Religious Liberals Doing Good

This via Chuck Currie's blog:

Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Prayer Breakfast Canceled

It is wonderful that so many people took the time to e-mail Mayor Drake to offer support for his decision. Hopefully, the Beaverton-Tigard Chapter of the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship & Concerned Citizens will use this experience to learn more about the Muslim faith and consider sponsoring interfaith events in the future if they intend to hold events with public officials.

Cracked Catholic Reporting

In a redemptive moment, Atrios and a reader did a great job of deconstructing Barbara Bradley Hagarty's crappy "Kerry and Catholicism" story on Morning Edition this morning (sniff, g'bye, Bob)>

(Reader k): In many ways a decent, straight-up piece of reporting, but her main "expert" was someone who contrasted Catholics who believe in "absolute truth" and follow all church teachings and vote overwhelmingly Republican, with those who feel that their morality is for them but don't see it as a universal standard to be applied to everyone, and of course he brought up the "cafeteria Catholic" label, conveniently ignoring that many of those in favor of "absolute truth" vote for pro-death-penalty politicians and pro-Iraq-war politicians, thus contradicting their spiritual leader. And I'm not in their bedrooms, but I'm guessing they're not all sticking to the rhythm method.

And, more generally, the reporter didn't bother to ask any questions about the numerous pro-Choice Catholic Republicans.

Charles Pierce in his Slacker Friday appearance at Altercation elaborates with a truism that I don't think I've heard mentioned in public before:

Speaking of whom, I continue to follow with interest the Papist issue in this presidential campaign, ever since the national political press began channelling Gregory VII a few weeks back.

There is a reason for this, although the R's don't like to mention it in polite society. It is because they depend so vitally -- especially in the South -- on the Christian fundamentalist community and, to those folks, the pope is pretty much still the "whore of Babylon." (Google up Bob Jones University and Papacy some time, just for a laugh.) A Catholic on a Republican ticket would quietly doom it in a lot of places where the ticket couldn't afford to be weakened. Now, the crowd at Crisis Magazine, and some conservative Catholic thinkers, have tried to make common cause with the political end of Protestant fundamentalism, but they look like idiots trying to do so. It is preposterous -- even in politics -- to pretend that there is a single "Christian" view on, say, taxation, when there isn't even a single "Christian" view on Jesus Christ, let alone to whom he entrusted his message.

OUTRAGE

What the US papers don't say

Michael Hann examines the air of secrecy and silence surrounding the US media's treatment of George Bush's 'war on terror'

Friday April 30, 2004

American contractors and soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in a prison outside Baghdad? A huge story, by anyone's standards, surely, especially when pictures of the abuse were broadcast on the US TV network CBS.

So it was no surprise that newspapers around the world made huge, horrified play of the events at the Abu Ghraib prison. It was more of a surprise, however, that the story did not receive the same level of coverage in the US papers.

The Baltimore Sun, however, was damning in its verdict. "Television footage of the mistreatment of Iraqi war prisoners by their American captors was shockingly disturbing and hauntingly reminiscent of the horror stories from the regime of Saddam Hussein," it said. Punishment of those responsible, it added, would not on its own be sufficient response. "The Pentagon must be held accountable if the military failed to provide the training, staffing, supervision and leadership required to ensure that prisoners of war are treated humanely."

Perhaps the difference between the US coverage and that elsewhere should have been expected. CBS admitted it had come under severe pressure from the Pentagon not to broadcast the images, and the issue of what is and what is not fit for US public consumption has been an ongoing theme, applicable to events both domestic and foreign.

Tonight, for example, the ABC network's Nightline programme is to feature host Ted Koppel reading the names of all members of the American military killed in Iraq, while pictures of them appear on screen. But, as the New York Daily News reported, one local broadcasting group that controls eight ABC-affiliated stations has "angrily pulled" the show, claiming the naming of the dead "is a blatant anti-war ploy".

The White House reacted angrily last week to the publication of the flag-draped coffins of US soldiers who have died in Iraq. But Daniel Schorr, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, wondered why. "Considering that no individual identification is visible in the pictures, it is hard to understand the justification for clamping the secrecy lid on the solemn procession of flag-draped coffins being carried off the cargo planes," he wrote. "I cannot avoid the suspicion that President George Bush - who has yet to attend to a funeral service for any of the honoured dead that he has sent to war - has no interest in calling attention to the mounting number of casualties in a battle that was far from over last May 1, when the president declared 'major combat operations' in Iraq had ended."

The appearance yesterday of Mr Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney before the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks provided another example of the debate. "There was no press coverage allowed, no recording, no transcript to be made available later, no testimony given under oath - and no good reason for any of it," said the Boston Globe.

"Mr Bush, who pulled the nation together in 2001, might have done so again yesterday by displaying a willingness to be open - at least in transcript form - about what may have gone wrong on his watch ... [And] going public before the commission with that attitude might have won Mr Bush international respect."

As Alessandra Stanley put it in the New York Times: "On a day when viewers could watch American marines battling rebels in Falluja and see Jayson Williams squirm in his courtroom seat while awaiting a verdict on manslaughter charges, the blackout at the White House was striking; throughout the day, the torrent of words used on cable news shows to describe the meeting ('exceptionally rare', 'extraordinary', 'historic') clashed almost comically with the meagre visual images ... The nonvisual event was so anathema to television that at one point, the CNN anchor Daryn Kagan said it seemed as if 'the event took place in the 18th century'."

ITV in talks for Iraq torture report

Patrick Barrett
Friday April 30, 2004

ITV is hoping to broadcast tonight the American current affairs show that revealed to the world the shocking photographic evidence that US soldiers had tortured Iraqi prisoners held in a Baghdad jail.

The station is in talks with CBS, the US network that yesterday broadcast the 60 Minutes report containing disturbing images of abuse and torture, in a bid to secure the rights to show the full story today at 8pm, in place of Trevor McDonald's Tonight.

But talks centre on persuading CBS to relax the strict condition that if ITV buys the programme it must transmit it in its entirety, even though the report accounts for just 13 minutes of the hour-long show.

"We are negotiating with CBS but their policy does seem to have created some transmission difficulties, but we are trying to resolve them," said Steve Anderson, ITV's head of current affairs for ITV News.

The images of Iraqi prisoners humiliated by their American guards were shown on British news bulletins last night in a 40-second clip released by CBS on the condition that it was not edited.

CNN is broadcasting the Michael Jackson arraignment live. The Iraq prison story got 30 seconds. We are now well into 10 minutes on Michael Jackson.

UPDATE: The WaPo buries it on A24. Can't find anything in the NYT.

The Guardian further reports:

Amnesty International said today it had received numerous other reports of torture by coalition forces, of which "virtually none ... has been adequately investigated by the authorities".

The human rights organisation said: "Our extensive research in Iraq suggests that this is not an isolated incident. It is not enough for the USA to react only once images have hit the television screens."

"There must be a fully independent, impartial and public investigation into all allegations of torture. Nothing less will suffice."

This morning Mr Blair's human rights envoy to Iraq, Ann Clwyd, also branded pictures of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners "absolutely terrible" - but insisted the abuses were "only a small number of cases".

General Disaster

LOU DOBBS: My next guest says the United States has failed in Iraq and it should leave immediately. General William Odom directed the National Security Agency under President Reagan, served on President Carter's National Security Council. He is the co-author of a new book called "America's Inadvertent Empire."

ODOM: Thank you.

Legionairies

Rebuilding Aid Unspent, Tapped to Pay Expenses

By Jonathan Weisman and Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A01

Seven months after Congress approved the largest foreign aid package in history to rebuild Iraq, less than 5 percent of the $18.4 billion has been spent and occupation officials have begun shifting more than $300 million earmarked for reconstruction projects to administrative and security expenses.

Recent reports from the Coalition Provisional Authority, the CPA's inspector general and the U.S. Agency for International Development attest to the growing difficulties of the U.S.-led reconstruction effort. And they have raised concerns in Congress and among international aid experts that the Bush administration's ambitious rebuilding campaign is adrift amid rising violence and unforeseen costs.

Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, cited "bureaucratic infighting" and a "loss of central command and control" at a hearing yesterday as he sharply questioned top administration officials: "I have very serious concerns about the pace of assistance in Iraq and the management of those funds."

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz pointed to successes in rebuilding and blamed contracting snafus for some of the delays. But Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary at the State Department, which will take over from the CPA this summer, refused to make what he called "excuses."

"Of course we're not satisfied," he said. "We feel the same sense of urgency that Paul feels to get on with it."

Of the $18.4 billion in Iraqi aid approved by Congress in October, just $2.3 billion had been steered to projects through March 24, the CPA told Congress this month. Only $1 billion has actually been spent, the authority's inspector general told congressional aides Monday. In January, the CPA had said it had planned to spend nearly $8 billion during the first six months of this fiscal year.
....
Administration officials said the money was taken from drinking-water projects because such projects have been allocated $2.8 billion through 2005, of which only $14 million has been channeled to projects. They said they felt it would be easier to take the full $184 million they were allowed to shift to CPA expenses from one place, rather than siphoning off smaller amounts from various accounts.

"We worked with Congress to develop a package of options to ensure the embassy would have needed resources," said White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton. "We are continuing to work with Capitol Hill as the process moves forward."

Attacks on foreign civilians have also made the CPA reassess its plan for rebuilding the Iraqi security forces. Some $93 million has been reallocated from facilities protection, border enforcement and the Iraqi Armed Forces to build a fortified police training facility in Baghdad, in addition to an $800 million training academy in Jordan. The reason is that international police trainers needed a secure place to work in the Iraqi capital, said Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee responsible for aid funding.

Almost since the very beginning, the reconstruction of Iraq has been set back by problems including the widespread looting in the country and competition between various U.S. agencies. "At its worst," Kolbe said yesterday, the infighting "has led to different parts of the U.S. government pursuing different policies in a given country."

The first set of contracts was awarded before the war ended, and occupation authorities reported significant progress in rebuilding schools and power plants by last fall. But turning the new round of congressional funding into visible projects and jobs has been hampered by continuing administrative and security problems.

Shortly after Congress approved the funds in mid-November, senior government officials became embroiled in a debate over who would manage the money and whether proper financial controls were in place. The Pentagon had set up a new entity called the Program Management Office to coordinate between the various contracting agencies. Some officials argued that the idea of the new office was too experimental and that it might be better for USAID or another agency to take over. The result was that the first major group of contracts were awarded in March, instead of February.

The Program Management Office Web site now says $1.5 billion in work is "under way" on 42 projects, and its director, David J. Nash, a retired Navy rear admiral, said in Iraq last week that $5 billion of the funds "will be committed to construction" by July 1.

Meanwhile, the deteriorating security situation has forced CPA officials to change some spending priorities.

USAID spokesman Luke Zahner said the shift of funds from "democracy building," electricity, education and water to agency overhead was a technical adjustment. Limited funds were allocated for operations by Congress because it was unclear last fall which agency would oversee which projects in Iraq, he said.

Most of the reallocation is for security, said Lu'ay Eris, deputy president of Baghdad City Council, which he called a reasonable decision.

Not water, not oil, not sewers. The money is going to the mercs. Just thought you'd want to know.

Early Handicapping

GOP Infighting Boosts the Odds for Democrats in Senate Races

BY JOHN FARMER
c.2004 Newhouse News Service

PHILADELPHIA -- Republicans face an unexpectedly stiff challenge this fall to their control of the U.S. Senate -- complicated by a bitter battle for the Pennsylvania GOP Senate nomination Tuesday and a sharp shift in political winds since the start of the year.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Although they hold a fragile 51-48-1 Senate majority (with the one independent aligned with the Democrats), Republicans seemed a safe bet only four months ago to hold that advantage and maybe even add to it. Not only were more Democrat-held seats on the ballot this year -- 19 to 15 for the GOP -- but five veteran Democrats in the now solidly Republican Southeast were calling it quits.

And for added insurance, there was the prospect of running with George W. Bush, a wartime president leading the fight against terrorism, at the top of the ticket.

But events have upset that rosy scenario. The war in Iraq has taken a nasty turn and Bush finds himself hard-pressed by Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. At the same time, incumbent Republican senators in Oklahoma, Colorado and Illinois have announced they're quitting, raising Democratic prospects in those states.

To add to the turnabout, Bush's political guru, Karl Rove, has been less than successful in persuading his top choices to seek Senate seats in some key states, while Democratic recruiters, according to Stuart Rothenberg, an independent Washington-based political analyst, have "gotten some terrific candidates."

Of the 34 Senate seats on this year's ballot, only 10 are considered truly competitive, six now in Democratic hands, four held by Republicans. But it is an 11th seat, the one held by Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Arlen Specter, 74, a 24-year incumbent, that's drawing the most early interest.

And with good reason. The outcome of the GOP primary in Pennsylvania could determine which party controls the Senate next January. Whoever is president will need Senate control to advance his agenda and control judicial and other appointments.

Specter's primary battle with U.S. Rep. Patrick Toomey of Allentown is a classic clash of ideologies and a microcosm of the war within the GOP between the dominant conservatives and a dwindling band of moderates.

This story moved on Monday, and, of course, we know Specter beat Toomey on Tuesday, but the rest of the speculation stands. I love the smell of hope in the morning.

"This is a national story and it has moderate Republicans scared to death. Who'd want to go through what Specter is going through?" Robb said, especially after Specter's 24 years of service and seniority that will make him chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee if he's re-elected and Republicans retain control.

Jennifer Duffy, who monitors Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C., also says the battle for Senate control has changed markedly in the last six months from a slam-dunk for Republicans to one in which Democrats suddenly "have prospects."

Originally, the retirement of Democratic incumbents in five Southeastern states was seen as guaranteeing a hefty gain for Republicans. Now, Duffy said, only Georgia, where conservative Democrat Zell Miller is packing his bags, tilts clearly toward the GOP. In Louisiana, Florida and the two Carolinas, well-financed Democrats have made those races too close to call, she said. In addition, both North and South Carolina have suffered serious job losses to globalization, an issue Democrats have been exploiting.

"It could come down in those states to who has credibility on jobs and trade," Duffy said.

Resignations also have created some unexpected vulnerabilities for the GOP. Republican Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell in Colorado and Don Nickles in Oklahoma, both heavy re-election favorites, and Peter Fitzgerald in Illinois, who faced a tough fight, all opted to call it a day, allowing Democrats to lure fairly strong candidates into those races.

Then there's the issue of nepotism in Alaska.

The Republican incumbent, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, got her job through her father, Frank, who appointed her his replacement when he quit the Senate after being elected governor. Lisa Murkowski is an attractive, articulate candidate, according to Duffy, but the favoritism in her selection doesn't sit well with some Alaskans. To make matters worse, her father's administration has run into charges that he bought off some potential rivals to Lisa with state appointments. And his state chairman is under an ethics cloud.

"Lisa's biggest liability certainly is her father," says Andrew Halcro, a former Alaska GOP legislator.

In recent years, money has been a problem for Democrats in battles for the Senate and House of Representatives. But less so this time, according to Russell Hemenway of the National Committee for an Effective Congress, which raises funds for liberal Senate and House candidates. "They all appear to have enough," he said. " Maybe not enough to match Republicans, but enough to wage a real campaign."

The fact that so few Democratic Senate candidates face a primary fight also has helped, he said.

In contrast, Republicans are beset with primary contests. There are multiple candidates in most of the states considered close races, a sure drain on resources for November.

Despite the improved Democratic prospects, both Rothenberg and Duffy give the edge to Republicans in the fall. Rothenberg said the GOP should break even -- holding its slender majority -- "or even gain one seat."

"I'd make it 60-40 for the Republicans," Duffy said of the GOP's odds. "But six months ago I'd have made it 90-10."

New Meme: Profesionalism

Don Wycliff:
Bush reaping the benefits of journalistic professionalism
Covering an inarticulate president

Published April 29, 2004

Why is the press protecting George W. Bush?

You heard me right, Russ. And Larry. And Byron. And all the rest of you folks who pen those jeering notes to me every day about anti-Bush bias in the Tribune's news reports.

Why is the Democrat-loving, Republican-hating, pond scum-swilling, lower-than-the-rug-on-the-floor, biased, liberal [curl upper lip when pronouncing] press protecting George W. Bush?
....
I can't prove it, but I would bet that most of the editors and publishers went away from the speech wondering why Bush, who long ago proved that he is no extemporaneous speaker, hadn't ordered up an address for the occasion from his stable of White House speechwriters. I heard more than one of those in attendance say the same thing: "He wasted an opportunity."

But you didn't read about any of that, because the reporters, trained to seek meaning and the meaningful in any utterance by the president, focused on what could be understood.

Bush has benefited from this journalistic professionalism throughout his presidency. In a column almost two years ago, in July 2002, I quoted the complaint of a reader who claimed we had misquoted the president's statement in a press conference denying any "`malfeasance' in his business dealings prior to becoming president."

"The word that he actually used ... sounded to me something like `misfeance'--something which is not a word in any dictionary I've ever seen," the reader, Sean Barnawell of Chicago, wrote. "I feel the Tribune should not be in the business of `cleansing' what the president says in order to make him sound more articulate than he is."

I replied thus: "Ideally, we would have a president so articulate that we would never be in doubt as to what he said. In reality, we have one who regularly mispronounces. ... This confronts us with the question whether our purpose is to transmit to readers what the president means when he speaks out or to simply relate what he says. I have always felt that transmitting meaning is paramount. .."

And so "nuculer" becomes "nuclear" in the newspaper. And "misfeance," unknown to any dictionary, becomes "malfeasance," because an experienced White House reporter has learned to translate Bushspeak.

Bush benefits from the reporters' professionalism. And his cheering section jeers from the sidelines about journalistic "bias."

Wycliffe correctly identifies the syndrome==Bush apologetics==but chalking press whorage up to "professionalism" is just goofy. This is the same garbage that David Ignatius was peddling in the WaPo on Tuesday:

A Feb. 17 article in the Times about what could go wrong in Iraq included this haunting quotation from an unnamed senior official: "We still do not know how U.S. forces will be received. Will it be cheers, jeers or shots? And the fact is, we won't know until we get there." Even though it was a blind quotation, that should have been a red flag to every editor and columnist in America. But it wasn't.

The uniformed military privately had serious questions about the Iraq mission, but these only occasionally made their way into print. A rare example is a March 11, 2003, story in The Post by Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks, which began: "The U.S. Army is bracing for war in Iraq and a postwar occupation that could tie up two to three Army divisions in an open-ended mission that would strain the all-volunteer force and put soldiers in the midst of warring ethnic and religious factions, Army officers and other senior defense officials say." Again, that story should have been a red flag.

In a sense, the media were victims of their own professionalism. Because there was little criticism of the war from prominent Democrats and foreign policy analysts, journalistic rules meant we shouldn't create a debate on our own. And because major news organizations knew the war was coming, we spent a lot of energy in the last three months before the war preparing to cover it -- arranging for reporters to be embedded with military units, purchasing chemical and biological weapons gear and setting up forward command posts in Kuwait that mirrored those of the U.S. military.

Bob Somerby deconstructs:

On what planet are these people found? According to Ignatius, because neither party was blast-faxing warnings, “journalistic rules” meant that scribes couldn’t raise concerns by themselves! (His claim that “policy analysts” weren’t voicing concern is so absurd that, as a courtesy, we’ll avert our gaze from the remark.) And by the way, can this astonishing “explanation” really appear in the Washington Post? We wonder if Woodward and Bernstein had heard of these rules—if they knew that journalists can’t report facts until the two parties have sent them a leaflet? Ignatius’ comment defies comprehension—except as a description of the repulsive, dinner-party “journalism” that has made a sick joke of our lives.

Heresy Condemned

Reader Janine (she's in Comments) sent me a link to this Episcopal News Service item, reported out of Jerusalem yesterday. Here is what Christian progressives are saying by to the Christian Right, since that has been an issue lately. If anybody can find this story picked up by the secular media, send me a link.

Jerusalem conference calls Christian Zionism a 'heresy'

by James Solheim
ENS 042804-3
Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Christian theologians, religious leaders and peace activists meeting in Jerusalem issued a stinging rebuke of "the heretical teachings of Christian Zionism" following the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center's conference "Challenging Christian Zionism: Theology, Politics, and the Palestine-Israel Conflict," held April 14-18.

The conference itself was bracketed by two new developments in the ongoing Mideast crisis: the memoranda of agreement between US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14 that, according to the statement, moved the crisis "into a new phase of oppression of the Palestinian people"; and the targeted assassination of a second Hamas leader in Gaza, Abdul Aziz Rantisi.

For those of you in need of some scriptural exegesis (this article is quite scholarly):

Barbara Rossing of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago dealt directly and convincingly with the misuse of the New Testament book of Revelation in supporting Christian Zionist theology. "It is a highly political but deeply spiritual book," she said, "that helps us see empire differently." When Revelation was written, Rome had just reoccupied the region and the book's writer, John, looked at the situation and "addressed the issue of justice, giving us eyes to see our world."

But Revelation is not meant to be read literally, Rossing said. "It is one of the most daring critiques of empire" in the New Testament, one that "looks the powers in the face and says that 'Rome won't last, God will.'" Rossing said that Revelation offers "a vision of healing and renewal." But its prophecy is a wake-up call, a word of warning to the people, not a set of predictions. Fundamentalists never get to the last chapter that describes the New Jerusalem and God's renewed vision of community, she said. "It lays out God's vision for all time, not restricted to someone's time-line. It is also written from the underside, at a time more hopeless and violent than our own. The non-violent Lamb conquers by shedding its own blood," she said.

Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, mindful of controversies within his own communion, did not attend but sent a representative to give an address, which was poorly received. Janine provides us with a link.

I was disappointed with it because Rowan Williams is one of the sharpest minds kicking around liberal Christianity today (he's a fantastic systematic theologian ) and he sticks to a very narrow agenda in this speech. I understand some of the political and theological pressures on him these days and that he is treading carefully, but he hews to a single reading of Revelation (or Apocolypse, to Catholics). Williams is often a riveting speaker, but this speech feels like it was dashed off.

At any rate, the Saheel Center is one of the pre-eminent centers of ecumenical studies in the world. They are forever having conferences and issuing press releases that you never hear about. The religious left has a tough time getting the microphone.

Blowback

Firms rethinking partners' benefits

By Scott S. Greenberger and Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff | April 29, 2004

The imminent arrival of gay marriage in Massachusetts is prompting some large private employers that offer domestic-partner benefits to same-sex couples to consider ending those benefits.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which currently provides benefits to the domestic partners of gay employees, but not the domestic partners of heterosexual ones, will restrict benefits to married couples, whether they are gay or straight, beginning next year. Babson College in Wellesley has made the same change. Harvard University and John Hancock Financial Services say they are examining their positions.

Complicating matters is the possibility that voters will amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage and establish civil unions for gay couples in 2006.

Though the situation is muddy now, some benefits specialists say the advent of gay marriage will lead to the demise of domestic-partner benefits, largely because they are an added expense. Many large Massachusetts employers began offering domestic-partner benefits to be fair to, and attract, gay employees. But once they can get married, the discrimination rationale disappears.

Robert Webb, a partner with the Boston law firm of Nutter, McClennen & Fish who advises companies on benefits, predicted that gay marriage may be "the death knell for domestic-partner benefits."

"The genesis of domestic benefits was that employers had gay and lesbian employees in longstanding relationships that were denied the benefits of their heterosexual counterparts," Webb said. "If you can get married, is there any reason to give domestic partner benefits? I think the answer is no.

"Many employers may simply say it's no longer necessary to give this expensive benefit to people who are unwilling to walk the aisle," Webb said.
....
In another gay-marriage development, Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday that his administration would "take a stab" at formulating detailed rules for gay and lesbian couples seeking to marry in Massachusetts after May 17, but that he would be looking to the courts and the Legislature to resolve some of the confusion stemming from the questions that will arise as the new rights are exercised.

Romney's administration is preparing detailed instructions for city and town clerks on how to issue marriage licenses for same sex couples.

"Our lawyers are going through line by line," Romney said. "We'll do our best to [apply] the laws as best we understand them."

Training sessions for clerks will begin on May 4. Since 1977, clerks have not been required to actively enforce the restrictions on marriage imposed by a 1913 law that makes Massachusetts marriages void for out-of-state couples if they would be void in their home states. Those clerks have been instructed to accept an oath of eligibility in lieu of evidence.

"One of the issues that was raised -- we'll have to put on our instruction sheet -- . . . raises the question of a couple that's joined by civil union in Vermont that comes here, has not been divorced of that civil union, and now wants to marry other parties, other people," Romney said yesterday, after an event at the Seaport Hotel. "What do we do then? We're going to take our best stab at these, but I would far prefer having legislative guidance on issues like these, so that we can follow the laws as best as we understand them."

With gay marriage comes gay divorce, Governor. It really isn't all that hard to figure this out.

"You can't buy love."

Poll: Iraqis out of patience
By Cesar G. Soriano and Steven Komarow,USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. (Graphic: Iraqis surveyed)
By Khalid Mohammed, AP

The nationwide survey, the most comprehensive look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation, was conducted in late March and early April. It reached nearly 3,500 Iraqis of every religious and ethnic group.

The poll shows that most continue to say the hardships suffered to depose Saddam Hussein were worth it. Half say they and their families are better off than they were under Saddam. And a strong majority say they are more free to worship and to speak. (Related item: Key findings)

But while they acknowledge benefits from dumping Saddam a year ago, Iraqis no longer see the presence of the American-led military as a plus. Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers."

That figure reaches 81% if the separatist, pro-U.S. Kurdish minority in northern Iraq is not included. The negative characterization is just as high among the Shiite Muslims who were oppressed for decades by Saddam as it is among the Sunni Muslims who embraced him.

The growing negative attitude toward the Americans is also reflected in two related survey questions: 53% say they would feel less secure without the coalition in Iraq, but 57% say the foreign troops should leave anyway. Those answers were given before the current showdowns in Fallujah and Najaf between U.S. troops and guerrilla fighters.

The findings come as the U.S. administration is struggling to quell the insurgency and turn over limited sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government by the end of June. Interviews this week in Baghdad underscored the findings.

"I'm not ungrateful that they took away Saddam Hussein," says Salam Ahmed, 30, a Shiite businessman. "But the job is done. Thank you very much. See you later. Bye-bye."
....
In Baghdad, which has seen the most change — good and bad — since the war, residents say they can feel the boost to the economy that has come from foreign aid and the opening of the country's borders. While many say that they are earning far more than they did before the invasion, they yearn for the safety and stability of the past.

"The freedoms they gave us are satellite television, Thurayas (satellite telephones) and mobile telephones. And you can drive a car without a license," says Resha Namir, 20, a computer science major at Baghdad University. But "I can't even go out because I'm afraid that any minute we will die. The war was not worth it."

Some are more positive. Lauran Waliyah, 46, a restaurant manager and Christian who supported Saddam, says her experience with the Americans has been good. Once, when a madman with a knife entered her business, soldiers came to help, she says.

"It is unfair to ask for the departure of the U.S. troops," she says.

But the hostility reflected in the poll is a message that the troops understand, says Monks, the Marine lance corporal. "They don't want us here," he says. "They want to rebuild their own country. We're trying to Americanize their life. You can't buy love."

Chronic Obstructionism

The President's Testimony,er, something else but not testimony

The strangest of the president's conditions is that he will testify only in concert with Vice President Dick Cheney. The White House has given no sensible reason for why Mr. Bush is unwilling to appear alone. (When asked at his recent press conference, the president gave one of his patented nonresponses: "Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them.")

Given the White House's concern for portraying Mr. Bush as a strong leader, it's remarkable that this critical appearance is being structured in a way that is certain to provide fodder for late-night comedians, who enjoy depicting him as the docile puppet of his vice president.

Mr. Bush's reluctant and restrictive cooperation with the panel is consistent with the administration's pattern of stonewalling reasonable requests for documents and testimony and then giving up only the minimum necessary ground when the dispute becomes public. Today's testimony will be in private in the White House, away from reporters or television cameras. The session will not be recorded, and there will be no formal transcript. The president's aides have defended this excessive degree of secrecy with the usual arguments about protecting highly classified information and not wanting to establish dangerous precedents.

The idea that the panel may wring from Mr. Bush some comment that may endanger national security is ridiculous. The commission, led by the respected former Republican governor of New Jersey, Thomas Kean, has already heard, in public, from the leaders of the nation's top intelligence agencies, the secretary of defense and Mr. Bush's national security adviser. It seems highly unlikely that the president knows secrets more sensitive than they do. If he did, he would certainly be free to go off the record while discussing them.

DO NOT spend any time trying to figure out what this farce is about. You will hurt yourself. You will ruin your day. Instead, have some strawberries with cream. Walk the dog. Kiss a kid.

Mornings Will Never Be The Same

Bob Edwards & the Remains of the Day
The Longtime Host of NPR's 'Morning Edition' Braces for Life After Dawn

By Jennifer Frey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 29, 2004; Page C01

"Good morning. U.S. troops battle in Najaf, south of Baghdad. I'm Bob Edwards. Today is Tuesday, April 27th. From NPR News, this is 'Morning Edition.' "

It begins, as always, with coffee. Coffee, a stolen cigarette, more coffee. Bob Edwards has been up since 1 a.m., when he poured his first cup in the quiet of his Arlington home, the house still, his wife and younger daughter still in the earlier stages of their slumber.

It is 3:50 now, and the pot is empty in the small pod that is home to the staff of "Morning Edition." Edwards emerges from his office, which is a bit barren, cardboard boxes on the floor, shelves holding just a smattering of books. For the last hour, Edwards has been composing copy on yellow paper he rolls into an old electric typewriter. He needs more caffeine, so he changes the filter, grinds the beans, watches, impatiently, as fresh coffee begins its drip, drip, drip.

"This is the most important thing I do all day," he says to no one in particular. It is meant for a laugh, but it comes out sounding wry. Perhaps a little sardonic. It is hard, after all. Hard not to be bitter.

He has been told, more or less, that he is a dinosaur. No one used that specific word, of course, but it's out there, the subtext to NPR's announcement that after nearly 25 years, Edwards, 56, is being removed from the "Morning Edition" anchor chair. The show, network executives have said, needs to move in a new direction, with dual hosts who also report from the field, a quicker response to breaking news and more diverse voices. To quote from an online chat by Jay Kernis, senior vice president for programming, the Edwards model "is no longer sufficient to bring the weight of credible, in-depth reporting that we are demanding of ourselves."

And so this particular morning -- "Tuesday, April 27th," as Edwards intones at the top of the hour -- is one of his last behind the microphone in the second-floor studio at NPR's Massachusetts Avenue headquarters. Tomorrow will mark his final show. After a three-month break, he will return to NPR in late July as a senior correspondent.

"My feeling is, you have people in the field and you have people here," Edwards says. "I thought they had it right. The childless and single would go out and cover wars, and the rest of us would be here at the microphone. But I guess that's not what they want anymore."

That's what he's been told?

"Yes, but that's the explanation of the week," he says.

He's gotten more than one?

"Well, yeah, haven't you?" he says. "You can follow them if you read the papers." The decision to remove Edwards -- whose deep, smooth voice draws 13 million early-morning listeners to NPR every week -- has been a publicity disaster for the network. Made on March 23, the announcement generated widespread criticism in the media and an avalanche of mail from angry listeners, many of whom felt that the network had proven itself to be out of touch with -- or, worse yet, indifferent to -- community opinion.

Bruce Drake, NPR's vice president for news, admits that the announcement was bungled.

"I think our first explanation of why we did it had too much of a 'corporate' tinge," Drake says, then struggles to explain. "People expect NPR to exhibit the values of public radio. . . . They expect that it is human, rather than corporate."

In the weeks since the announcement, NPR has tried to change that perception, but not the decision itself, which, Drake says, was never up for reconsideration. It was time, NPR executives were certain, for Edwards to go.

G'Bye, Bob. You'll be missed.

NPR really screwed this up.

Power to the People

Here is today's message from Anders Schneiderman of the SEIU's Justice at Work Project:

Putting Capital(ism) to Work for your Values

This is a little long, but keep reading, and I promise to be less wordy
tomorrow.

Any help you could give us in thinking about this would be great --
we're just getting started and we can use all the insights and creative
ideas we can get. Also, if you know anyone who works on Wall Street by
day but wants to be a Caped Crusader for Justice by night, ask them to
join the conversation.

Melanie here. I think this campaign by the SEIU is brilliant. Using the netroots to empower activists and garner support is a wonderful strategy. Here they are offering you the tools to take back your economic future from the oligarchs and corporatists who would turn us into a serf culture, and inviting your ideas. Click on the link to see their blog and offer your suggestions, or leave them in comments below and I'll make sure they get back to Anders.

Back to the Future

Envoy Details His Plan for Iraq
Despite the ongoing violence, a caretaker government can be in place a month before the transfer of power, the U.N. representative says.

By Maggie Farley, Tony Perry and Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writers

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Tuesday that despite the ongoing violence in Iraq, a caretaker government could be named by the end of May to prepare for the planned June 30 transfer of sovereignty from the U.S.-led authority.

Brahimi sketched his vision for Iraq's transitional government to the U.N. Security Council in New York on a day that news stations across the globe televised live images of an American warplane raining cannon fire on insurgents' positions in Fallouja and the U.S. reported the deaths of more than 60 militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric during battles near the holy city of Najaf on Monday.

Brahimi has called for peaceful solutions to the standoffs in Fallouja and Najaf, saying Tuesday that the U.S.-led forces know "better than everyone else that the consequences of such bloodshed could be dramatic and long-lasting."

But although the planned hand-over of power is bound to be difficult and dangerous, Brahimi argued before the Security Council that it remains "doable."

"Is it possible for the process to proceed under such circumstances? Will it be viable? Will it be credible?" he asked rhetorically. "There is no alternative but to find a way of making the process viable and credible."

Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister who was persuaded by the Bush administration and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to create a blueprint for the tricky political transition in Iraq, is due to return to Baghdad at the beginning of May. There, he will consult with leaders of the U.S.-led occupation and the Iraqi Governing Council and other leading Iraqis to identify a group of people who would be given the responsibility for day-to-day administration of the country until elections can be held, as scheduled, next January.

Meanwhile, in Washington on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John D. Negroponte underwent a three-hour hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on his nomination as ambassador to Iraq.

Negroponte, asked about the level of authority the U.S. will hand over to Iraq, said that Iraqis will have "a lot more sovereignty than they have right now," including control over the nation's ministries and its foreign policy. But Negroponte said that American-led military forces would continue to oversee Iraqi security. "They're going to be free to operate in Iraq as best they see fit," he told the Senate committee.

Nominee Assures Senate on Iraq
Process of Transferring Power Is Going to Be 'Evolutionary,' Negroponte Says

By Walter Pincus and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 28, 2004; Page A15

President Bush's nominee for ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, said yesterday that Iraqis will have "a lot more sovereignty than they have right now" when an interim government takes over on July 1, but that the transfer of power will "be a work in progress and it's going to be evolutionary."

At a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, panel members expressed confidence in Negroponte while voicing skepticism that the United States has a clear enough strategy in place for Iraq.

Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, sought to reassure the senators -- including a pledge that the U.S.-led command will retain control over military forces in the country even after July 1. But he acknowledged that many of the most basic details of who will assume power on behalf of Iraqis have yet to be determined.

"There are still unanswered questions about structure, composition and powers of the Iraqi interim government to which I will present my credentials," Negroponte said.

Translation: there is no plan. That's the Bushies in a nutshell.

Good Things

Per your many requests, I've been surfing the Web in search of some good news. The struggle has been arduous, but at long last, I've found some, courtesy of echidne of the snakes who enumerates the good things humans have done:

1. Chocolate. True, the ingredients are from nature, but people invented the formula for chocolate. It is food for goddesses and anyone else sane. It is said to contain chemical ingredients similar to those that are unleashed when one falls in love. It should be called 'the little orgasm', and it should be declared the national food of all countries. Eating chocolate is good for you, researchers have established (too lazy to find the link now but this is true). The only bad thing about chocolate is something called 'white chocolate'. It is an imposter and should be shunned. The best, absolutely the best chocolate is a home-made truffle. I make a mean chocolate truffle.

13. Siberian throat-singing, because it is so inexplicable, and sounds to me like an attempt to French-kiss oneself.

With echidne, I concur that French kissing should be restricted to those who know what they are doing.

Dirty Tricks

Prince Hal vs. King Henry

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, April 28, 2004; Page A21

In the course of the past week an odd double standard has emerged in the presidential campaign. Every sentence and gesture of the young John Kerry has been scrutinized -- and often deliberately misinterpreted -- for signs of insincerity, self-promotion, lack of patriotism and fledgling Francophilia.

The sentences and gestures of the young George W. Bush, on the other hand, remain shrouded in obscurity. You don't build a record if you don't show up, and that's exactly what Bush did during the Vietnam War.

The Republicans have subjected Kerry's time in Vietnam to the kind of going-over normally accorded war criminals. Did he really deserve that third Purple Heart? How big, exactly, was that piece of shrapnel that had to be removed from his left arm?

We could, I suppose, ask an equivalent question of Bush, but only if they awarded Purple Hearts for paper cuts incurred in the campaign headquarters of the Republican Senate candidate for whom Bush worked during the year he was supposed to be serving with the Air National Guard in Alabama.

Kerry's leadership of Vietnam veterans who opposed the war has also come under attack. Last week a gang of Republican congressmen took to the House floor to charge that Kerry had undermined the war effort and betrayed his comrades in arms. "What he did was nothing short of aiding and abetting the enemy," said Texas Rep. Sam Johnson, who then took to calling Kerry "Hanoi John."

What Kerry did, in actuality, was provide a forceful voice and prudent guidance to a movement of angry men who had sacrificed for their country in a war that, by 1971, no longer had a plausible purpose but nonetheless continued to rage. By the time Kerry appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and posed his memorable question -- "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- it was plain that no one in the Nixon administration really believed that the war could be won.
....
t was precisely because Kerry's impulses were so mainstream that the Nixon White House feared him. Nixon didn't sit around with his goon squad of Bob Haldeman and Chuck Colson plotting against Kerry because they thought Kerry was Hanoi John. On the contrary, Kerry had to be taken down because his patriotism was so glaringly obvious.

He had, after all, joined the service despite the grave doubts -- to which he gave voice in his Yale class oration in the spring of 1966 -- he harbored about the war. He had thrown himself in harm's way repeatedly while skippering "swift boats" in the Mekong Delta. He had worked to build an effective, law-abiding antiwar movement. Such men were dangerous.

There are days in this campaign when Kerry must think he's still up against Nixon and his thugs. The same slanders that Dick and his boys cooked up then -- Kerry as dangerous radical, Kerry as inauthentic liberal -- are being served up now by Nixon's ethical heirs.

Nixon's ethical heirs. I don't know that any other journalist has summed it all up so succinctly.

Lush Life

Suite Tooth

New ambassador-designate to Baghdad John D. Negroponte is sailing through his confirmation hearings en route to his new post. Normally, the White House wouldn't send the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a nomination without the receiving country's having agreed to accept the potential nominee as ambassador. This certification is called agrement, pronounced ahh-gray-maw, which Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) could tell you is French for "agreement."

But since there isn't an Iraqi government, it's unclear who granted agrement. Viceroy L. Paul Bremer? Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld? Revered Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi?

So Negroponte, nicknamed Negropotente during his ambassadorship in Honduras -- "potente" meaning powerful or potent -- is giving up the lovely $25,000-a-month Waldorf-Astoria suite in New York complete with the spectacular new kitchen renovated last year for only $600,000. At least he's going to a palace.

Negroponte's dark past is documented here.. W may be listening to his Higher Father, but he makes sure the friends of the Lower Father are well-cared-for.

The Violent Shall Bear It Away

Syrian capital rocked by blasts
It is not clear what the intended target may have been

A series of explosions and gunfire has rocked the Syrian capital Damascus during the last few hours.

The incidents took place on a road leading into central Damascus from the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Renewed clashes erupt in Falluja
The US says the shelling is not an all-out assault on the town

Heavy fighting is taking place in the Iraqi town of Falluja for the second night running.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said Iraq would have to "give back" some power to the US in the early days amid the ongoing insecurity in the country.

Puffery

She's a better reporter than this puff piece would give you to think. Better editing would have demanded more of her.

Amid an Unseen Enemy, The Welcome Dog of War

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page C01

"So, what's your blood type?"

The young lieutenant's face was cheerful, but his bluntness took me aback.

In all my years of covering violence and conflicts abroad, no one had ever asked me that question before, and I frankly had no idea what the answer was.

I was headed into an urban war zone, surrounded by strangers who had little B+'s and O-'s marked on their helmets, their flak jackets, even their socks. The marks were both grim warnings and reassuring talismans. Out here, we all had a good chance of being wounded, but also of being saved.

For the next two weeks, I would live among a battalion of Marines in a deserted factory filled with thousands of crates of soda pop. Snipers and anti-rocket nets had been placed on the roof. Sandbags and barbed wire scrolls surrounded the gates.

Beyond lay Fallujah, the kind of gritty, turbulent city I had roamed on foot in a dozen countries, looking for human drama. But this time, I was an "embedded" journalist -- an extension of an occupying military force, for whom the entire city was enemy territory and every foray beyond the factory gates was a dangerous mission, carefully planned and heavily armed.

I resented the physical barriers and resisted making the mental leap -- until the first time I found myself on a scarred, barren block, crouching behind the nearest Marine and panting to keep up in my helmet and heavy vest each time he sprinted across an intersection to give the snipers less time to aim. When we made it back through the factory gates, I was flooded with relief.

Inside, my seven embedded colleagues and I quickly became part of an all-American military microcosm, soon learned Marines' names and faces and home towns. The Zuni sniper from New Mexico, the Jewish fireman from New York, the African American bagpiper from Detroit. The white sergeant major with his southern bark and cynical gaze, the young Salvadoran-born medic with his baby's snapshot inside his helmet.
....
There was nothing to do but work. Every day we waited for word that another convoy was leaving, scrambled into our boots and helmets and flak jackets, and climbed into the nearest Humvee to head for a command post or patrol.

After a week, my legs were covered with purple bruises from slipping on ammo crates, diving for cover and missing footholds on the heavy metal trucks.

Every evening, I wrote, ate and slept fitfully on the same couch in the factory manager's apartment, creating an imaginary private space in a jumble of journalists' backpacks and computer gear. I wore the same dusty clothes for 16 days and nights, except for an occasional shower in an open-air wooden stall beneath a palm tree, where I could blissfully close my eyes and think of "South Pacific."

Truth Telling, Part Deux

Moe Blues at Bad Attitudes cuts to the chase:

The Death of Discourse

Rational political discourse has died in this country, killed by a combination of ideology and fantasy. People can disagree over the interpretation and implications of facts. But when one side of the discussion bases their argument on falsehoods, misconceptions, and distortions — and makes up new “facts” when the foregoing have been proven false — rational debate is not possible.

Let Slip the Dogs of War

The Lasting Wounds of War
Roadside Bombs Have Devastated Troops and Doctors Who Treat Them

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- The soldiers were lifted into the helicopters under a moonless sky, their bandaged heads grossly swollen by trauma, their forms silhouetted by the glow from the row of medical monitors laid out across their bodies, from ankle to neck.

An orange screen atop the feet registered blood pressure and heart rate. The blue screen at the knees announced the level of postoperative pressure on the brain. On the stomach, a small gray readout recorded the level of medicine pumping into the body. And the slender plastic box atop the chest signaled that a respirator still breathed for the lungs under it.

At the door to the busiest hospital in Iraq, a wiry doctor bent over the worst-looking case, an Army gunner with coarse stitches holding his scalp together and a bolt protruding from the top of his head. Lt. Col. Jeff Poffenbarger checked a number on the blue screen, announced it dangerously high and quickly pushed a clear liquid through a syringe into the gunner's bloodstream. The number fell like a rock.

"We're just preparing for something a brain-injured person should not do two days out, which is travel to Germany," the neurologist said. He smiled grimly and started toward the UH-60 Black Hawk thwump-thwumping out on the helipad, waiting to spirit out of Iraq one more of the hundreds of Americans wounded here this month.

While attention remains riveted on the rising count of Americans killed in action -- more than 100 so far in April -- doctors at the main combat support hospital in Iraq are reeling from a stream of young soldiers with wounds so devastating that they probably would have been fatal in any previous war.

More and more in Iraq, combat surgeons say, the wounds involve severe damage to the head and eyes -- injuries that leave soldiers brain damaged or blind, or both, and the doctors who see them first struggling against despair.

For months the gravest wounds have been caused by roadside bombs -- improvised explosives that negate the protection of Kevlar helmets by blowing shrapnel and dirt upward into the face. In addition, firefights with guerrillas have surged recently, causing a sharp rise in gunshot wounds to the only vital area not protected by body armor.

The neurosurgeons at the 31st Combat Support Hospital measure the damage in the number of skulls they remove to get to the injured brain inside, a procedure known as a craniotomy. "We've done more in eight weeks than the previous neurosurgery team did in eight months," Poffenbarger said. "So there's been a change in the intensity level of the war."

Shortage of armor limits U.S.
Options in urban warfare hindered
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
By David Wood
Newhouse News Service

WASHINGTON -- A shortage of armored combat vehicles in Iraq is pressing U.S. forces into a cruel dilemma: either advance stealthily on foot or hold up at a city's outskirts and use artillery, mortars and airstrikes.

The first exposes troops to immense risk.

The second course is safer. But shooting from a distance is less accurate than shooting at close range. It raises the potential for civilian casualties and collateral damage, which fuel anti-American fury.

Acknowledging the problem, senior U.S. military officers have said they did not anticipate the fierce urban combat encountered in Iraq this month. They are rushing in armor plate and considering sending additional tanks and armored personnel carriers.

On foot in Fallujah

On Monday, Marines advanced into Fallujah on foot and occupied a two-story building, which soon came under intense enemy attack from a mosque. It took repeated passes by helicopter gunships and jet fighters firing missiles before armored vehicles could approach to withdraw the Marines, according to press reports from the scene. The mosque was reported damaged in the counterattack.

A senior Sunni cleric, in remarks carried by the popular Arab network al-Jazeera, accused U.S. forces of carrying out a "bloodbath" and called for an investigation into American "war crimes."

In previous battles in Fallujah's crowded neighborhoods, U.S. forces have called in AC-130 gunships that spray lethal rounds over hundreds of square feet.

"Using bombs and AC-130s is a strategic defeat," given the political repercussions, said Kenneth Brower, a weapons designer and consultant to the U.S. and Israeli military. "But we've had to use them."

Slime

Stooping Low to Smear Kerry

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A21

....
Funny, isn't it? When Bill Clinton was running against Republican war veterans in 1992 and 1996, the most important thing to GOP propagandists and politicians was that Clinton didn't fight in Vietnam. Now that Republican candidates who didn't fight in Vietnam face a Democrat who did -- and was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts while he was there -- the Republican machine wants to change the subject.

Thus the shameful display on the floor of the House of Representatives last week as one Republican after another declared that what mattered was not Kerry's service but that he decided afterward that the Vietnam War was a terrible mistake for our country.

The decorated combat veteran was transformed from a hero to "Hanoi John," in the phrase of Rep. Sam Johnson, a Texas Republican. Johnson deserves our gratitude for his seven years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. But his agenda last week had election-year politics stamped all over it. Johnson declared that in speaking out against the war, Kerry showed "his true colors, and they are not red, white and blue." Kerry, Johnson said, was engaged in "nothing short of aiding and abetting the enemy."

Rep. John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, argued that Kerry's service "does not excuse his joining ranks with Jane Fonda and others in speaking ill of our troops or their service, then or now." Thanks for your service, Mr. Kline, but that "then or now" part is demagogic: Yes, Kerry criticized what our troops were asked to do in Vietnam. But have you ever heard Kerry speak ill of our men and women under arms in Iraq? The Republican agenda is obvious: to distract attention from the contrast of Kerry having served in a war theater while Bush and Cheney stayed home.

It seems to be a habit. When Bush faces a Vietnam War hero in an election, a Vietnam veteran perfectly happy to trash his opponent always turns up. In the case of Ted Sampley, the same guy who did Bush's dirty work in going after Sen. John McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries is doing the job against Kerry this year. Sampley dared compare McCain, who spent five years as a Vietnam POW, with "the Manchurian Candidate." Now, Sampley says that Kerry "is not truthful and is not worthy of the support of U.S. veterans. . . . To us, he is 'Hanoi John.' " Is that where Sam Johnson got his line?

One person who is outraged by the attacks on Kerry is McCain. When I reached the Arizona Republican, I found him deeply troubled over the reopening of wounds from the Vietnam era, "the most divisive time since our Civil War." He called Sampley "one of the most despicable characters I've ever met." McCain said he hoped that in the midst of a war in Iraq, politicians "will confront the challenges facing us now, including the conflict we're presently engaged in, rather than refighting the one we were engaged in more than 30 years ago."

McCain recalled that he had worked with Kerry on "POW/MIA issues and the normalization of relations with Vietnam" and wanted to stand up for his war comrade because "you have to do what's right." Speaking of Kerry, McCain said: "He's my friend. He'll continue to be my friend. I know his service was honorable. If that hurts me politically or with my party, that's a very small price to pay."

Now that McCain has spoken, will Bush have the guts to endorse or condemn the attacks on Kerry's service? Or will he just sit by silently, hoping the assaults do their work while he evades responsibility? Once more, Welsh's words call out for an answer: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Telling the Truth

Interview with Gen. Anthony Zinni:

So what they did militarily and politically in Iraq, none of what you recommended happened?

Well, I'll give you my hopeful formula to get out of this. But every day and every decision makes it worse. The first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging. They seem to continue to dig. This 'stay the course' idea is wonderful except the course is leading us over Niagara Falls.

What would you recommend doing?

I would go to the members of the Security Council; France, Russia, China and others and ask what will it take to get a U.N. resolution that we need that will give cover, that will give the countries that might be willing to participate at least what they need back home to contribute in some way, to help share the burden on the ground.

What is the significance of June 30 as the date for handing over nominal sovereignty to the Iraqis?

Yeah, tell me. It's November, whatever election day is. It's to get this turned over with sufficient space to recover from any disasters by November, in my view. What is the significance of June 30? I have no idea.

Power goes from Bremer to the U.S. ambassador?

Well, in effect. But actually, what power? That's a good question. What powers do the Iraqis have? Whatever replaces the governing council? Whatever (U.N. representative) Brahimi is able to broker is going to be to whom power passes. Bremer leaves. Negroponte comes in with a 3,000-man embassy, another stupid decision; this big fortress America that we're going to put in this place. And what's his power compared to this entity who has not even been defined? And who trumps who? If all of a sudden there's a problem and the governing entity decides to deal with it in a different way than say the ambassador decides to deal with it, who overrules whom?

Aren't you describing a hopeless situation?

I'm describing a situation that got here because we didn't think this through in the beginning. This is the dog that caught the car here. And now we've got to figure out what to do with it. The way out gets tougher every day when we don't come to grips with these issues, admittedly. We can't leave. I'm not an advocate of pulling out. I think it would be disastrous. But I think we need to sit down and do some serious planning. We need to engage the international community. We need to engage the region. We need to be serious about things like reconstructing Iraqi security forces, not do it haphazardly and on the cheap. We need to be serious about political reconstruction and what it means.

Why would it be disastrous to pull out now when the situation already is disastrous?

Because first of all, I think as you pull troops out our troops become more vulnerable. As you start reducing troops it's a vulnerable stage unless there's some degree of stability. So when you make that decision, you start drawing down. At the point where you have, let's say, 30,000 U.S. troops in there, they may be far more vulnerable than they are obviously now. And it may be a critical (situation) when it is still unstable.

But you're saying exactly what Bush said, that if we pull out now there would be chaos and a bloodbath.

I agree. The optimist in me says the Iraqi people could pull this out if they had something to fight for. And what they don't have to fight for is something in Baghdad that represents a kind of governance system they can trust. What they don't have to fight for is an economic system that has a job for daddy. What they don't have to fight for is a security environment where their daughter can go to school and not get kidnapped. And until you at least give those fundamental basics to them, they aren't going to be able to stand up and take it on their own.

So we're going to solve this problem by staying there a few years?

Yes. Our only hope is to stay there a few years and try to solve it.

Branching Out

Earlier today, I received an invitation from Rev. Allen Brill to become a contributor to his excellent blog The Right Christians. I've just submitted my first post and invite you to follow the link and come over and visit. Allen's blog software has moderated content--rather like Scoop at Daily Kos--and you have to register to post comments. It is easy and free and only takes a moment.

My post today is a little exercise in autobiography. I hope you will enjoy it.

War News

Baghdad blast kills 2 U.S. soldiers
Coalition soldier killed in Fallujah

Monday, April 26, 2004 Posted: 11:56 AM EDT (1556 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a massive explosion Monday in northeastern Baghdad during a raid in which they were looking for a shop-owner suspected of producing "chemical munitions," a military spokesman said.

Capt. Douglas Zembiec, a Marine company commander in Fallujah, said 10 Marines were wounded, four of them "pretty seriously."

The American military has maintained a cordon around the predominantly Sunni Muslim city for about three weeks in an effort to force a surrender by insurgents sequestered inside. The American authority has said that if rebels do not hand in their heavy weapons, the troops will invade.

Britain said today that it was discussing with the United States and other partners in the American-led coalition the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq, Reuters reported. Britain already has about 7,500 troops on the ground, but with Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic withdrawing their soldiers, and the coalition facing the stiffest resistance since the fall of Saddam Hussein, London and Washington are under pressure to consider increasing their troop levels.

"In light of recent events — the security situation and the anticipated withdrawal of the Spanish troops — we are in discussions with coalition partners," a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said, Reuters reported.

Australia may also send a small number of additional troops Prime Minister John Howard said today following his surprise visit to Iraq over the weekend. It was his first public admission that an increase in troops strength was a possibility.

"Obviously, if we did do more that would be appreciated but I had made it very clear all along that we did not have a capacity to have large numbers of additional troops," Mr. Howard said in an Australian Broadcasting Corp radio interview aired today, Reuters reported. Australia has about 850 troops in Iraq and neighboring states.

The Bulgarian Defense Ministry said the convoy of President Georgi Parvanov came under attack by gunmen late Sunday during a surprise visit to the city of Karbala in southern Iraq, Reuters reported today. The president was not hurt in the attack, which occurred as he traveled between two military camps.

"The president's car was shot up," the ministry's spokeswoman, Rumiana Strugarova, said. "The attack took about five minutes, and we suppose the attackers were Shiite militants. The president returned to Bulgaria in the early hours of the morning."

Mr. Parvanov's visit came a day after a Bulgarian soldier in Iraq was killed in an ambush. Bulgaria has a 450-strong light infantry battalion stationed in Kerbala.

Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness

Some Finding No Room at the ER
Screening Out Non-Urgent Cases Stirs Controversy

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 26, 2004; Page A01

DENVER -- It's not the heart attacks or stabbings that alarm Norman Paradis. It's the minor maladies, the daily deluge of coughs, colds, toothaches and even hangnails that clog his emergency room.

As the provider of last resort, hospital emergency departments across America have for decades accepted thousands of truly non-urgent cases and swallowed the cost. For the most part, the patients have nowhere else to go, no insurance and no money.

That is starting to change. University of Colorado Hospital, where Paradis works, is leading the way on a controversial solution -- weeding out the people with bumps and scrapes so it can devote more time and resources to serious, life-threatening traumas and, also, to paying customers.

Officials here say its 15-month-old system of medical screening, or "triaging out," could go a long way in easing the financial strains that have forced hundreds of emergency departments to shut down in the last decade. But many in the health care profession call it a callous, greedy and shortsighted maneuver that puts a greater burden on neighboring clinics and hospitals -- all at the ultimate expense of the working poor.

Under the new policy, University hospital demands partial payment up front from non-emergency patients who seek treatment in the ER. For some, including Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, the fee is a small cash co-payment; insurance pays the rest. For the uninsured, however, the charge can be a few hundred dollars -- money many don't have. So they leave, toting a list of low-cost clinics in the area.

Rather than being a remedy, many argue, medical screening is a symptom of much of what ails America's health system.

"It's an incredibly mean, nasty time to be in medicine," said Mark Earnest, a general internist at University and vice president of the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved. "There is not a consensus on how we are going to take care of people, and the result is everybody having to worry about their own survival."

The experiment at the Denver hospital and similar efforts in Indianapolis and Houston cut to the core of some of the thorniest problems in health care today. With about 44 million uninsured Americans, a record number of patients are flooding emergency rooms, a trend experts say is unwise from both a medical and economic perspective. ER care is both the most costly and least effective at treating the sort of chronic problems that claim the greatest number of lives each year.

In 2002, U.S. hospitals provided $22.3 billion in uncompensated care, up from $18.5 billion in 1997, according to the most recent data from the American Hospital Association. In the past, hospitals have made up some of the deficit by charging insured patients higher fees, a cost-shifting trick that in medical circles is dubbed the Robin Hood model. But that money is disappearing, too.

"We can't do everything for everyone, so what are we not going to do?" asked Paradis, who, as head of University's emergency department, implemented the screening policy in the fall of 2002. Other hospitals, clinics and private physicians find ways to limit care covertly, Paradis contends, while "we are overt. It's rational rationing."

Suffer the Children

But there's a catch. The irony of Brown is that over the course of half a century such a profound and far-reaching decision should have fallen so far short of its specific objective: the integration of the public schools.

The legal barrier to desegregation was removed, and over several tension-filled years many schools were integrated. But the trend now is in the other direction.

When it comes to schools, "we honor Brown more in principle than in practice," said Ted Shaw, who will soon take over as head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which led the Brown v. Board fight. "We live in an era now where school desegregation is all but done. We're resegregating. And no one really seems to care."

The resegregation has been under way for a while. In their 1996 book, "Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education," Gary Orfield and Susan Eaton documented the many evasive maneuvers used by whites, including a series of rulings by conservative courts, to undermine the impact of the Brown decision.

This insidious regression was part of the decades-long effort by political conservatives to roll back the historic civil rights advances of blacks and others. Richard Nixon, architect of the Republican Party's Southern strategy, appointed William Rehnquist, an ardent foe of desegregation efforts, to the Supreme Court. And Ronald Reagan elevated him to chief justice.

There's no secret to what's going on. The federal courts are still being gleefully packed with reactionaries.

So we have to look at Brown in two ways. It unlocked the door to a brief but glorious period of increased freedom and civil rights for all Americans. But its main goal has been thwarted by those who want nothing less than to slam the door shut and lock it once again.

It's not just a betrayal of Brown. It's a betrayal of America.

Perhaps now we can have a conversation about how public education is supposed to work and why, how it is funded and why. Our system makes no sense. It is past time to talk about it.

Using Imagination

Dubious Threat, Expensive Defense

By now it's common knowledge that before Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration's attention was focused not on terrorism but on other national security priorities -- most notably missile defense. The administration's more reasonable defenders argue that this was a forgivable miscalculation, and that after al Qaeda's attack on New York and Washington, President Bush utterly remade his agenda.

Only he didn't -- at least not in one large respect. The president may have declared war on terrorism and launched invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But for the past 21/2 years, his Pentagon has quietly but implacably persisted in pursuing, without alteration, the previous No. 1 mission. The result is a breakneck, hugely expensive and quite risky attempt to build and activate a national missile defense before the November election.

There's been bipartisan agreement on developing missile defenses for some time in Washington. But the Bush enterprise is different. It's a project being pursued with a lack of safeguards that could be justified only by a national emergency. Its logic is that the greatest threat to this country is not a terrorist's smuggling of a dirty bomb or nuclear weapon but the possibility of a surprise missile attack by North Korea.

That threat looked somewhat plausible six years ago, when North Korea tested a missile possibly capable of reaching Hawaii and parts of Alaska with a heavy payload. But the regime of Kim Jong Il hasn't tested since then; it is currently negotiating about giving up its arsenal. Though the North probably has several nuclear weapons, no one believes it has built a miniaturized warhead capable of being placed on a long-range missile. No other hostile country has, or will have soon, a missile that can reach the United States.

The Bush policy nevertheless assumes that some kind of defense, however raw, must be put in place immediately -- and that's where the recklessness starts. Over three years, the administration has poured more than $25 billion into missile defense but has made only modest technological progress. According to experts both in and outside the Pentagon, a defense deployed this year could not be regarded as reliable by even the most basic standards. Yet Bush nevertheless has ordered 10 interceptor missiles to be installed at two U.S. bases, and plans to announce the system's activation by September.

Consider:

• The interceptor missile to be activated has never undergone a flight test with its present booster rocket. In fact, there have been no flight tests of the interceptor since December 2002 -- and the last one failed. Nine tests have been put off or canceled since then. The earliest test of the missile is now scheduled for August or September -- just as, or maybe after, Bush declares missile defense operational.

• The Pentagon's own chief tester, Thomas Christie, says he is not sure the new system could stop a missile from North Korea. At a Senate hearing last month, he was asked whether, even if it did work, the system's makeshift radar would allow it to protect Hawaii, the only state fully within range of the only missile North Korea has (once) tested. Answer: "We have not done a thorough analysis. At this point, I can't say one way or another."

• The General Accounting Office has issued four reports on the developing system in the past year, the latest last week. All have been highly critical of the Pentagon's failure to adequately test under realistic conditions. One recurring point: Even if the bare-bones interceptor Bush is shooting for could be made to work, it would be unable to overcome the simplest of countermeasures.

• For all its spendthrift zeal, the Bush administration has been unable to solve the problems with key pieces of the planned defense. The high-altitude satellite network that is supposed to detect missile launches has been delayed by another two years on Bush's watch and won't be in place until the end of the decade. The airborne laser that is to shoot down enemy rockets as they boost into orbit also has been put off by two years and is expected to have $2 billion in cost overruns. The new X-band radar system that is needed to accurately track missiles as they approach the United States won't be ready for on-site testing for at least another year.

But deficits don't matter, do they?

Don't Talk About the Thing I Don't want to Talk about

Mr. Higher Moral Order sends in his fax

"Clarification - "liberalish" definitely meant "roughly liberal but covering a wide spectrum of political beliefs" and not "Christian liberals aren't really liberal so I'll call them liberal."

But, aside from that, "eff you too."

Well, that was helpful. And tells me that the proprietor doesn't read this blog at all and is extremely defensive. Great. What a standardbearer going into November. Atrios, since you don't read the little people like me, what's your point in showing up to belittle? We were managing fine before you got here. Do you have a point?

Emerging Monstrosity

Killings May Make Hamas More Formidable
Group's Military Wing Is Seen in Ascendancy

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 25, 2004; Page A01

GAZA CITY -- In the wake of Israeli airstrikes that have decapitated the leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian militant group may become even more fragmented and radicalized than before, leading to new dangers for Israel, according to Palestinian political leaders and analysts familiar with the internal operations of the organization.

"The worst thing is a headless Hamas," said Eyad Sarraj, a prominent Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights advocate who has closely monitored the role of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. "A headless Hamas means too many heads, too many agendas. Then you can't control exactly what happens."

With the assassination of the most influential leaders of Hamas, and raids that have killed or captured nearly the entire West Bank military command structure, the military wing in the Gaza Strip has become the most dominant faction of the organization, according to Israeli military officials and Palestinian officials.

Mohammed Deif and Adnan Ghoul, the leaders of the military wing -- known as the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades -- remain in command, and the ranks of disciplined and well-armed fighters are largely intact, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. The two leaders are among Israel's most wanted men: Ghoul has survived at least three Israeli assassination attempts, including one that killed his son on June 27, 2003, and Deif has escaped at least four assassination efforts by Israel, though he reportedly lost an eye during an attack last September.

"The new generation of leaders thinks in only one way -- the military wings," said Imad Falouji, a Palestinian legislator and former Hamas member who has authored a book about the organization. "The new policy is more dangerous for Israel than ever before. Now there is only a military policy; there is nothing political now."

This shift is significant because of a potential contest among Palestinians for control of the Gaza Strip if Israel goes ahead with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, pulling out all Israeli troops and Jewish settlers by the end of 2005.

If this monster emerges, it will be the creature of Bush and Sharon. They created it last week.

Behind the Curve

Here, There, WiFi Anywhere
Wireless Web's Spread Is Crossing Our Signals

By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 25, 2004; Page F01

Peter Kastner moved from the suburbs to an apartment in Boston last summer while his new home was under construction. As soon as he got set up in the temporary digs, Kastner -- chief technology analyst at the research firm Aberdeen Group -- set up his WiFi home network to enjoy some wireless Web surfing.

Everything worked fine, but in a few weeks he found that the airwaves started getting crowded.

"Around about Labor Day, when all the college students moved back to Boston, all of these [wireless] access points showed up around me," he said. Soon, his laptop started getting dizzy from all the conflicting networks and began dropping connections.

Kastner did a little research into the matter and now worries that WiFi technology will be undercut by its own success.

"The end of the WiFi world as we know it is imminent," he later wrote in a report, arguing that the boom of WiFi hardware sales compared with the available airspace in urban areas will lead this year to a wireless Internet traffic jam that in some places could be worse than the Beltway on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend.

Now that WiFi access points can cost under $100, the technology has jumped quickly from esoteric to everyday. And as more consumers learn the convenience of untethered Internet access, they're also learning what things can stop WiFi from working.

Traffic jams are at the top of that list: When multiple WiFi access points, the hubs of individual wireless networks, sit near each other, WiFi receivers can see senseless noise instead of a clear data stream. This is what happened at the CeBIT computer trade show in Germany last year, where a maze of overlapping WiFi networks stopped many laptops from getting online.

Damn, yet another trend that will be over before I get a chance to sample it.

Unemployment

Why Did Bush Take My Job?

By Saeb Erekat
Sunday, April 25, 2004; Page B07

JERUSALEM -- President Bush apparently has taken my job.

Until the Bush-Sharon press conference on April 14, I was the chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, the only internationally recognized entity that has a mandate to negotiate a permanent peace with Israel. But then Bush appeared on television, standing at the White House next to a beaming Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, and announced that he had accepted Israel's claim to illegally occupied Palestinian land. He further determined that Palestinian refugees would never be allowed to return to their homes in Israel and would instead have to be resettled in a Palestinian state, vast tracts of which he had just given away.

In so doing, Bush reneged on the 1991 U.S. Letter of Assurances provided to the Palestinians by his father's administration; the letter said that "no party should take unilateral actions that seek to predetermine issues" and that "the United States has opposed and will continue to oppose settlement activity in the territories occupied in 1967." Bush, as the self-appointed Palestinian negotiator, finally exposed the "Middle East peace process" for the charade that it has become -- a mechanism by which Israel and the United States impose a solution on the Palestinians.

In this era of unmatched and unchallenged U.S. power, Bush abandoned America's historical role as facilitator and mediator of Middle East peace and instead simply adopted the positions of an expansionist, right-wing government in Israel. It is mind-boggling that an American president, often citing the rule of law, would use the power of his position not to enforce international law against illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory but instead to legitimize them as "currently existing Israeli population centers," thereby giving Israelis an incentive to build even more. It is mind-boggling that a president who supports equality and non-discrimination would dismiss the rights of Christian and Muslim refugees to return to their homes in the "Jewish state" -- a term often repeated but never defined or even left to the parties to negotiate. And it is mind-boggling that the leader of the free world, the president of a nation whose very existence is based on liberty and justice, would act so callously to deny liberty and justice to the Palestinian people.

As I've said before, I'm uncomfortable posting on I/P issues. I know some of the history, but not all of it. But, I have to admit, this was my first reaction to the Bush/Sharon presser.

Game Meme

We'll play. Play is good and there hasn't been enough around here lately.

via TalkLeft:

"It was the best journey of his life."

The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, edited and translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

If you are blogless, you can play along in Comments.

Early Days of a Better Nation

The Wrong Debate on Terrorism
By RICHARD A. CLARKE

Published: April 25, 2004

One lesson is that even though we are the world's only remaining superpower — as we were before Sept. 11, 2001 — we are seriously threatened by an ideological war within Islam. It is a civil war in which a radical Islamist faction is striking out at the West and at moderate Muslims. Once we recognize that the struggle within Islam — not a "clash of civilizations" between East and West — is the phenomenon with which we must grapple, we can begin to develop a strategy and tactics for doing so. It is a battle not only of bombs and bullets, but chiefly of ideas. It is a war that we are losing, as more and more of the Islamic world develops antipathy toward the United States and some even develop a respect for the jihadist movement.

I do not pretend to know the formula for winning that ideological war. But I do know that we cannot win it without significant help from our Muslim friends, and that many of our recent actions (chiefly the invasion of Iraq) have made it far more difficult to obtain that cooperation and to achieve credibility.

What we have tried in the war of ideas has also fallen short. It is clear that United States government versions of MTV or CNN in Arabic will not put a dent in the popularity of the anti-American jihad. Nor will calls from Washington for democratization in the Arab world help if such calls originate from a leader who is trying to impose democracy on an Arab country at the point of an American bayonet. The Bush administration's much-vaunted Middle East democracy initiative, therefore, was dead on arrival.

We must also be careful, while advocating democracy in the region, that we do not undermine the existing regimes without having a game plan for what should follow them and how to get there. The lesson of President Jimmy Carter's abandonment of the shah of Iran in 1979 should be a warning. So, too, should we be chastened by the costs of eliminating the regime of Saddam Hussein, almost 25 years after the shah, also without a detailed plan for what would follow.

Other parts of the war of ideas include making real progress on the Israel-Palestinian issue, while safe-guarding Israeli security, and finding ideological and religious counter-weights to Osama bin Laden and the radical imams. Fashioning a comprehensive strategy to win the battle of ideas should be given as much attention as any other aspect of the war on terrorists, or else we will fight this war for the foreseeable future. For even when Osama bin Laden is dead, his ideas will carry on. Even as Al Qaeda has had its leadership attacked, it has morphed into a hydra, carrying out more major attacks in the 30 months since 9/11 than it did in the three years before.

The second major lesson of the last month of controversy is that the organizations entrusted with law enforcement and intelligence in the United States had not fully accepted the gravity of the threat prior to 9/11. Because this is now so clear, there will be a tendency to overemphasize organizational fixes. The 9/11 commission and President Bush seem to be in a race to propose creating a "director of national intelligence," who would be given control over all American intelligence agencies. The commission may also recommend a domestic security intelligence service, probably modeled on Britain's MI-5.

While some structural changes are necessary, they are a small part of the solution. And there is a risk that concentrating on chain-of-authority diagrams of federal agencies will further divert our attention from more important parts of the agenda. This new director of national intelligence would be able to make only marginal changes to agency budgets and interactions. The more important task is improving the quality of the analysts, agents and managers at the lead foreign intelligence agency, the Central Intelligence Agency.

....
Finally, we must try to achieve a level of public discourse on these issues that is simultaneously energetic and mutually respectful. I hoped, through my book and testimony, to make criticism of the conduct of the war on terrorism and the separate war in Iraq more active and legitimate. We need public debate if we are to succeed. We should not dismiss critics through character assassination, nor should we besmirch advocates of the Patriot Act as fascists.

We all want to defeat the jihadists. To do that, we need to encourage an active, critical and analytical debate in America about how that will best be done. And if there is another major terrorist attack in this country, we must not panic or stifle debate as we did for too long after 9/11.

Amen

Big is a State of Soul

The Great Cosmic Gentleman showed up last night to add his FU to Comments. Way to go, dude. That's how we build the Democratic Party.

That's how you got to be the Big Dog, by never thanking me for all the links I sent you and you used without attribution. And you like to be cute about Jayson Blair and Jack Kelly.

Rhetoric 101

Bush's Oratory Helps Maintain Support for War

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 25, 2004; Page A01

With skillful use of language and images, President Bush and his aides have kept the American public from turning against the war in Iraq despite the swelling number of U.S. casualties there.

Even with the loss of more than 700 U.S. troops in Iraq, recent uprisings against the U.S.-led occupation there, a dwindling number of allies and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, a majority of Americans still believe that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do. By 52 percent to 41 percent, Americans trust Bush more than Democratic challenger Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) to handle the Iraq situation, according to last week's Washington Post-ABC News poll -- a double-digit improvement for Bush from a month before.

Political strategists and public-opinion experts say a good part of this resilience of public support for Bush and the Iraq war stems from the president's oratory. They say Bush has convinced Americans of three key points that strongly influence overall support for the war: that the United States will prevail in Iraq; that the fighting in Iraq is related to the war against al Qaeda; and that most Iraqis and many foreign countries support U.S. actions in Iraq.

At the same time, the administration has limited damaging images of the cost of war in Iraq. While the president has met privately with the families of many of the war victims, Bush has not attended any funeral for fallen service members, and until last week the administration barred the public release of images of flag-draped caskets.

Bush's opponents say he is building support for the Iraq war -- and himself -- by deceiving the public. "He has not leveled with the American people about the true cost of the war, how long we'll be there, or the number of troops that will be needed," said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "Americans would rather see sound policy rather than just positive rhetoric."

But others say that while support for the war has eroded, Bush deserves credit for keeping the bottom from falling out. "Administration rhetoric -- and more importantly, the reality that Bush is very resolved and is not afraid to show it -- has undoubtedly helped shore up public support," said Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who served on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. "Moreover, administration rhetoric is tailored to address key features of public opinion -- not only the public's concern for success but even the specific indicators of success that resonate with the public."

Bush's chief campaign strategist, Matthew Dowd, said "it's hard to say" how much the president's rhetoric shapes public impression. But he said support for the war would definitely have slipped further if Bush had wavered.

"He shows resolve, and the public wants resolve," Dowd said.

Dowd also said Bush has been aided by a Kerry position on Iraq that mixes support for the war with criticism of Bush. "The public has decided [Iraq] has problems. But whose vision do we support?" he asked. "Kerry has supported either no viable or no acceptable alternative."

This is not to say support for war in Iraq (or for Bush) is robust. Although 51 percent say the war in Iraq was worth fighting, that is down from 70 percent in April 2003. And although they say Bush is handling Iraq better than Kerry would, 54 percent disapprove of Bush's performance.

Though the administration's words and imagery have helped to keep a majority from turning against the war, strategists say that could easily happen if Iraq's stability deteriorates further with the June 30 handover of power. War support could also fall sharply if Kerry were to sharpen his criticism, as he did in a television ad last week.

But so far, Bush has been able to convince the country of several key points that pollsters have identified as indicators of public support for the war. For example, Bush has never wavered in his confidence in the success of the war effort. "We're carrying out a decision that has already been made and will not change: Iraq will be a free, independent country," Bush said at an April 13 news conference.

Anybody who watches CNN can see the truth: Iraq is devolving into civil war. Dana Milbank may think that Bush is a great orator, but that doesn't make him so, and his words don't match the facts. Iraq is well on the way to being a failed state like Afghanistan, and home to terrorists because of Bush, whose neo-con foreign policy team doesn't seem to know anything about nation-building.

Having listened to six months of daily Bushspeak on the telly, I can only say that Milbank is flakking for a better chair at the rare press conference or press gaggle. Bush's oratory wouldn't pass muster at the 8th grade forensic matches I used to judge. The press corps is willing to settle for a leader whose rhetorical skills haven't made it out of middle school, but we don't have to.

The Next Round

At the end of a very long day, Susie Madrak has pulled together most of the links and threads. And I'm going to give her the last word, because I want to sleep on this before I say more. I'm feeling pretty raw at the moment, and that isn't the moment I want to project at this point. My day started at 4:30 AM with what felt like yet another assault, this time by Atrios himself, rather than his commentors, and the great man couldn't even spare a link to those of us who are so far beneath him that he can't bother to cite us. What a brave guy. I have taken years of abuse in those threads, and now the head guy has become a playa in party politics and he still doesn't have a clue: you build coalitions by not demonizing the others in the community of common interest. The right has been very successfull at doing this, and we are still playing circular firing squad. The Democratic Party needs to be a hospitable place to everyone from the center and leftward, including those whose religious commitments brought them to the liberal social agenda. For Atrios to say "screw you" to us is to retreat to the circular firing squad. A dear friend who watched Atrios melt the left down again remarked, "we're going to freakin' do it again," and hand W the next election if we don't change.

Yes, Atrios, you do need to make nice with religious centrists and center lefties. Your site is one of the premiere liberal sites in the center left blogosphere and it hosts some of the most hateful speech in the left blogosphere for religious people. Is that the vaunted liberal big tent? I thought liberals were big on "tolerence?" Where is yours?

Susie captured the moment. Susie said:

* Liberal atheists remind me, in some ways, of rabid libertarians. Not so much in the beliefs, but in their utter disdain for anyone who does not share them. Hey, guess what? I'm not stupid and I believe in God. Deal with it.

Bend over, boy, and squeal like a pig.

From a fellow blonde. Susie nails it. They think we aren't smart enough for them. They think that there is a "them" and an "us." No, there isn't. We either defeat the empire or lose the republic. The choices are stark.

Kiss that pig.

Are We Safer?

Commission Seen Ready to Fault 9/11 Air Defense
By PHILIP SHENON

Published: April 25, 2004

WASHINGTON, April 24 — The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is expected to offer sharp criticism of the Pentagon's domestic air-defense command in the panel's final report and will suggest that quicker military action on that morning might have prevented a hijacked passenger jet from crashing into the Pentagon itself, according to commission officials.

The performance of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, and its failure to protect Washington and New York City from attack on Sept. 11 will be a focus of the remaining public hearings of the 10-member commission, which is in the final weeks of its investigation.

Commission officials said interim reports that were expected to be released at the hearings would suggest that Norad had time on Sept. 11 to launch jet fighters that could have intercepted and possibly shot down American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., more than 50 minutes after the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center in New York. A total of 184 people died in the Pentagon attack, including 59 dead aboard the hijacked plane.

The commission is trying to establish a detailed timeline of how and when military pilots reporting to Norad were informed on Sept. 11 that President Bush had given the extraordinary order allowing them to shoot down passenger planes.

Norad officers have said previously that they did not learn of the order until about 10:10 a.m., a few minutes after the last of the four hijacked jets had crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. But White House officials have suggested that the order was made earlier in the morning and should have been communicated immediately to pilots.

The commission has repeatedly complained that Norad, a joint American-Canadian military command created at the height of the cold war in 1958 to defend air space over North America from Soviet missiles and bombers, has been uncooperative in the panel's investigation.

This one really is a mystery. Supposedly, the NORAD jets should have been in the air within five minutes of the Northeast Control's awareness of the hijackings. Why that didn't happen should scare the crap out of all of us.

Don't Like the Look of This

Decision on Possible Attack on Falluja Seems Near
By DAVID E. SANGER
and THOM SHANKER

Published: April 25, 2004

WASHINGTON, April 24 — Facing one of the grimmest choices of the Iraq war, President Bush and his senior national security and military advisers are expected to decide this weekend whether to order an invasion of Falluja, even if a battle there runs the risk of uprisings in the city and perhaps elsewhere around Iraq.

After declaring on Friday evening in Florida that "America will never be run out of Iraq by a bunch of thugs and killers," Mr. Bush flew to Camp David for the weekend, where administration officials said he planned consultations in a videoconference with the military commanders who are keeping the city under siege.

But in interviews, administration and senior military officials portrayed Mr. Bush's choices as dismal.

"It's clear you can't leave a few thousand insurgents there to terrorize the city and shoot at us," one senior official involved in the discussions said on Saturday. "The question now is whether there is a way to go in with the most minimal casualties possible."

No decision to begin military action has been made yet.

The chief of the American occupation authority, L. Paul Bremer III, visited Falluja on Saturday with Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, to consult with frontline commanders. They appeared to be making a last-ditch effort for a negotiated settlement, officials said.

But in Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has expressed strong doubts that the Falluja political and business figures the Americans are talking to hold any sway over the insurgents.

In the WaPo this morning:

In prayers at another major mosque in Baghdad, a Sunni cleric warned U.S. commanders not to launch another attack on Fallujah.

"We warn you against another massacre in Fallujah," said Ahmed Abdul-Ghafoor Samaraie. "If there will be more bloodletting and more people killed in Fallujah, one hundred Fallujahs will stand against you."

The Left Christians

I want to address directly Atrios's ill-informed, bigoted rant of last evening. For that's what it is. This piece of bloviation was clearly pointed at Allen Brill and myself for taking on an LAT critique of his new pet radio network. He de-legitimates the liberalism of progressive religious bloggers, treats us as a group (that's called bigotry) and, in his ignorance, accuses us of not taking on the Christian Right. He makes ad hominem attacks against people he refuses to name or link to, which marks him as a coward in my book. He derides us as "liberalish," when, in fact, my politics are considerably to the left of his. He sets up a straw man by accusing the Christian Left of not doing what it has, in fact been doing for decades.

This spectacular incidence of mis-information is as dumb as the Biblical literalism of the far right. It's intellectually bankrupt, since it offers nothing to counter the Christian Right other than "nya-nya." We of the Christian Left have the theological and exegetical tools to take on the Right on their own terms, and we've been doing it consistently, but Mr. Radio Big Shot isn't interested in facts. Why he thinks his irrational intolerance is somehow of a higher moral order than that of the fundies is beyond me. I don't just tolerate his atheism, I embrace it. I don't know what sort of imaginary discrimination this privileged white male thinks he has suffered, and, frankly, I don't care.

In this political season, much has been made about some survey somewhere which alleges that an atheist can't get elected dogcatcher in this country. Give me a break. An angry atheist like Atrios is unlikely to get elected to anything. An indifferent one, like Kevin Drum, would probably have a decent shot at the Orange County Council, if he were so inclined. I have no problem with people who are indifferent to religion, and would be happy to vote for anyone whose politics and values are similar to mine, provided that they didn't tell me that my core commitments are ridiculous to them, which is what Atrios just did.

His knee-jerk reaction, and that of a lot of his readers, comes out of a culture of grievance and entitlement that I, frankly, don't find particularly attractive. As to the central point that both Allen and I made, that religious and secular lefties need to make common cause and demonizing each other is a bad idea, Atrios is not just indifferent, but openly hostile. This is the attitude which will keep the Democratic Party a permanent minority. He seems to hold Liberal Christians like Allen and myself personally responsible for the excesses of the Christian Right. Right. Somehow it's our fault that the Liberal Christians can't get a place at the microphone. What the hell does he think our blogs are if not a place to redress some of the imbalance in the public conversation on religion and politics in this country?

UPDATE: Allen has gathered together a summary of reactions from the Christian Left blogosphere.

Cross-Blog Conversation

Here's the text of an interesting email I received yesterday:

On Monday, SEIU kicks off the first phase in a new campaign, called
Justice at Work, to mobilize the power of the web to stop what
commentators have called the "Wal-Martization" of the American
economy. We're starting this campaign with a cross-blog discussion,
asking people to share their ideas about our strategy.

Help us use blogs to start the movement that will improve the lives of
working Americans and their families by fighting for a fair economy that
provides equal opportunity for everyone.

I'm going to be participating in the project along with quite a few of the other progressive bloggers. By comments and email and the SEIU blog, you get to play, too, if you wish to.

Another Bad Day

Iraq hit by lethal rocket strikes
US forces were involved in clashes in Sadr City

A series of explosions across Iraq has claimed the lives of Iraqi civilians, police officers and US soldiers.

"The second hit a gas canister and the explosion was huge. There was blood and bodies everywhere."

BBC cuts back Iraq staff

Claire Cozens
Friday April 23, 2004

Iraq: BBC will be left with just two reporters in Baghdad

The BBC has dramatically scaled back its staff in Iraq and banned programme-makers from organising any new trips there amid the deteriorating security situation.

Just two reporters, David Willis and Dominic Hughes, and a small team of technical staff remain in the corporation's Baghdad bureau after Caroline Hawley and Barbara Plett left the country.

The cutbacks mean the BBC's TV channels and radio stations will be severely restricted in their coverage of the crisis in Iraq, with the flagship 10pm news missing out on live coverage altogether.

The BBC will also have to rely on news agencies and local reporters and cameramen for anything outside Baghdad.

In an internal memo Jonathan Baker, the BBC's world editor, newsgathering, this week warned editors that the reduction in the size of the team would "clearly have effects on the service newsgathering is able to offer programmes and channels from Baghdad".

"As you are probably aware, in view of the increased threat faced by those working in Iraq at the moment, we have reduced our numbers in the Baghdad bureau," he wrote.

"For the next three to four weeks at least we will be served by two correspondents and limited technical support.

"The situation will be kept under constant review. No programme trips to any part of Iraq will be approved until further notice."

The Baghdad bureau is now working on a 12-hour day, starting with a two-way for Radio 4's Today programme at 6.30am.

Baker told editors that the team could be "activated" if a major story breaks overnight, although they should make sure staff in Baghdad had "reasonable downtime".

But the reporters' day will end at 7pm, meaning that unless a major story breaks, BBC1 will not be able to offer any live coverage of unfolding events on its flagship 10pm news bulletin.

A spokesman for the BBC said the health and safety of staff remained "paramount".

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

General Says He May Ask for More Troops
By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: April 24, 2004

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar, April 23 — The top United States commander in the Middle East suggested in an interview on Friday that he was likely to ask for another extension in the current troop levels in Iraq, now at 135,000, and might even ask for more troops beyond that.

The commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, said the security situation was liable to worsen as June 30 approached, and with it the return of self-rule to Iraq. He cited the likelihood of new insurgent attacks against American troops and doubts about the current reliability of Iraqi security forces. The next four months are critical, he said.

The Pentagon has already extended by 90 days the tours of 20,000 soldiers; they were to return to their home bases after a year in Iraq. The Pentagon has offered to find new troops to take their place, to keep the deployment at 135,000, if the military deems it necessary. General Abizaid gave the clearest indication yet that he would ask for those troops.

"If the situation stays about like it is, I will certainly ask that those forces be replaced," he said in an interview here at the regional headquarters of the United States Central Command in this Persian Gulf state. "We're going to make sure we have the right forces in place to do the job that needs to be done."

Moreover, if other nations withdraw their troops, as Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic have said they will, and if the training of most Iraqi security forces is not completed until as late as December, General Abizaid said it was possible that he would request an increase beyond the 135,000 troops.

"If the security situation worsens and we think it's appropriate to bring in more troops, or if countries decide to withdraw their troops, we'll see this thing through," he said. "We'll adjust to a combination of U.S. force levels, Iraqi readiness and steadiness, and coalition forces."

The general's assessment, coupled with the recent disclosure of the Pentagon's contingency plans for the summer, fall and beyond, appear to make even more remote the Bush administration's goal as recently as a month ago to reduce the forces in Iraq before the November election.

Werther on "the sunk cost fallacy":

As a glance the newspaper will reveal, politicians are now trying out new rationales to anesthetize public unease about the rising tab at the Great Mesopotamian Casino. The old bromides about WMD, a self-financing occupation, peace between Israel and Palestine, and the grateful acclaim of the liberated now elicit at best a polite cough behind the hand.

Fortunately for our governing class, the sunk cost argument lies ready: "We've come this far; there's no turning back." Taxpayers have committed $121 billion and military families a much heavier cost, but the U.S. government has not accomplished a single major prewar objective save deposing the senile Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, marvelous benefits will accrue (no less than Changing the World) if we "stay the course" and don't "cut and run" - ominous slogans from Vietnam, another classic example of sunk cost rationales. Even more ominous, the president's 13 April press conference contains this: "As I have said to those who have lost loved ones, we will finish the work of the fallen." There, in embryo, is sunk cost - not in money, but in precious lives.

The Next

U.S., U.N. Seek New Leaders For Iraq
Chalabi and Others Coalition Relied on May Be Left Out

By Robin Wright and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 24, 2004; Page A01

The United States and the top U.N. envoy to Iraq have decided to exclude the majority of the Iraqi politicians the U.S.-led coalition has relied on over the past year when they select an Iraqi government to assume power on June 30, U.S. and U.N. officials said yesterday.

The latest shift in policy comes as the U.S.-led coalition has to resolve some contentious and long-standing issues before the transfer takes place. Earlier this week, the coalition moved to allow former Baath Party members and military officers to return to government jobs.

At the top of the list of those likely to be jettisoned is Ahmed Chalabi, a Shiite politician who for years was a favorite of the Pentagon and the office of Vice President Cheney, and who was once expected to assume a powerful role after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, U.S. officials acknowledged.

Chalabi has increasingly alienated the Bush administration, including President Bush, in recent months, U.S. officials said. He generated anger in Washington yesterday when he said a new U.S. plan to allow some former officials of Hussein's ruling Baath Party and military to return to office was the equivalent of returning Nazis to power in Germany after World War II.

Chalabi has headed the committee in charge of removing former Baathist officials. In a nationwide address yesterday designed to promote national reconciliation, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said complaints that the program is "unevenly and unjustly" administered are "legitimate" and that the overall program has been "poorly implemented."

That criticism may curtail Chalabi's influence over the removal of former officials -- and his power over the employment and income prospects for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Washington is also seriously considering cutting off the $340,000 monthly stipend to Chalabi's party, the Iraqi National Congress, according to a senior administration official familiar with discussions. This would be a major change, because the INC has received millions in U.S. aid over the past decade as the primary vehicle for supporting the Iraqi opposition.

Chalabi is part of a wider problem, however. Polls indicate that most of the 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council have little public support nine months after they were appointed. The lack of popular backing is the main reason the United States and United Nations are seeking a new body to govern Iraq before national elections are held in January 2005, U.S. and U.N. officials said.

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who is in charge of picking the new government in consultation with the U.S.-led coalition, made clear yesterday that the council should disband. "They have said twice, not once, in official documents they signed, that our term will end on the 30th of June," he said in an interview on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" to be aired Sunday.

"All opinion polls, and a lot are taken in Iraq, say that people want something different" than expansion of the council because they fear council members "will clone themselves. And why do you want to have that?" Brahimi asked.

U.S. and U.N. officials generally fear that the continued involvement of too many council members will contaminate efforts to create a credible Iraqi government, they said.

This is inside baseball, but both of these reporters are the pr wing of the CIA. Read with caution, and no small amount of interest. Know your sources.

You Are What You Eat

USDA vets: Documents falsified for years

By Steve Mitchell
United Press International
Published 4/23/2004 12:51 PM

WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has pressured its veterinarians into falsifying official documents for as long as 20 years, former agency veterinarians told United Press International.

The allegations come as a current USDA veterinarian and an attorney representing federal veterinarians have made similar charges about existing internal practices at the agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The veterinarian -- who requested anonymity because of feared repercussions from the agency -- and the attorney, Bill Hughes of the National Association of Federal Veterinarians, allege the present FSIS management takes retaliatory actions against veterinarian inspectors who do not obey orders from superiors to sign certificates that falsely assert certain food items are safe for export.

These so-called export certificates declare a food item has been prepared in accordance with the safety inspection requirements of foreign countries. In some cases, Hughes and the veterinarian charge, even though food items may violate those export requirements, veterinarian inspectors still are expected to sign the documents.

Former veterinarians said the practice has been condoned in the agency for up to 20 years.

"We signed export certificates almost daily ... without ever verifying their accuracy," Tom D'Amura, a veterinarian who spent 12 years with the agency before leaving in 2000, told UPI.

"It probably still goes on," D'Amura said, and added he maintains contact with current USDA veterinarians.

Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian who worked for the agency from 1985 to 1995, said falsification of export certificates "has been ongoing for 20 years."

USDA spokesman Steven Cohen told UPI the FSIS was not aware of any current problems with its export certification process and "would launch an investigation" if it learned about management pressuring veterinarians to sign false documents.

Hughes currently is representing two agency veterinarians who were suspended for two weeks without pay when they balked at signing certificates they thought was inaccurate.

In one case, a veterinarian had cited a firm for infractions on two different days when employees were preparing poultry products for export to Russia. Because the infractions were specific violations of Russia's inspection requirements, the veterinarian refused to sign the export certificates for the poultry products processed during those two days.

Plant employees complained and the veterinarian's immediate supervisor and district manager ordered her to sign the export certificate. She again refused and ultimately was charged with improper conduct. The FSIS has rejected two of her appeals and Hughes recently filed a third appeal on her behalf on Feb. 20.

Just when you think you've heard it all.

More Bad News

Sharon: Arafat no longer immune to attack

The Associated Press
Published on: 04/23/04

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday that he was no longer bound by a promise to President Bush not to harm Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

It was the strongest signal yet that Israel could target Arafat, whom it has confined to his West Bank headquarters for two years.

In an interview with Israel TV's Channel Two, broadcast Friday, Sharon said he told Bush about his change of position in a Washington meeting last week.

Sharon accuses Arafat of supporting Palestinian militants, who have killed more than 900 Israelis during three and a half years of fighting.

Israel has killed scores of militants, including the leaders of the Islamic group Hamas, in targeted attacks. However, under U.S. pressure, it has refrained from killing or expelling Arafat.

"I told the president the following," Sharon said. "In our first meeting about three years ago, I accepted your request not to harm Arafat physically. I told him I understand the problems surrounding the situation, but I am released from that pledge."

Sharon declined to elaborate and would not say how Bush responded.

Palestinian officials have expressed concern that Israel might attack Arafat, especially after the killings of the Hamas leaders in recent months. On Thursday, Arafat expelled 20 militants who had sought shelter at his West Bank headquarters, fearing an Israeli attack was imminent.

This is so bad news that I don't even want to think about it. This is Sharon saying that Bush--and the US--is irrelevant. And Bush is because Sharon will pay no price for this. Sharon is being given carte blanche to pursue whatever he wants to. This is going to give Tony Blair nightmares this weekend.

Get Out the Vote

One vote for sending message

I have just read letters from the very disappointed wives whose husbands will be extended for another 120 days in country in Iraq.

Patricia Wilson
DeBary, Fla.

Honored Ground

Pentagon Ban on Pictures of Dead Troops Is Broken
By BILL CARTER

Published: April 23, 2004

The Pentagon's ban on making images of dead soldiers' homecomings at military bases public was briefly relaxed yesterday, as hundreds of photographs of flag-draped coffins at Dover Air Force Base were released on the Internet by a Web site dedicated to combating government secrecy.

The Web site, the Memory Hole (www.thememoryhole.org), had filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year, seeking any pictures of coffins arriving from Iraq at the Dover base in Delaware, the destination for most of the bodies. The Pentagon yesterday labeled the Air Force Air Mobility Command's decision to grant the request a mistake, but news organizations quickly used a selection of the 361 images taken by Defense Department photographers.

The release of the photographs came one day after a contractor working for the Pentagon fired a woman who had taken photographs of coffins being loaded onto a transport plane in Kuwait. Her husband, a co-worker, was also fired after the pictures appeared in The Seattle Times on Sunday. The contractor, Maytag Aircraft, said the woman, Tami Silicio of Seattle, and her husband, David Landry, had "violated Department of Defense and company policies."

The firing underscored the strictness with which the Pentagon and the Bush administration have pursued a policy of forbidding news organizations to showing images of the homecomings of the war dead at military bases. They have argued that the policy was put in place during the first war in Iraq, and that it is simply an effort to protect the sensitivities of military families.

Executives at news organizations, many of whom have protested the policy, said last night that they had not known that the Defense Department itself was taking photographs of the coffins arriving home, a fact that came to light only when Russ Kick, the operator of The Memory Hole, filed his request.

"We were not aware at all that these photos were being taken," said Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times.

John Banner, the executive producer of ABC's "World News Tonight," said, "We did not file a F.O.I.A. request ourselves, because this was the first we had known that the military was shooting these pictures."

The images are here. Be careful with this, they are quite powerful. Be prepared to spend some time, and some of your humanity.

from Church Going by Philip Larkin

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

News Comes Due

Stahl of ''60 Minutes'' says she regrets Iraq WMD stories

By KATE WILTROUT, The Virginian-Pilot
© April 22, 2004

VIRGINIA BEACH - Lesley Stahl has had her share of journalistic triumphs in the 14 years she has traveled the world interviewing newsmakers for “60 Minutes.”

But Wednesday night, the CBS news correspondent and “60 Minutes” co-editor also talked about work she’s less proud of: two pre-Iraq war reports casting doubt on Saddam Hussein’s claim to have rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

“I look on those two stories as mistakes, journalistic mistakes,” Stahl told a crowd of about 1,000 gathered in the Princess Anne High School auditorium. “I made them, and I regret it.”

Stahl described a trip to Iraq in October 2001 , where she interviewed Iraqi officials, military leaders and scientists. They told her that Saddam had no ties to Osama bin Laden, that their secular Muslim country was just as much his enemy as the United States.

Stahl said she believed that.

They also told her that the country had gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction - the continued possession of such weapons was later cited by President Bush as justification for a pre-emptive war.

Stahl didn’t buy the Iraqis’ claims. Her instincts, she said, told her they were lying. “I didn’t believe anything the Iraqis were telling me about weapons of mass destruction,” Stahl said. “Nobody believed their denials.”

Stahl said she double- and triple-checked with lots of other sources.

No one had any doubts the weapons existed, she said - something she agonizes about now, but doesn’t know what she could have done differently.

This is the "handwringing" defense. The fact of the matter is that she joined a press corps eager for war, and one that would never have to serve in a war zone. Her behavior in the run-up was media whorish and hasn't been much better in the ensuing months. Blink-blink-bat-bat is such a lovely strategy for newsgathering.

When "Blackhawk Down" Comes Due

Follow the Leader
By JOSHUA MICAH MARSHALL

Published: April 23, 2004

WASHINGTON

But the war in Iraq is unique. Rarely if ever have a foreign policy and a president's fate been so clearly linked. Former commanders in chief may have faced reverses in prosecuting the cold war — John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs, for example, or Ronald Reagan at Reykjavik. And Vietnam, of course, ended the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

But these presidents did not choose or create these conflicts. In contrast, America wouldn't be in Iraq today had President Bush not chosen to put us there.

If Americans decide that Iraq is a disaster, why do they not see him as the cause of the problem? Why has support for the president bounced back (up four points in one poll) even as approval of his handling of Iraq has fallen (down three points in the same poll)?

The pattern may not hold, and voters tend to react differently to the outbreak of a crisis than to sustained bad news. Still, there is a theory that might explain these apparently contradictory poll results. In wars abroad, Americans don't want their presidents to fail.

In part that's because a failure for the president is a failure for the nation. Indeed, the logic may apply with more force in cases like Iraq, in which the president has cast the nation on what is essentially a war of choice. To admit that the president blew it is to say the same of the public that followed him into the conflict. And like its leaders, the public not only doesn't like admitting it was wrong, but it will go to great lengths to avoid doing so.

The danger for President Bush is clear: the public's patience is not unlimited, and eventual failure in Iraq will almost certainly sink his candidacy. (Sometimes the conventional wisdom is actually right.)

For John Kerry, the risks are less obvious but no less real: running a campaign that focuses the voters' gaze solely on the president's manifest failures will probably run into resistance, especially with the voters he most needs to win over, those from the ambivalent middle. Mr. Kerry is far more likely to win if he has a plan to show how he — and thus the American people — can succeed rather than simply showing how President Bush — and thus they — have failed.

I don't disagree with Josh, but beg your indulgence in pointing to a disturbing trend: to the extent that Bush gets a pass because he is the "leader," Americans are passive consumers of news. "Support the President, support the troops" is lazy rhetoric. It is still early in the election cycle and most are still not paying attention, but a creeping awareness of US combat deaths is going to erode "support" numbers at some point. Since there still is no plan and no mission for the troops, this is only going to get worse.

File this under "Cold Comfort."

Call From Faith

Church group slams Bush on Clean Air Act

Thursday, April 22, 2004 Posted: 1:28 PM EDT (1728 GMT)

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- A national group of Christian leaders is sending a scathing letter to President Bush to coincide with Earth Day, accusing his administration of chipping away at the Clean Air Act.

"And we will in fact have dirtier air and less compliance," said Edgar, who served six terms in Congress in the 1970s and '80s, representing a suburban Philadelphia district. The council is urging ministers across the country to talk about the problems of air pollution during this week's services.

The other evening, we had a discussion about the tendency of some secular liberals to bash religion generally, without taking into account that they are needlessly alienating religious liberals and moderates who should be natural allies. As always happens, calls were made that it is the responsibility of religious liberals to counter the religious right.

In point of fact, faith groups and clerical associations do it all the time. Getting coverage is the problem, as Rev. Allen Brill of The Village Gate noted in the course of our earlier discussion. The media give the Christian right the bigger megaphone. So I was pleased to see this Earth Day story on CNN.

The NCCC, Clergy Leadership Network and other progressive religious voices do things like this all the time. The fact that you don't get to hear about it is not their fault.

GWOT Update

Poll: Americans Pessimistic on Terror War
Apr 22, 12:10 AM (ET)

By WILL LESTER

(AP) According to an Associated Press poll. half of the people questioned are concerned that terrorists...
Full Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - Half of Americans have concerns that terrorists might be winning the war on terrorism, and one in five feels strongly that way, according to an Associated Press poll that found many people pessimistic about their security.

Fears about an attack against this country are high. Two-thirds in the poll said it was likely terrorists would strike before the November elections. And a third said it was likely there would be an attack at one of the political conventions this summer.

More than 30 months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, two-thirds of Americans acknowledge some concern that terrorists may be recruiting faster than the United States can keep up. A third of those polled feel strongly this is the case, and another third say they have at least some worries.

"Terrorists are winning the war for the hearts and minds of the people in the Mideast," said Christine Wyatt, a 52-year-old church deacon in Clarkston, Mich.

Fears about the war on terrorism may be fueled by growing worries about the conflict in Iraq, which has been described by the Bush administration as a front line of the war on terror.

Those who think the military action in Iraq has increased the long-term risk of terrorism in the United States have increased from 40 percent in December to 54 percent now, according to the poll, conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

The people who say the Bush administration made the right decision to go to war in Iraq, 48 percent, are now about even with those who think the administration made a mistake, 49 percent. In December, two-thirds said the administration made the right decision.

So explain to me again why W's polling numbers are so stable?

A Beautiful Mind

As Wealthy Fill Top Colleges, New Efforts to Level the Field
By DAVID LEONHARDT

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — At prestigious universities around the country, from flagship state colleges to the Ivy League, more and more students from upper-income families are edging out those from the middle class, according to university data.

The change is fast becoming one of the biggest issues in higher education.

More members of this year's freshman class at the University of Michigan have parents making at least $200,000 a year than have parents making less than the national median of about $53,000, according to a survey of Michigan students. At the most selective private universities across the country, more fathers of freshmen are doctors than are hourly workers, teachers, clergy members, farmers or members of the military — combined.

Experts say the change in the student population is a result of both steep tuition increases and the phenomenal efforts many wealthy parents put into preparing their children to apply to the best schools. It is easy to see here, where BMW 3-series sedans are everywhere and students pay up to $800 a month to live off campus, enough to rent an entire house in parts of Michigan.

Some colleges are starting to take action. Officials long accustomed to discussing racial diversity are instead taking steps to improve economic diversity. They say they are worried that their universities are reproducing social advantage instead of serving as an engine of mobility.

"It's very much an issue of fundamental fairness," Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, said in an interview. "An important purpose of institutions like Harvard is to give everybody a shot at the American dream."

The University of Maryland recently said it would no longer ask students from families making less than $21,000 a year to take out loans, and would instead give them scholarships to cover tuition. Officials at Harvard, the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia all recently announced similar, even more generous policies.

Stanford and Yale have altered early-admission programs, partly out of a concern that they give an unfair advantage to students who do not need to compare financial-aid offers before they can commit to a college.

Over all, at the 42 most selective state universities, including the flagship campuses in California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan and New York, 40 percent of this year's freshmen come from families making more than $100,000, up from about 32 percent in 1999, according to the Higher Education Research Institute. Nationwide, fewer than 20 percent of families make that much money.
....
The advantages of campuses with increasingly wealthy student bodies are obvious, educators say: the colleges have more resources for research and student activities, more professors doing cutting-edge work and more students who received solid high school educations.

But they also have much steeper tuition bills than in the past, and this seems to have turned off many middle- and low-income families. Some students are not willing to take on the tens of thousands of dollars of debt that is often necessary. Others, studies show, underestimate the available amount of financial aid.

"We were founded on the principle of allowing larger numbers of students to go to college in an affordable way," Mr. Spencer, Michigan's admission director, said. "But having said that, the price of college has gone up, and many of the truly needy will not bother to apply."

That concerns people here and on other campuses because of what it could mean for the variety of campus life and for the broader economy.

"We're very worried," said William Fitzsimmons, Harvard's director of undergraduate admissions. "There are some very, very talented kids in the bottom quartile who aren't even going to college. It's a huge waste of talent."

I'm scanning a batch of "education" stories today and wondering about the assumptions behind them. This is a subject that we don't take seriously.

There needs to be a national conversation about the role of education in the life of the nation, about how we fund it and what we think we are accomplishing with it. What's a college education for?

Waiting it Out

Violence in Iraq Forces 2 Big Contractors to Curb Work
By JAMES GLANZ

Published: April 22, 2004

The insurgency in Iraq has driven two major contractors, General Electric and Siemens, to suspend most of their operations there, raising new doubts about the American-led effort to rebuild the country as hostilities continue.

Spokesmen for the contractors declined to discuss their operations in Iraq, citing security concerns, but the shutdowns were confirmed by officials at the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, the Coalition Provisional Authority and other companies working directly with G.E. and Siemens in Iraq.

"Between the G.E. lockdown and the inability to get materials moved up the major supply routes, about everything is being affected in one way or another," said Jim Hicks, a senior adviser for electricity at the provisional authority.

The suspensions and travel restrictions are delaying work on about two dozen power plants as occupying forces press to meet an expected surge in demand for electricity before the summer. Mr. Hicks said plants that had been expected to produce power by late April or early May might not be operating until June 1.

"While it's being affected, it's not shutting down," he said of the work. "I think we're still in good shape as far as getting our equipment back up before the summer really hits us."

Several government and company officials said reconstruction work had rebounded recently after the intense violence of the past few weeks, but experts said they were concerned the delays might affect ordinary Iraqis.

"What worries me is that, are the insurgents, the terrorists, are they winning the battle this way?" asked Isam al Khafaji, an Iraqi who is director of Iraq Revenue Watch, an initiative of the Open Society Institute, an organization backed by the billionaire George Soros.

Electricity, he added, "is the most important sector for the Iraqis after security."

"This will be affecting, really, people's everyday lives," he said.

The Coalition Provisional Authority regards the rehabilitation of the Iraq's water, sewage, transportation, oil and electrical infrastructure as a linchpin in the effort to create a functioning democracy and convince Iraqis of America's good will.

A spokeswoman for the authority said discussions involving security issues with General Electric had led to an agreement that could result in a resumption of operations. The spokeswoman said Siemens and the authority were "working out their differences," but she said she had no information about whether the company would resume work.

General Electric booked $450 million in orders in 2003 in Iraq, mostly for subcontracts to the large primary contractors in Iraq, said Gary Sheffer, a company spokesman.

Neither General Electric nor other companies working in Iraq would say how many employees they had in the country, citing security concerns.
....
But the lockdowns by General Electric in particular have led to delays on power projects that involved its huge turbine power generators, in some cases forcing other companies to slow or stop work.

The delays are slowing work on a $50 million project to refurbish a large power plant north of Baghdad, said Robert Spaulding, an operations vice president for Fluor, a major contractor in Iraq.

About 70 Iraqis and a dozen non-Iraqi managers are taking apart three General Electric turbines, but G.E. has declined to send technical advisers and has been slow to ship new parts, Mr. Spaulding said. He said he might be forced to seek technical help from other companies that have experience with the G.E. units.

"Tell me what's different about having an American construction superintendent at this site," Mr. Spaulding said, referring to his own employees there, "but G.E. won't send an American tech guy?"

The article is a mess, obviously filed in haste with little or no editing, but it does give a portrait of the chaos in Iraq, seen through the eyes of the contractors trying to make a buck, or at least the ones trying to actually get something done. As opposed to just sucking up kickbacks and other graft, which is apparently quite spectacular. More information on that here.

Al Qaeda Votes

OP-ED: Al Qaeda will want Bush back —Muqtedar Khan

It would be naïve to assume that Al Qaeda will not vote in the coming American elections in November 2004. The issue that we must ponder is how it’s going to cast its ballot? To understand how Al Qaeda will vote, we must try to figure out whom it will prefer in the White House, Bush or Kerry?

If John Kerry wins in November he will probably make the following changes in American foreign policy:

1. He will roll back American unilateralism and seek more international cooperation from Europe, South Asia, Middle East and the UN. Instead of a coalition of the coerced, Kerry will seek a truly international coalition. Coalitions built through a multilateral process will present fewer fissures in the anti-terror campaign for Al Qaeda to exploit.

2. Most probably John Kerry will be interested in reducing rather than expanding the scope and objectives of counter-terrorism. Neocon goals such as reshaping the Middle East, reforming Islam, reconstituting the United States defence doctrines and redefining old Europe, will be abandoned and under Kerry the US will concentrate more on eliminating Al Qaeda and associates than anything else.

3. Much of soft anti-Americanism worldwide is a result of anti-Bushism. Regardless of what Americans think, most of the world finds President Bush uncouth, obnoxious, arrogant, crude and a bully. His defeat itself will reduce anti-Americanism globally and will increase American prospects for victory in this war on terror.

Will Al Qaeda be happy with these developments? I doubt it. Anti-Bushism has helped them divide the world and the growing anger in the Muslim world as a result of George Bush’s policies has helped them gain recruits, clones and support. If Bush loses in November they will lose an important asset. Al Qaeda will become the sole target of US energies and surely that must be a disturbing thought to even those who relish the idea of dying while fighting America.

Republican Finishing School

The Bible college that leads to the White House
The campus is immaculate, everyone is clean-cut and cheerful. But just what are they teaching at Patrick Henry College? And why do so many students end up working for George Bush?
By Andrew Buncombe

Yet these things alone do not make the college special. There are, after all, a number of Christian establishments across the United States that enforce such a strict fundamentalist code for their students.

No, what makes Patrick Henry unique is the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links this recently established, right-wing Christian college has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment as a whole. This spring, of the almost 100 interns working in the White House, seven are from Patrick Henry. Another intern works for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, while another works for President George Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove. Yet another works for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. Over the past four years, 22 conservative members of Congress have employed one or more Patrick Henry interns. Janet Ashcroft, the wife of Bush's Bible-thumping Attorney General, is one of the college's trustees.

And this is no coincidence. Rather, it is the very point. Students at Patrick Henry are on a mission to change the world: indeed, to lead the world. When, after four years or so of study, they leave their neatly-kept campus with its close-mown lawns, they do so with a drive and commitment to reshape their new environments according to the fundamentalist, right-wing vision of their college.

Critics say that Patrick Henry's system cannot help but produce narrow-minded students with extremist views, but the college's openly stated aim is to train young men and women "who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values".

Nancy Keenan, of the liberal campaign group People for the American Way, says: "The number of interns [from Patrick Henry] going into the White House scares me to death. People have a right to choose [where their children are educated], but we are concerned that they are not exposed to the kind of diversity this country has. They are training people with a very limited ideological and political view. If these young people are going into positions of power, they have to govern with all people in mind, not just a limited number."

I know about this place because this is a local story for me. The founder/president is a protege of Tim LaHaye, one of the authors of the Christian Dominionist Left Behind novel series. Even in Evangelical Christian circles, this is wingnuttery.

These kids are being groomed for the Republican power structure. We have a whole lot of institution building to do on our side.

Bloody Day

Blast Destroys Saudi Security Headquarters

Compiled From Wire Reports
Wednesday, April 21, 2004; 11:17 AM

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Two car bombs blasted the Saudi national police headquarters Wednesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 125 others, just days after a U.S. warning of a possible terrorist attack.

Facades were torn off buildings near the explosions, revealing rooms still ablaze. Cars parked nearby were smashed by debris. Clouds of dust and black smoke rose from the building and settled over the neighborhood. The two car bombs were parked about 50 feet from the building, a police official told The Associated Press, adding that "a number of charred bodies" were carried away from the scene.

A Reuters report said only one bomb detonated in the attack.

Nine people were killed, including policemen and civilians, and 125 were wounded, according to officials at three hospitals.

Police had said earlier that one body was identified as that of a suicide attacker. It was not immediately known if his body was among those counted by the hospital officials.

Among the wounded were police, some in critical condition, and at least three children.

Five Car Bombs Leave Scores Dead in Basra
More Than 200 Injured in Attacks; Marines Come Under Attack in Fallujah

By Karl Vick, Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 21, 2004; 12:09 PM

BAGHDAD, April 21 -- Five car bombs exploded at Iraqi police facilities in and around the southern city of Basra early Wednesday, killing at least 60 people and wounding an estimated 200 more, including 4 British troops.

The dead included a number of school children traveling in a pair of minibuses that happened to be passing by one of the three police stations where bombs exploded almost simultaneously at 7:30 a.m., the morning rush hour.

An hour later, at 8:30 (12:30 EDT) another vehicle exploded at the police training academy in Zubair, eight miles south of the city. Just an hour after that, another blast hit the academy, according to Basra's governor Wael Abdul Latif.

He told the Associated Press that two more car bombers were captured before they could attack.

There were conflicting estimates of the number of children dead, ranging from 5 to 28.

"Today another crime, a massacre, has been committed," said Interior Minister Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy. "They killed another group of innocent children to reach their victory. The terrorists want to leave Iraq in chaos."

Basra is Iraq's second largest city. Compared to the north, it's been relatively calm. Tensions rose, but the peace largely held, during the insurgency that flared earlier this month in other parts of the south, where Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority is concentrated.

Lunch Scene

In the WaPo this morning, Al Kamen clarifies something I wrote about last week:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Iraq

So what was CIA Director George J. "Slam Dunk" Tenet, recipient of some unflattering press of late via Woodward's new book, doing having lunch at the Hay Adams last week with outgoing Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti?

Valenti's still looking for a successor, but that was not on the table, we were told. Still the origin of their relationship was unclear. Fortunately, Valenti faxed a helpful note over after Friday's item appeared.

"Because I don't want the Post and you to be in the dark about the provenance of my friendship with George Tenet" Valenti wrote, "it goes back to the Senate days of my old friend, David Boren of Oklahoma. When he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, his staff director was a fellow named George Tenet. My wife's and my friendship with George and his wife, Stephanie, dates back to that time.

"There you are. That information void is now filled," Valenti said.

We Own It

Witnesses: No quick end to Iraq burdens

By BOB DART
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/21/04

WASHINGTON — Expert witnesses told a Senate committee Tuesday that U.S. troop levels and spending in Iraq will remain high for three to five years after Iraq becomes self-governing.

"My own experience from Bosnia, from Kosovo, from Haiti is that it takes a great deal of time to build an army or to build a police force — three to four to five years," Samuel Berger, national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I think we're talking about another $200 billion at least in the next three years."

Richard Perle, until February an adviser to the Bush administration, said, "If we could only get others to share it, it would significantly diminish the burden we have to carry. I think as a practical matter, that's highly unlikely."

Committee leaders were upset the Bush administration sent no Defense Department witnesses to the hearing. They said they were concerned that the administration, which intends to hand over power to the Iraqis on June 30, had not been sufficiently forthcoming about future costs there.

The administration has sometimes failed to "communicate its Iraq plans and cost estimates to Congress and the American people" and "must recognize that its domestic credibility on Iraq will have a great impact on its efforts to succeed," said Chairman Richard Lugar.

Sen. Joseph Biden, the committee's top-ranking Democrat, said U.S. forces in Iraq "may soon be confronted by an untenable situation . . . caught between hostile Iraqi populations that they were sent to liberate and an increasingly skeptical American public." He added, "No foreign policy can be sustained in this country without the informed consent of the American people, and there has not been an informed consent yet because we have not leveled with them."

In another hearing Tuesday, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee expressed concern about what the handover of power would mean to the control exerted by U.S. forces in Iraq.

Questioning Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) warned of possible questions of authority between American combat forces and the interim Iraqi government.

"Say there's a major insurrection that occurs early on in July and our military commanders have to decide to the extent that force must be applied," said Warner. "If you're going to give them sovereignty, and at the same time our military commander . . . has the authority to make those decisions as to how to apply force, I see a basic conflict of interest."

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking minority member, echoed Warner's concerns.

"A gap in the ability to do what is required militarily is unacceptable," he said.

But Wolfowitz said U.S. forces would remain under U.S. command, right up to the commander in chief. He added it was unlikely the United States would persuade more allies to commit troops to Iraq as long as the fighting continued, even if it got a new U.N. resolution on Iraq. "I do think there are quite a few countries who aren't going to come in until it's safer to come in," he said.

Wolfowitz appeared with Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs,.

Myers said the situation in Iraq would be similar to that in Afghanistan and Bosnia, where U.S. troops operate under their own commanders in a sovereign country. Should U.S. troops face a combat situation in Iraq, he said, "we're going to have to do what we have to do."

Neither of these hearings were on C-SPAN yesterday (WTF?) Juan Cole said, "This was an uprising!" His testimony is here.

Marketplace

I caught this on the radio in the car last night. Holy crap!

The spoils of war add up to more than capturing expansive palaces and luxury cars. As Marketplace reporters have discovered, not all of the $22 billion being spent to rebuild Iraq is going where it should. Who's watching the money as it streams through Baghdad? Just about no one, and bribes and black marketeering are rampant, witnesses say. A leading anti-corruption group claims as much as 90 percent of U.S. money spent in Iraq is being lost to corruption. From Halliburton subsidiaries charging double for gas, Iraqi officials and Arabic translators unrestrained from pocketing millions of dollars, or even members of the interim governing Council accusing each other of taking tens of millions in bribes. Trouble is, the root of the problem can't be found anywhere near the Green Zone. Try the White House, and Capitol Hill, where oversight of Iraqi construction crews and U.S. contractors like Halliburton has only just begun to be assigned… more than a year after the war began.

The Buck Stops Here:
There is a lot of anger in Iraq right now towards the US occupation of the country. Some of the bitterness comes from frustration over the slow pace of fundamental change in the country. And central to change was snuffing out corruption.. Many had pinned their hopes on the Americans to take care of things. But in three months of investigating the story, Marketplace found that the problem is as deeply embedded in Washington as it is in Baghdad. Mark Schapiro, of the Center for Investigative Reporting, picks up the story on Capitol Hill.
Broadcast Date: Friday, April 23, 2004

Sometimes, You Have to Laugh

via Nathan Newman:

Pottery Barn faults Powell's breaking point

Company says quote from official misstates policy on merchandise

09:11 PM CDT on Monday, April 19, 2004

By MICHAEL PRECKER / The Dallas Morning News

Pottery Barn would like to make one thing perfectly clear: If you break it, you don't have to buy it.

The 174-store home furnishings chain unexpectedly found itself in the news over the weekend as author Bob Woodward released his new book about the Iraq war, Plan of Attack, and began talking about it.

Mr. Woodward quotes Secretary of State Colin Powell as warning President Bush that invading Iraq would produce a "Pottery Barn rule" – which Mr. Powell defined as "you break it, you own it."

The term was news to Williams-Sonoma, the San Francisco-based retailer that owns Pottery Barn.

"The policy is completely incorrectly represented by the secretary of state," said Leigh Oshirak, director of public relations for the company. "I can't imagine you would ever hear that at any retailer at our level."

Completely out of touch with ordinary retail policy.

Shooting Self in the Guts

via GetReligion:

Media Matters:
All-left radio is lacking the right stuff for success

The first time I turned on Air America, the new liberal radio network, I heard a commentator arguing that Republicans did not initiate impeachment proceedings against President Clinton because of Monica Lewinsky, Whitewater, lying or obstruction of justice. No, the man said, Republicans knew Clinton had committed no impeachable offenses, but they pursued impeachment anyway, in a diabolically clever ploy designed specifically to make the general public so disenchanted with the very idea of impeachment that they would not tolerate impeachment against the next (Republican) president — who, of course, deserves to be impeached immediately.
....
In a country in which 64% of the public say they attend weekend worship services at least once a month, mocking religion might not be the most effective way to win converts — and yet, on Good Friday no less, that's exactly what the various Air America hosts repeatedly did.

Two of the hosts gratuitously announced that they're Jewish, and one — Marc Maron of the network's "Morning Sedition" program — went on to make fun of Easter and Christmas rituals. Then, in a segment he called "morning devotional," Maron began his prayer for divine guidance on behalf of President Bush by saying, "Dear Lord, what the hell is going on up there?"

Another host — I think it was Rachel Maddow on "Unfiltered," though I couldn't always distinguish her voice from that of co-host Lizz Winstead — called Easter "an odd celebration" and said that a taxi driver had told her that "someone in a Jesus suit" would carry a cross along 42nd Street in New York in a reenactment of the events of Good Friday, "but in this case, he'll stop to buy a fake Louis Vuitton bag."

Here you have the exact reason I started Bump in the Beltway, because this is the kind of stuff which will cost us the next election. A substantial fraction of religious people of any stripe--Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Baha'i, whatever--will be interested in hearing the social justice agenda of the center-left, but not if it includes a substantial dose of religion bashing. I'm much further left than the other poli-bloggers, but this kind of rhetoric offends me. A lot of my politics comes out of my reading of my faith. Don't bash it.

If we truly are a fifty-fifty nation, we are going to need to gather in every possible sympathetic voter. That means making common cause with them rather than making fun of them.

Faith-Based Foreign Policy

'Unprecedented Hatred' for Americans in Arab World, Mubarak Says
The Associated Press
Published: Apr 20, 2004

PARIS (AP) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a major Arab ally of the United States, said in published remarks Tuesday that hatred of Americans in the Arab world was stronger now than ever because of the war in Iraq.

Mubarak also said Arab opinion of the United States had grown more negative because of Washington's continuing support for Israel.

"At the start, some believed that the Americans were helping them," Mubarak said in comments published Tuesday by French daily Le Monde. "There wasn't any hatred toward the Americans."

"After what has happened in Iraq, there is an unprecedented hatred and the Americans know it," he added. "There exists today a hatred never equaled in the region."

Mubarak, whose country is among the biggest beneficiaries of U.S. foreign aid, said U.S. missteps in Iraq had made the situation worse.

"In Iraq, they said: 'We are not going to allow the creation of an Islamic state.' Result: people are attached even more to the idea of religion," Mubarak said.

Many Arabs feel a sense of "injustice" in the way the United States has offered strong backing for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Mubarak said.

"What's more - they see Sharon act as he wants, without the Americans saying anything," Mubarak said.

The Egyptian leader met with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris on Monday, on his way home from a trip to the United States to meet with President Bush at his Texas ranch.

I wonder if Bush even cares? Moral certainty is a dangerous thing.

Dollars and Little Sense

Krugman comes on board with a warning Bumped here last month:

If the economy fully recovers — or even if investors just think it will — interest rates will rise sharply. In its World Economic Outlook report, to be issued tomorrow, the International Monetary Fund urges the Federal Reserve to prepare the economy for higher rates to "avoid financial market disruption both domestically and abroad."

But how far will rates rise? Let's not get into Greenspan Kremlinology, parsing the chairman's mumbles for clues about the Fed's next move. Let's ask, instead, how much rates will rise if and when normal conditions of supply and demand resume in the bond market.

My calculations keep leading me to a 10-year bond rate of 7 percent, and a mortgage rate of 8.5 percent — with a substantial possibility that the numbers will be even higher. Current rates are about 4.3 and 5.8 percent, respectively; you can see why the I.M.F. is worried about "financial market disruption."

Why 7 percent? Well, in the past 20 years the average yield on 10-year bonds has, in fact, been about 7 percent. Why shouldn't we think of that as the norm?

Some people say that unlike past interest rates, future interest rates won't include a premium for expected inflation. Indeed, over the past 20 years the average inflation rate was 3 percent, considerably higher than recent experience. But in the first three months of 2004, prices rose at an annual rate of more than 5 percent. That number included soaring gasoline prices, but even the "core" price index, which excludes food and energy, rose at a 2.9 percent rate.

More to the point, investors expect considerable inflation over the next 10 years. The spread between "inflation protected" bonds, whose payments are indexed to the Consumer Price Index, and ordinary bonds indicates an expected inflation rate of 2.5 percent during the next decade.

So you can't claim that interest rates will be far below historical levels because inflation is gone. And on the other side, we need to think about the impact of budget deficits.

That last sentence will send the deficit apologists to battle stations (sorry, I can't avoid politics completely). For many years, advocates of tax cuts have insisted that the normal laws of supply and demand don't apply to the bond market, and that government borrowing — unlike borrowing by families or businesses — doesn't affect interest rates. But there's no argument among serious, nonideological economists. For example, a textbook by Gregory Mankiw, now the president's chief economist, declares — in italics — that "when the government reduces national saving by running a budget deficit, the interest rate rises."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates this year's structural budget deficit — what the deficit would be if cyclical factors like a depressed economy went away — at 3.9 percent of G.D.P. That's almost twice the average during the past 20 years. Standard estimates say this should push up 10-year interest rates by around one percentage point.

Finally, there's the upside risk. As I've pointed out before, the twin U.S. budget and trade deficits would set alarm bells ringing if we were a third world country. For now, America gets the benefit of the doubt, but if financial markets decide that we have turned into a banana republic, the sky's the limit for interest rates.

Now for the obvious point: many American families and businesses will be in big trouble if interest rates really do go as high as I'm suggesting. That's why the I.M.F. is urging the Fed to get the word out.

And one suspects that the fund, which, like Alan Greenspan, tends to convey messages in code, is firing a shot across Mr. Greenspan's bow. A number of analysts have accused Mr. Greenspan of fostering a debt bubble in recent years, just as they accuse him of feeding the stock bubble during the 1990's. Just two months ago, Mr. Greenspan went out of his way to emphasize the financial benefits of adjustable-rate, as opposed to fixed-rate, mortgages. Let's hope that not too many families regarded that as useful advice.

Kash at Angry Bear has more.

From our friends

Jordanian King Puts Off Meeting Bush Over Israel
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, April 19 — King Abdullah of Jordan dealt a rebuff to President Bush on Monday, abruptly putting off his visit to Washington scheduled for later this week. Jordanian officials said the visit had become impossible in light of Mr. Bush's recent support for Israel's territorial claims in the West Bank.

A statement from Jordan said the king, who was in California on Monday and went home rather than to Washington, would not meet with Mr. Bush this week as planned.

It said the meeting would wait "until discussions and deliberations are concluded with officials in the American administration to clarify the American position on the peace process and the final situation in the Palestinian territories, especially in light of the latest statements by officials in the American administration."

A Jordanian official said the statement, in deliberately cool tones, was meant to send a message of displeasure.

For their part, administration officials said that the visit had to be put off because of "developments in the region" and that it would be rescheduled for May.

Jordanian officials made clear that King Abdullah, who was in California meeting with technology and entertainment industry figures, had been irked by Mr. Bush's declarations in his meeting last week with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and would therefore bypass Washington.

After his meeting with Mr. Sharon a week ago, Mr. Bush broke with American policy and supported Israel's ultimate retention of some settlements in the West Bank and also rejected the longtime Palestinian demand for a right of return to family homes abandoned in 1948 in what is now Israel.

The Jordanian statement followed by a week a protest by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

The problems with Egypt and Jordan came as the administration faced another round of difficulties in its plans for Iraq, especially after the abrupt announcement by Spain that it would quickly withdraw its forces there in the face of a deteriorating security situation.

Honduras announced Monday night that it would withdraw its 370 troops, which have been operating in Iraq as part of the Spanish contingent.

Administration officials also said that Poland faced a decision on whether to renew its commitment to keep troops in Iraq, and that it was far from clear whether it would renew its pledge. The Polish commitment is to expire in September. Poland has 2,460 troops in Iraq.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian issue, an Egyptian official said that Mr. Mubarak and his aides had been talking with American officials for several weeks about the possibility of an American endorsement of Israeli aspirations, and that each time the Egyptians had made their opposition clear. Mr. Mubarak described himself as shocked by Mr. Bush's statements in his meeting with Mr. Sharon, although Egyptian officials said he had been apprised of the statements when he met with Mr. Bush in Texas before the Sharon visit.

Administration officials said that despite their difficulties with Egypt and Jordan, they still expected both nations to try to help with security in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, from which Israeli forces and settlers are to be withdrawn under Mr. Sharon's plan.

King Abdullah is one of the moderating forces in the ME. Bush's backing of Sharon earlier this week was araised middle digit to the folks who have been working the peace process for years and I'm hardly surprised that Abdullah is pissed. The margin in which he got to work is very small and he was never given much credit.

Has the Swirly Started?

Barry Ritholtz, who seems to be everywhere on the web these days, has a letter to Eric Alterman (and a plug for his blog. Note to self: get Alterman's attention) today. I'm not nearly as certain as he is that what we are seeing is definitive, but I've noticed the same shift.

Doc A.,
While you were out: There has been the radical shift in Media coverage of all things War, Terrorism and White House related. It's been gradually accelerating, and finally burst into view last Tuesday during the President's Third (only 3?) prime time news conference. Here's a thorough vetting of the changes:

This is extremely significant, at least from an election campaign perspective. The media has been complicit in much of what has happened during this administration. A lack of vigorous fact checking, and little challenges of outright falsehoods has enabled much of what the Bush White House has accomplished in their first term. With few exceptions (The New York Time's Paul Krugman, and the Kansas City Star come to mind), the Press has been mostly AWOL during most of President Bush's term.

What will be definitive, and here I agree one-off with Barry, is the coverage of Plamegate. In other words I'm pro-spective about this shift. I don't think the press will start to do any critical thinking until they are confronted by a felony originating in the West Wing. This will also be driven by a corresponding sense of outrage by the congressional Dems--if they have awakened from their slumber. Plame will be the test case for finding out. This is a whole lot bigger deal than the third rate burglery which was at the guts of Watergate. Let's find out if the Fourth Estate and the Dems can summon up a little historical perspective. Since the popular culture is deeply ahistorical, cutting through the Simpson's culture we live in won't be easy, but I don't recall that the popular culture was a whole lot deeper or more sophisticated in 1973.

At Long Last

Leaders in Falluja Urge Rebels to Halt Attacks on U.S. Forces
By KIRK SEMPLE

Published: April 19, 2004

A delegation of local leaders joined with American officials today in calling for rebels in the besieged town of Falluja to surrender their weapons and permit the resumption of American and Iraqi patrols, an American official said.

The bilateral appeal is the first hint of a breakthrough in a two-week-old standoff between American troops who have encircled the town and rebel fighters inside.

But the success of the agreement will largely depend on the influence that the local leaders will have over the Sunni Muslim insurgents there, and American officials admitted today that they were uncertain if the agreement would succeed in bringing a peaceful end to the standoff.

Dan Senor, the spokesman for the chief American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, said that while the American authorities were "hopeful about the intentions of the Falluja delegation," they "also recognize that there is a big question about whether or not they can deliver, and that remains to be seen."

"We remain hopeful about their intentions," he repeated, "but we also are going to monitor closely about whether or not they are followed up with real deliverables."

Should the agreement fail to work, he added, American-led coalition troops would "reinitiate operations." The Americans announced a cease-fire in Falluja 10 days ago, but sporadic fighting has persisted.

The first good news in a long time, and, by golly, I'll take it

publius of Legal Fiction has a thoughtful reflection on Woodward's appearance on 60 Minutes and what we learned about Bush's decision making process:

Which brings us to Bush. Regardless of what people think about the wisdom of invading, I think we can all agree that the process Bush employed to reach that decision is very troubling. It was the opposite of “information-producing.” According to Woodward, Bush never even asked several important people in his cabinet (such as his Secretary of State – the only one with any combat experience in the whole cabinet) about whether he should go to war. According to the Post, the only war cabinet member whom Bush asked was Rice. He explained that he knew what everyone else thought so there was no need to ask them. NO NO NO NO!!

And now our troops are paying the price.

Half-baked Democracy

Iraqi leaders choose mayor of Baghdad
Coalition administrator expected to give his OK
By ROBERT MORAN
Knight-Ridder Tribune News

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In a scene that coalition officials must have dreamed about for months, Iraqis lined up Sunday to cast their ballots for the next mayor of Baghdad -- sort of.

But rather than a general election open to all eligible residents of this city of 5 million, 49 local government representatives assembled in a heavily guarded municipal building to choose who'll lead them in tackling the problems that plague this fabled and unwieldy metropolis.

Outside, a dozen U.S. Army Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles kept a protective watch.

The final approval of his selection will be made by L. Paul Bremer, the American administrator of the coalition. However, officials said Bremer is expected to give his OK after a background check.

The Iraqi representatives, members of the Baghdad City Council and other local leaders, picked a resident of the United Arab Emirates, Alaa al-Tamimi, an Iraqi native who promises to return to his homeland and begin to address Baghdad's horrendous traffic, overflowing garbage and inadequate water and sewage systems.

"It is my duty to come back to my country," said al-Tamimi, an engineer and academic in his mid-50s.

The last mayor of Baghdad was handpicked by Saddam Hussein. He disappeared during the war last year.

Anybody besides me think this stinks? Yet another emigre.

Invisible Armies

Bush Plans Aid to Build Foreign Peace Forces

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01

Facing a chronic shortage of foreign troops for peacekeeping missions, President Bush has decided to launch an international drive to boost the supply of available forces -- a move that if successful could relieve some of the pressure on U.S. soldiers to join such operations, defense officials said.

A plan approved by Bush earlier this month calls for the United States to commit about $660 million over the next five years to train, equip and provide logistical support to forces in nations willing to participate in peace operations.

The campaign, known as the Global Peace Operations Initiative, will be aimed largely at Africa by expanding the peacekeeping skills of African forces and encouraging international military exercises in the region, where U.S. officials said much of the need exists.

But African forces developed under the program could be used in peace operations anywhere in the world, officials said. And the program also sets aside some assistance for armies in Asia, Latin America and Europe to enlarge their peacekeeping roles as well.

Pentagon officials who briefed The Washington Post stressed that the plan, which Bush has yet to formally announce, is not meant as a unilateral U.S. effort. They said Bush intends it to be a broad, multinational push, with other countries contributing trainers and additional resources, although consultations with potential partner nations remain at an early stage.

Talk about your PR offensive! It might be front page news in the post but this is right up there with the Mars shot in its unreality. Why do they even bother with this stuff?

The Lawrence of Arabia Fantasy

The Wrong War
By BOB HERBERT

Published: April 19, 2004

American troops are enduring the deadliest period since the start of the war. And while they continue to fight courageously and sometimes die, they are fighting and dying in the wrong war.

This is the height of absurdity.

One of the things I remember from my time in the service many years ago was the ubiquitous presence of large posters with the phrase, in big block letters: Know Your Enemy.

This is a bit of military wisdom that seems to have escaped President Bush.

The United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, by Al Qaeda, not Iraq.

All Americans and most of the world would have united behind President Bush for an all-out war against Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The relatives and friends of any troops who lost their lives in that effort would have known clearly and unmistakably what their loved ones had died for.

But Mr. Bush had other things on his mind. With Osama and the top leadership of Al Qaeda still at large, and with the U.S. still gripped by the trauma of Sept. 11, the president turned his attention to Iraq.

Less than two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to Bob Woodward's account in his new book, "Plan of Attack," President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to have plans drawn up for a war against Iraq. Mr. Bush insisted that this be done with the greatest of secrecy. The president did not even fully inform his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, or his secretary of state, Colin Powell, about his directive to Mr. Rumsfeld.

Thus began the peeling away of resources crucial to the nation's fight against its most fervent enemy, Al Qaeda.

Gen. Tommy Franks, who at the time was head of the United States Central Command and in charge of the Afghan war, was reported by Mr. Woodward to have uttered a string of obscenities when he was ordered to develop a plan for invading Iraq.

President Bush may truly believe, as he suggested at his press conference last week, that he is carrying out a mission that has been sanctioned by the divine. But he has in fact made the world less safe with his catastrophic decision to wage war in Iraq. At least 700 G.I.'s and thousands of innocent Iraqis, including many women and children, are dead. Untold numbers have been maimed and there is no end to the carnage in sight.

Meanwhile, instead of destroying the terrorists, our real enemies, we've energized them. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has become a rallying cry for Islamic militants. Qaeda-type terror is spreading, not receding. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

Even as I write this, reporters from The Times and other news outlets are filing stories about marines dying in ambush and other acts of mayhem and anarchy across Iraq. This was not part of the plan. The administration and its apologists spread fantasies of a fresh dawn of freedom emerging in Iraq and spreading across the Arab world. Instead we are spilling the blood of innocents in a nightmare from which many thousands will never awaken.

Afghanistan's Descent

Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A18

THE FIGHTING in Iraq has kindled hopes of sharing the burden with allies, perhaps by involving NATO. Meanwhile Afghanistan, where NATO assumed peacekeeping responsibility last August, is not progressing well. NATO's European members have failed to contribute sufficient troops to extend the peacekeeping presence much outside the capital, and the resulting power vacuum has been filled by warlords. Last week the leading northern strongman, Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum forced the flight of a provincial governor and demanded that President Hamid Karzai fire two ministers; two weeks before that, fighting in the western city of Herat killed a cabinet minister. Most disturbing, the power vacuum has made possible a dramatic resurgence in the opium trade, which now accounts for around two-fifths of the country's economic output. Unless NATO's peacekeepers and the American military contingent grow more assertive, the drug monster will destroy all hope of stabilizing the country.

Nation-building is hard at the best of times. You have to build institutions and overcome habits of lawlessness, factionalism and corruption that are self-reinforcing. But building legitimate institutions becomes almost impossible if illegitimate ones are earning millions of dollars -- from drugs, as in Colombia, or from gems, as in Angola, Sierra Leone or Congo. In Afghanistan, a warlord with a militia of 1,000 can take over a slice of country and start growing and processing poppies. Pretty soon, that warlord can afford to hire another 1,000 followers. Meanwhile, the job of training Afghanistan's national army and police force is proceeding at a snail's pace. The army has around 9,000 troops, compared with an estimated 45,000 militia members in the country.

If we were keeping our eye on the ball, the balance would be different.

Fallujah

Riverbend with some advice for the CPA:

To lessen the feelings of anti-Americanism, might I make a few suggestions? Stop the collective punishment. When Mark Kimmett stutters through a press conference babbling about "precision weapons" and "military targets" in Falloojeh, who is he kidding? Falloojeh is a small city made up of low, simple houses, little shops and mosques. Is he implying that the 600 civilians who died during the bombing and the thousands injured and maimed were all "insurgents"? Are houses, shops and mosques now military targets?

I hate American foreign policy and its constant meddling in the region... I hate American tanks in Baghdad and American soldiers on our streets and in our homes on occasion... why does that mean that I hate America and Americans? Are tanks, troops and violence the only face of America? If the Pentagon, Department of Defense and Condi are "America", then yes- I hate America.

Over at The Left Coaster, blogger paradox surveys the web and finds:

Snipers

Because of sniper stories like this the threat level of every citizen in the United States has gone permanently up. As surely as the sun will rise today, there will be payback. Some day, somewhere in the future, US citizens and soldiers will be killed and horribly maimed in retribution for a war and deaths of innocents that all has made us all dramatically less safe.

Thanks, Ralph

Thanks to reader pol:

Rice: U.S. bracing for attacks before election
Former Spanish PM warns Bush of possible plots
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:14 a.m. ET April 18, 2004

WASHINGTON - The United States is bracing for possible terrorist attacks before the November presidential election, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who succeeded Aznar over the weekend, was holding his first cabinet meeting on Monday.

We've all thought it, but somehow hearing her say it fills me with dread because we know these folks are incompetent in the War on Terra.

And Thanks for Your Public Service

9/11 commissioner: 'I've received threats'
Gorelick says she won't step down; FBI investigating

Sunday, April 18, 2004 Posted: 4:20 AM EDT (0820 GMT)

Jamie Gorelick says she will not resign her post on the commission investigating the attacks.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Jamie Gorelick, a member of the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, said Saturday that she received death threats this week after a number of conservatives alleged that her former work in the Justice Department may have contributed to failures leading to the attacks.

ABC News first reported the story Saturday.

We've become a vile people.

Facts are Stubborn Things, Part XXI

The blunders of a president who doesn't know he made them

By Ellen Goodman, Globe Columnist | April 18, 2004

MAYBE I SHOULDN'T be hard on the president for flunking his pop quiz on foreign policy. After all, it wasn't a take-home exam and he didn't have Dick Cheney by his side. But when a reporter at the prime-time news conference asked what errors he'd made and what lessons he learned, the president was stumped. "I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet," he said.

After another golly-gee-whiz stumble, he added, "you just put me under the spot here and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."

Of course, if he needs a little help, I'm happy to share a few of the greatest hits from his bloopers reel. Mistakes? Howsabout them weapons of mass destruction? Howsabout the persistent links to nuclear weapons? Howsabout the connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Howsabout the "Mission Accomplished" speech or the idea that Iraqis would see us as liberators not occupiers? Anyone hear an "oops"?

In the aftermath, many called the president's refusal to admit mistakes a savvy political strategy: Strong men never say they're sorry. But I think there's something much more chilling going on. He truly doesn't believe he made any mistakes.

Last year, we launched a preemptive, unilateral war (OK, there are 60 New Zealanders, 230 Nicaraguans, and 27 soldiers from Kazakhstan, etc.) on the explicit grounds that Saddam was an imminent threat to our nation. Now the moral justification for this war has simply, seamlessly and without explanation morphed from defending ourselves to "changing the world."

The president said that even if he'd known then what he knows today, he would still have invaded Iraq. In an honest, passionate moment he proclaimed, "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. . . . That is what we have been called to do, as far as I'm concerned."

But is that what the Senate felt called to do when it gave him the chit for war? Or the country?
....
Historian Alan Lichtman says the Bush vision "combines Teddy Roosevelt's triumphalism and Jerry Falwell's moralism. If you are on a moral crusade you cannot admit you are on the wrong path. If you are doing the good moral work you cannot apologize." Right and wrong are not facts; they're ideals.

The terrible irony is that Iraq has -- now -- become a front line on the war on terror and a training ground for terrorists. We can't declare victory and leave, as was famously said of Vietnam. It is indeed unthinkable to depose a tyrant and see him replaced by civil war or a religious despot. We are left seeking a pragmatist to lead us out of Bush's ideological mess.

The other day, a 20-year-old corporal fighting in Fallujah said, "I just hope we end up improving this country. Otherwise, I'll figure this was a waste of time."

These young men and women are left to correct the mistakes of a president who doesn't even know he made them. So much for the vision thing.

The Cost of 'Arrogant Daydreams'

Chas W. Freeman Jr., U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, assistant secretary of Defense (1993-94) and current president of the Middle East Policy Council, sent this message about the Iraq war to an e-mail discussion group of foreign affairs experts earlier this month after visiting Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The following excerpts appear with his permission.

The view in the region, from which I have just returned, is that by destroying the Iraqi state the U.S. made it almost impossible to accomplish regime change, as opposed to regime removal, in Baghdad. No one regrets the end of Saddam's tyranny, but Iraq over the past year is viewed as an Arab zone of anarchy under foreign occupation. No one believes that what will be transferred to the Iraqi Governing Council on July 1 is "sovereignty."

Thus the mid-summer situation will be one in which an Iraqi native civilian authority with little or no legitimacy is asked to coexist with an intensely unpopular foreign occupation force over which it has no control. Few believe this dysfunctional arrangement will be up to managing an increasingly dangerous situation.

Many believe that the only thing now saving Iraq from civil war is the increasing unity of ordinary Iraqis against the occupation. This unity increasingly transcends religious schisms. It is drawing religious fanatics into alliance with secular nationalists. ("My brother and I against my cousin; my cousin and I against a stranger.") A new crop of home-grown Iraqi jihadis is, many fear, forging anti-American alliances with trans-regional and possibly global reach. (Shia with Hezbollah; Sunnis with Hamas; both, somewhat warily, with al Qaeda and its affiliates.)

Negotiations with Oneself

Blair has lost his grip

Charles Kennedy
Sunday April 18, 2004
The Observer

The Prime Minister seems genuinely frustrated that we don't share his analysis and complains that it is 'not easy to persuade people of all this'. Perhaps the message is wrong?

In the year since the invasion of Iraq we have seen public opinion in the UK and the rest of the world swept aside, the UN sidelined, allies spurned. The US President has ignored advice from the CIA, the State Department and even the Pentagon. When respected former UN ambassadors and Foreign Secretaries such as Sir Crispin Tickell and Douglas Hurd have joined the ranks of the critics, the criticism should not be taken lightly.

The gravest error is the continuing insistence that Iraq is the front line in an uncompromising 'war' against terrorism. The Prime Minister lumps together all the elements of resistance and calls them 'fanatics and terrorists', while praising moderate members of the Iraqi Governing Council. But if members of the IGC are resigning in protest at the way the occupation is being handled they must be sensing a shift in the public mood.

Not everyone who opposes the coalition is a terrorist. If Iraq is a haven for Islamic terrorists it is because of the invasion; there was no proven link with al-Qaeda before. We cannot expect Iraqi society to quietly wait for democracy to be delivered according to the coalition's timetable. We should not confuse nationalism with Islamic terrorism. The perpetrators of the Madrid bombs are not the same as nationalists in Iraq, as the Prime Minister seems to believe.

There can be no negotiation with al-Qaeda, and bin Laden's truce offer was repellent. But the principal battle in Iraq is about winning hearts and minds not eliminating fanatics. The 600 dead in Falluja, including women and children, cannot all be fanatics but such carnage will breed fanaticism. Britain's reluctance to criticise US strategy in Iraq will be seen as complicity and will reduce our credibility in the Arab world and our opportunities for acting as a restraining influence.

You have to wonder what Tony is thinking. Every political calculation partakes of a substantial amount of self-interest, and I can't for the life of me understand what he gets out of his catering to W.

To Get the Right Answer, Ask the Right Question

Hamas Appoints New Leader After Killing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 18, 2004

Filed at 7:39 a.m. ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Hamas secretly appointed a new Gaza Strip chief early Sunday, but refused to reveal his identity after Israel assassinated two Hamas leaders in less than a month.

Israel killed Abdel Aziz Rantisi in a missile strike on his car on Saturday, part of its declared campaign to wipe out the Islamic militant group's leadership before Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Two of Rantisi's bodyguards were also killed in the attack.

Palestinians demonstrated Sunday throughout the Gaza Strip and West Bank calling for attacks to retaliate for the assassination. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy in a riot against the killing, hospital officials said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians filled the streets of Gaza City on Sunday in Rantisi's funeral procession. Hamas supporters chanting ``God is great'' and ``revenge, revenge,'' threw flowers at the three men's stretchers as they carried them from the hospital.

About 200 armed Hamas militants lined both sides of the road and gave the bodies a military salute as they approached a large blue and green mourning tent set up outside Rantisi's house. Armed men fired into the air and many in the gathered crowd raised their fists in anger.

Green Hamas flags and black mourning flags hung from nearby homes.

``Hamas will move ahead and will continue the resistance march,'' said local Hamas leader Ahmad Sahar, a friend of Rantisi's.

Hamas posted a statement on its Web site pledging ``100 unique retaliations'' that will shake Israel. It said it had declared a state of emergency in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until revenge was complete.

I heard about this on NPR last night as I was driving to the airport to pick up an old friend. My heart sank. It is the natural next step to Bush's cave to Sharon, and it isn't good news for Israelis or for us.

Political problems don't usually have military solutions. Trying to apply military solutions only deepens tragedy.

UPDATE: Juan Cole's Informed Comment:

With al-Anbar province tense and US troops surrounding Najaf, one could not imagine a worse time for Bush to give a green light to Sharon for further provocations. One can only conclude that neither Ariel Sharon nor Bush and his Neocon advisers give a fig about the lives of US and Coalition servicemen in Iraq. Otherwise, they'd stop with the theatrics. If the Israelis had wanted to arrest Rantisi, they could have. They pulled off Entebbe. This extra-judicial murder of political opponents is just showing off, and it is of course ethically despicable and a war crime for which one only wishes Sharon could be made to stand trial in the Hague. If Rantisi could have been proved to have committed an act of terrorism, he should have been arrested and tried in Gaza for murder. I condemn violence by Palestinian leaders just as I do that done by Israeli ones, and do not have a problem with terrorists being punished for killing innocent people. I do have a problem with political rivals whacking one another unnecessarily, especially when it is likely to get some of my friends killed.

Anyone who doubts that events in various places of the Muslim world are related should consider that the siege of Fallujah even appears to have provoked a firefight between Jordanian and US peacekeepers in the UN contingent at Mitrovica, Kosovo. So much for the UN saving the US in Iraq. Who's going to keep peace among the peace keepers?

Riding to the Rescue

The husband of a friend of mine was among those who were badly injured in the UN bombing in Iraq last August. You must understand that they will never have a meaningful presence in Iraq until the security situation is under control. However, their very presence is one of the many factors that will irritate the security situation.

Recast in Key Iraq Role, U.N. Envoys Are Wary
By WARREN HOGE

Published: April 18, 2004

NITED NATIONS, April 17 — The United Nations, once snubbed and excluded from the task of shaping Iraq's future that is at the center of world attention, suddenly finds itself pressed to play the major role in that effort, but it is taking up the task with some foreboding.

"There is a mixture of vindication on the one hand and great apprehension on the other," said Edward Mortimer, a senior aide to Secretary General Kofi Annan. Mr. Mortimer contrasted this week's calls for assistance from President Bush to the disparagement he said the United Nations had become used to from the administration.

"It's quite nice when you've been generally dissed about your irrelevancy and then suddenly have people coming on bended knee and saying, `We need you to come back,' " he said.

"On the other hand, it's quite unnerving to feel you're being projected into a very violent and volatile situation where you might be regarded as an agent or faithful servant of a power that has incurred great hostility."

With time running out on the June 30 deadline for transfer of power, the United Nations is being looked to, even by its enemies, as the only institution that can confer immediate global legitimacy on the American goal of bringing representative government to Iraq.

That common view barely disguises the animosity felt toward the United Nations by many who view it as starchy, bureaucratic and distant and others who disdain it as a meddlesome and corrupt form of world government seeking to impose itself on individual preferences and distinct states.

United Nations officials are wary of being seen as a replacement occupying power in Iraq. They are conscious of lingering resentment in Iraq from the days when the United Nations oversaw sanctions. They are fearful of taking on ill-defined responsibility and being blamed for any subsequent failure, and they face mounting criticism at home over the scandal-ridden United Nations oil-for-food program that investigators say enabled Saddam Hussein to pocket more than $10 billion.

In addition, Mr. Annan's aides say that what is uppermost in his mind is a resolve to make sure that any United Nations staff members who return to Baghdad have proper protection. He told members of the Security Council this week that he would delay sending people back in force until he had that assurance.

Bottom line: there is no guarantee that the UN is going to be able to solve Bush's little problem, even if they decided they'd like to try.

9/11 Commission on Offense

This piece from tomorrow's NYT is quite long, but worth it. Richard Clarke is vindicated and the 9/11 Commission is demonstrating that they will not be buried. As with all decent journalism on a story this complex, there are mutiple themes, too much to give justice to in a mere blog post.

9/11 Files Show Warnings Were Urgent and Persistent
By DAVID JOHNSTON and JIM DWYER

Published: April 18, 2004

WASHINGTON, April 17 — Earlier this year, the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks played four minutes of a call from Betty Ong, a crew member on American Airlines Flight 11. The power of her call could not have been plainer: in a calm voice, Ms. Ong told her supervisors about the hijacking, the weapons the attackers had used, the locations of their seats.

At first, however, Ms. Ong's reports were greeted skeptically by some officials on the ground. "They did not believe her," said Bob Kerrey, a commission member. "They said, `Are you sure?' They asked her to confirm that that it wasn't air-rage. Our people on the ground were not prepared for a hijacking."

For most Americans, the disbelief was the same. The attacks of Sept. 11 seemed to come in a stunning burst from nowhere. But now, after two weeks of extraordinary public hearings and a dozen detailed reports, the lengthy documentary record makes clear that predictions of an attack by al Qaeda had been communicated directly to the highest levels of the government.

The threat reports were more clear, urgent and persistent than was previously known. Some focused on al Qaeda's plans to use commercial aircraft as weapons. Others stated that Osama bin Laden was intent on striking on United States soil. Many were passed to the Federal Aviation Administration.

While some of the intelligence went back years, other warnings — including one that Al Qaeda seemed interested in hijacking a plane inside this country — had been delivered to the president on Aug. 6, 2001, just a month earlier.

The new information produced by the commission so far has led 6 of its 10 members to say or suggest that the attacks could have been prevented, though there is no consensus on when, how, or by whom. The commission's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, a Republican, has described failures at every level of government, any of which, if avoided, could have altered the outcome. Mr. Kerrey, a Democrat, said, "My conclusion is that it could have been prevented. That was not my conclusion when I went on the commission."
....
Over an intense two-week stretch this month, the commission pried open some of the most closely guarded compartments of government, revealing the flow and details of previously classified information to two presidents and their senior advisers, and the performance of intelligence and law enforcement officials.

The inquiry has gone beyond the report of a joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committee in 2002, which chronicled missteps at the mid-level of bureaucracies. Urged on by a number of families of people killed in the attacks, the Kean commission has used a mix of moral and political leverage to extract presidential communications and testimony. Among the new themes that have fundamentally reshaped the story of the Sept. 11 attacks are:

¶Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, did not blindside the United States, but were a threat recognized and discussed regularly at the highest levels of government for nearly five years before the attacks, in thousands of reports, often accompanied by urgent warnings from lower-level experts.

¶Presidents Clinton and Bush received regular information about the threat of al Qaeda and the intention of the bin Laden network to strike inside the United States. Each president made terrorism a stated priority, failed to find a diplomatic solution and viewed military force as a last resort. At the same time, neither grappled with the structural flaws and paralyzing dysfunction that undermined the C.I.A. and F.B.I., the two agencies on which the nation depended for protection. By the end of his second term, Mr. Clinton and the director of the F.B.I., Louis J. Freeh, were barely speaking.

¶Even when the two agencies cooperated, the results were unimpressive. Mr. Kean, the chairman, said that he viewed the reports on the two agencies as indictments. In late August 2001, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, learned that the F.B.I. had arrested Zacarias Moussaoui after he had enrolled in a flight school. Mr. Tenet was given a memo titled, "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly." But he took no action, he testified, and did not tell President Bush about the case.

No one comes off looking very good, except, perhaps, Richard Clarke.

Relationships and Open Thread

There are many, many sub-narratives to take from Bob Woodward's new book. I'm going to follow only one here: a government at war with itself.

Bush Began to Plan War Three Months After 9/11
Book Says President Called Secrecy Vital

By William Hamilton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 17, 2004; Page A01

Beginning in late December 2001, President Bush met repeatedly with Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq even as he and administration spokesmen insisted they were pursuing a diplomatic solution, according to a new book on the origins of the war.

The intensive war planning throughout 2002 created its own momentum, according to "Plan of Attack" by Bob Woodward, fueled in part by the CIA's conclusion that Saddam Hussein could not be removed from power except through a war and CIA Director George J. Tenet's assurance to the president that it was a "slam dunk" case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
....
By early January 2003, Bush had made up his mind to take military action against Iraq, according to the book. But Bush was so concerned that the government of his closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, might fall because of his support for Bush that he delayed the war's start until March 19 here (March 20 in Iraq) because Blair asked him to seek a second resolution from the United Nations. Bush later gave Blair the option of withholding British troops from combat, which Blair rejected. "I said I'm with you. I mean it," Blair replied.

Woodward describes a relationship between Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that became so strained Cheney and Powell are barely on speaking terms. Cheney engaged in a bitter and eventually winning struggle over Iraq with Powell, an opponent of war who believed Cheney was obsessively trying to establish a connection between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and treated ambiguous intelligence as fact.

Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office -- had established what amounted to a separate government. The vice president, for his part, believed Powell was mainly concerned with his own popularity and told friends at a dinner he hosted a year ago celebrating the outcome of the war that Powell was a problem and "always had major reservations about what we were trying to do."

Before the war with Iraq, Powell bluntly told Bush that if he sent U.S. troops there "you're going to be owning this place." Powell and his deputy and closest friend, Richard L. Armitage, used to refer to what they called "the Pottery Barn rule" on Iraq: "You break it, you own it," according to Woodward.

But, when asked personally by the president, Powell agreed to make the U.S. case against Hussein at the United Nations in February 2003, a presentation described by White House communications director Dan Bartlett as "the Powell buy-in." Bush wanted someone with Powell's credibility to present the evidence that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a case the president had initially found less than convincing when presented to him by CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin at a White House meeting on Dec. 21, 2002.

Woodward will appear on CBS's 60 Minutes Sunday night. I'm itching to get my hands on the book. From this brief excerpt in the WaPo today, I've already generated dozens of questions. I'm extremely curious about all of these relationships. I'm hearing all over town that one of the reasons Bush's "evolving" Iraq policy is so incoherent is that the executive branch is frozen due to feuds between cabinet secretaries and agency heads. Elsewhere in the WaPo excerpt it is revealed that George Tenet appears to have given Bush a virtually steel-clad guantee on the WMDs. To my mind, he is the most interesting and elusive figure in this tableaux. It is not at all clear to me today where his allegiances lie, and because of the nature of the Agency we may never find out. Suffice it to say that he is a prime mover in the next few months.

Oh, and General Tommy Franks, cited in the first graf of the WaPo article? He's the one who told Cigar Afficianado magazine that another terrorist attack would mean the suspension of the Constitution and imposition of martial law.

I'll be away most of the day. Consider this an open thread.

Completely Wrong

Powell leads offensive to placate Arabs

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Barry Schweid

April 16, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell led a diplomatic offensive Thursday to placate Arab leaders outraged by President Bush's support for Jewish settlements on the West Bank and opposition to Palestinian refugees returning to Israel.

But the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, said after meeting with Yasser Arafat that he was considering resigning. He said Bush had undermined the negotiating process.

Feeling safer?

Feeling Drafty?

Fewer soldiers re-enlist Army sees dip as war increases need

By Dave Moniz
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- The number of soldiers staying in the Army is falling just as the demand is increasing in Iraq.

Through March 17, nearly halfway through the fiscal year, the Army fell about 1,000 short of meeting its goal of keeping 25,786 soldiers whose enlistments were ending or who were eligible to retire. That works out to a 96% retention rate.

Last year, the retention figure was 106% because more soldiers stayed than the Army had planned. The retention goal assumes that not all eligible to stay will remain.

Military personnel experts have warned that full-time soldiers and members of the Guard and Reserve could begin leaving this year because of the strains of service, including longer and more frequent overseas missions. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged Thursday that the Defense Department will extend duty in Iraq beyond one year for 20,000 soldiers. Their time in Iraq will grow as much as 90 days.

''We regret having to extend those individuals,'' Rumsfeld said. ''The country is at war, and we need to do what is necessary to succeed.''

Steve Gilliard started his blog day with a well-reasoned, nuanced and principled argument that posits that a draft is both unneccesary and unwise, but I'm not so sure. If the Army, in particular, starts falling beneath enlistment and re-enlistment targets, even a President Kerry might have to restart the draft. Steve is, of course, correct that raising salaries would make the services more attractive, but I don't know where the money is going to come from when we've got deficits as far as the eye can see.

God and Blog

Democrats Are Risking Political Damnation
Voters relate to Bush's religiosity. A different critique is needed.

By Ronald A. Klain
Beware the temptation to snicker, because therein lies defeat.

Yes, there is much to criticize in the president's statement. Is he hypocritical to embrace a broad view of God-given rights when, during the 2000 campaign, he scoffed at Clinton-Gore efforts to promote freedom around the world? You bet. Is he myopic in seeing these issues only in some disfavored regimes, while ignoring the thirst for freedom in so many other countries? Absolutely. Is it wrong for the president to have sold the war to the American people on one basis (the search for weapons of mass destruction) and now defend its prosecution on a different basis (the promotion of human freedom)? Undoubtedly.

But at the same time, progressives should not belittle the notion that American foreign policy will support the objective of promoting God-given freedoms around the world. There is plenty of intellectual elitism in both parties, but in political terms, it's an arrogance that the Democrats would be well-advised to resist.

Rather than laughing at the president's invocation of the notion of natural rights to justify his policies in Iraq, Democrats should make it abundantly clear that they share the president's view that all humans are created free and are entitled to enjoy the benefit of that innate freedom. After all, wasn't the idea of an "unalienable" right to liberty put into writing in 1776 by the father of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson? And more recently, haven't these been the ideals that Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Gore pursued around the world — often with great derision from conservatives?

Instead of belittling the president's reliance on the Almighty, Democrats should make clear that we share the president's goals but think that his methods have been deeply flawed. The mission may be from above, but the planning has been from someplace else.

I'll take Klains general claim. But there is a danger in here for Kerry, as well.

Unless you've done the crossover, most Americans, whether Catholic or Protestant, are unaware that they are both possessed of very different worldviews. They may use similar religious language but they mean very different things. Kerry will need to be careful when using religious language that he doesn't confuse or offend Mainline Protestants.

And, for your amusement, this morning I found a blog devoted to the Kerry Communion Controversy (by way of GetReligion.

And here's a link to The Pew Center on Religion and Media's report on "Faith Online" by way of The Revealer, who asks, "Do you believe in blog?" and solicits your suggestions for the discussion they are hosting on religion blogs at the Bloggercon at Harvard this weekend. Jeff Sharlett, The Revealer's editor, has a bunch of interesting questions.

Leaky Langley

Here comes the pushback. I've been waiting for it.

CIA Warned of Attack 6 Years Before 9/11

By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA warned in a classified report that Islamic extremists likely would strike on U.S. soil at landmarks in Washington or New York, or through the airline industry, according to intelligence officials.

Though hauntingly prescient, the CIA's 1995 National Intelligence Estimate did not yet name Osama bin Laden as a terrorist threat.

But within months the intelligence agency developed enough concern about the wealthy, Saudi-born militant to create a specific unit to track him and his followers, the officials told The Associated Press.

And in 1997, the CIA updated its intelligence estimate to ensure bin Laden appeared on its very first page as an emerging threat, cautioning that his growing movement might translate into attacks on U.S. soil, the officials said, divulging new details about the CIA's 1990s response to the terrorist threat.

The officials took the rare step Thursday of disclosing information in the closely held National Intelligence Estimates and other secret briefings to counter criticisms in a staff report released this week by the independent commission examining pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures.

That commission report accused the CIA of failing to recognize al-Qaida as a formal terrorist organization until 1999. It characterized the agency as regarding bin Laden mostly as a financier instead of a charismatic leader of the terrorist movement.

But one senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the 1997 National Intelligence Estimate "identified bin Laden and his followers and threats they were making and said it might portend attacks inside the United States."
....
"There was no comprehensive estimate of the enemy," the commission report alleged.

But the senior intelligence official said the commission report failed to mention that CIA had produced large numbers of analytical reports on the growth, capabilities, structure and threats posed by al-Qaida throughout the late 1990s and those detailed reports were distributed to the front lines of terror-fighting agencies.

The CIA most frequently provided these individual and highly detailed analyses to the White House Counterterrorism Security Group charged with formulating anti-terrorism policies and responses, the official said.

Nominations for "senior U.S. intelligence official" are now open.

Bump Goes Wonkette

I've heard your pleas for some lighter fare in these dark days.

Luncheon Perhaps Distracted CIA Chief

By Al Kamen

Friday, April 16, 2004; Page A19

It's not at all like CIA Director George J. Tenet to forget not one, but two, conversations with President Bush in the critical month before Sept. 11, 2001. But there's one possible explanation for his distraction when he testified Wednesday morning to the Sept. 11 commission: He was thinking about his luncheon plans.

Tenet was spotted around 12:30 at the Hay-Adams, sitting at a window table for two with none other than Jack Valenti, outgoing head of the Motion Picture Association of America. Other diners couldn't help but speculate that perhaps Valenti, still looking for a replacement after being stiffed by Rep. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.), might be offering the job to Tenet.

Or maybe Valenti was looking into a movie about Tenet's time at the CIA? (How much weight would George Clooney have to put on for the role?)

But we're told no to the MPAA job. Valenti and Tenet are just "old friends," our source said, although it was unclear when and how that friendship developed.

Up is Down

WaPo's Sewell Chan takes Orwellian dictation from the Pentagon.

General Calls Insurgency in Iraq a Sign of U.S. Success
Political Achievements Are Cause of Uprising, Myers Says

By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 16, 2004; Page A10

BAGHDAD, April 15 -- The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the deadly insurgency that flared this month is "a symptom of the success that we're having here in Iraq" and an effort to undermine the country's transition to self-government.

Asked at a news conference here whether the military had failed to counter insurgents' attacks in Iraq, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers said guerrillas want to undermine several political successes, including the creation of the Iraqi Governing Council, the signing of a bill of rights and efforts by the United Nations to devise an interim government that would assume power on June 30.

"I think it's that success which is driving the current situation, because there are those extremists that don't want that success," Myers said. "They see this as a test of wills, a test of resolve against those who believe in freedom and self-determination against those who prefer a regime like we saw previously in Afghanistan, or perhaps a regime like we saw previously in Iraq."

Flanked by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. ground commander in Iraq, Myers also said the Marines were ready to resume combat in the besieged city of Fallujah because insurgents have repeatedly violated a five-day-old cease-fire.

"We have to be prepared and prepare ourselves that there may be further military action in Fallujah," Myers said. "It's a situation where you have clearly some foreign fighters, former regime element members who -- again, while the cease-fire is ongoing -- are attacking our Marines. The Marines are obeying the cease-fire but they're being fired upon."

Meanwhile, on the second front of a two-pronged insurgency that has killed more than 80 U.S. troops since April 1, Shiite Muslim clerics tried to broker a deal to end a standoff between occupation forces and a radical cleric, Moqtada Sadr.

A delegation from predominantly Shiite Iran has joined the talks with Sadr in the southern city of Najaf, but U.S. officials said its presence was not welcome.

The U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, was not in contact with the Iranians and did not invite them, said a spokesman, Daniel Senor. Senor repeated U.S. demands that Sadr surrender to face trial on a murder charge and disband his black-clad militia, known as the Mahdi Army.

It just pains me to see people like Myers do this to themselves. "It is success which is causing our failures." This whole "test of wills" rhetoric we've been listening to for the last couple of week belies the fact that we don't have enough soldiers and Marines in the theater. Period. The theory that if Americans just get "steely-eyed" enough that we can do anything is part of the national myth. If you don't have the resources, you can't do the job. Your will is about as useful as what it can put in its hands.

I see that Whiskey Bar decided to close for a few days to get some relief from "up is down." I can't say that I blame him. Bump will go on a lighter schedule tomorrow for the weekend, but that's just because I'm busy with meetings.

Pathology

David Sirota:

Pseudomaniac: One Who Has a Morbid Impulse to Falsify or Lie

This is an incredible example...he's now pathologically lying not only about policy, but about mundane details. As the Washington Monthly noted earlier, Bush apparently has an obsession with polling.

Today in Iraq

Sean-Paul just put this up at The Agonist:

Baghdad Warning

(Name of source withheld)

This fills me with dread.

Veteran Correspondant

Countless bad decisions and 681 deaths

By Joseph L. Galloway

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Well, a funny thing happened to the Iraq army on its way to join their American buddies in the dirty street fighting in Fallujah last week: The battalion stopped the trucks, turned around and went home, saying as they went, "We won't fight other Iraqis."

So much for that.

The fast-talking Rumsfeld hasn't been talking nearly as fast or as often lately. Neither has his deputy. Not much seen or heard from Douglas Feith of the Office of Special Plans - of the Office That Didn't Plan - either. Instead, the bad news is allowed to trickle out of briefings in Baghdad that surely will soon be nicknamed, like the ones in Saigon a few wars back, "The Five O'Clock Follies."

The hunt for a scapegoat must have begun by now, which may explain the rush away from the cameras in the Pentagon briefing room. The civilians will certainly want a general or two to fall on their swords. The uniforms would love to see an arrogant civilian or two hanged, drawn and quartered.

We have a modest nomination for the first head to roll: Ambassador L. Paul (Jerry) Bremer, the American demi-proconsul of Baghdad, head of the Civilian Provisional Authority charged with installing Jeffersonian democracy and turning on the lights, water and sewers. Virtually every major decision he had made in Iraq has been wrong, poorly timed or just plain dumb.

Beginning with his decision to demobilize the real Iraq army and send them home with their AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, no paychecks, no future and heaps of anger. Followed by his decision to purge everyone who ever held a Baath Party card from public life and public employment, thus abandoning many Sunnis to hopelessness and anger. Followed by his latest decision to close down Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr's newspaper and provoke him to anger - without any plan to deal with that anger when it spilled over into the streets and inflamed the Shiite community.

Any one of those flawed decisions ought to be a firing offense. Just as the Feb. 27, 2003, testimony of Wolfowitz to the effect that Iraq was going to be easy to occupy ought to have been a firing offense. Just as the testimony of the deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, that the Pentagon did not do any planning for post-war Iraq because the act of planning might have contributed to starting the war ought to have gotten him fired.

I am reminded by these situations, these quotes, these people that there are three human characteristics which taken in combination are almost always fatal: If he is arrogant, ignorant and in charge, someone is going to get killed. The fatalities are seldom among those who get it so wrong.

War President

Blumenthal:

A revolt within the military against Bush is brewing. Many in the military's strategic echelon share the same feelings of being ignored and ill-treated by the administration that senior intelligence officers voice in private. "The Pentagon began with fantasy assumptions on Iraq and worked back," one of them remarked to me.

As the iconic image of the "war president" has tattered, another picture has emerged. Bush appears as a passive manager who enjoys sitting atop a hierarchical structure, unwilling and unable to do the hard work a real manager has to do to run the largest enterprise in the world. He does not seem to absorb data unless it is presented to him in simple, clear fashion by people whose judgment he trusts. He is receptive to information that agrees with his point of view rather than information that challenges it. This leads to enormous power on the part of the trusted interlocutors, who know and bolster his predilections.

At his press conference, Bush was a confusion of absolute confidence and panic. He jumbled facts and conflated threats, redoubling the vehemence of his incoherence at every mildly sceptical question. He attempted to create a false political dichotomy between "retreat" and his own vague and evolving position on Iraq, which now appears to follow senator John Kerry's, of granting more authority to the UN and bringing in Nato.

The ultimate revelation was Bush's vision of a divinely inspired apocalyptic struggle in which he is the leader of a crusade bringing the Lord's "gift." "I also have this belief, strong belief that freedom is not this country's gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom." But religious war is not part of official US military doctrine.

Children's Crusade

Richard Cohen on the Boy Emperor's presser:

America's Ayatollah

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, April 15, 2004; Page A25

Like a kid who has been told otherwise, Bush persists in believing in his own version of Santa Claus. The weapons are there, somewhere -- in a North Pole of his mind.

What matters more is the phrase Bush used five times in one way or another: "We're changing the world." He used it always in reference to the war in Iraq and he used it in ways that would make even Woodrow Wilson, that presidential personification of naive morality, shake his head in bemusement. In Bush's rhetoric, a war to rid Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction, a war to ensure that Condoleezza Rice's "mushroom cloud" did not appear over an American city, has mutated into an effort to reorder the world.

"I also know that there's an historic opportunity here to change the world," Bush said of the effort in Iraq. But the next sentence was even more disquieting. "And it's very important for the loved ones of our troops to understand that the mission is an important, vital mission for the security of America and for the ability to change the world for the better." It is one thing to die to defend your country. It is quite another to do that for a single man's impossible dream. What Bush wants is admirable. It is not, however, attainable.

Shortly after Sept. 11, Bush used the word "crusade" to characterize his response to the attacks. The Islamic world, remembering countless crusades on behalf of Christianity, protested, and Bush quickly interred the word in the National Archives or someplace. Nonetheless, that is pretty much what Bush described in his news conference -- not a crusade for Christ and not one to oust the Muslims from Jerusalem but an American one that would eradicate terrorism and, in short, "change the world." The United States, the president said, had been "called" for that task.

Some people might consider this religious drivel and others might find it stirring, but whatever it is, it cannot be the basis for foreign policy, not to mention a war. Yet it explains, as nothing else can, just why Bush is so adamantly steadfast about Iraq and why he simply asserts what is not proved or just plain untrue -- the purported connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, for instance, or why Hussein was such a threat, when we have it on the word of David Kay and countless weapons inspectors that he manifestly was not. Bush talks as if only an atheist would demand proof when faith alone more than suffices. He is America's own ayatollah.

Several investigative commissions are now meeting in Washington, looking into intelligence failures -- everything from the failure to detect and intercept the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 to the assertion that Iraq was armed to the teeth with all sorts of awful stuff. But what really has to be examined is how a single man, the president, took the nation and part of the world to war because, as he essentially put it Tuesday night, he was "called" to do it.

If that is the case, and it sure seems so at the moment, then this commission has to ask us all -- and I don't exclude myself -- how much of Congress and the press went to war with an air of juvenile glee. The Commission on Credulous Stupidity may call me as its first witness, but after that it has to examine how, despite our vaunted separation of powers, a barely elected president opted for a war that need not have been fought. This is Bush's cause, a noble but irrational effort much like the one that set off for Jerusalem in the year 1212. It was known as the Children's Crusade.

This is foreign policy by theology.

Sacramental Distraction

Putting Kerry on the 'wafer watch'

By Ellen Goodman, 4/15/2004

WHAT NEXT? Will we have a political reporter to cover John Forbes Kerry at each Sunday Mass from now to November? Will there be a Holy Communion beat? A wafer watch?

One of the more unseemly stories of the Easter weekend hovered around the controversy over Kerry and Catholicism. The intra-church debates about whether a prochoice, pro-civil union Kerry could consider himself a good Catholic ratcheted up into a public spectacle about whether he would step up to the altar and whether a priest would offer him the sacrament.

The whole thing, fumed Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice, turned us into a nation of "eucharistic Peeping Toms": "I hope the bishops are satisfied that the sacraments of the church are now the subject of a media frenzy."
....
What happened between Kennedy and Kerry was Roe v. Wade. When the church took an absolutist stand against abortion, it took special umbrage at politicians who identify themselves as pro-choice Catholics.

Twenty years ago, the bishops were annoyed by Mario Cuomo and apoplectic at Geraldine Ferraro when she spoke as a Catholic, a vice presidential candidate, and a woman. "I'm a weekly communicant," she says, remembering 1984. "But I have to tell you, every time I went up to the altar I was in a little bit of a panic about who might give you Communion and who might refuse."

Since then, if anything, the church has hardened its stance against prochoice Catholic politicians and turned against those who favor gay unions. A "doctrinal note" from the Vatican last year warned politicians not to oppose "the fundamental contents of faith and morals."

Now a church task force is working on guidelines for American bishops on relationships with Catholic politicians. Meanwhile there are scattered reports of one bishop who told Tom Daschle not to call himself a Catholic and two others who promised to refuse Communion to Kerry.

"What happens when the pope says you are obliged to vote against anything that supports homosexuality or abortion?" asks Kissling. "The church itself creates the climate in which prejudice can and will reemerge."

Many theologians tell you that not even the pope can say a baptized Catholic is no longer a Catholic. Many believe it's up to the individual to decide whether to take the sacraments.

But if the church sets up a litmus test for politicians, what about for Supreme Court justices? What about for lay people who dissent?

In polls, Catholic opinions on abortion are in line with the rest of the country. Among churchgoers are those who beg to differ on civil unions or married priests, over abortion or women in the priesthood.

"What do the bishops really want?" asks Kissling. "Would it be a good thing if John Kerry stopped going to Mass and Communion? Would it be a good thing if Catholics who disagree on abortion not go to church? The churches would be empty. What exactly are they looking for?"

By putting Kerry on wafer watch, conservatives in the church are running the Kennedy tape backward. Ferraro reminds them: "Kerry's not running for pope. He's running for president. There's only one time when we find out if we've done this thing right that we call living. It's when we meet our Maker."

On that day, there will be no reporters on hand.

This kind of garbage amazes me. The future of the republic is at stake and we are allowing ourselves to get side-tracked by THIS?

Hostile Work Environment

Some U.S. Workers Say the Risk Is Too Great

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 15, 2004; Page A01

With new violence erupting in many parts of Iraq, it is increasingly challenging for U.S. contractors to continue working on thousands of reconstruction projects.

More than a few have fled their jobs without notice. At the urging of their governments, many citizens of Russia, France and South Korea are preparing to leave. Some contractors and aid organizations have packed up and moved workers to neighboring countries.

Some among those who remain say it has been difficult to do their jobs as movement around the country has come to a virtual standstill. For most of the past two weeks, the U.S.-led occupation government has been on "lockdown," meaning that personnel were prohibited from leaving the Green Zone, the fortified area in central Baghdad that is the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

"We can't work. We can't go outside. We live like in a jail," said Luma Mousawi, director of Nurses-Doctors Care Organization, which is working on the rehabilitation of Iraq's health care system.

Death Lurks in the Groves On the Road Toward Najaf

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 15, 2004; Page A01

ISKANDARIYAH, Iraq -- The nighttime ambush had left one soldier dead, another wounded. When it was over, Sgt. James Amyett calmly lit a cigarette, leaned over, and in a stage whisper drawled, "Don't be alarmed, but somebody here is trying to kill us."

The thousands of troops who moved south to the Najaf area this week didn't need to be told.

In the biggest Army operation in central Iraq since last spring's invasion, dozens of convoys made up of hundreds of tanks and trucks moved into an area where Shiite Muslim militias had battled with occupation troops several times this month. Along the way, nearly every convoy was fired on, weary soldiers said afterward. Iraqi insurgents blew up bridges on the convoy routes, doubling or tripling the duration of trips scheduled to take six to 12 hours. And the U.S. military operation in Iraq began to feel less like a troubled occupation and more like a small war.

For one convoy, the journey began just before midnight Sunday at the U.S. base outside Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad. Amyett, 23, a 1st Infantry Division scout in charge of a two-Humvee section that would make up the rear of the 44-vehicle convoy, assembled his men for a quick and intense briefing.

"There's a 99 percent chance we're going to get hit," said Amyett, from Searcy, Ark., sitting on the hood of a Humvee and facing a cluster of soldiers who stood around him in the dark. "If they shoot, kill them. Shoot them in the face."

He looked at the two soldiers who would man the .50-caliber machine guns atop the two Humvees. "Gunners, controlled bursts," he ordered, meaning they should not fire indiscriminately and should conserve ammunition. "If a gunner gets hit, roll out of the way so a guy can jump up and keep it rocking."

Playing to the Base

Bush Also Appears to Back Sharon on 'Right of Return' Issue

By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune

Published: April 14, 2004

President Bush, in a significant shift in American policy, told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today that the United States would not object if Israel retained some West Bank settlements under a future peace accord.

Mr. Bush, answering reporters questions after a White House meeting with Mr. Sharon, called the prime minister's proposals to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank "an opportunity" that would help accelerate moves toward the creation of a Palestinian state.

The president also offered a second concession sought by Israel. He said that in future, Palestinian refugees should immigrate to a new Palestinian state, not to Israeli lands they say their families were forced to flee in the fighting of 1947-1948.

Mr. Bush thus condoned the notion of a larger Israel than Palestinians have said they are ready to accept

Together, the announcements seemed sure to anger many Arabs and Muslims, many of them already deeply resentful of the United States occupation of Iraq.

Anticipating the United States-Israeli agreement on these points, both Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian president, and Ahmed Qurei, the prime minister, issued powerful denunciations earlier today, saying that any such United States. assurances would destroy prospects for an eventual peace accord, news agencies reported.

I seldom blog I/P news because I think there is plenty of sin on every side and Bush's incoherence on Israel up until now doesn't make for interesting stories. But I have to comment on this. This is Bush being tonedeaf as hell in the world of geopolitics. We've already inflamed the "Muslim Street" with our unneccesary war in Iraq, this is going to encourage more terrorism--the real deal, the kind that flies airplanes into buildings, not the indicriminate usage of the word to tack after the phrase "evil-doers" in Bush's constant propagandizing. Forbidding return to Palestinians is morally wrong and makes a lie of the premise of Israel: that Jews who may have had no ties to the Holy Land for generation have an absolute right to return to their ancestral homeland.

In the weeks to come, we may begin to hear about American atrocities coming out of Fallujah, and, perhaps, Najaf. How do you think that's going to play on Al Jazeerah? There you go, W, fan those flames some more.

Dropping Like Flies

W. has lost The Cato Institute:

At no point has the president or his advisers accepted responsibility. At worst, they appear to be conscious liars. At best they seem deceitful and manipulative.

Trust, once squandered, is hard to regain. That is why the administration risks losing its high-stakes showdown with Clarke -- and the election in November.

Link via The Stakeholder, the DCCC's snarky new blog.

Preznit giv me no attention

I'm listening to the IX/XI commission hearings today. My jaw dropped when I heard George Tenet speak the line bolded below. Talk about Presznit Disengaged!

C.I.A. Chief Defends Agency but Allows `We Made Mistakes'
By TERENCE NEILAN

Updated: 11:35 a.m.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George J. Tenet, testified today that the threat posed by Al Qaeda was passed along to senior policymakers in mid-2001, ``even if the timing and method of attacks were not.''

He told the independent, bipartisan commission investigating the 9/11 attacks planned by Osama bin Laden that the intelligence community's actions had no doubt saved lives.

``However,'' he acknowledged, ``we never penetrated the 9/11 plot overseas,'' adding, ``We made mistakes.''

``We all understood bin Laden's attempt to strike the homeland, but we never translated this knowledge into an effective defense of the country,'' he said.

Mr. Tenet also conceded in an answer to a panel member, Timothy J. Roemer, a Democrat, that while other C.I.A. personnel had briefed President Bush during the summer of 2001, he himself did not talk to the president during August 2001. That was the same month that Mr. Bush received a controversial briefing prepared by the C.I.A. on domestic threats posed by Al Qaeda to the United States.

Mr. Tenet, who became the director of central intelligence in 1997, said that intelligence agencies had spent considerable time and energy during his tenure transforming their ability to collect and act on information, adding that in the mid-1990's the agencies were in disarray because new analysts were not being hired or given the tools they needed.

"Ripped Our Hearts Out"

Let them come home

My name is Hollie Mitchell. I’m the wife of a soldier in the 1st Armored Division, 1-501 Aviation, stationed in Iraq. We’re based out of Hanau, Germany. My husband was due to come home next week after serving a year in Iraq. He was on his way home when his unit was told to turn around and go back to Iraq.

After a year of nervous waiting and living without my husband, we’ve been looking forward to April 2004 with great anticipation. He left for Iraq on April 29, 2003. We were told he could be gone for 365 days. The welcome home parties have all been planned, and some of the troops from the unit are already back in Germany. I am four months pregnant, a gift my husband left for us when he was on rest and recuperation leave in December. Now I’ve been told at the last minute that the day I’ve been looking forward to for a year was just a tease.

This is the kind of reward the Army is giving its soldiers and family members. They have ripped our hearts out. We have given up a year of our lives and were expecting to be with our loved ones this month. Instead, they slap us in the face and tell us it will be up to another 120 days, which they think sounds better than four more months.

These soldiers have lived in substandard living conditions, put their lives on the line every day and been separated from their families for a year now. It’s time to return them home. They have replacements in Iraq. They’re very tired and worn out, mentally and physically. They need to come home. Morale is at an all- time low.

Imagine being separated from one’s family for a year and living under great stress. Then a week before returning, on the way home, you’re told that you’ll be staying for another four months. That’s a total of 16 months away, working under very high stress levels every day of that 16 months, except for two weeks of rest and recuperation. This is irrational to ask of anyone, let alone the men and women who serve this country.

The children who were expecting their fathers home are now crying and wondering where they are. The wives, husbands, sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers were all expecting them home. The soldiers were expecting to come home. Let them come home.

Publicity is the only thing that politicians listen to. We can’t sit and be quiet and take this laying down. The promises have to stop being broken. President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have to start living up to their word. They said our troops would be home in a year. Now they’ve changed that to 16 months. When is this going to end?

Hollie Mitchell
Hanau, Germany

Decisive Force

Army Girds to Confront Radical Cleric
Four Bodies Found Near Where Civilian Convoy Was Attacked

By Sewell Chan and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 14, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, April 13 -- A force of 2,500 troops from three U.S. Army divisions massed Tuesday on the northern outskirts of the Iraqi holy city of Najaf and readied for a confrontation with Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, who defiantly declared that he was prepared to die for his cause.

In Washington, the State Department said four mutilated bodies were found west of Baghdad, near the spot where seven American civilians employed by Halliburton Co. disappeared Friday during an attack on a supply convoy. A department spokesman said that the bodies had not been identified and that the U.S.-led occupation authority was investigating.

The State Department has been in constant contact with relatives of the missing civilians since they were abducted, and the families were notified of the discovery of the four bodies Tuesday, the spokesman said. Halliburton said in a statement that it could not confirm that the bodies were those of the missing workers.

The occupation authority said 40 hostages from 12 countries were known to be held by Iraqi insurgents -- at least 15 more than the number publicly reported by individual employers and foreign governments.

On Tuesday, a French television reporter and four Italian security guards were reported abducted, and eight employees of a Russian energy company were released one day after they were seized from their house in Baghdad. The French, Russian and Czech governments urged their citizens to leave Iraq.

Meanwhile, insurgents in the besieged western city of Fallujah fired on an Army transport helicopter, wounding three crew members and forcing it to make an emergency landing. The Sikorsky H-53, one of the largest in the military's fleet, with a capacity of 55, was the second helicopter to be downed in Iraq in three days.

The persistent kidnappings, the combat preparations outside Najaf and the resurgence in fighting in Fallujah underscored the level of tension in Iraq, where the U.S. military is battling a two-front insurgency that shows few signs of abating.

Near Fallujah, one Marine was killed and seven were wounded, a spokesman said. In addition, a soldier with the Army's 1st Infantry Division was killed and another soldier and a civilian contractor were injured in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad early Tuesday as their convoy headed for Najaf.

via Juan Cole:

In the message, Ayatollah Sistani warned the U.S. that in case the occupying forces attack the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf the Shia cleric would use their last weapons at hand to defend the Shia’s rights.

The clerics emphasized the necessity for civil and political methods to accelerate the process of the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq while announcing displeasure over the occupying forces’ presence in the country.

For Our Time

If you haven't already run across it here is a link to the weblog of Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance. He's on the ground in Iraq.

The Center for American Progress's David Sirota does some fact checking of W's news conference last night. These are welcome resources.

The Nut of the Situation

For once, I agree with Big Media Matt:

The problem, in a nutshell, is that Shiites consider the TAL [Transitional Administrative Law] far too friendly to Kurdish interests. The plan calls for the integration of the three Kurdish-majority provinces into a superstate that will be empowered to nullify acts of the federal government and will be permitted to maintain armed forces for the purposes of internal security. Worse, from the Shiite point of view, is the procedure laid out in the TAL for the ratification of a permanent constitution. The document will require ratification by two-thirds of the voters in 16 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Thus, an extraordinarily small minority will be able to block the TAL's successor. Functionally, the purpose is to create a Kurdish veto over the future of Iraq -- Kurds are, coincidentally, a majority in exactly three provinces. While laudable in spirit, this concession to minority all but ensures that the permanent constitution will only become more pro-Kurdish. There is, moreover, no guarantee that anything will be able to attract the sort of overwhelming public support the ratification process requires, threatening to throw the situation into limbo.

Under the circumstances, a simplistic debate between staying the course and bringing the boys home is unenlightening. If a broadly supported interim government can be found, then staying in force to support it against extreme elements is preferable to allowing the situation to devolve into chaos. If not, however, then the aims of the occupation -- however laudable -- are simply infeasible, and we should look for a way to extricate ourselves from a futile enterprise undertaken on dubious pretenses. The approach offered thus far by the Bush administration -- long on bravado, but short on actual plans to improve the situation -- threatens to bring the worst of both worlds.

Hostile Environment

Foreign workers told to quit Iraq
Seven Chinese were freed - but other foreigners are still being held
Foreign nationals are being urged to flee Iraq as governments and private companies react to growing insecurity and a wave of kidnappings.

Coalition civilian spokesman Dan Senor said 40 hostages from 12 countries were currently being held in Iraq.

In the latest development, the French foreign ministry confirmed a French journalist had been taken hostage.

Earlier, al-Jazeera television showed a video of four Italian men who have been abducted, surrounded by armed men.

We are making it clear that there will be no negotiations with hostage-takers
Dan Senor
Coalition spokesman

Italian officials said four Italian employees of a private US security agency, DTS Security, were missing.

France has followed Germany in issuing a formal warning urging its citizens to leave, calling the kidnappings "unacceptable".

The British Foreign Office said it continued to advise against all but the most essential travel to Iraq.

Russia's biggest contractor in Iraq, Tekhpromexport, is pulling its 370 staff out of Iraq amid security concerns.

Meanwhile, the US-led coalition says the alleged leader of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, is believed to be in the area around Falluja, where clashes have continued despite a ceasefire in the town.

About 10 Bulgarian soldiers ask to leave Iraq

SOFIA (Reuters) - About 10 Bulgarian soldiers based in the flashpoint city of Kerbala in southern Iraq have asked if they can go home, officials said on Tuesday, the latest example of the troops' unhappiness with conditions in Iraq.

On Monday, soldiers' parents appealed to President Georgi Parvanov to have Bulgaria's 450-strong battalion withdrawn from the city, where it came under repeated attack last week from militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"Around 10 servicemen of the Bulgarian contingent in Kerbala have asked to be relieved," defence ministry spokeswoman Roumyana Strugarova said.

The conditions facing the new NATO member's troops in Iraq have become a sensitive issue in this Balkan country since last week's attacks, but had already caused concern previously.

Historical Precedent

Blind in Baghdad

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A19

Here are the reasons Iraq is not Vietnam: It is a desert, not a jungle. The enemy is not protected and supplied by major powers such as the Soviet Union or China, not to mention a formidable front-line state such as North Vietnam. The Iraqis are not, like the Vietnamese, a single culture fighting a long-term war of liberation from colonial masters. They are fragmented by religion and language, and they have been independent ever since the British left lo these many years ago. In almost every way but one, Iraq is not Vietnam. Here's the one: We don't know what the hell we're doing.

This is the most important finding you can take from the debacle of the past two weeks. The sudden uprising of the Shiite militia loyal to Moqtada Sadr took U.S. forces by surprise. For now, it does not matter that this uprising is containable or that Sadr may well be little more than a thug. What matters is that he was able to organize an insurrection right under our noses and put up a more than credible fight. Calling him a thug, as we are wont to do, does not change matters.

This remarkable fact, to use the current argot, is sooooooo Vietnam. Once again, we are feeling our way in the dark. We have 130,000 troops in Iraq. We have 77,000 Iraqi police officers on our side, supposedly with their ears to the ground. We have the supposed loyalty of all those Iraqis who tell pollsters that they are grateful for what Americans have done for their country and how much they want the United States to stay. Still, somehow, not a one of them blew the whistle when Sadr was issuing orders and patting his fighters on the back as they were heading out the door.

Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq, is by all accounts an admirable and incredibly industrious man, "tasked," in Condi-speak, to do the impossible. But on the Sunday talk shows, he seemed right out of central casting, some actor playing the clueless American, down to his striped tie and button-down shirt. When asked who he was going to turn power over to on June 30, he replied, "That's a good question," but supplied no answer. He simply does not know. He does know, though, that the "majority view" among Iraqis is hardly anti-American. The polls tell him so. This is Vietnam all over again.

In the first place, minorities make revolutions, not majorities. Most people simply do as they are told. Second, polls -- even in Iowa, for crying out loud -- are notoriously unreliable. Last, Bremer and the rest of us are simply going to have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we will never know what is happening in Iraq. It's a different culture.

The question isn't is this Viet Nam or Algeria or Gallipoli. The question is weather or not this is a disaster.

Personalizing War

Krugman continues to point at the emperor's lack of clothes. How shrill.

Events should have cured the Bush team of its illusions. After all, before the invasion Tim Russert asked Dick Cheney about the possibility that we would be seen as conquerors, not liberators, and would be faced with "a long, costly and bloody battle." Mr. Cheney replied, "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators." Uh-huh.

But Bush officials seem to have learned nothing. Consider, for example, the continuing favor shown to Ahmad Chalabi. Last year the neocons tried to install Mr. Chalabi in power, even ferrying his private army into Iraq just behind our advancing troops. It turned out that he had no popular support, and by now it's obvious that suspicions that we're trying to put Mr. Chalabi on the throne are fueling Iraqi distrust. According to Arnaud de Borchgrave of U.P.I., however, administration officials gave him control of Saddam's secret files — a fine tool for blackmail — and are letting him influence the allocation of reconstruction contracts, a major source of kickbacks.

And we keep repeating the same mistakes. The story behind last week's uprising by followers of Moktada al-Sadr bears a striking resemblance to the story of the wave of looting a year ago, after Baghdad fell.

In both cases, officials were unprepared for an obvious risk. According to The Washington Post: "One U.S. official said there was not even a fully developed backup plan for military action in case Sadr opted to react violently. The official noted that when the decision [to close Sadr's newspaper] was made, there were very few U.S. troops in Sadr's strongholds south of Baghdad."

If we're lucky, the Sadrist uprising will eventually fade out, just as the postwar looting did; but the occupation's dwindling credibility has taken another huge blow.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush, who once challenged his own father to go mano a mano, is still addicted to tough talk, and still personalizes everything.

Again and again, administration officials have insisted that some particular evildoer is causing all our problems. Last July they confidently predicted an end to the insurgency after Saddam's sons were killed. In December, they predicted an end to the insurgency after capturing Saddam himself. Six weeks ago — was it only six weeks? — Al Qaeda was orchestrating the insurgency, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the root of all evil. The obvious point that we're facing widespread religious and nationalist resentment in Iraq, which is exploited but not caused by the bad guy du jour, never seems to sink in.

The situation in Falluja seems to have been greatly exacerbated by tough-guy posturing and wishful thinking. According to The Jerusalem Post, after the murder and mutilation of American contractors, Mr. Bush told officials that "I want heads to roll." Didn't someone warn him of the likely consequences of attempting to carry out a manhunt in a hostile, densely populated urban area?

And now we have a new villain. Yesterday Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez declared that "the mission of the U.S. forces is to kill or capture Moktada al-Sadr." If and when they do, we'll hear once again that we've turned the corner. Does anyone believe it?

When will we learn that we're not going to end the mess in Iraq by getting bad guys? There are always new bad guys to take their place. And let's can the rhetoric about staying the course. In fact, we desperately need a change in course.

Responsibility

Will Bush Own Up?

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A19

"We stand for a culture of responsibility in America. We're changing the culture of this country from one that has said, if it feels good, do it, and if you got a problem, blame somebody else, to a culture in which each of us are responsible for the decisions we make in life."

Maybe President Bush should reread his own words, offered last week at a fundraiser in Charlotte. They explain why his response to the disclosure of the now famous Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily brief (PDB) is maddening to so many and why his refusal to say plainly that he now wishes he had done some things differently before Sept. 11 is so disturbing.

To take responsibility straightforwardly would be a sign of strength, not weakness. Instead, the president is sticking to a strategy of denial.

Bush told reporters on Sunday that "as the president, I wanted to know whether there was anything, any actionable intelligence. And I looked at the August 6 briefing, I was satisfied that some matters were being looked into. But that PDB said nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America -- well, we knew that."

But the PDB did talk about attacks on the United States. It talked about al Qaeda members who "have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks." It spoke of FBI information on "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." It referred to a call to the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May "saying that a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives."

Surely we don't want to start arguing about how it depends on what the meaning of "attack" is, do we?

Yet the president was not at all uneasy with others being assigned responsibility. Asked if he was satisfied that "each agency was doing everything it should have been doing," Bush replied: "Well, that's what the 9/11 commission should look into and I hope it does. . . . I am satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America -- at a time and a place, an attack." Is the commission supposed to look at failures all across the federal government, but apparently not at the White House?

I love the way editorialists and commentators of the left give the White House the benefit of the doubt. E. J., my brother, Bush is going to take responsibility for anything at approximately the same time as he acheives flying to the moon.

Eddie

A couple of readers asked by email about Eddie. He's missing a couple of teeth, but he is home now and doesn't seem the worse for wear. He still runs the house, that was always his job. He tells me when to get up, but not when to go to sleep. His paw on the can opener is pretty much law around here. And he is back to his old self. Giving him antibiotics, which he'll need for another 10 days, is the outer reaches of hell, I'm good at this kind of vet care and dread it. He hates it. And, therefore, so do I. I have to wrap him in a towel for this procedure and neither of us likes the other much when it is over.

But he is going to be fine. That's what matters.

Bowing to the Inevitable

U.S. Military Seeks Additional Forces for Iraq
Commanders Disappointed With Performance of Iraqi Forces; 2 U.S. Soldiers, 7 Contractors Missing After Convoy Attacked

By Sewell Chan and William Branigin
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 12, 2004; 5:26 PM

BAGHDAD, April 12 -- Top U.S. military commanders expressed disappointment Monday with the performance of Iraqi security forces in countering an intensifying insurgency and said they were requesting thousands of additional U.S. forces to meet the threat.
....
Abizaid said he has requested reinforcements in the form of two U.S. combat brigades, but he declined to specify where they would come from and how many troops they would include.

Military analysts in Washington said the two brigades would probably amount to about 10,000 troops, allowing commanders to maintain U.S. troop strength in Iraq at about 125,000 in the coming months. The military had planned to draw the forces down to about 115,000 from the current level of about 135,000, a number that officers have said is unusually high because of an overlap of new and departing units.

This is like putting a bandaid on gangrene. The only way they can get those troops is to call up more Guard and Reserves. A political price will be paid for that.

In order to have impact in the theater, they would need to put in at least another 100-k -300k. It sounds like the Pentagon civilians continue to run the show.

Blair Blowback

Blair pleads to disaffected as membership plummets

Kevin Maguire
Monday April 12, 2004
The Guardian

A collapse in the number of Labour party members is jeopardising the party's election prospects, amid claims that the total has hit a 70-year low.

The latest published figure of 248,294 is equivalent to fewer than 390 members per parliamentary constituency but Save the Labour Party, a party group formed by activists concerned at plummeting numbers, argues that that figure has been inflated by including lapsed members, and does not take account of many who left in the wake of the Iraq war.

A shortage of volunteers to put up posters, stuff envelopes, deliver leaflets, canvass and knock on doors to get people to vote threatens to undermine the campaign in June's local and European contests as well as next year's general election. As a result Tony Blair is to write to more than 40,000 who have left since the 2001 poll to urge them to rejoin.

The loss of tens of thousands of £24 annual subscriptions, or the £12 reduced rate, is also hit ting party coffers when unions are cutting donations in the run-up to what will be a series of expensive political battles.

A survey of membership secretaries in eight constituency Labour parties found that nearly 12% of those counted as members were more than six months in arrears, barring them under party rules from voting in internal elections.

Poor Tony! I wonder if he understood that he hooked his political future to that of the worst president in American history.

Miserable Failure

Terrific overview piece by David Remnick in The New Yorker:

Does anyone—save, perhaps, a small core of conservative zealots—still believe that there will be an easy solution to the crisis in Iraq? Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of all this is that, at least until January 20, 2005, George W. Bush is in charge of Iraq’s future and America’s. Through sheer lack of humility and competence, he has squandered the good will of vast numbers of Iraqis and Americans and American allies, and it is difficult to imagine him acquiring the skill and wisdom to regain it.

John Kerry has yet to present a clear set of ideas about this crisis. As a candidate, he is a sterling biography in search of a coherent language. He must find one. At a moment when Bush is on the defensive as never before--with Iraq, the 9/11 commission, and the critiques of insiders like Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill--Kerry has seemed to recede. In many respects, the fusillade of attack ads produced by Karl Rove and company are patently unfair and intellectually dishonest, but Kerry has made it too easy for the White House to make him seem vague on Iraq.

Kerry faces a real dilemma. Bumper-sticker clarity is not an option for him. Compared with Bush’s simplicities, Kerry’s views have been complex. The nuances and conditions of both his original support for authorizing force and his later critique of how that authority was used suggest that he recognizes that Iraq is an American responsibility, not just a Republican one. It falls to Kerry to disprove the conservative zealots’ favorite canard: that subtlety of vision is inconsistent with strength and cogency of action.

This is a genuine dilemma for an honest man. The reality of the situation is that both NATO and the UN are pretty much overstretched in terms of forces available. "Internationalization" under such circumstances will mean more about administration, rather than force commitments, and I seriously doubt that will make much difference to the Iraqis. There is no love lost between Iraq and the UN.

All of the options are bad. This is a perfect failure, the hallmark of 43's administration.

Financial Planning

In My Opinion (no permalinks, scroll down)

March 27, 2004…

The U.S. stock market’s bear market rally that started in October 2002 seems to have topped at about 10,700 on the Dow Jones Industrial Index. The rally extended about 10% further than I had anticipated because in the low interest rate and U.S. dollar devaluation environment stocks became an option of last resort. The current account and trade deficits are out of control. No amount of stimulation by the Federal Reserve is creating jobs. The Fed seems to be ‘pushing on a string.’ The real estate bubble has given consumers a false sense of confidence. When that bubble bursts the U.S. will be plunged into the second phase of the bear market cycle. I haven’t figured out whether or not the real estate bust will manifest itself in deflation. I still feel that the best strategy is to develop a bipolar portfolio to protect oneself against inflation or deflation or a blending of both. China’s boom is dependent on the U.S. consumer’s confidence and their insatiable appetite for cheap offshore goods. The big retailers are only able to maintain profitability by increasing the amount of Chinese goods in their product mix. The U.S. government is fudging the inflation numbers. It has its hands full with terrorism, IRAQ and Afghanistan. Senator John Kerry is likely to be the next President of the United States. While Senator Kerry may be perceived as a breath of fresh air after the rather draconian Bush regime, it is unlikely that the stock market will shake off ‘the bear.’ Pensions and endowments have enjoyed a reprieve but 2005 will retest their metal, and in some cases solvency. I believe that to thrive and survive you need a bipolar portfolio…

This is pretty much the same advice I've been giving friends for a while.