former Farsi-speaking CIA officer said he had been asked by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon to travel to Iraq to oversee "MEK cross-border operations". He refused, and does not know if those operations have begun.
"They are bringing a lot of the old war-horses from the Reagan and Iran-contra days into a sort of kitchen cabinet outside the government to write up policy papers on Iran," the former officer said.
He said the policy discussion was being overseen by Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defence for policy who was one of the principal advocates of the Iraq war. The Pentagon did not return calls for comment on the issue yesterday. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Mr Feith's Office of Special Plans also used like-minded experts on contract from outside the government, to serve as consultants helping the Pentagon counter the more cautious positions of the state department and the CIA.
Crazy
"They think in Iran you can just go in and hit the facilities and destabilise the government. They believe they can get rid of a few crazy mullahs and bring in the young guys who like Gap jeans, all the world's problems are solved. I think it's delusional," the former CIA officer said.
However, others believe that at a minimum military strikes could set back Iran's nuclear programme several years. Reuel Marc Gerecht, another former CIA officer who is now a leading neo-conservative voice on Iran at the American Enterprise Institute, said: "It would certainly delay [the programme] and it can be done again. It's not a one-time affair. I would be shocked if a military strike could not delay the programme." Mr Gerecht said the internal debate in the administration was only just beginning.
"This administration does not really have an Iran policy," he said. "Iraq has been a fairly consuming endeavour, but it's getting now towards the point where people are going to focus on [Iran] hard and have a great debate."
That debate could be brought to a head in the next few months. Diplomats and officials in Vienna following the Iranian nuclear saga at the International Atomic Energy Agency expect the Iran dispute to re-erupt by the middle of this year, predicting a breakdown of the diplomatic track the EU troika of Britain, Germany and France are pursuing with Tehran. The Iran-EU agreement, reached in November, was aimed at getting Iran to abandon the manufacture of nuclear fuel which can be further refined to bomb-grade.
Now the Iranians are feeding suspicion by continuing to process uranium concentrate into gaseous form, a breach "not of the letter but of the spirit of the agreement," said one European diplomat.
Opinions differ widely over how long it would take Iran to produce a deliverable nuclear warhead, and some analysts believe that Iranian scientists have encountered serious technical difficulties.
"The Israelis believe that by 2007, the Iranians could enrich enough uranium for a bomb. Some of us believe it could be the end of this decade," said David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert at the Institute for Science and International Security. A recent war-game carried out by retired military officers, intelligence officials and diplomats for the Atlantic Monthly, came to the conclusion that there were no feasible military options and if negotiations and the threat of sanctions fail, the US might have to accept Iran as a nuclear power.
However, Sam Gardiner, a retired air force colonel who led the war-game, acknowledged that the Bush administration might not come to the same conclusion.
"Everything you hear about the planning for Iraq suggests logic may not be the basis for the decision," he said.
Mr Gerecht, who took part in the war-game but dissented from the conclusion, believes the Bush White House, still mired in Iraq, has yet to make up its mind.
"The bureaucracy will come down on the side of doing nothing. The real issue is: will the president and the vice president disagree with them? If I were a betting man, I'd bet the US will not use pre-emptive force. However, I would not want to bet a lot."
January 18th, 2005
Bush Won't Rule Out Action Against Iran Over Nukes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Monday he would not rule out military action against Iran if that country was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program.
"I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table," Bush said in an interview with NBC News when asked if he would rule out the potential for military action against Iran "if it continues to stonewall the international community about the existence of its nuclear weapons program."
Iran denies it has been trying to make nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is geared solely to producing electricity.
Bush's comments followed Pentagon criticism on Monday of a published report that it was mounting reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify potential nuclear and other targets.
"The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars," the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, said in a statement.
Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said.
Hersh reported Bush had signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces military units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia.
DiRita did not comment on that assertion.
He said Hersh's sources fed him "rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist and statements by officials that were never made."
Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."
January 17th, 2005
Coalition admits on eve of election: ‘the battle for Iraq may never be won’
Run-up to vote sees mounting violence as US commanders finally concede they underestimated the resistance.
By Trevor Royle / Sunday Herald
For Iyad Allawi, Iraq’s interim prime minister it was a deeply ironic moment. Last week he cranked up his election campaign in Baghdad on behalf of his 233 member party known as the Iraqi List with a call to arms.
Speaking to reporters about the need to defeat the men of violence and to push ahead with the polls, come what may, his podium was decorated with an Iraqi flag and the defiant slogan: “Security and safety come first.”
Outside in the streets of the increasingly troubled country the maxim had a hollow ring. For all that Iraqi politicians and senior commanders in the US-led coalition insist that the elections will not be derailed by violence, the assassinations and bombings continue unabated.
Not a day passes without Iraqi security personnel being routinely murdered or kidnapped. Yesterday, a policeman was killed and four others seriously wounded when gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint near Kirkuk. A US marine was also killed in action south of Baghdad, bringing the number of US soldiers killed to 1360 since March 2003 and there have been fresh attempts to foment civil unrest between rival Sunni and Shi’ite groups.
Last Wednesday, Sunni assassins gunned down Sheikh Mahmoud Finjan, a leading aide of the Shi’ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as he returned from evening prayers in his home town of Salman Pak near Baghdad. Coming on top of other recent religiously motivated killings Finjan’s murder was widely seen as an attempt to dissuade Shi’ites from supporting the election.
Following the attack, the perpetrators, Ansar al-Sunnah, posted a defiant message on their website: “We call on all brother citizens not to participate in the elections because we are going to attack voting centres.”
The threat is being taken seriously by coalition commanders who have been given the thankless task of guarding polling centres and ensuring the safety of voters. That is one reason for the deployment to Basra of the 1st Royal Highland Fusiliers to reinforce the British garrison. Difficult though their task will be, it is relatively straightforward compared with the problems facing the US forces in the Sunni triangle further north.
After months of arguing that they had the situation under control, senior US commanders have finally conceded that they are not facing a bunch of “dead-enders” and fanatics but a highly trained and motivated resistance movement of around a quarter of a million fighters who are capable of mounting “spectacular” attacks ahead in the fortnight before the election.
One high-ranking army officer was even moved to admit that the coalition is losing the fight and told the Sunday Herald that the battle might never be won.
“The truth is that we are containing the problem but we are in no condition to crack it,” he said. “It’s bound to be an imperfect exercise for the simple reason that in many parts of the country we have failed to impose our authority and failed to win the trust of the local people. Instead, they have turned to the insurgents as their best bet.”
Following the transfer of power to the interim administration last June, hopes were high that the move would lance the boil of violence and that the insurgents would lose the will to continue. Instead, the opposite has happened. Not only has the violence continued but it has grown in intensity without much being done to damp it down. At the end of 2004 the town of Fallujah was attacked and razed to the ground but the only result was the dispersal of its 350,000 inhabitants, unknown numbers of whom were killed, without any appreciable gains in the war against the insurgents.
Frustrated by the lack of tangible success, the US has discussed the possibility of creating specialist “death-squads” to hunt down insurgents in what would be a dirty war similar to the one waged in Salvador. The idea met a cool reception but the Pentagon still insists that it remains an option.
In a more conventional request, commanders would like to increase the US garrison by 50,000 soldiers, but that is unlikely to happen in the short term. The army is stretched to breaking point and recruiting has taken a nosedive as a result of the high casualties – in addition to the dead an estimated 10,000 soldiers have been badly wounded or mutilated in combat.
Demonstrating an optimism which is not born out by what has been happening in Iraq, supporters of the elections insist that they will go ahead and that they will be decisive for the country’s long-term future. Prime Minister Tony Blair claims that the battle now is not about ideologies but about the struggle between “democracy and terror” and US President George Bush steadfastly maintains that the elections are “an incredibly hopeful experience” and that any postponement would be suicidal.
Asked about their soldiers’ ability to contain the violence, US commanders stick to the line that the elections will go ahead as planned and that they are confident of ensuring that they are “free and fair”, but ranks are already being broken.
For all that Allawi remains confident, he admitted last week that not everyone would be able to vote and that despite the presence of coalition forces there will be parts of the country where intimidation and violence will prevent a fair vote. At least four of Iraq’s 18 provinces are considered to be “no-go” areas: Nineveh, Anbar, Salahadin and Baghdad. Together they make up 25% of Iraq’s population.
Inevitably the result of the elections will impinge on Bush’s second term in office, which begins this week. A major part of his campaign was predicated on making sure that they took place and were seen to be democratic but he will also have to deal with the aftermath.
With many Sunnis promising to boycott the elections and with Shi’ites under threat of intimidation, the result can hardly reflect Iraqi popular opinion but Bush will have to live with the result. It is also clear the US will have to continue supporting those politicians who are elected and that will mean only one thing. Unless the resistance is defeated the coalition troops will be in Iraq for many years to come.
January 16th, 2005
The Fake Crisis; Economist Paul Krugman explains Bush's latest con -- social security
By Eric Bates / Rolling Stone
To hear George Bush tell it, Social Security is about to go broke. Since his re-election, the president has launched a full-scale campaign to convince the public that the retirement system will run out of money starting in 2018. "The system goes into the red," Bush told reporters on December 20th at a rare press conference. "Many times, legislative bodies will not react unless the crisis is apparent, crisis is upon them. I believe that crisis is." Social Security, he concluded, "can't sustain that which has been promised to the workers."
To save Social Security, Bush wants to destroy it -- replacing government-guaranteed retirement benefits with private accounts that will be subject to the whims of the stock market. It's an expensive plan. Allowing workers to divert even a small portion of their payroll taxes into private investments, as Bush is proposing, would require the government to borrow at least $2 trillion to make up the immediate shortfall. It's also completely unnecessary, according to Paul Krugman, a prize-winning professor of economics at Princeton University. In a blistering series of columns in the New York Times, Krugman has marshaled the economic data to show that Social Security is not only solvent, it's in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government. "The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons," Krugman wrote recently, "are now trying another bum's rush."
At his tree-shaded home in Princeton, New Jersey, Krugman took a break from working on a new economics textbook to explain why the crisis is phony -- and what's wrong with Bush's plan "to convert Social Security into a giant 401(k)."
What would you say to college students and young workers who are convinced they'll never see a dime of the money they put into Social Security?
You've been sold a scare story. Right now Social Security has a large and growing trust fund -- a surplus that has been collected to pay for the surge in benefits we'll experience when the baby boomers start to retire. If you're twenty now, you'll be hitting retirement around 2052. That's the year the Congressional Budget Office says the trust fund will run out. In fact, many economists say it may never run out. If the economy continues to grow at an average rate, the trust fund could quite possibly last forever.
But what happens if it doesn't?
Even if the trust fund does run out, Social Security will still be able to pay eighty percent of promised benefits. The actual shortfall would be a pretty small part of the federal budget, quite easily made up from other sources. Once the whole baby-boomer generation is into the retirement pool, Social Security's share of the gross domestic product will only increase by about two percent. Well, President Bush's tax cuts are more than two percent of GDP -- and they're happening right now, not fifty years from now. So the idea that there's this Social Security thing that is a huge problem is just wrong.
But if the trust fund does run out, the government would have to raise taxes or cut benefits, or some combination of both, to keep Social Security solvent.
Yes, if the trust fund is ever depleted, then something will have to be done. But you need to have some perspective on the seriousness of this whole thing. On the day the trust fund is exhausted, Social Security revenue will cover about eighty percent of the cost of benefits. Right now -- today -- if you look at the U.S. government outside of Social Security, revenue covers only about sixty-eight percent of total government spending. So on the day the trust fund is exhausted, forty-seven years from now, Social Security will be in better financial shape than the rest of the U.S. government is today.
So if there's no crisis in Social Security, why is President Bush pushing so hard to privatize it?
It's politics. Since the days of Barry Goldwater, the Republican right has really wanted to dismantle Social Security. And now they have a degree of political dominance that lets them push it to the top of the agenda -- even though no rational analysis of the actual problems facing the U.S. government would say that it belongs there.
Why do they want to dismantle it?
It's hard to understand why anyone would want to return us to the days before the New Deal, when millions of elderly people lived in poverty. But if you really dislike the notion that the government provides a safety net for the poor, then Social Security is the prime target. The U.S. government is a big insurance company, with a side business in national security. Social Security is the biggest social-insurance program that we have. It's been highly successful, and it's extremely popular. It's one of the things that makes people feel somewhat good about government -- and so, therefore, it must go.
And some people stand to profit from abolishing it. Wall Street poured a lot of money into both of Bush's campaigns, hoping he will divert Social Security into the stock market.
That's a factor, but I don't think it's the reason behind it. Attacking Social Security is a lot like attacking Iraq -- just because a lot of people stood to get lucrative contracts from it, that doesn't mean that's why they did it. If you privatize Social Security, there's going to be a tremendous amount of income for the mutual-fund industry. That's one reason there is a constituency for this on Wall Street. And that's one of the important reasons why this is really gonna work very badly.
What do you mean? Those who are pushing privatization say that our financial markets are one of our greatest strengths -- that private investment will work better in the long run than government-managed accounts with lower rates of return.
There are two problems with that. First, the fees charged on private accounts will be a significant drain on returns. In a typical portfolio, we're probably looking at a return of four percent. But fees are likely to take at least one percent, like they do in Britain. So now we're down to a return of three percent or less on private accounts. And since Bush wants to borrow $2 trillion to pay for the transition, we're talking about borrowing at interest rates of three percent to establish private accounts that will yield three percent -- with a lot of additional risk. So it's a lose-lose proposition, except for the mutual-fund industry.
The second problem with the market is that some people -- probably many people -- will end up getting much less than they would have under the current system, depending on which funds they pick and how the market does. A lot of people will hit age sixty-five with very little in their private account -- and that means a big return of poverty among the elderly, which is exactly what's happening in Britain right now. As a result, the government will have to step back in and rescue people. We'll have more suffering and bigger bills. People will ask: Where did all that money go? The answer will be: It basically went into mutual-fund fees.
But what if stocks do well? Isn't it possible that privatization would work?
The only possible way that stock returns can be high enough to make privatization work is if the U.S. economy grows at three to four percent a year for the next fifty years. But Social Security's own trustees expect the economy's growth rate to slow to 1.8 percent. If that happens -- if their own assumptions are correct -- then privatization would be a disaster. And if that doesn't happen -- if the economy continues to grow at a steady rate -- then the trust fund is good for the rest of the century, and we don't need privatization.
In selling the idea that there's a crisis, Bush has a lot of powerful words on his side: "choice," "freedom," "ownership society." What words do you have to counter his sales job?
Scam. Three-card monte. I've been thinking a lot about flying pigs. The privateers are claiming that you can have something for nothing. They're basically saying, "Let's assume that pigs can fly." And when you say, "You know, it's not good to assume that pigs can fly," they respond by saying, "What's wrong with you? Don't you understand the enormous advantage of flying pigs?"
The only reason they talk about how wonderful an ownership society would be is because we managed to win the battle over the word privatization. The Cato Institute -- which is the intellectual headquarters for all this stuff -- founded something in 1995 called the Project on Social Security Privatization. But focus groups don't like that word, so in 2002 they changed the name to the Project on Social Security Choice. They didn't announce a name change -- they just went back and scrubbed their Web site, so there's no indication that it was ever called "privatization."
If there's no crisis in Social Security, why aren't the Democrats saying that more clearly and forcefully?
There's a lot of timidity. They're desperately afraid of seeming like "Oh, well -- we have our heads in the sand, and we're not active." I would like to see them step up to the plate and say that these claims that we're going to have a crisis sometime in the next fifteen years is just garbage. Bush is handing them an opportunity by making this the centerpiece of his agenda. Democrats should treat privatizing Social Security the way Republicans treated Clinton's health-care plan -- they should say, "This is a disaster, and we will stand against it." Social Security is simply not the biggest problem facing the government today.
What is?
If you really want to get scared about something that can happen between now and 2052, you should talk about Medicare and Medicaid. The entire system of private health insurance is gradually collapsing. And as the share of people getting medical insurance through their employers continues to decline, the number of people who have to rely on the government for health insurance keeps going up. At the same time, medical costs keep on rising, because doctors keep on figuring out new stuff to do -- procedures that didn't exist ten or twenty years ago.
So what needs to be done to shore up Medicare?
In our system, we have huge administrative costs -- which are mostly driven by insurance companies spending huge amounts of money trying to avoid covering people. Our health-care costs are eighty percent higher than those in other advanced countries. The best way to contain those costs is to go to a single-payer system, one in which the government insures everyone. That would probably cut the cost of health care by at least twenty-five percent.
But there's no way that will happen under Bush.
He actually wants to do the opposite. If he manages to privatize Social Security, he'll try to privatize Medicare next. He'll try to strip away guaranteed health care and turn it into some kind of system of individual health accounts. The right says that what we need is more choice, more competition. But every piece of evidence suggests that health care is an area in which privatization actually raises costs. If they succeed at dismantling both Social Security and Medicare, then you're pretty much back, on domestic policy, to the days of Warren Harding -- which is exactly where they want to go.
January 16th, 2005
Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam: US Senator Kennedy
WASHINGTON (AFP) - America's ongoing military entanglement in Iraq has become President George Bush's Vietnam, US Senator Edward Kennedy, a leading member of the opposition Democratic party, said.
The harsh words refer to the US role and ultimate defeat in the 1964-1975 Vietnam war.
Iraq is "clearly is George Bush's Vietnam," said Kennedy, speaking on CBS's "Face The Nation" program.
Kennedy then blasted Bush's claim in an interview in Sunday's Washington Post that his Iraq policy was endorsed by the US public because of his November 2004 re-election victory.
"I think that's ridiculous," said Kennedy. He quickly referred to the 1964 elections, when Democrat Lyndon Johnson, who had increased US military involvement in Vietnam, defeated Republican Barry Goldwater by an overwhelming majority.
Johnson then had to "basically abdicate the presidency" when he announced in March 1968 that he would not seek re-election, largely due to the drain on time, resources and his popularity resulting from failures in Vietnam.
According to Kennedy, Iraq "is a disaster because it's the a result of blunder after blunder after blunder. And it is George Bush's Vietnam," he insisted.
It has "absolutely been a mistake that we went into Iraq, instead of following (September 11 mastermind) Osama bin Laden," said Kennedy.
Further mistakes included not having enough troops for post-war operations, disbanding the Iraqi army, having single source contracts to groups like the politically connected Halliburton, the prisoner abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib, and the US refusal to accept offers by other countries such as Egypt to assist in training Iraqi forces, said Kennedy .
"Finally they have been unable to make up a plan -- they're making it up day by day. Until Iraqis are going to fight for their own country we are going to have a very, very dangerous situation," said Kennedy.
As for the upcoming elections in Iraq, "We have to let the Iraqis make the judgment and the decision about the elections. The United States has been manipulating and making all the calls in terms of Iraq. The Iraqis have to make the judgments," he said.
Kennedy also believes neighboring countries should be enlisted to encourage Sunni Iraqis to participate in the electoral process.
"Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves this very basic question. And that is, is the face of the United States part of the liberation and security and the stability in that country, or are we a force that is perceived to be expanding the kind of uncertainty and savagery and revolution that's taking place there?" he asked.
January 16th, 2005
Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.
The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.
Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."
One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."
The White House said Iran is a concern and a threat that needs to be taken seriously. But it disputed the report by Hersh, who last year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"We obviously have a concern about Iran. The whole world has a concern about Iran," Dan Bartlett, a top aide to President Bush, told CNN's "Late Edition."
Of The New Yorker report, he said: "I think it's riddled with inaccuracies, and I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact."
Bartlett said the administration "will continue to work through the diplomatic initiatives" to convince Iran -- which Bush once called part of an "axis of evil" -- not to pursue nuclear weapons.
"No president, at any juncture in history, has ever taken military options off the table," Bartlett added. "But what President Bush has shown is that he believes we can emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are underway right now."
COMMANDO TASK FORCE
Bush has warned Iran in recent weeks against meddling in Iraqi elections.
The former intelligence official told Hersh that an American commando task force in South Asia is working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists who had dealt with their Iranian counterparts.
The New Yorker reports that this task force, aided by information from Pakistan, has been penetrating into eastern Iran in a hunt for underground nuclear-weapons installations.
In exchange for this cooperation, the official told Hersh, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has received assurances that his government will not have to turn over Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to face questioning about his role in selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Hersh reported that Bush has already "signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia."
Defining these as military rather than intelligence operations, Hersh reported, will enable the Bush administration to evade legal restrictions imposed on the CIA's covert activities overseas.
January 14th, 2005
Bush Admits Misgivings About Famed Phrases
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush says he now sees that tough talk can have an "unintended consequence."
During a round-table interview with reporters from 14 newspapers, the president, who not long ago declined to identify any mistakes he'd made during his first term, expressed misgivings for two of his most famous expressions: "Bring 'em on," in reference to Iraqis attacking U.S. troops, and his vow to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."
"Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean," Bush said Thursday. "'Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of, some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case."
On other points, Bush said:
_He wants Congress to approve major changes in the Social Security program before the end of May. Many Democrats and some Republicans in Congress oppose Bush's proposal, which may entail steep reductions in future benefits.
_Baseball's new policy for steroids and other drugs is "a very strict policy and I want to congratulate both parties."
_Four years as president have changed him. "They say my hair is grayer. But I come from a pretty white-haired gene pool. At least half of it."
On July 2, 2003, two months after he had declared an end to major combat in Iraq, Bush promised U.S. forces would stay until the creation of a free government there. To those who would attack U.S. forces in an attempt to deter that mission, Bush said, "My answer is, Bring 'em on."
In the week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush was asked if he wanted bin Laden, the terrorist leader blamed for the attacks, dead.
"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, that I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"
Recalling that remark, Bush told the reporters: "I can remember getting back to the White House, and Laura said, 'Why did you do that for?' I said, 'Well, it was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it.'
"I don't know if you'd call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say. ... I speak plainly sometimes, but you've got to be mindful of the consequences of the words. So put that down. I don't know if you'd call that a confession, a regret, something."
During his second debate last year with presidential challenger Sen. John Kerry, Bush was asked to name three instances in which he had made a wrong decision. At the time he declined to identify any specific mistakes.
Reporters at Thursday's round-table also asked Bush about the high price tag for his second inaugural celebration and suggestions the $40 million gala, which is being paid for by private donations — much of it coming from lobbyists and corporations — be scaled down.
"The inauguration is a great festival of democracy," he said. "People are going to come from all over the country who are celebrating democracy and celebrating my victory, and I'm glad to celebrate with them."
January 13th, 2005
Human Rights Group Criticizes U.S.
By Laurie Kellman / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to regain the United States' credibility around the world, a human rights group said Thursday.
"Special prosecutors have been appointed for far lesser crimes," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"All that's happened is a flurry of self-investigation," he added, as the group released its annual report on human rights in 60 countries. "There is an urgent need to (reinstate) the prohibition of torture and to redeem the Unites States' credibility."
An independent commission headed by James R. Schlesinger agreed with the Bush administration in August 2004 that the blame for the abuses at Abu Ghraib lies mainly with the American soldiers who ran the jail. But the panel also said senior commanders and top-level Pentagon officials — including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — can be faulted for failed leadership and oversight.
The near-certainty of attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales's confirmation to head the Justice Department adds urgency to an independent probe of abuses of detainees, Roth said.
As White House counsel, Gonzales issued a legal opinion to Bush saying terrorists captured overseas by Americans do not merit the human rights protections of the Geneva Conventions. He also said at confirmation hearings last week that he was sickened by accounts that American officials tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"We can no longer have any confidence that a genuine independent investigation can be launched by the Justice Department," Roth said.
At stake is the United States' credibility as world leader on human rights and in the fight against terrorism, he said.
The report cited two matters as posing "fundamental threats to human rights" around the world:
_treatment of the detainees.
_ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Sudan, in which tens of thousands have died and millions displaced in a civil war.
Human Rights Watch said the United Nations or "any responsible group of governments" should deploy a force to protect the civilian population and create secure conditions for people to return home.
"Continued inaction risks undermining a fundamental human rights principle: That the nations of the world will never let sovereignty stand in the way of their responsibility to protect people from mass atrocities," Human Rights Watch said.
"The vitality of human rights defense worldwide depends on a firm response to both of these threats," Human Rights Watch concluded.
Elsewhere in the more than 500-page report, the group said there is growing evidence of conflicts between religious communities and the human rights movement, and a backlash against movements for the rights of sexual minorities. Human Rights Watch argues against "efforts in the name of religion, tradition, or morals to censor expression or limit the behavior of others."
January 12th, 2005
President of Fabricated Crises
By Harold Meyerson / Washington Post
Some presidents make the history books by managing crises. Lincoln had Fort Sumter, Roosevelt had the Depression and Pearl Harbor, and Kennedy had the missiles in Cuba. George W. Bush, of course, had Sept. 11, and for a while thereafter -- through the overthrow of the Taliban -- he earned his page in history, too.
But when historians look back at the Bush presidency, they're more likely to note that what sets Bush apart is not the crises he managed but the crises he fabricated. The fabricated crisis is the hallmark of the Bush presidency. To attain goals that he had set for himself before he took office -- the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the privatization of Social Security -- he concocted crises where there were none.
So Iraq became a clear and present danger to American hearths and homes, bristling with weapons of mass destruction, a nuclear attack just waiting to happen. And now, this week, the president is embarking on his second great scare campaign, this one to convince the American people that Social Security will collapse and that the only remedy is to cut benefits and redirect resources into private accounts.
In fact, Social Security is on a sounder footing now than it has been for most of its 70-year history. Without altering any of its particulars, its trustees say, it can pay full benefits straight through 2042. Over the next 75 years its shortfall will amount to just 0.7 percent of national income, according to the trustees, or 0.4 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That still amounts to a real chunk of change, but it pales alongside the 75-year cost of Bush's Medicare drug benefit, which is more than twice its size, or Bush's tax cuts if permanently extended, which would be nearly four times its size.
In short, Social Security is not facing a financial crisis at all. It is facing a need for some distinctly sub-cataclysmic adjustments over the next few decades that would increase its revenue and diminish its benefits.
Politically, however, Social Security is facing the gravest crisis it has ever known. For the first time in its history, it is confronted by a president, and just possibly by a working congressional majority, who are opposed to the program on ideological grounds, who view the New Deal as a repealable aberration in U.S. history, who would have voted against establishing the program had they been in Congress in 1935. But Bush doesn't need Karl Rove's counsel to know that repealing Social Security for reasons of ideology is a non-starter.
So it's time once more to fabricate a crisis. In Bushland, it's always time to fabricate a crisis. We have a crisis in medical malpractice costs, though the CBO says that malpractice costs amount to less than 2 percent of total health care costs. (In fact, what we have is a president who wants to diminish the financial, and thus political, clout of trial lawyers.) We have a crisis in judicial vacancies, though in fact Senate Democrats used the filibuster to block just 10 of Bush's 229 first-term judicial appointments.
With crisis concoction as its central task -- think of how many administration officials issued dire warnings of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein or, now, by Social Security's impending bankruptcy -- this presidency, more than any I can think of, has relied on the classic tools of propaganda. Indeed, it's almost impossible to imagine the Bush presidency absent the Fox News Network and right-wing talk radio.
With the blurring of fact and fiction so central to the Bush presidency's purposes, is it any wonder that government agencies ranging from Health and Human Services to the Office of National Drug Control Policy have been filming editorial messages as mock newscast segments, complete with mock reporters, and offering them to local television stations?
Is it any wonder that the Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to promote its No Child Left Behind programs? In this administration, it is the role of a government agency to turn out pro-Bush news by whatever means possible. Fox News viewership in the African American community wasn't very large, and here was Williams, who seemed to have learned during his clerkship for Clarence Thomas that it was rude to decline any gifts.
We've had plenty of presidents, Richard Nixon most notoriously, who divided the media into friendly and enemy camps. I can't think of one, however, so fundamentally invested in the spread of disinformation -- and so fundamentally indifferent to the corrosive effect of propaganda on democracy -- as Bush. That, too, should earn him a page in the history books.
January 12th, 2005
Deception Promoted
By Ari Berman / The Nation
Robert Joseph, the man who personally inserted the infamous sixteen words about Saddam Hussein allegedly buying uranium from Niger into Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, is getting a promotion. At the time of the fiasco, Joseph was working under Condoleezza Rice at the National Security Council. Now Rice wants her old underling to lead negotiations with Iran and North Korea as the No. 3 man at State, replacing the hawkish and ineffective John Bolton
Just a few days ago, with the arrival of relative moderate Robert Zoelick as Rice's deputy and Bolton's departure, it appeared the State Department would maintain its traditional independence. But Joseph's climb solidifies the grip of Administration hawks who hyped nonexistent Iraqi WMDs, insisted on Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda, disengaged from Israel-Palestine and favored sticks over carrots with Iran and North Korea.
On October 7, 2002--before Bush gave a major address in Cincinnati to build support for the Iraq war--CIA Director George Tenet removed the reference to Saddam's uranium adventures in Africa. Four months later, Joseph overruled the CIA and ignored the findings of foreign intelligence agencies by reinserting the claim. Tenet later resigned and Rice's NSA deputy, Stephen Hadley, publicly took the fall. Hadley is now head of the NSA and Joseph's stock is rising.
"That's what they do for people who make mistakes in Iraq--award them or promote them in the State Department," Greg Thielmann, a former State analyst on WMDs, told The Boston Globe.
What will Joseph bring to the table? A 2001 report by the National Institute for Public Policy that he collaborated on provides a hint. The report reccomended, in defense specialist William Hartung's words, "developing a new generation of 'usable' lower-yield nuclear weapons, expanding the US nuclear 'hit list' and expanding the set of scenarios in which nuclear weapons may be used."
The Senate should ask Joseph at his confirmation hearing just how many new nukes we should build, and how large our nuclear "hit list" should be, considering North Korea already has four to six and Iran may be close to one or more. And maybe a slumbering White House reporter will press Bush on whether ineptness and deception are prerequisites for a raise.
January 12th, 2005
Kennedy: Democrats Need Progressive Agenda
By Lolita C. Baldor / Assocaited Press
WASHINGTON - Democrats should have talked more directly about fundamental values and ideals in last year's presidential campaign, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said, outlining a progressive agenda aimed at moving the party and the nation forward.
In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday to the National Press Club, Kennedy, D-Mass., said Democrats must do a better job speaking about the principles they believe in and that have guided the party.
"We cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices," said Kennedy, who has served 42 years in the Senate. "We cannot become Republican clones. If we do, we will lose again, and deserve to lose."
But at the same time, Kennedy said Democratic Sen. John Kerry's narrow election loss also showed that the party must "recognize issues of deep conscience in policy positions we take." Referring to abortion, he said Democrats should not yield on a woman's right to choose, but should also acknowledge that "we are a better society when abortions are rare."
Kennedy's speech came as Democrats — divided and battered by the second bitter presidential defeat in a row — continue to wrangle over their party's direction.
Ever since Kerry's loss — and GOP's gains in both the House and Senate — Democrats have been chewing over their inability to connect with enough voters to wrest the Oval Office from a president weakened by a faltering economy and increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.
And they have debated how to compete with Republicans for the support of social conservatives whose votes may have been swayed by hot button family values issues like abortion, religion and gay marriage.
Some pundits have called for the party to get back to its liberal roots and take back the moral high ground, where the GOP has successfully gained traction. But others have recalled Bill Clinton's success in taking a centrist approach to the White House.
On Wednesday, Kennedy laid down markers for the coming congressional session, vowing to defeat President Bush's efforts to revamp Social Security, and reject policies that send jobs overseas. And he ratcheted up his assault against the administration's handling of the war and its aftermath in Iraq.
Raising the specter of Iraq as Bush's Vietnam, Kennedy said the administration has bogged America down "in an endless quagmire." And in a brief glance backward, he said Kerry could have worked better with the international community to end the war and bring the troops home.
January 12th, 2005
U.S. ends search for WMD in Iraq
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. inspectors have ended their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in recent weeks, a U.S. intelligence official told CNN.
The search ended almost two years after President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, citing concerns that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction and may have hidden weapons stockpiles.
Members of the Iraq Survey Group were continuing to examine hundreds of documents and would investigate any new leads, the official said.
Charles A. Duelfer, who headed the Iraq Survey Group's search for WMD in Iraq, has returned to Iraq and is working on his final report, the official said.
In October, Duelfer released a preliminary report finding that in March 2003 -- the United States invaded Iraq on March 19 of that year -- Saddam did not have any WMD stockpiles and had not started any program to produce them.
The Iraq Survey Group report said that Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended the country's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.
The report found that Iraq worked hard to cheat on United Nations-imposed sanctions and retain the capability to resume production of weapons of mass destruction at some time in the future. (Full story)
"[Saddam] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted," a summary of the report said.
Many of the military and intelligence personnel, who had been assigned to the weapons search, are now working on counterinsurgency matters, the official said.
In October after Duelfer delivered his Iraq Survey Group's report to the Senate, Bush acknowledged that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction at the time he ordered the invasion but said Saddam was "systematically gaming the system" and the world is safer because he is no longer in power.
"He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away," Bush said. "Based on all the information we have to date, I believe we were right to take action."
The preliminary report indicated that Saddam was trying to have the sanctions lifted and that he hoped then to restart his weapons programs -- primarily for defense against Iran.
At the same time, the report said that "the former regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after the sanctions."
As for nuclear weapons, the report found that Iraq's "ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed" after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991 -- and a nuclear weapon would have been years away.
Bush reiterated in October his position that Saddam had to go.
"He was a threat we had to confront, and America and the world are safer for our actions," he said. Democrats, however, didn't buy the president's position.
Bush's opponent in the presidential race, Sen. John Kerry, said the same day: "Mr. President, the American people deserve more than spin about this war.
"They deserve facts that represent reality, not carefully polished arguments and points that are simply calculated to align with a preconceived conception."
In Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair faced similar criticism.
He told his Labour Party's annual conference last September that the "evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong.
"I acknowledge that and accept it," he said. "I simply point out, such evidence was agreed by the whole international community, not least because Saddam had used such weapons against his own people and neighboring countries.
"And the problem is I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.
"The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power."
January 10th, 2005
House GOP seen straying from pledges in 'Contract'
By Rick Klein / The Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- They stormed into Congress a decade ago, a fresh-faced band of Republican candidates brandishing a Contract with America that promised balanced budgets, ''citizen legislators" who would serve and return to the private sector, and a restored trust in the nation's elected leaders as the GOP took control of the House for the first time in 40 years.
But after 10 years of Republican control of the House, members of the majority party appear to have strayed from some of the promises that got them there. The nation is running up record budget deficits, term-limit pledges are being jettisoned, and House Republicans voted last week to weaken the ethics-enforcement process in Congress.
Now, the Contract with America is relevant again -- as a reference point for growing disagreements among Republicans about how far they have strayed from their core principles.
The items from the contract that have fallen by the wayside have been cited repeatedly in recent days and months by Republicans frustrated by the gap between their leaders' rhetoric and reality. Voices are emerging from within the Republican Party to return the GOP to the simple planks of the contract that helped the party gain power in the House.
''The first thing we were asked to do [in Congress] was to raise the ethical standards, and the first thing that this new [2005] freshman class was asked to do was to lower the standards," said Representative Zach Wamp of Tennessee, who was one of 73 newly elected Republican House members who took office in January 1995.
''There clearly are some areas where we've gone astray," Wamp said. ''But the movement is alive. There's a great second wind among reformers."
Last week, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's leadership team sought to sharply limit the number of ethics investigations of House members in a move widely seen as an effort to protect House majority leader Tom DeLay, whose fund-raising practices have drawn legal scrutiny. But facing outrage from Wamp and other rank-and-file Republicans, Hastert retreated and agreed to reinstate a policy that would force representatives who are indicted to leave their leadership posts.
In addition, a conservative advocacy group, the Club for Growth, last year began targeting moderate Republicans in primary campaigns, with a particular eye toward restoring fiscal responsibility. Pat Toomey, who gave up his House seat to challenge Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania in the primary last year, said the biggest disappointment of the GOP control of Congress is that so many Republicans have acted like the Democrats they once sharply criticized for their free-spending ways.
''A lot of people get into elected office, and suddenly they're not so fond of limiting government," said Toomey, who narrowly lost his challenge and is now president of the Club for Growth. ''The same thing happens with both parties, unfortunately."
The Contract with America had some dazzling successes. Nine of the 10 bills in the contract passed the House in 1995, with only term limits going down in defeat. The Republican Congress worked with President Clinton to pass a bill overhauling welfare. In 1998, the federal budget was balanced for the first time in nearly 30 years, and Republicans have not given up control of the House since they took it over in 1995.
The contract ushered in a sea change in congressional politics, with a stunning gain of 54 seats. House Speaker Newt Gingrich's emergence forced a reordering of the priorities for much of the Clinton administration, and, for a time, the growth of government was curbed.
''It did a lot to turn around the trend line toward ever more and more government," said Michael Franc, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, who served as an aide to House majority leader Dick Armey of Texas in the mid-1990s.
But the movement lost steam, particularly after a government shutdown in late 1995 and early 1996 that proved to be a public-relations disaster for Republicans. Democrats chipped away at the Republican majority in the House in 1996 and 1998, and GOP lawmakers started worrying more about their own jobs than about the ideals they espoused when first elected, Franc said.
''After three years or so, they went from revolutionaries to members of a committee or a state's delegation," he said. ''They shifted their senses of identity, and it became a lot easier for them to say, 'Well we have to get this project.' They lost their way with respect to the size and scope of government."
Term-limit pledges were abandoned, most famously by George R. Nethercutt Jr., who had promised to serve only six years in Congress. He became a poster child for term limits in his 1994 upset of then-House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, a 30-year veteran, but Nethercutt nonetheless ran for fourth and fifth terms before giving up his seat to run for the Senate last year. At least seven Republican House members who had pledged to leave Congress after the current term are gearing up for reelection, according to US Term Limits, a watchdog group.
On spending, the contract called for a balanced budget, but Republicans have failed to produce anything close to that in recent years. This year's deficit is estimated to exceed $400 billion, and even President Bush's goal to halve the deficit within five years is widely viewed as unrealistic.
Republicans defend the spending by noting the need for increased security and defense funding after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
''We got it done, and then came 9/11, and suddenly nothing was the same," said Representative J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, a Republican member of the freshman class of 1995. ''Can we do a better job? Sure. But we should not be blind to the fact that we are a nation at war, that we do have serious items on the national agenda."
But Congress has passed huge tax cuts in the changed security climate, draining hundreds of billions of dollars from the Treasury without cutting spending accordingly. In addition, the House in recent years has approved huge new expenditures, including $170 billion in farm subsidies and $375 billion in transportation programs. Two years ago, Republican leaders pushed through a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that is expected to cost at least $500 billion over 10 years, making it the biggest expansion since the program was created during Lyndon Johnson's presidency in 1965.
''For Republicans, it's become clear that big tax cuts are much more of a priority than a balanced budget," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates fiscal restraint. ''They're happy that they got the tax cuts. Now what you hear are a lot of excuses about deficits."
On internal House matters, where Republicans promised to ''restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives," Gingrich and his allies railed against Democratic abuses of power. And most observers contend that the depiction of the Democrats as a complacent, and possibly corrupt, bureaucracy contributed to their defeat.
But the current majority leader, DeLay of Texas, was formally upbraided by the Ethics Committee three times last year for his bare-knuckle political tactics. Republicans kept the Medicare prescription drug vote open for an unprecedented three hours as they twisted arms to garner the necessary votes.
Meanwhile, Republicans have altered House rules to limit debate and increased the number of bills presented to members without allowing any changes -- a practice for which the GOP excoriated the Democrats in 1994.
''It's exactly the abuse of authority and process that Republicans criticized the Democrats for doing when they were in power," said Thomas J. Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy organization. ''There is a certain arrogance of power, and some Republicans convince themselves that because they have the right views, their methodology will always be correct."
But to some members of the Contract with America freshman class, there were hopeful signs in the fact that House leaders retreated on their proposal to water down ethics rules. They successfully made the case that all members of Congress have an obligation to a high standard of conduct, Hayworth said.
''They came back to their senses. We returned to our moorings, to our foundations," he said. ''Those of us who remain are more committed to the reform agenda that brought us here. Now we have a good dose of know-how to see those things through."
That's one focus of a Contract with America reunion this weekend in Arizona, where about half of the GOP lawmakers who came to Congress in 1995 will reminisce and strategize along with the contract's principal architect, Gingrich, who resigned from the House to avoid being ousted from the speakership six years ago.
Many of the members of the class of 1995 have moved on to governorships, Senate seats, or into the private sector, but most of the 30 still in the House are committed to the principles that got them there, Wamp said.
January 10th, 2005
Cardinal Says Bush Broke Iraq Promise
Frances D'Emilio / Associated Press
VATICAN CITY - The Italian cardinal sent by Pope John Paul II last year to try to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq said Monday the president promised that the U.S. operation would be "quick."
Cardinal Pio Laghi visited Bush at the White House on March 5, 2003, to relay the pope's position that dialogue, not arms, should be used to resolve the crisis over Iraq, which the United States accused of harboring weapons of mass destruction.
"When I went to Washington as the pope's envoy just before the outbreak of the war in Iraq, he (Bush) told me: `Don't worry, your eminence. We'll be quick and do well in Iraq,'" Laghi told Italian Catholic TV station Telepace, which was broadcasting the pontiff's annual address to diplomats.
When the United States went to war in Iraq, Laghi called the attack on Baghdad "tragic and unacceptable."
"Unfortunately, the facts have demonstrated afterward that things took a different course - not rapid and not favorable," the prelate told Telepace. "Bush was wrong."
Laghi was the Vatican's first envoy to Washington in the 1980s and established a friendship with Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush.
January 8th, 2005
U.S. Paid Commentator to Tout School Law
By Ben Feller / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration paid a prominent commentator to promote the No Child Left Behind schools law to fellow blacks and to give the education secretary media time, records show.
A company run by Armstrong Williams, the syndicated commentator, was paid $240,000 by the Education Department. The goal was to deliver positive messages about Bush's education overhaul, using Williams' broad reach with minorities.
The deal, which drew a fast rebuke from Democrats on Capitol Hill, is the latest to put the department on the defensive for the way it has promoted Bush's signature domestic policy.
The contract required Williams' company, the Graham Williams Group, to produce radio and TV ads that feature one-minute "reads" by Education Secretary Rod Paige. The deal also allowed Paige and other department officials to appear as studio guests with Williams.
Williams, one of the leading black conservative voices in the country, was also to use his influence with other black journalists to get them to talk about No Child Left Behind.
The law, a centerpiece of President Bush's domestic agenda, aims to raise achievement among poor and minority children, with penalties for many schools that don't make progress.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday that the decisions on the practice were made by the Education Department. He did not directly answer when asked whether the White House approved of the practice, saying it was a department matter.
The Education Department defended its decision as a "permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures." The point was to help parents, particularly in poor and minority communities, understand the benefits of the law, the department said.
Williams called criticism of his relationship with the department "legitimate."
"It's a fine line," he told The Associated Press on Friday. "Even though I'm not a journalist — I'm a commentator — I feel I should be held to the media ethics standard. My judgment was not the best. I wouldn't do it again, and I learned from it."
Three Democratic senators — Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Harry Reid of Nevada — wrote Bush Friday to demand he recover the money paid to Armstrong. The lawmakers contended that "the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy."
Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House education committee, asked for an inspector general investigation into whether the deal was legal and ethical. The Republican chairman of the committee, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, supported the request.
Miller and other Democrats also wrote Bush to call for an end to "covert propaganda."
The department's contract with Williams, through the public relations firm Ketchum, dates to 2003 and 2004. It follows another recent flap about the agency's publicity efforts.
The Bush administration has promoted No Child Left Behind with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. It has also has paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the law, with points awarded for stories that say Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education. The Government Accountability Office, Congress' auditing arm, is investigating those spending decisions.
The GAO has twice ruled that the Bush administration's use of prepackaged videos — to promote federal drug policy and a new Medicare law — is "covert propaganda" because the videos do not make clear to the public that the government produced the promotional news.
"There is no defense for using taxpayer dollars to pay journalists for 'fake news' and favorable coverage of a federal program," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal group that has tracked the department's spending.
Information about the contract with Williams was first reported by USA Today.
January 8th, 2005
Kerry cheered in Baghdad, decries Bush team's 'blunders'; Once criticized for war stance, he says force alone won't win
By Borzou Daragahi / San Francisco Chronicle
Baghdad -- Sen. John Kerry, whose seemingly shifting positions on the U.S. war in Iraq plagued him throughout his presidential campaign, came to this war- torn capital Wednesday to see for himself whether the country was moving toward stability or deeper into chaos.
Kerry, who repeatedly charged during the presidential campaign that President Bush had botched the war effort, was greeted warmly by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.
"I've been visiting a lot places like Des Moines and Green Bay, and it has been great," the Massachusetts Democrat said during an informal lunch meeting with a small group of reporters and representatives of nongovernmental organizations. "But we are at war, and I think you can't really make all the judgments that you need to make without digging in."
He declined to compare the growing insurgency with the one he faced in South Vietnam as a Navy gunship lieutenant more than three decades ago. But he insisted that superior firepower alone wouldn't quell the uprising disrupting Iraq.
"No insurgency is defeated by conventional military power alone," he said. "Look at the IRA," the Irish Republican Army, which fought a decadeslong guerrilla war against the British in Northern Ireland before a Catholic- Protestant power-sharing government was put in place. "It was defeated by a combination of time and political negotiation."
Kerry, who talked with U.S. intelligence officials and Iraqi officials on Wednesday, was also scheduled to meet with officials of the U.S. Embassy and with members of the interim Iraqi government, including interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and a deputy to Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite leader at the top of an electoral list favored in Iraq's Jan. 30 elections.
U.S. soldiers approached Kerry inside the restaurant of the Rashid Hotel, asking him to pose for photographs and sign T-shirts. The star-struck restaurant manager insisted on serving Kerry the restaurant's specialty, a plate of grilled chicken and lamb.
Later in the day, Kerry met with about 20 soldiers based in his home state, including reservists from the 356th Engineer Detachment and 126th Aviation Company of the Massachusetts Army National Guard at Camp Victory, where soldiers are bivouacked in luxury villas once inhabited by Saddam Hussein and his loyalists.
"They all joked about how living conditions had changed since Sen. Kerry was in Vietnam," said David Wade, the senator's communications director.
Kerry was scheduled to fly on a C-130 military transport plane today to visit troops in Fallujah and Mosul.
The senator said he was more interested in asking questions of soldiers, U.S. officials, Iraqis and even the journalists themselves instead of rehashing the political battles of the past campaign season.
But in several instances, Kerry attacked what he called the "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders" of the Bush administration. The mistakes, he said, included former U.S. occupation leader Paul Bremer's decisions to disband the Iraqi army and purge the government of former members of Hussein's Baath Party. Both moves are widely believed to have fueled the largely Sunni insurgency.
"What is sad about what's happening here now is that so much of it is a process of catching up from the enormous miscalculations and wrong judgments made in the beginning," he said. "And the job has been made enormously harder."
He added, however, that it was time to move forward.
"Mistakes have been made," he said. "Now, it's a different time and different set of judgments that have to be made. I'm here to make judgments about what moves are available to us."
Kerry is visiting Iraq as part of a Middle East tour that also includes meetings with leaders in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories. He said success in Iraq was vital as part of the struggle for wider change in the Middle East.
"The stakes are very important, very high, and not just for Iraq," he said. "You have another election in the West Bank, a set of challenges to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the region that are quite daunting."
January 7th, 2005 11:49 pm
In Defeat, a Victory?
The Dems' latest challenge of the 2004 election result may have seemed futile. But those involved see it as a win for morality
By Daren Briscoe / Newsweek
Jan. 7 - When Americans flocked to theaters to see Michael Moore's controversial film "Fahrenheit 9/11" last year, many were surprised to see footage of a riveting political drama they didn't even know had taken place. During the official tally of Electoral College votes for the 2000 presidential election, several black members of Congress stood to deliver wrenching, emotional pleas for a senator, any senator, to vote in support of their plan to challenge the election results. None did, including Senate president Al Gore, shown in the film stoically reading the Electoral College results that sealed his defeat.
As a similar scene played out on the House floor yesterday, critics dismissed it as another exercise in futility. With the House and Senate both firmly in Republican hands, and many Democrats leery of being seen as sore losers, President George W. Bush's second official certification as the nation's president was a foregone conclusion. As expected, the challenge was defeated in both the House (267-31) and the Senate (74-1). But this time around, there was one important difference. Thirty-one congressional Democrats were joined in their challenge by Sen. Barbara Boxer, forcing both houses of Congress to hear debate and to vote on the issue. As only the second time since 1877 that Congress has been forced to consider such a challenge, the protest did more than stall certification of the Electoral College vote. It also marked Jan. 6, 2005, as a historic day. "We've breached the silence that has always prevented us from employing this statute," said Rep. John Conyers.
For Conyers and the 13 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus who held a news conference after the vote, that made the challenge, even in defeat, a victory of sorts. As members of a caucus sometimes referred to as “the conscience of the Congress,” CBC members are no strangers to wringing moral victories out of what others see as lost causes. While the 43-member caucus took no official position on the challenge, 21 of the 31 House votes cast in its favor came from CBC members. The civil-rights era is a touchstone for many CBC members, and the protection of voting rights remains one of their premier concerns. Long before Election Day, caucus members worried that some blacks might be disenfranchised, and some spent months involved in voter-education and voter-turnout drives.
Yesterday's protest was formally lodged when Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, a CBC member, objected to the counting of the state’s electoral votes on the ground that they were not “regularly given,” a shorthand reference to a litany of complaints about Election Day problems in Ohio. Many of those problems, from inexplicable shortages of polling machines to aggressive Republican challenges of thousands of voters’ eligibility, echo complaints raised after the 2000 presidential election, prompting some critics to suggest the protest was motivated by lingering resentment over that bitter contest. That may have played a role—some of Bush's most persistent and harshest critics are also CBC members—but Conyers and his colleagues insist that the true purpose of their protest was to call attention to the need for nationwide election reform. Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said that the problems are rooted in a system that allows each state, county and electoral jurisdiction to set its own Election Day rules. “We keep having these problems because our voting system is built on the constitutional foundation of ‘states’ rights’—50 states, 3,067 counties and 13,000 different election jurisdictions, all separate and unequal,” Jackson said.
January 7th, 2005
Veterans' groups speak out against Gonzales' nomination
By Leo Shane III / Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — Several veterans groups on Wednesday joined the chorus of opposition to President Bush’s nomination of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, calling his legal opinions on torture a threat to U.S. forces worldwide.
On Tuesday, 12 retired admirals and generals — including former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Shalikashvili — sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging them to closely examine Gonzales’ position on torture before they approve him.
Veterans for Common Sense, which represents about 12,000 former military personnel, and other related groups took their criticism of Gonzales even further by asking senators to oppose his nomination.
“Not only does his position (on torture) violate the laws of the United States, but it has also endangered our U.S. servicemen,” said retired Air Force Col. Richard Klass, president of the Veterans Institute for Security and Democracy.
“Judge Gonzales has opened the way for any tin-horned dictator or corrupt head of state to do the same to our troops.”
Critics attacked the White House counsel not only for his January 2002 memo calling the Geneva Convention “obsolete” and “quaint” but also for what they call failings in his judicial review of death penalty cases while an adviser to Bush while the president was governor of Texas.
“We are not just opposed to torture because it is counterproductive; it is just plain wrong,” said Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst. “It is the rule of law that distinguishes us from the animals, who can’t tell right from wrong. This is not just an academic exercise.”
The groups submitted their own letter to the Senate, signed by nearly 3,600 veterans, asking that the controversies surrounding the torture memos be the focus of their confirmation hearings.
Those hearings for Gonzales are scheduled to begin Thursday.
January 7th, 2005
Bush's Approval Rating Falls in AP Poll
By Will Lester / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush is entering his second term with the lowest approval ratings of any recent two-term president, even as he talks about an ambitious agenda of change, an Associated Press poll finds.
Congress is viewed even more negatively — a troubling sign for Bush and Congress as they tackle such proposals as creating private accounts for those in the Social Security system, overhauling the federal tax code and limiting lawsuit damages.
Bush's approval rating is at 49 percent in the AP poll with 49 percent disapproving among all of those polled. His job approval is in the high 40s or low 50s in several other recent polls — as low as any job approval rating for a re-elected president at the start of the second term in more than 50 years.
Presidents Reagan and Clinton had job approval ratings near six in 10 just before their inauguration for a second term, according to Gallup polls.
President Nixon's approval was in the 60s right after his 1972 re-election, slid to about 50 percent right before his inauguration and then moved back over 60 percent. President Eisenhower's job approval was in the low 70s just before his second inauguration in 1957.
About four in 10, 41 percent, approve of the job Congress is doing, while 53 percent disapprove, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos Public Affairs.
The nation's sharply partisan divide is responsible for Bush's job ratings.
Republicans overwhelmingly approve of Bush's job performance and Democrats overwhelmingly disapprove — a split found to a lesser extent in the congressional numbers.
Only one in six Democrats say they approve of Bush's job performance, the poll found. In January 2002, six in 10 Democrats approved of the job done by Bush, contributing to an overall job approval rating near 80 percent four months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In January of last year, about one-quarter of Democrats approved of the job done by Bush.
Rick Dickinson, a cabinet maker from Charlottesville, Va., and a Democrat, said he liked what he saw from Bush after the terrorist attacks, but those feelings have faded.
"I thought he did generally well after 9/11. He was decisive and he had some great momentum," Dickinson said. "But now I basically disapprove of him. The war troubles me. He picks a plan — regardless of the information — and he goes with it."
Bush has intense support from Republicans. More than nine in 10 said they approve of his job performance.
"I very strongly support what he's been doing," said Cheryl McGauvran, a teacher in a Christian school who says she lives in the desert southeast of Los Angeles. "If we had somebody in office who waffled we would be in trouble. It's almost better to be wrong and then correct it, than to vacillate and be stomped."
People were evenly divided on Bush's handling of the economy. They take a dim view of his handling of Iraq, with 44 percent approving and 54 percent disapproving, according to the poll of 1,001 adults. It was taken Jan. 3-5 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Even on Bush's strongest area, handling foreign policy and the war on terrorism, people were evenly split — with 50 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving.
For much of the last year, the public has been fairly evenly divided on Bush's job approval. He was still able to win about 60 million votes — a record number but just 51 percent of votes cast — at a time most people thought the country was headed down the wrong track.
Bush's willingness to pursue policies even if unpopular is appealing to some voters.
Gene Kuterboch, a state worker who lives in Stowe, Pa., says he's been a Democrat all his life, but he voted for Bush this time because Democrat John Kerry "seemed to be following the polls."
"I voted for President Bush because I think he took a stand after what went on with the terrorist attacks," Kuterboch said. "We need a leader."
January 7th, 2005
Bush team scolded for disguised TV report
By Ceci Connolly / Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- Shortly before last year's Super Bowl, local news stations across the country aired a story by Mike Morris describing plans for a new White House ad campaign on the dangers of drug abuse.
What viewers did not know was that Morris is not a journalist and his ''report" was produced by the government, actions which constituted illegal ''covert propaganda," according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office.
In the second ruling of its kind, the investigative arm of Congress this week scolded the Bush administration for distributing phony prepackaged news reports that include a ''suggested live intro" for anchors to read, interviews with Washington officials, and a closing that mimics a typical broadcast news sign-off.
Although television stations knew the materials were produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, there was nothing in the two-minute, prepackaged reports that would indicate to viewers that they came from the government or that Morris, a former journalist, was working under contract for the government.
''You think you are getting a news story but what you are getting is a paid announcement," said Susan Poling, managing associate general counsel at the Government Accountability Office. ''What is objectionable about these is the fact the viewer has no idea their tax dollars are being used to write and produce this video segment."
In May, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services violated two federal laws with similar fake news reports touting the administration's new Medicare drug benefit. When that opinion was released, officials at the drug control office decided to stop the practice, spokesman Thomas Riley said.
''Our lawyers disagree with the GAO interpretation," he said. Nevertheless, if the video releases were going to be ''controversial or create an appearance of a problem," the agency decided it was not worth pursuing, he said.
The prepackaged news pieces represent a fraction of the antidrug messages distributed by the office, Riley said.
Production and distribution of the video news releases cost about $155,000.
Riley said broadcast stations were fully aware they were receiving materials akin to printed press releases that producers could ''slice and dice it however they want."
At least 300 news shows used some portion of the prepackaged news reports, though it was impossible to determine how many aired the full story or just portions such as ''sound bites," Riley said.
If the videos had been identified as coming from the federal agency, that would have been legal, Poling said. But the television package looks like an authentic piece of independent journalism.
January 6th, 2005
Thank You, Senator Boxer!
Thank you to Senator Barbara Boxer for standing up with Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones and objecting to certification of Ohio's Electoral College vote, setting us on the path to true transparency in our national election system!
We'd also like to thank Representative John Conyers for all his hard work.
Thanks to the following 31 Representatives for voting 'yes' on the objection:
Corrine Brown, FL
Julia Carson, IN
William Clay Jr., MO
James E. Clyburn, SC
John Conyers Jr., MI
Danny Davis, IL
Lane Evans, IL
Sam Farr, CA
Bob Filner, CA
Raul Grijalva, AZ
Doc Hastings, WA
Maurice Hinchey, NY
Jesse Jackson Jr, IL
Sheila Jackson Lee, TX
Eddie Bernice Johnson, TX
Stephanie Tubbs Jones, OH
Carolyn Kilpatrick, MI
Dennis Kucinich, OH
Barbara Lee, CA
John Lewis, GA
Ed Markey, MA
Cynthia McKinney, GA
John Olver, MA
Major Owens, NY
Frank Pallone JR, NJ
Donald M. Payne, NJ
Jan Schakowsky, IL
Bennie Thompson, MS
Maxine Waters, CA
Diane Watson, CA
Lynn Woolsey, CA
A member of the House and a member of the Senate have not stood up together to object to a state's electoral college votes since 1877, following the disputed election contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden.
January 6th, 2005
Keep Objecting
By John Nichols / The Nation
The decision of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, to sign on to the objection raised Thursday by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. and other House Democrats to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes from the 2004 presidential election sent a powerful signal that at least some -- though certainly not most -- Washington Democrats are listening to the grassroots of the party.
The challenge to the Ohio count, while it was based on legitimate concerns about voter disenfranchisement before, during and after the November 2 election, never had a chance to block the ultimate assignment of that state's electoral votes to President Bush. After a short debate, Republican majorities in the House and Senate were always expected to dismiss any objections and assure that President Bush would have a second term. And they moved quickly on Thursday to do precisely that. -- with the support of most Democrats.
But the lodging of a formal objection, and the debates in the House and Senate that followed it, focused attention on the mess that Ohio officials made of the presidential election in that state -- and on the lingering questions about the extent to which the problems were intentionally created in order to make it harder for supporters of Democrat John Kerry, particularly those in predominantly minority, urban and low-income precincts, to cast their ballots on November 2.
It also gave activist Democrats and their allies on the left a measure of the extent to which the party that relies so heavily on the votes of African Americans and Latinos will take seriously questions about minority-voter disenfranchisement, flawed voting systems and the partisan mess that local and state election officials frequently make of vote counting and recounting in states across this country.
After two months of work by Greens, Libertarians and groups such as Progressive Democrats of America -- which highlight flaws in the practices and procedures of Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell -- there was little question that a legitimate case had been made for challenging Ohio's electoral votes during what is usually a perfunctory post-election review by Congress. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, did precisely that with his remarkably detailed and well-reasoned report, "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio."
That report, which was circulated to members of Congress on Wednesday in anticipation of Thursday's formal review of the Electoral College results, bluntly stated that, "We have found numerous, serious irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousands of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said that Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards."
Conyers and a number of House Democrats were convinced by the evidence of irregularities and disenfranchisement that a formal objection needed to be lodged on Thursday when a joint session of Congress met to review the results. But for that objection could only go forward with the signature of at least one senator. As late as Wednesday night, there were serious doubts about whether a senator would sign on -- and real fears of a repeat of the scene, portrayed in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11, when members of the Congressional Black Caucus were ruled out of order when they tried to object in 2001 to the certification of electoral votes from the disputed state of Florida.
"A lot of people were asking whether the Democrats in the Senate would ever stand up and be counted in a fight that is really about minority voter disenfranchisement," said Steve Cobble, a veteran aide to the Rev. Jesse Jackson who attended hearings in Ohio, where evidence regarding long lines at polling places in minority neighborhoods, inadequate equipment and some instances of intimidation were gathered.
Jackson put that question to senators directly, when he personally lobbied them early in the week, and Michael Moore declared in an open letter to senators that progressives would be watching for them to show more backbone in 2005 than they did in 2001. Most -- including Kerry -- refused.
But Boxer came through, arguing that she was objecting "to cast the light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed now."
Ultimately, however, it was Conyers's letters to senators, and the report, that did the convincing -- along with thousands of grassroots activists across the country who took the news that the senior Democrat would object to the certification of the Ohio results as a call to action to pressure senators such as Boxer and U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin.
So there has been progress from 2001 to 2005. But, at this point, it is only symbolic progress -- and it is certainly not enough. The real work begins now. The brief debate over certification of the Ohio results cannot be the end of the process. Democrats and, yes, responsible Republicans need to continue to feel the heat if election reform is to be a reality. After the Florida debacle of 2000, a lot of grassroots Democrats said "never again." That sentiment changed the dynamic when Congress was called upon this year to certify electoral votes from a state where serious questions about voter disenfranchisement had yet to be resolved.
Now, the "never again" sentiment needs to be carried forward in a proactive manner that forces not just a debate but action on the fundamental reforms that are needed to repair the erratic, unequal and easily abused voting systems of what is supposed to be the greatest democracy.
January 6th, 2005
Attorney General Nominee Hit for Prisoner Policy
By Thomas Ferraro and Deborah Charles / Reuters
U.S. Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales came under blistering criticism on Thursday for his role in shaping administration policies blamed for contributing to the torture of terror suspects, which Democrats said had put Americans at greater risk.
"Those abuses serve as recruiting posters for the terrorists," Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said at a Senate confirmation hearing for Gonzales, President Bush's White House counsel.
"America's troops and citizens are at greater risk because of those actions," said Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat. "The searing photographs from Abu Ghraib (prison in Iraq) have made it harder to create and maintain the alliances we need to prevail."
At issue are a memo approved by Gonzales which said only the most severe types of torture were not permissible under U.S. and international agreements and another he wrote that described parts of the half-century-old Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war as "obsolete" or "quaint."
Republicans were quick to come to the defense of Gonzales, though some voiced concerns. But even Democrats conceded he had the votes to be confirmed as the first Hispanic-American to serve as the nation's top lawman.
Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, praised Gonzales and asked: "Do you approve of torture?"
"Absolutely not," replied Gonzales.
"Do you condemn the interrogators' techniques at Abu Ghraib shown on the widely published photographs?" asked Specter.
"Let me say senator that as a human being I am sickened and outraged by those photos," Gonzales said.
Many of the questions focused on Gonzales' January 2002 memo on how the Geneva Conventions should not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners captured during the Afghanistan conflict.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, introduced Gonzales at the hearing, saying, "Now, I hate to ruin a good story for the president's political opponents. But there is one important problem with this criticism: Judge Gonzales is right," the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al Qaeda.
INTERROGATION MEMO WITHDRAWN
Gonzales was questioned about an August 2002 memo he approved -- and which was recently withdrawn and replaced -- that outlined how to avoid violating U.S. and international terror statutes while interrogating prisoners. The memo was behind many of the harsh techniques inflicted on detainees at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and other locations.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Gonzales he would vote for him but said, "When you start looking at torture statutes and you look at ways around the spirit of the law ... you are losing the moral high ground."
"The issue of your commitment to the rule of law is what most concerns us," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.
"Unfortunately, there is increasing and disturbing evidence that, with the approval of our highest officials, the administration has undermined respect for law and for international standards of civilized behavior," Kennedy said.
Gonzales, 49, a former Texas Supreme Court Justice, was chosen by Bush in November to replace John Ashcroft, who was widely criticized over his implementation of U.S. anti-terror legislation viewed by many as damaging to civil liberties.
The Justice Department last week released a new memo that defined torture more broadly, and therefore also broadened what was unacceptable under U.S. law and international agreements.
Seven Army reservists have been charged with abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.
The suspected ringleader faces court-martial on Friday in Fort Hood, Texas while four others have already pleaded guilty. Another court-martial opened on Tuesday for a soldier accused of pushing two Iraqis into the Tigris River, in which one man is said to have died.
January 6th, 2005
Keep Objecting
By John Nichols / The Nation
The decision of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, to sign on to the objection raised Thursday by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. and other House Democrats to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes from the 2004 presidential election sent a powerful signal that at least some -- though certainly not most -- Washington Democrats are listening to the grassroots of the party.
The challenge to the Ohio count, while it was based on legitimate concerns about voter disenfranchisement before, during and after the November 2 election, never had a chance to block the ultimate assignment of that state's electoral votes to President Bush. After a short debate, Republican majorities in the House and Senate were always expected to dismiss any objections and assure that President Bush would have a second term. And they moved quickly on Thursday to do precisely that. -- with the support of most Democrats.
But the lodging of a formal objection, and the debates in the House and Senate that followed it, focused attention on the mess that Ohio officials made of the presidential election in that state -- and on the lingering questions about the extent to which the problems were intentionally created in order to make it harder for supporters of Democrat John Kerry, particularly those in predominantly minority, urban and low-income precincts, to cast their ballots on November 2.
It also gave activist Democrats and their allies on the left a measure of the extent to which the party that relies so heavily on the votes of African Americans and Latinos will take seriously questions about minority-voter disenfranchisement, flawed voting systems and the partisan mess that local and state election officials frequently make of vote counting and recounting in states across this country.
After two months of work by Greens, Libertarians and groups such as Progressive Democrats of America -- which highlight flaws in the practices and procedures of Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell -- there was little question that a legitimate case had been made for challenging Ohio's electoral votes during what is usually a perfunctory post-election review by Congress. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, did precisely that with his remarkably detailed and well-reasoned report, "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio."
That report, which was circulated to members of Congress on Wednesday in anticipation of Thursday's formal review of the Electoral College results, bluntly stated that, "We have found numerous, serious irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousands of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said that Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards."
Conyers and a number of House Democrats were convinced by the evidence of irregularities and disenfranchisement that a formal objection needed to be lodged on Thursday when a joint session of Congress met to review the results. But for that objection could only go forward with the signature of at least one senator. As late as Wednesday night, there were serious doubts about whether a senator would sign on -- and real fears of a repeat of the scene, portrayed in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11, when members of the Congressional Black Caucus were ruled out of order when they tried to object in 2001 to the certification of electoral votes from the disputed state of Florida.
"A lot of people were asking whether the Democrats in the Senate would ever stand up and be counted in a fight that is really about minority voter disenfranchisement," said Steve Cobble, a veteran aide to the Rev. Jesse Jackson who attended hearings in Ohio, where evidence regarding long lines at polling places in minority neighborhoods, inadequate equipment and some instances of intimidation were gathered.
Jackson put that question to senators directly, when he personally lobbied them early in the week, and Michael Moore declared in an open letter to senators that progressives would be watching for them to show more backbone in 2005 than they did in 2001. Most -- including Kerry -- refused.
But Boxer came through, arguing that she was objecting "to cast the light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed now."
Ultimately, however, it was Conyers's letters to senators, and the report, that did the convincing -- along with thousands of grassroots activists across the country who took the news that the senior Democrat would object to the certification of the Ohio results as a call to action to pressure senators such as Boxer and U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin.
So there has been progress from 2001 to 2005. But, at this point, it is only symbolic progress -- and it is certainly not enough. The real work begins now. The brief debate over certification of the Ohio results cannot be the end of the process. Democrats and, yes, responsible Republicans need to continue to feel the heat if election reform is to be a reality. After the Florida debacle of 2000, a lot of grassroots Democrats said "never again." That sentiment changed the dynamic when Congress was called upon this year to certify electoral votes from a state where serious questions about voter disenfranchisement had yet to be resolved.
Now, the "never again" sentiment needs to be carried forward in a proactive manner that forces not just a debate but action on the fundamental reforms that are needed to repair the erratic, unequal and easily abused voting systems of what is supposed to be the greatest democracy.
January 3rd, 2005
Bush 2 off to shaky start; 'Worst I've seen it' - official
By Kenneth R. Bazinet / Daily News
WASHINGTON - Honeymoon? What honeymoon?
The victory lap is long over for President Bush, tripped up by a series of gaffes since Election Day that were either self-inflicted or made by his own allies, both aides and critics said.
"It's been sloppy. ...People are off message," conceded a senior administration official, who said Team Bush's trademark discipline had crumbled since winning a second term.
"It's the worst I've ever seen it," the official conceded.
In the view of former GOP strategist Marshall Wittman, now a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council, "The honeymoon blew over quicker than a Texas thunderstorm on a hot July day."
Bush will need some goodwill starting tomorrow, when Congress returns.
On the top of the White House to-do list will be finding someone to head the Homeland Security Department and an intelligence czar to take control of the many spy agencies.
The President must prep for two major speeches, one for his inauguration on Jan. 20 and his State of the Union address on Feb. 2.
The White House has also indicated it will press for conservative judges and a partial privatization of Social Security - issues that are guaranteed to be viewed by Democrats as a challenge.
The administration knows that it will face a hostile Democratic minority in Congress, but it can't be certain how staunchly allied the GOP majority will be. It took major arm-twisting for Bush to persuade Republicans to pass the intelligence reform bill late last year.
Bush's problems began almost immediately after he declared two days after the election that, "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it."
Some critics contend that proclamation was as much a jinx as the "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging behind Bush in May 2003 when he declared that major combat in Iraq had ended.
Among Bush's biggest headaches were the aborted nomination of Bernard Kerik as homeland security secretary, a ferocious battle within his own party to get recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission through Congress and loose-tongued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's answer to G.I.s in Iraq concerned about the lack of protective armor.
Bush was even blindsided by John Danforth's resignation as UN ambassador, a snap move that came as Kerik withdrew his nomination in shame.
"The Kerik appointment was the worst of all," said the senior administration official, who complained that since the election too many White House staffers have been more concerned with trying to move up the career ladder than their day-to-day work.
Bush's closest allies argue that, with the holidays behind him, he'll come back refreshed and ready for new battles.
"The upside is his track record from the last four years. He's constantly counted out, and he constantly ends up winning," said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.). "He's a guy who has basically set his own course and writes his own rules."
December 28th, 2004
Plan for Social Security relies on an immediate, familiar Bush strategy
By Peter S. Canellos / Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- The run-up to President Bush's plan to deal with Social Security is looking a lot like the run-up to his plan to deal with Saddam Hussein.
The expected Social Security shortfall has been a perennial domestic concern in much the same way that Hussein's intransigence with arms inspectors was a perennial foreign-policy concern: From the White House to Congress to think tanks, policy makers worried about it, but presidents (including Bush) felt no immediate need to deal with it.
Then Bush decided to focus on it, and suddenly a long-term concern became intense and immediate.
Much as the Iraq war was preceded by speeches designed to show Hussein in the most threatening light, the Bush economic summit seemed designed to dominate a slow news week with the idea that failing to deal with Social Security now will hurt the national economy.
"The time to start making sacrifices is now . . . so that the markets can have confidence that we're on a course that is going to avoid a train wreck," Bush said at the summit.
Still, the link between the current economy and a Social Security deficit that will begin to strike benefits in decades is every bit as speculative and theoretical as the link between Hussein and the war on terrorism in late 2002. But few people in the political mainstream would dismiss the idea out of hand, and arguing that Bush's predictions are a bit too dire seems unnecessary to most Democrats at this stage.
But what stage is it? Just as Bush now seems to have been set on invading Iraq during the discussion stage of the war, he seems to know what he wants to do with Social Security during the discussion stage of this big initiative, too.
In this light, his comments at the economic summit seem far more portentous than mere brainstorming: "I think there are more people now who believe they'll never see a check than people worried they'll have their check taken away. . . . It's going to be very important to reassure our seniors who depend upon Social Security that nothing will change. . . . And really what we're talking about is a new generation."
Throughout the summit, Bush's intention seemed fairly clear: Preserve the current levels of expected benefits for people close to retirement, but cut the projected benefits for younger workers -- those who Bush says do not expect anything, anyway -- while allowing a portion of their checks to be invested in the private markets, thus giving them the hope of recouping some money through shrewd investing.
Shifting Social Security tax reserves into the private markets has been a pet project of some conservative economists for a long while, just as neoconservatives had been extolling the benefits of deposing Hussein long before Sept. 11, 2001. But much as the "lessons of Sept. 11" became Bush's impetus for taking on Iraq, the projected Social Security shortfall is his impetus for pushing private retirement accounts.
But all along, the position of most Democrats has been that allowing private investment of any portion of Social Security does not ease the shortfall -- it increases the shortfall by draining cash for current benefits from the system. And, in political terms, it offers the most appeal to workers with enough savings for a comfortable retirement without Social Security: They can invest the money without suffering too much if it is lost. But poorer workers could face a double whammy: Lower projected benefits, plus the chance they would lose more of the money they need to live on if their investments go south.
Right now, however, the Democratic message is hardly being heard while the president has created a strong linkage in the public mind between the Social Security shortfall and the national economy, and between dealing with the shortfall and creating personal investment accounts.
Democrats have been down this road before. In 2002, some Democrats offered nodding agreement that Iraq was a serious national security threat while, in their minds, reserving judgment on the exact course Bush should take. But by the time they objected to Bush's course, they appeared to be contradicting themselves. In this year's election, Bush repeatedly stressed that Democrats, too, believed Hussein was a threat, as if their concurrence on the need for action was the same as endorsing Bush's actions.
Bush's plan for Social Security may, indeed, prove to be the most hopeful of many alternatives, all of which involve sacrifices. And many conservatives argue that the threat posed to poorer workers by personal retirement accounts must be weighed against the same workers' chances of earning extra money through good investments.
Democrats, however, have made protecting and preserving the current system one of their defining issues as a party: For at least two decades, they have been contending that Republicans are plotting to reduce promised benefits.
If Democrats plan to come out against Bush's plan, they should weigh in now. As many of their leaders can attest, the public has little patience for complaints registered too softly or too late.
December 28th, 2004
Reelection Honeymoon With Voters Eludes Bush, Polls Say
By Peter Wallsten / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Despite a clear-cut reelection and the prospect of lasting GOP dominance in Congress, President Bush prepares to start his second term with the lowest approval ratings of any just-elected sitting president in half a century, according to new surveys.
That distinction, which pollsters and analysts blame on public discontent over the war in Iraq, comes as Bush begins drafting two major speeches that could quickly recast his image: an inaugural address Jan. 20 and the State of the Union soon after. Bracketed between them is the Jan. 30 election in Iraq, another milestone that could affect public impressions of Bush.
His performance in those speeches and the outcome of the Iraqi vote could determine whether Bush regains the momentum from his Nov. 2 election victory in time to push through controversial initiatives such as revamping Social Security, rewriting the tax code, limiting lawsuits and trimming the budget deficit, analysts said.
A Gallup survey conducted for CNN and USA Today puts Bush's approval rating at 49% — close to his preelection numbers. That's 10 to 20 points lower than every elected sitting president at this stage since just after World War II, according to Gallup, which has been tabulating such data since Harry S. Truman won a full term in 1948.
Bush's Gallup rating echoed a survey published last week by ABC News and the Washington Post, which put his approval rating at 48%. That poll also found that 56% of Americans believed the Iraq war was not worth fighting. Time magazine also put Bush's overall approval at 49%.
"The question is, what happened to the honeymoon?" asked Frank Newport, editor of the Gallup survey.
David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises the Senate leadership, said, "Communications up front is going to be as important as any task that they have at this point. There is a lot of important messaging that this administration is going to have to do in January and in February. It's taking the issues and the agenda and beginning to set it up in a way that the American public has a clear understanding of the direction he's going to go."
White House officials say Bush is working on early drafts for both speeches, even as he takes his vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
Unlike other presidents, who cruised toward inaugural festivities on a tide of growing public support after reelection victories, Bush has had to somberly respond to mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq. Last week, he made a rare concession: "No question about it, the bombers are having an effect."
One person who met with Bush the same day a U.S. military mess tent was bombed in Iraq described the president as "distraught."
"A lot of the talk about momentum and agendas and political realignment is overdone, in the sense that it all depends on this contingent fact of how Iraq goes," said William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard.
Also complicating matters for Bush's postelection image is the anticipation that the first budget of his second term is likely to include unpopular cuts to social programs and even the Pentagon.
And the Bush administration has been criticized for failures in vetting former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who amid ethical concerns withdrew his name from nomination to be the next secretary of Homeland Security.
The approval rating for a second-term president is less crucial, given that he will not be facing the voters again.
But Bush has outlined an ambitious second-term agenda that will require support from skeptical Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill. He must be able to show continued support from the public. Otherwise, members of Congress, facing their own reelections in 2006, will be wary.
"If his approval rating falls, regardless of his winning the election, it's going to hurt his ability to convince Congress," said Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist. "Republicans have the majority and can do almost whatever they want if they stay together, but it's going to make it harder for them to get some bipartisan support for these initiatives."
Kristol said the new year would bring opportunities for Bush to showcase successes — if the administration handled them well. He noted the elections scheduled in Iraq and within the Palestinian Authority in January, along with a possible debate at home over a new Supreme Court chief justice. Also, Kristol said, Bush could point to the election in Ukraine as evidence of democracy spreading.
"It's a big opportunity, and it's a big challenge for Bush," said Kristol, referring to the flurry of events expected to unfold in early 2005. "All of the little stuff that's happened the last five weeks won't matter much after that."
December 26th, 2004
Evidence Mounts: Rumsfeld capable of signing own signature
A new wave of criticism is set to hit US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seen here signing a Baghdad roadsign, after he admitted did not personally sign Pentagon condolence letters to families of soldiers killed in Iraq and that a signature stamping device had been used instead
December 24th, 2004
Iraqi militants wanted Bush re-elected: French hostage
CBC News
PARIS - Iraqi militants wanted President George W. Bush re-elected in November because he would keep U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and that would boost the position of the insurgents, a French reporter says.
Georges Malbrunot, who was kidnapped by a militant group called the Islamic Army of Iraq on Aug. 20 and released Tuesday, based his comments on conversations with his captors.
"We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop," one of his captors told him, Malbrunot wrote in the paper Le Figaro on Friday.
Malbrunot's story said the Islamic Army has 15,000 to 17,000 members, is highly organized and has identified four groups of enemies:
- American and coalition soldiers.
- Foreign collaborators, such as businessmen.
- Iraqi police.
- Spies.
Malbrunot, who works for Le Figaro, and fellow reporter Christian Chesnot who was captured at the same time, feared for their lives. They saw other hostages who were later executed.
But the two men said they were French reporters, and reminded the militants that "France was against the war. France has a tough position against the occupation...That allowed us to show we were not pro-American," he said on his return to Paris on Wednesday.
Malbrunot said in a radio interview that they were finding it hard to recover from four months in captivity, "But the life of a free man is far easier than that of a hostage."
December 24th, 2004
No peace on Earth during unjust war
By Andrew Greeley / Chicago Sun-Times
One reads in the papers that the Pentagon expects the war in Iraq to continue till 2010. Donald Rumsfeld will not guarantee that it will be over by 2009. How many dead and maimed Americans by then? How many sad obituaries? How many full pages in the papers with pictures of all the casualties?
Why?
The reasons change: weapons of mass destruction, war on terror, freedom and democracy for the people of Iraq, American credibility. All are deceptions. This cockamamie and criminally immoral war was planned before the Sept. 11 attack in which Iraq was not involved. It has nothing to do with the war on terror. American-style freedom and democracy in Arab countries are hallucinations by men and women like Paul Wolfowitz and Condi Rice whose contribution to the war is writing long memos -- Republican intellectuals with pointy heads.
One must support the troops, I am told. I certainly support the troops the best way possible: Bring them home, get them out of a war for which the planning was inadequate, the training nonexistent, the goal obscure, and the equipment and especially the armor for their vehicles inferior. They are brave men and women who believe they are fighting to defend their country and have become sitting ducks for fanatics. Those who die are the victims of the big lie. They believe that they are fighting to prevent another terror attack on the United States. They are not the war criminals. The ''Vulcans,'' as the Bush foreign policy team calls itself, are the criminals, and they ought to face indictment as war criminals.
There is an irony in the promise of a prolonged war. The Vulcans believed that, as the world's only superpower, the military might of the United States was overwhelming, irresistible, beyond challenge. In fact, the war into which they tricked us has become a quagmire, 130,000 American troops are at the mercy of perhaps 5,000 true-believer guerrillas and an Iraqi population that doesn't like Americans any more than it liked Saddam Hussein. It is a war in which there is no possibility of victory -- whether it ends in June 2005 or June 2010, whether there are 2,000 American battle deaths or 50,000, whether there are 10,000 wounded Americans or 500,000, whether those with post-traumatic stress are 10 percent of the returning troops or 30 percent.
One of the criteria for a just war is that there be a reasonable chance of victory. Where is that reasonable chance? Each extra day of the war makes it more unjust, more criminal. The guilty people are not only the Vulcans but those Americans who in the November election endorsed the war.
They are also responsible for the Iraqi deaths, especially the men who join the police or the army because they need the money to support their families -- their jobs eaten up in the maw of the American ''liberation.'' Iraqi deaths don't trouble many Americans. Their attitude is not unlike the e-mail writer who said he rejoices every time a Muslim kills another Muslim. ''Let Allah sort them out.''
This time of the year we celebrate ''peace on Earth to men of good will.'' Americans must face the fact that they can no longer claim to be men and women of good will, not as long as they support an unnecessary, foolish, ill-conceived, badly executed and, finally, unwinnable war. If most people in other countries blame the war on Americans, we earned that blame in the November election -- not that there is any serious reason to believe that Sen. John Kerry would have had the courage to end the war. Perhaps if he had changed his mind, as he did about the war in Vietnam, and opposed the Iraqi war, he might have won. Too late now. Too late till 2010 -- or 2020.
December 23rd, 2004
"Denial as a method of warfare"; A new report offers scathing criticism of America's strategy in Iraq
By Dan Glaister / Salon
Dec. 23, 2004 | America's handling of the occupation of Iraq came in for scathing criticism Wednesday, with government officials accused of living in a "fantasyland" and failing to learn from mistakes made in Vietnam. A report issued by the independent Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington charged that the occupation had been handled by "ideologues" in the Bush administration who consistently underestimated the scale of the problems they were facing and that this had contributed to a culture in which facts were willfully misrepresented.
The report lists a litany of errors on the part of the United States. "Their strategic assessments of Iraq were wrong," it says. "They were fundamentally wrong about how the Iraqi people would view the United States invasion. They were wrong about the problems in establishing effective governance, and they underestimated the difficulties in creating a new government that was legitimate in Iraqi eyes.
"They greatly exaggerated the relevance and influence of Iraqi exiles, and greatly underestimated the scale of Iraq's economic, ethnic, and demographic problems."
The report lays responsibility for these errors with the policymakers in Washington. "The problem with dealing with the Iraqi army and security forces was handled largely by ideologues who had a totally unrealistic grand strategy for transforming Iraq and the Middle East," the report says.
Under the heading "Denial as a method of counterinsurgency warfare," it notes that the United States "failed to honestly assess the facts on the ground in a manner reminiscent of Vietnam." But there was a rare attempt at honesty from the Pentagon Wednesday when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was "truly saddened" that anybody might think he did not care about U.S. soldiers. "Their grief," he said, "is something I feel to my core."
American efforts to rebuild Iraq received a further blow Wednesday when it was revealed that one of the leading U.S. contractors in the region, Contrack International, was pulling out. The decision to scrap its $325 million contract to rebuild transport infrastructure was prompted by rising violence and related security costs, the company said. The decision marks the first time that a prime contractor has decided to leave Iraq. "The security environment is not always permissive to doing the kind of work that they were trying to do," a Pentagon spokesman said.
Contrack was supposed to construct new roads, bridges and transportation terminals in Iraq. But it wound up only refurbishing a handful of train depots, reported the Los Angeles Times. Construction sites came under small-arms and mortar fire, and earlier this year, an Egyptian driver working for the company was kidnapped by insurgents. His body was found 12 days later, with five bullet holes to the head.
December 21st, 2004
ACLU: FBI Ruse Used in Guantanamo Abuse
By John J. Lumpkin / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A civil liberties group is charging that military interrogators at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, some posing as FBI agents, humiliated and abused detainees, including inserting lit cigarettes in their ears.
Releasing e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday one detainee was wrapped in an Israeli flag and some were shackled hand and foot in fetal positions for 18 to 24 hours, forcing them to soil themselves.
The ACLU said e-mails suggested "inhumane interrogation methods" approved by President Bush — a charge the White House vigorously denied.
The military operation at Guantanamo Bay has come under increased scrutiny as former prisoners have alleged they were tortured. The Pentagon maintains it runs a humane operation there and investigates all allegations of abuse.
The e-mails released by the ACLU include a report by an FBI agent who witnessed "numerous physical abuse incidents of Iraqi civilian detainees" including choking, beatings and placing lighted cigarettes inside ears. One detainee, according to an e-mail report, had been left in a room at near 100 degrees and had pulled out his hair during the night.
One detainee was interrogated while wrapped in an Israeli flag and bombarded with loud music and strobe lights, according to an FBI agent's account contained in an e-mail posted on the ACLU Web site.
According to the e-mails, FBI officials disapproved of the practice of military interrogators posing as federal agents.
Posing as FBI agents is not on a list of interrogation methods approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. The Pentagon is investigating the allegations.
The White House denied a suggestion in an FBI e-mail dated May 22, 2004, that Bush personally signed off on certain interrogation techniques in an executive order.
The ACLU's disclosures primarily constitute e-mails between FBI officials whose names the government removed before releasing them. In several, the writers describe and criticize various interrogation techniques they say they witnessed at Guantanamo.
A Guantanamo prisoner has, in a court petition, described detainees wrapped in Israeli flags, among other allegations. At the time, a Guantanamo Bay spokesman denied his statements.
While military interrogators are performing much of the questioning at Guantanamo, the FBI and CIA also have operations there.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said the FBI documents continue to show the U.S. government was "torturing individuals in some instances" and demonstrates a major rift between FBI agents and the military over proper interrogation techniques.
"There was real concern within our law enforcement community about whether we are torturing individuals," Romero said.
In other developments, a military review found a second Guantanamo prisoner wrongly classified as an enemy combatant, and he will be released soon to his home country, Navy Secretary Gordon England said Monday.
The newest prisoner to face release would be the second freed under a military process instituted after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer that prisoners at Guantanamo could challenge their detentions through the U.S. court system.
To bolster its case for each of the prisoners against any such challenge, the Pentagon set up tribunals to review circumstances of each man's capture to determine whether they are properly held.
Of the roughly 200 detainees already released, at least a dozen have returned to the battlefield. More than 300 additional cases are still being reviewed.
Separately Monday, a federal judge in New York said he would deny a government request to delay a review of whether certain CIA internal files related to Iraq should be made public.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein's comments marked a victory for the ACLU and other groups seeking information about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and in Iraq.
December 20th, 2004
Bush Comes to Rumsfeld's Defense
WASHINGTON - President Bush defended embattled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday, saying the Pentagon chief was doing "a really fine job."
Bush answered indirectly when asked at a news conference about his view of Rumsfeld's use of a mechanical device to sign letters of condolence to military families. That practice drew criticism from lawmakers of both parties, and Rumsfeld has since dropped it.
The president did not directly offer his opinion of Rumsfeld's practice, but said, "I have heard the anguish in his voice and seen his eyes when we talk about the danger in Iraq and the fact that youngsters are over there in harm's way. And he's a good, decent man. He's a caring fellow."
Congressional criticism of Rumsfeld has also mounted over the escalating violence and other problems in Iraq, with a growing number of lawmakers issuing statements of no-confidence in the Pentagon chief.
Asked about the broader criticism, Bush said: "I believe he's doing a really fine job."
He praised Rumsfeld for leading major reforms of the size and deployments of the U.S. military.
Leading senators on two key committees said that while Rumsfeld should shoulder his share of blame for escalating problems in Iraq he should not step down — yet.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the Armed Services Committee chairman, said a change of civilian leadership at the Pentagon now would be too disruptive, given the scheduled Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.
"We should not at this point in time entertain any idea of changing those responsibilities," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, said Monday problems in the conduct of the war in Iraq and its aftermath were caused by the administration's wrongheaded policies and should therefore be laid at President Bush's door.
"If I thought those policies would change by changing the secretary of defense, I'd be all for it," Levin said on CNN. "But I don't see that that is the ticket to policy changes."
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday, "We really can't go through that ordeal" now of finding a successor. Rumsfeld "should be held accountable, and he should stay in office," Lugar said.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., saying he had no confidence in Rumsfeld, nevertheless stopped short of calling on the secretary to step down. "I find it astounding. ... Things are worse than they've ever been" in Iraq, Hagel said on CBS' "Face the Nation." He said it was up to President Bush whether to replace Rumsfeld.
More than 1,300 American troops have died since the war began in March 2003. Meanwhile, soldiers have complained about long deployments and a lack of armored vehicles and other equipment.
Rumsfeld's since-abandoned use of a mechanical device to sign letters of condolence had added to the criticism by Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, and others.
Rumsfeld agreed to Bush's request this month to stay in the Cabinet during the president's second term.
But critics have raised questions about whether enough U.S. troops are in Iraq to bring security. Iraq's interim president, Ghazi al-Yawar, said last week the U.S.-led coalition made a mistake by dismantling Iraqi security forces after last year's invasion.
Iraqi leaders have also said that former army officers and police officers with clean records should be reinstated to help organize the Iraqi military.
Levin said he supported that idea, and the United States also must reach out to Arab countries to help persuade Iraq's Muslims of the Sunni sect to participate in the election despite the increased violence.
The administration's biggest mistake in Iraq was the rapid disbanding of military forces after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled "and not trying to maintain some of it in place to have continuity and to rapidly put together a security force," Warner said.
Rumsfeld's performance has also come under criticism from Republican Sens. Trent Lott of Mississippi and John McCain of Arizona, among others, as well as Democrats.
Lott said last week that Rumsfeld did not listen to uniformed officers and that Bush should make a change at the Pentagon in the next year or so.
December 20th, 2004
Majority of Americans want Rumsfeld out
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A majority of Americans want Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to step down, according to a poll released, as the Pentagon chief faces a barrage of criticism over his handling of the Iraq war.
The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows 52 percent of Americans surveyed want Rumsfeld to resign, while only 36 percent say the embattled defense secretary should remain at the post he has held since 2001.
His approval rating has dropped from 71 percent in April 2003, when Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was toppled, to 41 percent in the new poll.
Rumsfeld has come under fire on a range of issues from prisoner abuse in Iraq to his alleged insensitivity to equipment problems plaguing US troops. He faced new heat after reports he used a machine to sign his condolence letters to families of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Despite mounting criticism from US lawmakers, including fellow Republicans, President George W. Bush defended Rumsfeld during a news conference Monday, saying the Pentagon chief was doing "a really fine job" and would stay on.
Bush undertook a cabinet shake-up after his November 2 re-election, but he decided to keep Rumsfeld in his administration for his second term.
The president's popularity has also fallen, from 55 percent in November to 49 percent now, according to the poll.
"Bush is the first incumbent president to have an approval rating below 50 percent one month after winning re-election," CNN said.
On Iraq, 47 percent of Americans say the situation in the war-wracked country has worsened during the past year, while 20 percent say it has improved.
Only 15 percent believe US troops will leave the country a year after Iraq's January 30 elections.
The telephone poll was conducted among 1,002 people between Friday and Sunday. Depending on the question, the margin of error ranges between three and 4.5 percentage points.
December 19th, 2004
Republicans and neo-cons call for 'arrogant' Rumsfeld to quit
By Rupert Cornwell / The Independent
Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, is under attack from fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill for not sending more troops to Iraq, and for failing to provide enough protection for those who are there.
Only a fortnight ago, the White House announced that President George Bush had asked Mr Rumsfeld, 72, to stay on into his second term. Since then at least four senior Republican senators, as well as William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, the neo-conservatives' house magazine, have called for his dismissal.
Mr Rumsfeld's latest troubles began when he shrugged off a US National Guardsman's complaint that military vehicles did not have adequate armour. "You have to go to war with the army you have, not the army you might like," he responded in words seized on by critics as evidence of arrogance and being out of touch with the reality of a war in which some 1,300 US soldiers have been killed.
The remark was "very troubling", said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, adding her voice to those of John McCain, Chuck Nagel and Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader.
The US National Guard also announced yesterday that its recruiting was running 30 per cent below requirements, raising the risk of manpower strains. The Guard accounts for a quarter of total US troop strength in Iraq, crucial in the run-up to the elections scheduled for the end of January.
But for Mr Rumsfeld to step down now would amount to an admission that major mistakes had been made in Iraq - highly unlikely from a president who is famously reluctant to admit to the slightest error.
The grumbling is also audible within the military high command at the Pentagon, which has long been unhappy at Mr Rumsfeld's insistence on fighting the war in Iraq with what, in their view, is too small a force without enough armour.
General Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander in the 1990-91 Gulf War, said: "I was angry when he laid it all on the army, as if he, as the Secretary of Defence, didn't have anything to do with the army."
December 17th, 2004
Earth-Hostile Chemical Gets White House OK
By John Heilprin / Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration announced new rules Thursday to allow U.S. farmers who grow tomatoes, strawberries and other crops to continue using methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting pesticide that had been scheduled to be phased out worldwide next year.
The United States was among a dozen nations that won continued ``critical use'' exemptions from the phase-out at negotiations in Prague, Czech Republic last month. International negotiators granted the United States request to continue using the popular killer of insects and weeds at a rate of 37 percent, or 5,550 tons, of the 15,000 tons used in 1991.
The new rules take effect on Jan. 1 and allow most of the methyl bromide to be used by producers and importers of crops, with the rest allotted to distributors and other users.
Agency officials said in a statement the rules they were putting in place represent ``the most simple and least burdensome option.''
But in 2006, the United States may have to scale back to 27 percent, or 4,050 tons, at the insistence of international negotiators for meeting the goals of the United Nations' 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
Environmentalists say the United States habitually asks for far more than it needs and should not be seeking continued exemptions.
``Catering to a handful of big chemical and agribusiness interests, the Bush administration is actually expanding the use of this dangerous, ozone-destroying chemical,'' said David Doniger, a policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
December 17th, 2004
Rumsfeld should resign, Sen. Bayh says; Indiana Democrat makes comments to media as effort to oust defense chief grows.
By Terry HorneThe Indianapolis Star
Sen. Evan Bayh suggested Thursday that it was time for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to step down.
The Indiana Democrat made his comments to both National Public Radio and The Indianapolis Star as a "no-confidence" movement gained momentum in the Senate.
In recent days, Republican senators John McCain of Arizona, Trent Lott of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska have expressed doubts about Rumsfeld's ability to wage the war in Iraq.
Bayh went a bit further. Pressed on NPR on whether he personally believed Rumsfeld should step down, Bayh said, "I do."
In an interview later with The Indianapolis Star, Bayh said he isn't "a big fan of calling for people's scalps when things don't go well.
"(But) people have to be held accountable," he said. "Significant mistakes have been made. Lives are at risk."
Still, asked how long Rumsfeld could last, Bayh said: "I think he'll stay on as long as the president thinks he's serving him well."
Bayh, who returned Tuesday from a congressional trip to Iraq and Kuwait, said Rumsfeld hasn't shown any ability to learn from his mistakes.
"If you're going to go to war, plan for the worst. In this case they planned for the best and some of the worst has happened. They just don't seem to be capable of learning from that," he told the Star.
Bayh described the two most significant mistakes as not sending enough troops to Iraq initially and sending home the bulk of the Iraqi army -- those holding the rank of major and below. Likewise, the country's bureaucrats also were sent home. Both groups, Bayh said, could have been used to help rebuild the country.
"Many of them are Sunni Muslims, and we told them, 'You have no future in Iraq.' And guess what. After two years of unemployment and being told they have no future, many of them have decided to fight us."
Last week, Rumsfeld reignited the debate about troop readiness when he visited troops in the Middle East. Asked by a soldier stationed in Kuwait about shortages of armored vehicles, Rumsfeld responded that "You go to war with the Army you have."
Bayh said the lack of armor, the problem that coincided with the latest outlash against Rumsfeld, developed over two years -- and persisted for a year after Congress began calling attention to it.
"They've had to be drug along. There hasn't been any sense of urgency," he said.
Bayh, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told NPR he found it "mind-boggling" that the Pentagon hadn't pushed manufacturers to make more armored vehicles.
Wednesday, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., urged Rumsfeld's ouster because of the Pentagon chief's failure to call for more troops in Iraq and to properly equip troops there.
Speaking to a local Chamber of Commerce in Mississippi, Lott said Wednesday, "I am not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld. I don't think he listens to his uniformed officers." Lott said Rumsfeld should not be forced to resign immediately, but he added that he "would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so."
In recent days, conservative Republican Sens. John McCain, of Arizona; Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska; and Norm Coleman, of Minnesota, raised public concerns about Rumsfeld's management of the war. William Kristol, a former GOP White House aide and a leading conservative commentator, and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, senior commander during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, also have offered harsh indictments.
President Bush has no plans to replace the defense secretary as the Iraq war approaches a critical crossroads, with the scheduled Iraqi elections only one month away, officials say.
"The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a great job, and that's why he asked him to continue serving during this time of war," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "I think that Secretary Rumsfeld continues to do a great job while we're at war."
Tuesday, Dec. 14th, 2004
McCain: 'No confidence' in Rumsfeld
PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- U.S. Sen. John McCain said Monday that he has "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, citing Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq and the failure to send more troops.
McCain, speaking to The Associated Press in an hourlong interview, said his comments were not a call for Rumsfeld's resignation, explaining that President Bush "can have the team that he wants around him."
Asked about his confidence in the secretary's leadership, McCain recalled fielding a similar question a couple weeks ago.
"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence," McCain said.
He estimated an additional 80,000 Army personnel and 20,000 to 30,000 more Marines would be needed to secure Iraq.
"I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops -- linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.," said McCain, R-Arizona. "There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."
When asked if Rumsfeld was a liability to the Bush administration, McCain responded: "The president can decide that, not me."
McCain, a decorated Navy veteran and former Vietnam prisoner of war, is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has oversight of military operations and considerable influence over the Pentagon budget.
If Senate Republicans maintain their majority two years from now, McCain would be in line to become the committee's chairman, something he said he'd weigh when considering whether to run for president again.
"In a couple of years I might give it some consideration, but not right now," he said of a 2008 presidential bid.
Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said McCain "has frequently expressed his views regarding troop levels in Iraq, and he is an important member" of the committee.
Rumsfeld has "relied upon the judgment of the military commanders to determine what force levels are appropriate for the situation at hand," Di Rita said.
Despite the troop levels, McCain believes military morale remains high, but he acknowledged that involuntary extensions of tours of duty were frustrating to soldiers.
He said Iraq must have a functioning independent government before U.S. troops leave.
"I believe we'll be in Iraq militarily for many years, which would not be a problem to the American people," he said. "I think what is not acceptable to the American people is an increasing flow of dead and wounded."
Monday, Dec. 13th, 2004
Polls: Europe Negative on Bush Re-Election |
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By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - International resentment of the Bush administration has spilled over to include bad feelings for the American people, too — at least in three European countries that opposed U.S. policies in Iraq.
People in France, Germany and Spain are more likely to have an unfavorable than favorable view of Americans, Associated Press polling found.
Just over half in France and Germany said they viewed Americans unfavorably. Almost half in Spain felt that way, while a third of Spaniards viewed Americans favorably.
The U.S. rift with longtime allies France and Germany is the most serious in years, and relations with Spain have been particularly frosty since Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq last April.
President Bush (news - web sites) pledged soon after his re-election victory on Nov. 2 that he would work to "deepen our trans-Atlantic ties with the nations of Europe." He plans a trip to Europe in February.
But the president, and Americans generally, have plenty of work to do to win over Europeans, according to international AP-Ipsos polls.
The polling suggests an increasing lack of European understanding of Americans rather than a surge of anti-Americanism, said Gilles Corman, the director of public affairs for Ipsos-Inra of Belgium.
Polling in the United States as well as Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Spain was done for the AP by Ipsos, an international polling company.
A majority of people in Britain, France, Germany and Spain said they were disappointed by Bush's re-election.
"Above all, they appear to be worried about the consequences of this election," Corman said. "The predominant feelings about Bush's re-election in the European countries are disappointment and surprise more than anger."
Bush's re-election was greeted with dismay by many in Europe and prompted negative headlines in various newspapers.
"How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the Daily Mirror, a liberal tabloid in Britain that opposed the war in Iraq.
In France, Bush's re-election drew headlines like the left-leaning Liberation's "L'empire empire," a play on words that means "The Empire gets worse."
In Spain, relations with the United States have deteriorated since Zapatero's Socialist party unexpectedly won the March 14 general election just three days after the Madrid commuter train bombings. The terror attacks turned public opinion against conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch Bush ally.
In Australia, Canada, Britain and Italy, people had a negative view of Bush, but a majority in those countries said they viewed Americans favorably.
"The negative view that Canadians have of George Bush (news - web sites) does not extend to Americans in general," said Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs-North America.
In Canada, about six in 10 Canadians said they were disappointed with the re-election. The president was asked last month during a trip to Canada about various polls that show Canadians and Americans drifting apart.
"We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to — stay in place for four more years," Bush replied.
As reflected by his re-election, a majority in the United States view Bush favorably. Just over half in this country said they were hopeful and were not disappointed after the election.
The AP-Ipsos polls of about 1,000 adults in each country were taken between Nov. 19-27 and have margins of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
November 30th, 2004 6:56 pm
Demonstrators greet Bush in Canada
CNN
OTTAWA, Canada (AP) -- Holding up signs calling U.S. President George W. Bush a "war criminal" and "liar," a few thousand demonstrators rallied in the Canadian capital Tuesday to protest his visit, the U.S.-led war in Iraq and a host of other issues.
Organizers said about 5,000 people, many of whom rode buses overnight from across Ontario and Quebec, held a rally at Ottawa's City Hall before a planned march on Canada's Parliament buildings. Police put the figure at between 2,500 to 3,000.
Making his first official visit to Canada, Bush arrived Tuesday for talks with Prime Minister Paul Martin. Bush was welcomed by many placards and signs along his motorcade route, including a truck parked nearby that was emblazoned with the phrase "Bush is a war criminal." Another placard branded him an "assassin."
Much the anger seemed focused on Bush's decision to invade Iraq. Canada decided against sending troops to Iraq -- a decision supported by more than 80 percent of Canadians.
"Canada is not against America. We're totally against Bush," explained Fredric White, a 40-year-old who works for an entertainment company, who stood by the Parliament building as the president's motorcade arrived.
"He's arrogant and ignorant. We totally disdain his policies on the war and his treatment of the U.N.," White said. "The administration has an imperialist attitude where he thinks he can take over countries by bombing them."
One group, the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, planned to roll out a so-called "unwelcome mat" for Bush -- a giant carpet-turned-protest-sign.
Protesters also voiced disapproval over trade issues and U.S. efforts to get Canada involved in the continental missile defense shield.
Christy Ferguson, a 27-year-old activist with Greenpeace, held a large banner saying "Stop Star Wars."
"We think Canada shouldn't even be talking to the U.S. about missile defense because it's driving nuclear proliferation around the world," she said.
Martin has promised an open debate in the House of Commons on whether Canada should take part in the defense program. Polls show a majority of Canadians are against joining the system, calling it destabilizing and a misguided effort to put weapons in space.
An Ipsos-Reid/CTV poll released Tuesday shows 58 percent of Canadians think Bush's re-election was a "bad thing," while 26 percent believed it was good. The poll surveyed 1,000 Canadians and had an margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Joe Cressy, an organizer for the anti-Bush rally and a student at Carlton University in Ottawa, called the protests a "direct communication link to Bush" -- but also "a message to our prime minister that he should not support Bush's policies."
Gathered at the City Hall rally, Lawrence Wueft, a 60-year-old sculptor from the eastern province of New Brunswick held up a banner made from a bed sheet that read: "Bush, go home. Keep your bloody hands off Canada."
"Bush, you're involved in an illegal war. Don't involve Canada in that illegal war," he said.
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