Religion and Politics

Statement of Jim Wallis to the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee
June 18, 2004

I am Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine and convener of Call to Renewal, a network of churches and faith-based organizations working to overcome poverty. Thank you for your invitation to address you this afternoon.

The media is filled these days with stories of a divided church. And it is already looking certain that highly controversial social questions will again be used during this election year as "wedge issues." Some want us to believe the only "religious issues" in this critical election year are gay marriage and abortion. Others say religion shouldn't matter at all in an election. We believe that our faith does matter in politics.

Some of us feel that our faith has been stolen; and it is time to take it back. In particular, an enormous misrepresentation of my Christian tradition has taken place. And because of an almost uniform media misperception, many people think Christian faith stands for political commitments that are almost the opposite of its true meaning. How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American? It's time for a rescue operation-to get back to the historic, biblical, and a genuinely evangelical faith rescued from contemporary distortions. The good news is that the rescue operation has begun-in a time where the social crisis we face literally cries out for more progressive and prophetic religion.

Too many people still believe that faith is private and has no implications for political life. Some politicians seem almost to be saying, "Sure I have faith, but don't worry, it won't affect anything. But what kind of faith is that? Where would America be if the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had kept his faith to himself? The United States has a long history of religious faith supporting and literally driving progressive causes and movements. From the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage to civil rights, religion has led the way for social change.

The separation of church and state does not require banishing moral and religious values from the public square. America's social fabric depends on such values and vision to shape our politics — a dependence the founders recognized. Not everyone in America has the same religious values, of course. And many moral lessons are open to interpretation.

Yet, it is possible (and necessary) to express one's faith and convictions about public policy while still respecting the pluralism of American democracy. Rather than suggesting that we not talk about "God," we should be arguing — on moral and even religious grounds — that all Americans should have economic security, health care and educational opportunity, and that true faith results in a compassionate concern for those on the margins.

How a candidate deals with poverty is a religious issue, and the Bush administration's failure to support poor working families should be named as a religious failure. Neglect of the environment is a religious issue. Fighting pre-emptive and unilateral wars based on false claims is a religious issue.

Such issues could pose problems for the Bush administration among religious and nonreligious people alike — if someone were to define them in moral terms. The failure to do so is not just a political miscalculation. It shows a lack of appreciation for the contributions of religion to American life.

God is always personal, but never private. It is wrong to restrict religion solely to the private sphere; and it is wrong to define it solely in terms of individual moral choices and sexual ethics. In an election year, people of faith are called to see our political responsibilities in light of our religious faith and our deepest held values.

God bless the Dems (literally) for having the smarts to bring Jim Wallis in. Wallis is a liberal evangelical with the standing to challenge the Pat Roberts and Jerry Falwells of the world, and to give the Dems the kind of standing with liberal religious people that the Bushies have with the Christian right. I may be Catholic, but I have a lot more in common with Jim Wallis than a do with a bunch of my own bishops.

Thanks to the ever-observant Susie Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla for the catch. That woman misses nothing--except a job. We have that in common. If you are able to hit the Paypal or Amazon wishlist links over on the top right, it'll be much appreciated. Tomorrow I will have been unemployed for one year to the day. My life is a bailing wire and duct tape operation right now.

Conspiracy Theories

via the new and improved Agonist:

(as Sean Paul says, if you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention)

Voting Official Seeks Terrorism Guidelines

Fri Jun 25, 3:59 PM ET

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.

Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.

Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush (news - web sites). Soaries said he wrote to National Security (news - web sites) Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns.

"I am still awaiting their response," he said. "Thus far we have not begun any meaningful discussion." Spokesmen for Rice and Ridge did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Soaries noted that Sept. 11, 2001, fell on Election Day in New York City — and he said officials there had no rules to follow in making the decision to cancel the election and hold it later.

Events in Spain, where a terrorist attack shortly before the March election possibly influenced its outcome, show the need for a process to deal with terrorists threatening or interrupting the Nov. 2 presidential election in America, he said.

"Look at the possibilities. If the federal government were to cancel an election or suspend an election, it has tremendous political implications. If the federal government chose not to suspend an election it has political implications," said Soaries, a Republican and former secretary of state of New Jersey.

"Who makes the call, under what circumstances is the call made, what are the constitutional implications?" he said. "I think we have to err on the side of transparency to protect the voting rights of the country."

Soaries said his bipartisan, four-member commission might make a recommendation to Congress about setting up guidelies.

"I'm hopeful that there are some proposals already being floated. If there are, we're not aware of them. If there are not, we will probably try to put one on the table," he said.

Soaries also said he's met with a former New York state elections director to discuss how officials there handled the Sept. 11 attacks from the perspective of election administration. He said the commission is getting information from New York documenting the process used there.

This is utter garbage. We held elections on time in the middle of the Civil War, fer cryin' out loud. This is the kind of stuff that sends me into tinfoil hat territory. Remember that interview that Gen. Tommy Franks gave to Cigar Afficianado last fall?

Thai Retreat

Thai troops begin Iraq pullout early

By South-East Asia correspondent Peter Lloyd

Thailand will begin withdrawing military forces from Iraq tomorrow.

When the Thai Government agreed to send 450 engineers and medics on a one-year deployment last September, the US touted Thailand as one of the "coalition of the willing".

Thai officials have been insisting that the troops will see out their mission, despite calls for their withdrawal after two Thai soldiers were killed in a car bombing last December.

However, the Government has now announced that a phased withdrawal of military hardware and some troops will start from Thursday.

A Defence Ministry official said the decision did not reverse Thailand's one-year commitment but he refused to specify how many troops would remain in Iraq until September.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says Thai troops will be brought home sooner if attacks on foreigners worsen.

Gotta read the Australian press to find this stuff out.

Trifecta Box

Graduate Iraq, but fail U.S. as its principal

RICHARD COHEN

The ceremony in Baghdad is the appropriate time to pronounce the war in Iraq a failure, maybe even a debacle. Its only success was the removal of Saddam Hussein – an ogre, yes, but one who had been largely defanged by years of U.N. sanctions, arms inspections and his own stunning incompetence. No meaningful link to al-Qaida has been established, no weapons of mass destruction have been found and no diminution of terrorism has resulted – an astounding trifecta of failure. In fact, as the State Department reluctantly reported, there is now more worldwide terrorism than ever before. Even Saudi Arabia, our friendly filling station, is now a risky place for Americans. More successes like Iraq, and Americans won’t want to travel farther than Bruce Springsteen’s Jersey Shore.

Monday’s ceremony was propelled by both logic and politics. The first has to do with one reason for the insurgency – the U.S. occupation. The sooner Iraqis deal with Iraqis, the better the chances that ultimately a stable government of some sort can be formed. The swiftness with which the liberation became the occupation testifies to Iraq’s low tolerance for anything that suggests Western (colonialist) interference.

But politics, too, plays a role – the upcoming American elections. The apparent policy of the Bush administration is to keep combat deaths to a minimum – even if that means letting the bad guys go. It has enacted the doctrine first enunciated by Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, who, in paraphrase, said, “Watch what we do and not what we say.” So watch when American soldiers do not clear out infestations of militia fighters, as has already been the case in Fallujah. That might be bad for Iraq, but it’s good for Bush in November.

We all should wish the graduate well. If Iraq implodes – civil war, etc. – then the Mideast that Bush wants to transform into an Islamic Iowa is going to go to pieces, the final repudiation of the British Colonial Office’s grand design for the region. Already, the Kurds are making noises that sound suspiciously like a declaration of independence, and no one, it seems, knows what the Iranians are up to – or what they will do if their fellow Shiites somehow manage to lose the promised elections.

Iraq faces so many formidable problems that if it were a stock, I’d sell it short.

A supposedly new Iraq was born this week, a graduate going off – really being kissed off – without the necessary skills. It is riven by an insurgency and burdened by an economy that Saddam ruined and war hardly helped. The insincerely proud parent of this miserable misfit is the Bush administration, whose incompetence has been staggering.

Monday’s charade, though, is only half done. Graduate the kid, if need be, but fail the principal.

Bravo, Richard.

Somewhere Near a Whiskey Bar

If you, like me, have gone into a bit of withdrawel over Billmon's decision to close comments on his site, you can go here to the commentary site set up by frequent commentor Bernhard Horstmann. I applaud this sort of community building.

A Snarl in a Suit

Our Feel-Good Veep

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A21

Considering that he's out of the public eye most of the time, it's remarkable that Cheney has become just as much of a polarizing figure as his boss. But then, Cheney is a master of high-impact public appearances. When a guy continues to insist, for instance, that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda, despite the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission's report that it has found no evidence of such a link, he begins to convey an impression. In this case, it's that of one of Alfred Hitchcock's obsessional lunatics.

A lesser president might seek to jettison such a running mate, but not George W. Bush. Cheney still has a signal virtue: Unlike Tom Ridge or Rudy Giuliani, he's no threat to brother Jeb's presidential prospects in 2008. Whatever peril Cheney may pose to the planet, he remains no obstacle to the George-'n-Jeb succession -- the least impressive dynastic duo since Willy of Prussia and Nicky of Russia.

John Kerry, meanwhile, is fast approaching the day when he must announce his own running mate. And just as the Democratic Party settled on Kerry as its most electable presidential choice, it has settled on John Edwards as its most electable veep. Whether Kerry has settled on Edwards, of course, remains the deepest of mysteries.

Besides Edwards, the only potential vice presidential pick with a voluble group of champions is Dick Gephardt. The presidents of a number of unions, chiefly in the manufacturing sector but led by Teamster chief Jim Hoffa (who was Gephardt's law school classmate), have rallied behind the Missouri congressman. But the support of Gephardt, even among union presidents, is far from unanimous.

All of labor is grateful for Gephardt's more-than-decade-long leadership of the fight against the kind of globalization that pays no heed to labor or environmental standards. But many union leaders are quick to point out that when Gephardt ran fourth in January's Iowa caucuses and was compelled to withdraw from the race, he lost even the factory towns to Kerry and Edwards. Great guy, good message, bad messenger, these presidents say. Edwards's "two Americas" talk, by contrast, has electrified Democrats -- and, if the primary results are any indication, many independents as well -- in search of a resonant explanation of what has gone wrong in an increasingly plutocratic America.

Kerry is rightly concerned, of course, that his vice presidential pick have credibility in matters of national security. The mystery is that anyone still feels that Cheney, and his boss, have any. They invaded Iraq because they believed erroneous evidence (and may still believe it, all actual evidence to the contrary) or, more plausibly, because they could, because they knew they'd feel better afterward. Of course, because they discarded the occupation plans developed by the State Department, the CIA and the military and opted to go into Iraq with no occupation plan whatever, they don't feel better afterward. The place is a bloody mess. No wonder they're cussing at Democrats. It's one of the few small pleasures their current life affords.

I'll join the rest of the lefty blogosphere in declaring that Kerry's veep selection matters to me not a whit. This election is about re-taking the Republic and restoring democracy in THIS country. John Kerry can select any random homo sapient and it'll be fine with me.

Meyerson's larger case, that Bush and the neo-cons have made a hash of our foreign policy, remains out of sight, out of mind, for about half of the electorate. That's astonishing.

Subjects or Citizens?

Abu Ghraib, Stonewalled

Published: June 30, 2004

While piously declaring its determination to unearth the truth about Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration has spent nearly two months obstructing investigations by the Army and members of Congress. It has dragged out the Army's inquiry, withheld crucial government documents from a Senate committee and stonewalled senators over dozens of Red Cross reports that document the horrible mistreatment of Iraqis at American military prisons. Even last week's document dump from the White House, which included those cynical legal road maps around treaties and laws against torturing prisoners, seemed part of this stonewalling campaign. Nothing in those hundreds of pages explained what orders had been issued to the military and C.I.A. jailers in Iraq, and by whom.

It took the Pentagon more than two weeks to appoint a replacement for Maj. Gen. George Fay, who had to be relieved of the task of investigating the military intelligence units at Abu Ghraib because he was not senior enough to question Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander in Iraq. The process underscored the inability of the military to investigate itself at this level. The Pentagon named someone of high enough rank — just barely. That officer is a three-star general, as is General Sanchez. He will have to get up to speed before questioning General Sanchez, and the Pentagon will undoubtedly stall again when the new investigating general, inevitably, needs to go yet higher.The Pentagon has also not turned over to the Senate the full report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who conducted the Army's biggest investigation so far into abuses at Abu Ghraib. The Pentagon has still not accounted for the 2,000 pages missing from his 6,000-page file when it was given to the Senate Armed Services Committee more than a month ago; the missing pages include draft documents on interrogation techniques for Iraq. The committee's chairman, Senator John Warner, said last week that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had assured him that he was working on the problem. Mr. Warner's faith seems deeply misplaced.

Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of another issue, the Red Cross reports on Iraq, is the most outrageous example of the administration's bad faith on the prison scandal. The Bush administration has cited Red Cross confidentiality policies to explain its failure to give up the reports. The trouble is, the Red Cross has repeatedly told the administration to go ahead and share the agency's findings with Congress, as long as steps are taken to prevent leaks.

On May 7, the Senate armed services panel asked Mr. Rumsfeld for these reports on widespread abuse in the military prisons in Iraq; one of the reports had already appeared on the Internet. Mr. Rumsfeld assured the committee that he would turn them over, if the Red Cross agreed. Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides have not handed over the reports — 40 in all, including 24 from Iraq. Over the weeks, the Pentagon has assured increasingly angry senators that it was negotiating with the Red Cross, and then offered the rather absurd claim that it was still "collecting" the documents.

In fact, the International Red Cross gave its consent within 24 hours of Mr. Rumsfeld's empty promise, and has repeated it several times.

In late May, Kevin Moley, the American ambassador to the international organizations based in Geneva, invited the head of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, to "express any concerns" his organization had about giving the documents to Congress. Dr. Kellenberger replied that it was never a problem as long as the documents were kept confidential. Given the administration's habit of selective disclosure, however, Dr. Kellenberger insisted that all of the reports, not just some, be sent to Congress, in their entirety. He has also asked for an inventory of what is shared.

Still, the Pentagon told Senator Warner's committee that it had not worked out an arrangement. On June 15, Christophe Girod, head of the Red Cross delegation in Washington, wrote to Senator Edward Kennedy, a leader in the fight to get the prison reports, that the decision "lies with the U.S. authorities." He confirmed that the Red Cross had given the Pentagon permission to hand over the documents in early May.

Last Thursday, members of the Armed Services Committee attended a closed-door briefing with the Pentagon, ostensibly on the Red Cross reports. But the briefers did not turn over any documents; they merely showed the senators reports on Guantánamo Bay that had no bearing on Iraq.

The Senate is now in a two-week recess. In one of the few signs of life on Capitol Hill on this issue, Mr. Warner promises to resume his hearings after the recess. But even the Red Cross in Geneva has got it figured out: the administration has no intention of cooperating. It's time for the Republican majority in Congress to stop covering for the White House and compel the administration, by subpoena if necessary, to turn over all documents relating to Abu Ghraib — starting with those Red Cross reports.

Have you called or faxed your congresscritter to demand further investigation? Have you let Henry Waxman know that you support his demands? Are you going to let the Republicans get away with this?

Republic, Not Empire

Detainees May Be Moved Off Cuba Base

By John Hendren, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Senior Bush administration officials are considering moving hundreds of detainees from a facility in Cuba to prisons within the United States in response to Supreme Court rulings this week that granted military prisoners access to U.S. courts, officials said Tuesday.

As attorneys for detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, began preparing the first of hundreds of expected lawsuits demanding that the government justify the detentions, administration officials acknowledged that they were unprepared for a rebuke in two landmark Supreme Court decisions that rejected the military's treatment of prisoners in the war on terrorism.

Now, after being handed the losses, the administration has been left to scramble to develop a strategy for granting hearings to detainees without having to cope with an unwieldy series of lawsuits throughout the nation.

"They didn't really have a specific plan for what to do, case by case, if we lost," a senior Department of Defense official said on condition of anonymity. "The Justice Department didn't have a plan. State didn't have a plan. This wasn't a unilateral mistake on Department of Defense's part. It's astounding to me that these cases have been pending for so long and nobody came up with a contingency plan."

To avoid ferrying prisoners and government lawyers to federal courts across the country, as might be required, Pentagon and Justice Department officials said they had discussed moving all detainees to a military prison in a conservative judicial district within the United States to enable the consolidation of all the proceedings in one court. They said possible locations could be Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., where there is an Army base with a military prison, or Charleston, S.C., home of the Charleston Naval Weapons Station, which houses the Navy brig.

Another option would be to allow prisoners to file for writs of habeas corpus — a demand for legal justification for their imprisonment — at a makeshift court at the base in Cuba. The Supreme Court left open the possibility of such an option.

Under a third proposal offered Justice Department officials and discussed at a high-level interagency meeting Tuesday, a senior administration official said, the administration would ask Congress to designate one federal court district to try the cases — most likely Washington, D.C., or the Eastern District of Virginia, whose jurisdiction includes the Pentagon.

The changes could occur as part of a general reorganization of Guantanamo currently under consideration in which the prison facility would be revamped, with detainees segregated by the level of threat they are thought to pose, the senior administration official said.

The administration has faced months of criticism over its prisoner detention program. Critics say the issue, combined with the prison abuse scandal in Iraq and this week's rulings, have undermined the administration's contention that it could be trusted to offer detainees "full and fair" justice.

"The 'trust us' era is over," said Joshua Dratel, a New York attorney who is representing Australian detainee David Hicks, one of three detainees who was referred Tuesday to the first military commission proceedings to be held since World War II.

Thank God for the Bill of Rights. Otherwise, you and I could end up at Gitmo. Think about it. C-minus Augustus gave a good run at overturning habeus corpus but even he couldn't do it. We have a chance at returning the republic in November. Vote.

The Future

Reality Intrudes on Promises in Rebuilding of Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ and ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: June 30, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 29 - The four big smokestacks at the Doura power plant in Baghdad have always served as subversive truth-tellers. No matter what Saddam Hussein's propagandists said about electricity supplies, people knew they could get a better idea of the coming day's power by counting how many stacks at Doura were spewing smoke.

Mr. Hussein is vanquished and a new Iraqi government has just gained formal sovereignty, but those smokestacks remain potent markers - not only of sporadic electricity service but of the agonizingly slow pace of Iraq's promised economic renewal.

More than a year into an aid effort that American officials likened to the Marshall Plan, occupation authorities acknowledge that fewer than 140 of 2,300 promised construction projects are under way. Only three months after L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator who departed Monday, pledged that 50,000 Iraqis would find jobs at construction sites before the formal transfer of sovereignty, fewer than 20,000 local workers are employed.

Inside the high-profile Doura plant, American-financed repairs, originally scheduled to be completed by June 1, have dragged into the summer even as the demand for electricity soars and residents suffer through nightly power failures.

At the same time, an economy that is supposed to become a beacon of free enterprise remains warped by central controls and huge subsidies for energy and food, leaving politically explosive policy choices for the fledgling Iraqi government.

While the interim government has formally taken office, the reconstruction effort - involving everything from building electric and sewage plants to training police officers and judges - is only beginning.

Scrambling to speed up the process, the Pentagon has recently begun pumping out long-awaited money and work orders, committing $1.4 billion in just the last week even as a spreading insurgency cripples the ability of Western contractors to oversee their projects and has made targets of Iraqi workers.

American authorities, while admitting to a slow start and more aware than anyone of the security threat, insist that the rebuilding will proceed. "Some of the power plants may get blown up," David J. Nash, the retired rear admiral who directs the American building program, said in an interview last week. "But we're not going to stop."

Of the $9 billion in contracts the Pentagon has issued so far, only $5.2 billion has actually been nailed down for defined tasks. Most of those projects are still in planning stages, though officials insist that the rebuilding effort will soon flower.

From the outset the designing of projects and awarding of billions of dollars in contracts proved slower than some officials had imagined.

Among other things, planning, oversight and competitive procedures were tightened after some of the earliest postwar contracts, awarded without competition to companies including Halliburton, were tainted by evidence of waste and overcharging.

But even more, the glowing economic promises met the realities of Iraq. Decades of neglect, sanctions and war left the country's physical infrastructure in far worse condition than many expected. And as an anti-American uprising gained force, the reconstruction effort became a prime target, with oil pipes and power lines blown up as soon as they were repaired and Iraqi workers put in fear of retribution.

From the start, refurbishing Iraq's dismal infrastructure and creating a thriving market economy were promoted by Bush administration officials as pillars of the American-led invasion - "the perfect complement to Iraq's political transformation," in the words of Mr. Bremer.

But more than a year later, supplies of electricity and water are no better for most Iraqis, and in some cases are worse, than they were before the invasion in the spring of 2003.

Repairs of three giant wastewater treatment plants in Baghdad, for example, are weeks or months behind, while water supply systems in the south of the country are months or even years away from functioning properly. Unrepaired bridges continue to create monstrous bottlenecks in many parts of the country.

How do you spell "quagmire?"

The Economy, Stupid,

Low-wage jobs rise at faster pace
By Barbara Hagenbaugh and Barbara Hansen, USA TODAY
By Steve Yeater for USA TODAY

Nearly 14% of the jobs added have been temporary workers, who typically are paid lower wages. Restaurant workers, who also usually are paid lower wages, have been added, too. Higher-paid computer jobs have been added at a snail's pace.

Jobs will be one of the biggest factors in the Federal Reserve's decision today about interest rates.

Although U.S. firms have added more than 1.4 million jobs in the last nine months, economists and politicians have questioned if workers are finding good, higher-paying jobs or if firms are creating lower-paying work that the jobless are desperately taking.

The difference is key. Higher-wage jobs create more income, which leads to more spending. Lower-wage jobs tend to create just enough income for a household to live without creating extra spending money. Consumer spending is the key driver of the U.S. economy, accounting for more than two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.

USA TODAY asked two economic consulting firms, Economy.com and Global Insight, to study the recent job creation based on both industry data and geography.

"We're creating a lot more jobs but they are still largely lower-paying jobs," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. Zandi calls the difference between the higher-wage and lower-wage job creation pace significant.

"It means the jobs we are creating pack less of a punch for the economy," Zandi says. "With less income, there is less spending and less growth."

The results aren't necessarily surprising. Shaken by a sharp slowdown in business spending, the bursting of the stock market bubble, the Sept. 11 attacks, war and corporate scandals, CEOs have been cautious about hiring workers. It stands to reason that firms would be much more comfortable adding a $6-an-hour job vs. a $30-an-hour one.

It's a trend that has been seen in previous job recoveries, Zandi and Global Insight's Phil Hopkins say.

In other words, this is still a jobless recovery and it still sucks.

What Up North Means for Down South

I discovered this terrific CSMonitor blog a couple of weeks ago. The author, Tom Regan, is a dual citizenship Canadian American. He has an interesting Canadian perspective for Americans on the Candian by-elections yesterday.

I won't bore you with all the Canadian inside baseball stuff, but there were a couple of points worth nothing. The group with the most egg on its collective face this morning is the country's pollsters. They had called for the closest election in almost 50 years, with both of the leading parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives) projected to win almost the same number of seats, with the Conservatives having a slight edge.

And it won't be in a way that he likes.

Accountability

Sack ‘Em and Rack ‘Em

By David H. Hackworth

America would be a whole lot safer if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, was flying for Virgin Airlines, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was competing on “Survivor.” Both war leaders have done so miserable a job honchoing the military side of our critical conflict against global terrorism, and in the process so jeopardized our national security, that they should be sacked for dereliction of duty.

Even though Rumsfeld and Myers know zilch about ground fighting in an insurgent environment, they were convinced “Shock ‘n’ Awe” would do the trick, just as another military dilettante, former SecDef Robert McNamara, believed the big hammer would win in Vietnam, a war where the USA dropped three times the bomb tonnage and used twice the artillery firepower than was used in all of World War II.

There really isn't any more that needs to be said, Hack.

Restraining the Imperium

Executive Branch Reined In

By David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 29, 2004; Page A01

The Supreme Court's complicated holdings in three cases involving detainees from the battle against terrorism may not result in any prisoners going free -- the justices yesterday left that for lower courts or tribunals to decide.

But the opinions, concurrences and dissents were decisive on this: They represent a nearly unanimous repudiation of the Bush administration's sweeping claims to power over those captives.

Liberal or conservative mattered little in the ultimate outcome. The court roundly rejected the president's assertion that, in time of war, he can order the "potentially indefinite detention of individuals who claim to be wholly innocent of wrongdoing," to quote the court's opinion in the case of foreign prisoners held at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In fact, the administration's claim to such power over U.S. citizens produced an opinion signed by perhaps the court's most conservative justice, Antonin Scalia, and possibly its most liberal, John Paul Stevens.

"The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive," Scalia wrote, with Stevens's support.

In this way, the court's rejection of the executive-power arguments in the cases might be seen as part of a reemergence of the other branches of government from the shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As the justices suggested several times in their opinions, emergency measures that might have been within the president's power in the days and weeks just after 9/11 now must be reconciled withAmerican norms of due process. In that sense, the cases struck a chord with congressional hearings into the rules for prisoner interrogations at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think van Driehle's analysis is astute here: the deference given to the executive branch after 9/11 has been excessive, and, on the part of congressional Dems, wrong headed. Now if we could just get a better press corps....

Involuntary Army

Army Plans Involuntary Call-Up of Thousands
Mon Jun 28, 2004 11:16 PM ET

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army is planning an involuntary mobilization of thousands of reserve troops to maintain adequate force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials said on Monday.

The move -- involving the seldom-tapped Individual Ready Reserve -- represents the latest evidence of the strain being placed on the U.S. military, particularly the Army, by operations in those two countries.

Roughly 5,600 soldiers from the ready reserve will be notified of possible deployment this year, including some soldiers who will be notified within a month, said an Army official speaking on condition of anonymity.

A senior defense official said, "These individuals are being called back to fill specific shortages for specific jobs."

The official said the last time the Individual Ready Reserve, mainly made up of soldiers who have completed their active duty obligations, was mobilized in any significant numbers was during the 1991 Gulf War.

Army officials are in the process of briefing members of Congress on the mobilization and plan a formal announcement on Wednesday.

The Army official said the mobilization "will be through the rest of the year. Some could be within a month."

"It would be an involuntary measure, an involuntary mobilization," the Army official said. "It's approximately 5,600."

"We're not calling up units, we're just using all the existing assets in theater and we're augmenting those assets with these individuals -- various occupational specialties, various different types of officers running the whole gamut," the Army official said.

The official said military police and civil affairs personnel were among the specialties involved.

The defense official said that while soldiers in the Individual Ready Reserve have served their voluntary obligation in the Army they still can be mobilized involuntarily for several years after returning to civilian life.

You can talk "handover" all you want, but this is the reality of Iraq. I blogged about this on June 2nd. These recalled troops are not happy, feeling abused and complaining. I'm amazed not to be finding this Reuters story in any of the national papers today.

"It Was A Mistake."

The Administration vs. the Administration

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, June 29, 2004; Page A21

White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales assembled reporters in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building last week for what has become an administration ritual: disavowing the conclusions of official documents.

Administration memos -- some of which appeared to sanction torture of prisoners -- were "unnecessary, over-broad discussions" and "not relied upon" by policymakers, Gonzales said. "In reality, they do not reflect the policies that the administration ultimately adopted."

A week earlier, it was Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's turn to step away from an official document, this one State's "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, which showed the number of terrorist incidents worldwide falling to the lowest level in more than three decades. "Unfortunately, the data that is within the report, the actual numbers of incidents, is off, it's wrong," Powell said. "And I am regretful that this has happened." A revised report showed that 625 people died in terrorist attacks in 2003, not 307 as first reported.

Before that, the administration publicly disavowed -- or at least tiptoed away from -- a budget memo calling for spending cuts next year, unrealistically upbeat reports about job growth, Medicare prescription costs and minority health care, and optimistic assumptions in a proposed regulation governing mercury emissions.

Democrats say this is no accident. "It's either political manipulation or incompetence," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a former top aide to President Bill Clinton. "I know it's not incompetence." Emanuel, with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), alleges "a rampant pattern of crafting government reports to match the administration's political objectives."

Untrue, said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan. "The president has set clear policies, and we are achieving real results," she said. "It's unfortunate that some Democrats would rather manipulate the facts of certain memos than work with the president to win the war on terror, build on the economic recovery and make America better."

Every administration does its best to spin its way out of trouble caused by a leaked memo, an impolitic remark or an unfavorable conclusion in an agency's policy analysis. Clinton, knowing a damaging report was being prepared, would preempt it by announcing new policies. In the latest version, Bush officials have been walking away from several conclusions produced by their colleagues.

The most embarrassing are cases in which good-news reports by the administration turn out to be based on errors, omissions or wishful thinking. As Powell did this month with the global terrorism report, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson earlier this year distanced himself from a report by his agency that played down inequalities in health care for minorities. The original version was edited to remove many uses of the word "disparity" and the description of the inequality as a national problem. "I think people just wanted this to be a more positive report and made that editorial position known," Thompson said in congressional testimony. "It was a mistake."

This entire regime is a mistake. Can't wait untill we can send these asshats back to Crawford.

Up North

As friend, blogger and regular commentor pogge predicted, Canada has elected a minority government which probably won't last 18 months. Our neighbor to the north is having some of the same political "issues" we have, and they remain unresolved.

Canada's Ruling Party Loses Its Majority in Elections
Liberals Seen Likely To Retain Power in Minority Government

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 29, 2004; Page A15

TORONTO, June 29 -- Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal Party lost its absolute majority in Parliament in nationwide voting on Monday, but still outdistanced its rivals and appeared likely to hold on to power by forming the nation's first minority government in 25 years.

Preliminary results announced by Canada's electoral commission said the Liberals, who have held the government for 11 years, won 135 seats in Parliament, short of the 155 needed to retain a majority.

But the Conservative Party, led by Stephen Harper, which expected a boost at the polls because of anger over a government financial scandal, was unable to gain as many seats as it hoped.

Nearly complete returns showed the Conservatives winning 97 seats in the new Parliament, a gain of 24. The Bloc Quebecois party was projected to win 54 seats, a net gain of 21. The New Democratic Party won 22 seats, a gain of eight. The Liberals would have to form an alliance with a smaller party to form a new government.

It appeared Monday night that the Liberals would attempt to form a coalition with the New Democratic Party.

Martin, whose party lost 33 seats in the election, said in a speech Monday night in Quebec that Canadians had sent the Liberals a message: "As a party and as a government, we must do better." He said he would work to maintain a progressive Canada, strengthen health care and build a national system of child care. Martin, whose party was hobbled throughout the campaign by a financial scandal in the Liberal Party, declared in Quebec, "We will work very hard every day to earn your confidence."

Harper, who just weeks ago had projected his party would win a majority government, admitted Monday night he was disappointed in the results but congratulated the party on depriving the Liberals of a majority.

"We increased our seats and broadened our base," Harper told cheering supporters in Alberta. "Until someone achieves a majority, the fight is not won or lost."

Goldy Hyder, a Conservative Party strategist, said the party failed to win over Canadians on certain key issues such as support for the war in Iraq. "I think the challenge for the right continues to be that it finds itself on the wrong side of what turns out to be dominate election issues," he said. "On those kinds of issues, it still has a way to go to explain to the public what its views are."

As leaders of the major parties ended five weeks of campaigning, they were shown on television casting votes in their home precincts.

Martin, who was widely seen as running a botched campaign in his effort win a fourth consecutive term for the Liberals, voted in Quebec. He returned home on Monday morning after flying across the country, attempting to rally voters to remain with his party. He charged that Harper, his main rival, had a hidden agenda to stop same-sex marriage, change abortion laws and privatize Canada's free public health care system.

Harper, who advocates cutting taxes and increasing military spending, voted in Calgary, Alberta. In last-minute campaigning on Sunday in Alberta, he argued that the Liberal Party was corrupt, citing the ongoing financial scandal. He characterized Martin as "a desperate man."

"There is no culture of defeat in this room," Liberal Party candidate Scott Brison said after he won in Atlantic Canada. "Across Canada tonight in an extremely tight election, we hope Canadians vote to put Canada first and vote to support values that make Canada the envy of the world."

In the crucial province of Ontario, Liberals had captured 75 of the 106 seats, and the Conservatives won 24. In Quebec, Bloc Quebecois won 54 seats and the Liberals won 21. The Conservatives won no seats in Quebec.

Political analysts said that in Atlantic Canada, many members of the old Progressive Conservative Party voted for the Liberals instead of for the new Conservative Party. Preston Manning, the leader of the former Reform Party, said in a televised interview: "When Atlantic Canada is worried, they go with the devil they know. When the West is worried, they tend to stir up the pot."

I'll be curious to see if the same regional dynamics play out here, although the stakes are different.

Empire or....

From Occupation to 'Partnership'
Despite Threat of Violence, U.S. Soldiers Prepare to Slip Into the Background

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 29, 2004; Page A19

BAQUBAH, Iraq, June 28 -- In the fluorescent glow of warehouse lights, Capt. Travis Van Hecke looked up into the face of a far larger man dressed in a gray caftan. A few others gathered around the pair, providing a running commentary of the encounter between the Army officer from Wisconsin and the shopkeeper from Howadir.

"So do you guys know that June 30 is the transfer of sovereignty?" Van Hecke asked the man, pausing to give his interpreter time to convey the question. "We'll still be here to support the Iraqi police, but the occupation ends. How do they feel about that?"

A crowd emerged from the closet-blackness enveloping the tiny town where Van Hecke had come Sunday evening on a visit in search of intelligence about the anti-American insurgency battering nearby Baqubah. Cigarettes glowed, and Van Hecke's soldiers stood ready against walls overhung by date palms.

"He says if you are still all over this town, day and night, then the problem will still be here," Van Hecke's interpreter said after much chatter from the crowd. "He says you can avoid giving the insurgents an excuse for their doings if you stay away."

The request, made only hours before Monday's surprise transfer of political power from the United States to the interim Iraqi government, underscored the challenges facing U.S. soldiers as they begin adapting to a new mission after months of serving as an occupying force. Over the course of a five-minute ceremony in Baghdad, the country changed governments. But the violence threatening the American project to bring a stable democracy to Iraq continued; while the ceremony was being held in the capital, a roadside bomb exploded near a military convoy in this city 35 miles to the northeast.

The adjustments contemplated by U.S. military commanders over the next six months, a potentially volatile period before Iraqis elect a government, involve changes in tone more than substance. Taken together, commanders say, the changes will turn the 138,000 U.S. troops, the chief guarantors of Iraq's security, into something resembling a police force called in to assist the fledgling Iraqi police and national guard.

But military commanders acknowledge those changes will be difficult to impose on troops fighting a skilled guerrilla insurgency. Nighttime patrols and intelligence gathering by Army units stationed around the country are vital to the counterinsurgency effort, commanders said.

Local Iraqi officials have asked the U.S. troops to cease the provocative military patrols -- known as "reconnaissance by fire" missions because they are intended to draw insurgent attacks -- and remain on two bases outside Baqubah unless needed. U.S. commanders here understand that if they refuse, they could undermine the new government's independence in the eyes of the ordinary Iraqis.

Changing the name doesn't change the game. We can retreat to the bunkers, but, then, why are we here?

The Haunting of the President

There is so much news today that is hard to know where to start. So I'll start here:

Bush's Rating Falls to Its Lowest Point, New Survey Finds
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER

Published: June 29, 2004

President Bush's job approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll found Americans stiffening their opposition to the Iraq war, worried that the invasion could invite domestic terrorist attacks and skeptical about whether the White House has been fully truthful about the war or about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A majority of respondents in the poll, conducted before yesterday's transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government, said that the war was not worth its cost in American lives and that the Bush administration did not have a clear plan to restore order to Iraq.

The survey, which showed Mr. Bush's approval rating at 42 percent, also found that nearly 40 percent of Americans say they do not have an opinion about Senator John Kerry, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, despite what have been both parties' earliest and most expensive television advertising campaigns.

Among those who do have an opinion, Mr. Kerry is disliked more than he is liked. More than 50 percent of respondents said that Mr. Kerry says what he thinks voters want to hear, suggesting that Mr. Bush has had success in portraying his opponent as a flip-flopper.

Americans were more likely to believe that Mr. Bush would do a better job than Mr. Kerry would in steering the nation through a foreign crisis, and protecting it from future terrorist attacks. Support for Mr. Bush's abilities in those areas has declined in recent months, but the findings suggest that Americans are more comfortable entrusting their security to a president they know than a challenger who remains relatively unknown.

Even so, the poll was scattered with warning flags for Mr. Bush, and there was compelling evidence that his decision to take the nation to war against Iraq has left him in a precarious political position.

Play with that while I try to get caught up on sleep. Man, I'm fried.

Mental Illness

Wary Iraqis Welcome the Handover but Ask, Now What?
By EDWARD WONG and IAN FISHER

In the southern holy city of Najaf, where the most powerful Shiite clerics in Iraq reside, people tried grappling with what exactly sovereignty meant.

"I don't see the handover as an important thing," said Radi Aziz Hassan, 36, a teacher. "The most important thing is whether this government will change our tragic situation. Is the occupation truly finished? All these are claims that need to be discussed."

The "tragic situation" that Mr. Hassan referred to — the chronic lack of electricity, the shortage of clean water, the high unemployment rate, the daily spasms of violence — weighed heavily on the minds of Iraqis.

"State employees are benefiting under the new government," said Ali Khadhum, 38, a salesman in a Baghdad furniture store. "They have good jobs and better pay. But what about ordinary citizens? What about all the people with no jobs? Will the new government provide more jobs? What will happen to them in the future Iraq?"

Mr. Khadhum lived in the sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City, where followers of the firebrand cleric Moktada al-Sadr have clashed with American soldiers throughout the occupation.

The store owner, Hussein Abdul-Wahid, also resided there. He proclaimed himself a supporter of Mr. Sadr. After finishing afternoon prayers, he stood up on a prayer rug in a corner of the store and turned to a reporter.

"Everybody is backing Sistani and Sadr," Mr. Abdul-Wahid said, referring to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq. "They are our marjaiyah, our high clerics, and we follow them 100 percent. The Americans and the new government will be like Saddam. They won't give a big role to the clerics. They won't be allowed to have a big influence on the people."

It's clear to me the Iraqis aren't fooled by this PR stunt. Typical of the maladministration, we get PR instead of competence or a plan. The fact that people are dying doesn't seem to move these people. Remember the old definition of neurosis: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Brave New World

Into the Abyss

By
Martin van Creveld

In the short run, the greatest beneficiary of the war is Israel. The destruction of Iraq has created a situation where, for the first time since the State was founded in 1948, it has no real conventional enemy left within about 600 miles of its borders. If Sharon had any sense he would use this window of opportunity to come to some kind of arrangement with the Palestinians. Whether he will do so, though, remains to be seen.

Even if the Islamic Republic is overthrown, as some hope, the new government in Tehran will surely follow the same nationalist line as its predecessor did. A nuclear Iran is likely to be followed by a nuclear Turkey. Next will come a nuclear Greece, a nuclear Saudi Arabia (assuming the country can survive as a single political unit), and a nuclear Egypt. Welcome to the Brave New World, Mr. Bush.

Agree or disagree, but the smart folks at Defense and the National Interest always have thoughtful things to say. Martin van Creveld lives and teaches in Jerusalem. He has written several books that have influenced modern military theory, including Fighting Power, Command in War, and most significantly, The Transformation of War. Van Creveld opens this essay with the flat admission that the war is already lost, but you knew that.

Bush and the Saudis

Don't dismiss 'terrorists'
By Eric Margolis -- Contributing Foreign Editor

After 9/11, America's pro-Israel neo-conservatives launched vicious political and media attacks against the Saudi regime, accusing it of being in league with Saudi militant Osama bin Laden. The neo-cons' objective: Bring down the Saudi government, a key financial backer of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

But far from being an enemy of the U.S., Saudi Arabia is almost an overseas American state. One-third of the population of 24 million is foreign. Saudi defences, internal security, finance and the oil industry are still run by some 70,000 U.S. and British expatriates. Some eight million Asian workers do the middle management and donkey work.

The royal family is intimately linked to Washington's political and money power elite through a network of business and personal connections. The Bush family, and its entourage of Republican military-industrial complex deal makers, has been joined at the hip for two decades with Saudi power princes and their financial frontmen.

As this column has long maintained, Saudi Arabia did not finance or abet Osama bin Laden -- it tried repeatedly to kill him. Bin Laden's modest funds came from donations by individual Saudis, wealthy and poor alike, who supported his jihad against western domination.

The violence now erupting across the kingdom is partly the work of small al-Qaida cells. Bin Laden's charges that the royal family debases Islam, squanders the nation's oil billions on useless arms, luxury prostitutes, and the gaming tables of Monte Carlo, resonate across all of Arabia.

Anti-royalist jihadi groups, many veterans of the 1980s Afghan war, have joined in the revolt with young Saudis fed up by their nation's medieval society, corrupt regime, brutal repression, and subservience to Washington. Half of Saudis are under 16. The kingdom is undergoing the same kind of generational revolt that brought down the Soviet Empire.

These anti-feudal rebels cannot simply be dismissed as "terrorists." Many want genuine democracy and modernity; others, a truly Islamic state, or, simply, change. The ground is shaking in Saudi Arabia.

While the CNN stenographers insist on repeating Bushspeak simplicities, there still are some REAL jounalists out there capable of telling us what is really going on. The situation in the Kingdom is a good deal more complex than the infotainment channels will have you know.

Hubris Always Brings Nemesis

COMMENTARY
A State That's Not a State
The U.S. can invent a 'sovereign' entity, but there's no guarantee that the creature won't become a monster.

By Adam Hochschild, Adam Hochschild is the author of "The Mirror at Midnight: A South African Journey" (Penguin, 1990) and "The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin" (Viking, 1994).

The reality is that with nearly 140,000 American troops on Iraqi soil, most military power will not be in Iraqi hands. Nor, with Washington largely paying the bills, will the budget. Furthermore, American administrator L. Paul Bremer III has already appointed a number of people to crucial watchdog and regulatory commissions for five-year terms.

If the Iraq-to-be is not a state, what is it? We do not really have a word for the government of a country where most real power is in the hands of someone else. Pseudo-state, perhaps. From Afghanistan to the Palestinian Authority, Bosnia to Congo, pseudo-states are now spread out around the globe. Some of them will even be exchanging ambassadors with Iraq.

Pseudo-states are nothing new, and two notable collections of them had surprising fates near the 20th century's end. One group was the homelands of South Africa, four of which were formally independent — Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei and Venda. The so-called South African embassies evolved seamlessly out of the white administrations that formerly ran these territories, just as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is beginning life in the very same Republican Palace complex from which Bremer has run Iraq for the last year.

The South African government equipped the homelands with everything from foreign ministries to luxurious, gated residential compounds for Cabinet members. The territories were given flags, national anthems and the like.

But it was all an expensive illusion. No country except South Africa recognized the "independent" Bantustans as sovereign nations. And when a 1988 coup temporarily deposed Lucas Mangope, the president of Bophuthatswana, it was the South African army that promptly restored him to power.

As South Africa made its miraculous transition to majority rule in the early 1990s, the homelands as separate political entities swiftly vanished. The only people to whom the past trappings of their independence still matter today are collectors who do a lively trade in the territories' stamps.

Another class of pseudo-states, however, had a very different fate: the 15 Soviet socialist republics that composed the Soviet Union. These too were decked out with the external indicators of sovereignty, and for two of the republics, Byelorussia and Ukraine, you didn't even have to leave the United States to see their flags and other symbols. They'd been given something that South Africa's homelands never got: seats at the United Nations, a concession that Stalin had wrung from the Allies at the end of World War II.

But everyone knew, despite Soviet propaganda, that these so-called republics were nothing of the sort. They had no independence; ultimate power resided in Moscow. (Moscow could even dissolve them at will: A short-lived 16th Soviet socialist republic along the Finnish border simply disappeared in 1956.) And yet, in that other unexpected transformation of the early 1990s, it was the Soviet Union itself that evaporated — and its 15 pseudo-states, overnight, turned into real ones.

The Iraq that will come into being this week will not closely resemble either the South African homelands or the old Soviet republics. But their histories, though radically different, suggest the same lesson: Because such creations are acts of such hubris, pseudo-states often turn out different from what their inventors intended. And the larger and more unstable the pseudo-state, the more likely that plans will go awry.

Given the complete ineptitude that the Bushies have exercised to date, Hochschild's caution is important: we run the risk of creating a monster, another Afghanistan, perhaps.

Hand-Over

Hand-Over Is Political Gamble for Bush

By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer
June 28, 2004

WASHINGTON — The hand-over of authority to an interim Iraqi government may offer President Bush his best opportunity before November to rebuild public confidence in his strategy for Iraq, but it also risks accelerating U.S. disillusionment with the mission there.

With a flurry of recent polls showing most Americans uneasy with events in Iraq, analysts across the political spectrum agree that the changeover could represent a pivotal moment in U.S. attitudes about the war.

Progress in establishing an Iraqi government capable of bearing more of the military burden could help Bush reverse the growing doubts about his management of the conflict — and fears that it has reduced rather than enhanced U.S. security.

Conversely, if the new government cannot establish legitimacy and order, pessimism about the mission's prospects — and disillusionment over Bush's initial decision to invade Iraq — is likely to solidify and even spread, experts say.

"There is risk and there is opportunity for Bush in the hand-over, and it is one of the most important events in an event-driven election," said Andy Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

One key question is how Americans measure success in the weeks ahead. With U.S. officials indicating that they expect American forces to cede more security responsibilities to Iraqis, the number of U.S. casualties could decline. But as the terrorist attacks across Iraq last week show, a reduced U.S. role could mean more violence and Iraqi casualties.

"The administration is gambling on the notion that Americans will be thankful that there are fewer American casualties, even if the place is blowing up," said Ivo Daalder, a former national security aide to President Clinton and coauthor of a recent book on Bush's foreign policy.

I think Brownstein's analysis is essentially correct, but note that the Center for American Progress notes that the premature handover is fueled by the increasing instability in Iraq, which makes the likelihood of success of this venture that much less.

News Digest

President Bush, seeking additional help from NATO for Iraq, shuts down the city of Istanbul, as he wins hearts and minds. NATO has agreed to begin providing training for Iraqi police. Meanwhile 40,000 Turks meet Bush with a protest.

The "handover" of sovereignty in Iraq comes early, as Paul Bremer turns over the keys this morning. Ayad Allawi says, "We feel we are capable." Meanwhile, a militant group threatens to behead a hostage Marine. Newsweek asks, "can David Petraeusturn the security situation around?

Can the interim government find legitimacy? Particularly if they invoke martial law to begin with? Meanwhile, billions of oil dollars have gone missing, says Salon.

In this election year, American families are feeling fragile. The growing trade gap has implications for this election year. The Washington Post finds small choices for voters: "health care or tax cuts."

Filmaker Micheal Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11" took off at the box office this weekend. The film has grossed $21.8 million on only 868 screens, "In terms of raw dollars, Fahrenheit is actually the biggest opening ever for a movie playing at less than 1,000 theaters, topping Rocky III's $12.4 million at 939 venues." Plus: fact-checking Michael Moore.

Canadians are voting on a new national government today, in a Canada as evenly divided as the US is. Over the weekend, Toronto's Gay Pride weekend drew hundreds of thousands.

Some reporters are beginning to ask if the White House is beginning to melt-down under the weight of scandal investigations, inter-agency wars and foreign policy failures. Plus: Has the Iraq occupation undermined the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emtive action?

The Financial Times reports that "Oil slides as Norway and Iraq output returns," and domestic gas prices begin to fall, while The Economist frets, "Is Alan Greenspan fretting enough about inflation?" The magazine writes: "After cushioning the economy from serious recession by slashing rates to 1%, Mr Greenspan now faces an equally tricky task: to tighten today's extraordinarily loose monetary policy without derailing the economy."

University of California economist (and former Clinton Council of Economic Advisor member) J. Bradford DeLong details the reasons why so much economic reporting is so poor, and why the current economy is actually quite soft. "But on the labor side, employment is still well below what it was three and a half years ago (and with our growing population we would have needed employment to grow by 4 or 5 million to keep the employment-to-population ratio steady), and wage and salary incomes have been essentially flat since the last business cycle peak." The Economic Policy Institute's " job watch"< a> website has supporting charts.

USA Today is all over the story of rising college tuition. Dennis Cauchon has two articles today, "Grants more than offset soaring university tuition: Despite rising sticker prices, the actual cost is dropping for most students" and Tuition burden falls by a third: 80% jump in aid offsets price hikes," both of which fly in the face of the conventional wisdom. "Contrary to the widespread perception that tuition is soaring out of control, a USA TODAY analysis found that what students actually pay in tuition and fees -- rather than the published tuition price -- has declined for a vast majority of students attending four-year public universities. In fact, today's students have enjoyed the greatest improvement in college affordability since the GI bill provided benefits for returning World War II veterans."

The "Nation's Paper" also takes the lead today in reporting on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal with three stories, including this frontpager, "The U.S. Army's inspector general and criminal division are investigating whether U.S. troops deliberately or negligently exposed Iraqi prisoners to extreme heat and cold in ways that contributed to deaths that have until now been attributed to natural or unknown causes." Further into the paper is a story questioning Army documents on a prisoner's death and another on a new Justice Department document outlining broad guidelines for the interrogation of prisoners.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry cancels his speech to the US Conference of Mayors in Boston, refusing to cross the picket lines of striking firefighters and police. The Boston Globe reports, "The statement leaves open the question of what he will do if the contracts are not settled before next month's Democratic National Convention."

Vagaries of Life

I'm working on a job audition this morning. Posting will resume noonish.

UPDATE: Thanks to all for your best wishes, prayers and thoughts. I got the thing done on time and will know something more in a week or so. This is for an editing position, something I think I've honed in the almost 8 months of this blog, and it is a Web job, the place I'm most familir with these days. The pay's lousy, but it would allow me to cut fine editor's teeth under the tutelage of one of the best. More than that I can't say right now, but I'll keep you updated. DavidByron, this job would change my posting schedule but probably help me to do higher quality work than I'm doing now. It's also a job I can do from anywhere, which is a Good Thing because I may move later this year. To a place which is so much cheaper to live that the pay wouldn't be lousy. I'll let you know how it goes.

CNN Rant

Listening to CNN is causing me to want to move all of my footware into the living room within arms reach. All of the bubbleheads are talking about their upcoming special on Tuesday regarding the "handover" of sovereignty this week, which tells me the only news they know anything about is the pablum cranked out by their writers. As I blogged this morning, Chandresekaran and Pincus's article in this morning's WaPo pretty graphically demonstrates how little this "handover" means: Bremer has issued so many orders limiting the authority of the appointed government that they will be nothing more than figureheads designed to put an Iraqi face on the occupation, in the hope that Bush can neuter Iraq as an election issue. Iraq will be THE issue in the election.

And then I have to listen to the idiot newsreader pronounce "cavalry" as "calvary." W does that all the time but you'd think that being a newsreader would mean having at least a working familiarity with the language.

Facts on the Ground

Christopher Allbriton writes from Baghdad:

Nothing much happening here, as near as I can tell, and I’m still under “hotel arrest” — for my own security, of course. People seem to be laying lower, if not low, but TIME has asked me not to go out of my compound unless it’s an emergency. Sigh At least this gives me some time to catch up on some writing. I’ve got one, possibly two decent stories coming out in the New York Daily News tomorrow, inshallah, and I’ve got a column due for New York Magazine. So the work is fine.

Whether the Iraqi Police, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the newly minted Army actually have the ability or will to do so remains to be seen, but the Iraqis seem to be trying.

The situation has been headed in this direction for several months.

3 Turks Taken Hostage in Iraq
The kidnappings may be intended to undermine Bush during his talks this week with NATO allies in Istanbul. A wave of attacks leaves 54 dead.
By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD — Followers of the United States' "No. 1 target" in Iraq announced Saturday that they had kidnapped three Turkish contractors and threatened to behead them, even as President Bush was flying to Turkey for a NATO summit. The abductions came as 54 people were killed in insurgent attacks across Iraq.

The seizure of the three Turkish civilian contractors by loyalists of Jordanian-born fugitive Abu Musab Zarqawi appeared aimed at undermining Bush during his meeting in Istanbul with allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The hostage-taking cast a pall over Bush's diplomatic mission to heal rifts with allies that were opened by the Iraq war. As Bush landed Saturday night in the Turkish capital, Ankara, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul failed to greet him at the airport as scheduled, apparently because he was dealing with the hostage crisis.

White House officials offered no immediate comment on the incident.

Turkey, host of the two-day summit that will begin Monday, is not a member of the multinational force that invaded Iraq 15 months ago. The U.S.-led force has struggled against a fierce and intensifying insurgency that has killed hundreds of U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis. Civilian contractors also have been targeted by the insurgents, and two of them have been beheaded.

Arab satellite TV broadcasts showed the three Turks kneeling at gunpoint at the feet of their masked captors, holding up identity documents for the camera. The militants pointed their guns at the captives' heads while one read an ultimatum demanding that Turks doing business with the U.S.-led occupiers of Iraq withdraw within 72 hours or the three would be killed.

The same group claimed responsibility for the beheading last week of a South Korean hostage, a civilian interpreter, despite his desperate, televised pleas that his life be spared.

Most Turks in Iraq are engaged in private trade, primarily trucking in gasoline as extremists continue to sabotage Iraqi pipelines and refineries.

An overwhelming majority of Turks are opposed to the U.S.-led occupation. On Saturday, police battled scores of protesters in Ankara's central Kizilay Square before Bush's arrival. Two days earlier, four people were killed in bombings in Ankara and Istanbul. An obscure Marxist-Leninist group claimed responsibility for the attacks.

In Iraq, coalition military leaders have been warning for weeks that foreign and Iraqi insurgents fighting the occupation would intensify their attacks ahead of a scheduled transfer of sovereignty Wednesday to an interim Iraqi government.

The Borrowers

WaPo Letters to the Editor

Style's June 4 Names & Faces column reported that novelist Ray Bradbury is upset about the title of Michael Moore's new documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11." He says that the filmmaker "stole" the title from his novel "Fahrenheit 451."

Is this the pot calling the kettle black?

The titles of several of Mr. Bradbury's greatest books are "stolen" from works by other authors, in a manner far more direct than Mr. Moore's allusion-to-but-not-complete-appropriation-of the Bradbury title.

Cases in point: "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (William Shakespeare); "I Sing the Body Electric!" (Walt Whitman) and "Golden Apples of the Sun" (William Butler Yeats).

ANNIE HUDSON

Austin

War of No Ideas

Former terrorism czar calls Iraq invasion 'enormous mistake'

By Mike Schneider, Associated Press, 6/26/2004 20:56

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) The invasion of Iraq was an ''enormous mistake'' that is costing untold lives, strengthening al-Qaida and breeding a new generation of terrorists, former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said Saturday.

''We did exactly what al-Qaida said we would do invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country that wasn't threatening us in any way,'' Clarke said before giving the keynote address at the American Library Association's annual convention in Orlando. ''The hatred that has been engendered by this invasion will last for generations.''

Clarke, a counterterrorism adviser to the past three presidents, wrote the book ''Against All Enemies,'' which strongly criticizes the Bush administration for making Iraq a top priority and for underestimating warnings about al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Clarke said the United States will lose the war on terrorism if it loses the battle of ideas against extremists in the Middle East.

''We won the Cold War by, yes, having good strong military forces but also by competing in the battle of ideas against the Communists,'' Clarke later told the librarians. ''We have to do that with the jihadists.''

The United States' ideological credibility has been undermined by revelations of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison and the release of documents that showed U.S. government attorneys conducted a legal analysis of what constituted torture, Clarke said.

Let's see. We have a president who stands for "strong leadership" by taking us into an unnecessary war in a country that wasn't threatening us (or Israel), cuts taxes for the wealthy (but not for thee or me) and spends most of his time on vacation. This will win the war of ideas.

Oh, yes, and what our lackey press is still afraid to tell you: we are losing both Iraq and Afghanistan, Bin Laden's minions run free and Mr. Leadership Preznit has made us much, much less safe. But you won't hear that from GE/TIME-Warner/Murdoch.

Losing

Reality of Insecurity Dominates Life for Most Iraqis
Training, troops and the trust of the people are some of the hurdles faced by local leaders and their American partners as sovereignty returns

By Alissa J. Rubin, Doyle McManus, Times Staff Writers

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The deep "booms" come most mornings now. The explosions, often from artillery shells wired together in the trunk or back seat of a car, shear through the blazing summer heat. If you're too close, you're dead. A few steps removed and you're maimed. To those who are spared, the odor of burnt flesh both sickens and reminds that luck has been a partner today.

There is a backbeat, too, to these mass attacks — a barrage of bullets pumped into a car, or perhaps the single shot to the back of the head. Iraq's assassination victims by now number as many as a thousand, although no one keeps official count. Some are academics, doctors or lawyers; others are Iraqis suspected of working with the U.S.-led occupation authority; still others are suspected former Baathists, followers of Saddam Hussein.

There are kidnappings, too. They seem mild by comparison because most merely seek a ransom, and the victim survives. But their spread has driven many of the country's professionals out of the country.

The United States and its allies have ruled Iraq for more than a year and can cite a list of successes. The most important is that Iraq is free of Saddam's tyrannical grip. People can say what they want, mostly, and are debating in a democratic way for the first time in their history.

But the occupation government has also failed notably in its attempts to restore security — and as the return of Iraq's sovereignty approaches, that reality is what dominates life for most Iraqis.

Beginning Wednesday, Iraqis selected by the United Nations and the United States will get a chance to repair their broken country. If they are skilled and lucky, and if they can persuade thousands of their countrymen to fight in new security forces, they may achieve their goal: a country stable enough to hold free elections early next year. If skill and luck run out, the insurgency could intensify, and the simmering strife among Iraq's three major groups — Sunni Muslim Arabs, Shiite Muslim Arabs and Kurds — could spiral into civil war.

The recent coordinated attacks against American troops and Iraqi police dominated headlines — and obscured the signs of what else awaits if security is not restored. On Saturday, insurgents believed to be Sunnis besieged a Shiite political party's headquarters in Baqubah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing three workers. Last week, six Shiite truck drivers were killed in the Sunni-controlled town of Fallujah after taking shelter in a police station. Last weekend, Kurds captured a handful of Arab Sunnis near Kirkuk after Arab attacks on Kurds. In recent days Shiite factions faced off in southern Iraq for control of mosques and cities.

Iraqis and their American partners still face daunting hurdles in restoring public safety. Many of the Iraqis who once welcomed Americans as liberators now disdain them as occupiers. Yet the 163,000 U.S. and allied troops now in the country have no timetable for leaving. Quite the contrary: Over the coming year, their numbers are likely to grow.

For Americans, the price of occupation has already been far higher than anyone imagined — in dollars, loss of life, and erosion of U.S. credibility in the world. Before the invasion, the Bush administration predicted the new Iraq would be a self-governing, self-financing country that, with a little help, would quickly become a stable, prosperous and reliable ally. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said it was "hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself." Under the Pentagon's initial timetable, most U.S. troops were supposed to be home by now.

But the administration's expectations turned out to be based on bad intelligence and wishful thinking. Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, deliberately sent the minimum number of troops necessary to Iraq, with little provision for unhappy surprises. Bush and his aides disdained "nation-building," and so did little to prepare for what has become their principal foreign policy problem.

As a result, the administration was unprepared when the reality of Iraq fell short of its ideal. After the invasion, Baghdad's police forces and its civil service disappeared overnight. Looters destroyed the government offices to which U.S. advisers had been told to report. The economy, the oil industry and public utilities were not self-starting. An underground insurgency launched by "former regime loyalists" grew, and Shiite radicals and Sunni nationalists began their own resistance efforts, the latter with assistance from foreign fighters.

U.S. military units designed and equipped for war against Saddam's conventional army attempted to retool to fight guerrillas. The results, predictably, were mixed. American soldiers with no experience in the Arab world and no command of its language found themselves kicking in the doors of terrified villagers.

Some Bush administration officials acknowledge that many of their initial expectations turned out to be wrong. "Of all the things that were underestimated, the one that almost no one that I know of predicted . . . (was) the resilience of the regime that had abused this country for 35 years," Wolfowitz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month.

As a result, the United States is likely to remain deeply engaged in Iraq, with thousands of troops on the ground and billions of dollars in spending, for years to come. The cost thus far in terms of lives lost and money spent is certain to rise appreciably.

It is far from clear whether that commitment will win the prizes the Bush administration sought: a real democracy in Iraq, a stable U.S. ally in the Arab world, a vital political and military base for a larger war against terrorism.

Instead, the question now is whether the United States and its Iraqi allies can succeed in staving off a far worse outcome than anyone wanted: a bloody, dispirited Iraq, riven by civil strife, hostile to Americans — and, in a worst-case scenario, hospitable to terrorists.

On a hot day last summer in Baqouba, north of Baghdad, three American soldiers were guarding the city's main hospital. They sat in front of the main entrance, playing cards. As one of the soldiers dealt a hand, a grenade fell among them and exploded. All three were torn to shreds. The grenade was dropped from one of the hospital's upper floors.

The incident was shocking at the time, since there seemed to be no point to killing soldiers protecting a hospital. Now it looks like a symbol of what was beginning to go wrong for American hopes: The liberators were becoming occupiers.

Many months later, even being remotely associated with Americans brings danger.

"The situation scares me," confesses Hachim Hassani, minister of industry in the new interim government. "I cannot go walking around protected by U.S. soldiers; that would not be a good idea in this country. I have to protect myself with guards, but they are not well-trained — and the people carrying out these bombings are well-trained."

Idiots. All of us who opposed the war and the State Department's own after-action plan foresaw all of this. Why Wolfowitz still has a job should be an issue in November--in any other industry, incompetence would be rewarded with a pink slip. Afghanistan is a failure, Iraq is a failure and no one has lost their job. Which means that the head of the tribe needs to be cast out in November before more blood and treasure gets sacrificed for these disasters.

Pissant President

U.S. Edicts Curb Power Of Iraq's Leadership

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 27, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 26 -- U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has issued a raft of edicts revising Iraq's legal code and has appointed at least two dozen Iraqis to government jobs with multi-year terms in an attempt to promote his concepts of governance long after the planned handover of political authority on Wednesday.

Some of the orders signed by Bremer, which will remain in effect unless overturned by Iraq's interim government, restrict the power of the interim government and impose U.S.-crafted rules for the country's democratic transition. Among the most controversial orders is the enactment of an elections law that gives a seven-member commission the power to disqualify political parties and any of the candidates they support.

The effect of other regulations could last much longer. Bremer has ordered that the national security adviser and the national intelligence chief chosen by the interim prime minister he selected, Ayad Allawi, be given five-year terms, imposing Allawi's choices on the elected government that is to take over next year.

Bremer also has appointed Iraqis handpicked by his aides to influential positions in the interim government. He has installed inspectors-general for five-year terms in every ministry. He has formed and filled commissions to regulate communications, public broadcasting and securities markets. He named a public-integrity commissioner who will have the power to refer corrupt government officials for prosecution.

Some Iraqi officials condemn Bremer's edicts and appointments as an effort to exert U.S. control over the country after the transfer of political authority. "They have established a system to meddle in our affairs," said Mahmoud Othman, a member of the Governing Council, a recently dissolved body that advised Bremer for the past year. "Iraqis should decide many of these issues."

Bremer has defended his issuance of many of the orders as necessary to implement democratic reforms and update Iraq's out-of-date legal code. He said he regarded the installation of inspectors-general in ministries, the creation of independent commissions and the changes to Iraqi law as important steps to fight corruption and cronyism, which in turn would help the formation of democratic institutions.

"You set up these things and they begin to develop a certain life and momentum on their own -- and it's harder to reverse course," Bremer said in a recent interview.

As of June 14, Bremer had issued 97 legal orders, which are defined by the U.S. occupation authority as "binding instructions or directives to the Iraqi people" that will remain in force even after the transfer of political authority. An annex to the country's interim constitution requires the approval of a majority of Allawi's ministers, as well as the interim president and two vice presidents, to overturn any of Bremer's edicts. A senior U.S. official in Iraq noted recently that it would "not be easy to reverse" the orders.

It appears unlikely that all of the orders will be followed. Many of them reflect an idealistic but perhaps futile attempt to impose Western legal, economic and social concepts on a tradition-bound nation that is reveling in anything-goes freedom after 35 years of dictatorial rule.

The orders include rules that cap tax rates at 15 percent, prohibit piracy of intellectual property, ban children younger than 15 from working, and a new traffic code that stipulates the use of a car horn in "emergency conditions only" and requires a driver to "hold the steering wheel with both hands."

Iraq has long been a place where few people pay taxes, where most movies and music are counterfeit, where children often hold down jobs and where traffic laws are rarely obeyed, Iraqis note.

Other regulations promulgated by Bremer prevent former members of the Iraqi army from holding public office for 18 months after their retirement or resignation, stipulate a 30-year minimum sentence for people caught selling weapons such as grenades and ban former militiamen integrated into the Iraqi armed forces from endorsing and campaigning for political candidates. He has also enacted a 76-page law regulating private corporations and amended an industrial-design law to protect microchip designs. Those changes were intended to facilitate the entry of Iraq into the World Trade Organization, even though the country is so violent that the no commercial flights are allowed to land at Baghdad's airport.

Some of the new rules attempt to introduce American approaches to fighting crime. An anti-money-laundering law requires banks to collect detailed personal information from customers seeking to make transactions greater than $3,500, while the Commission on Public Integrity has been given the power to reward whistleblowers with 25 percent of the funds recovered by the government from corrupt practices they have identified.

In some cases Bremer's regulations diverge from the Bush administration's domestic policies. He suspended the death penalty, and his election law imposes a strict quota: One of every three candidates on a party's slate must be a woman.

Iraqis have already scoffed at some of the requirements. Judges on the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, who were appointed by Bremer, have refused to impose 30-year sentences on people detained with grenades and other military weapons. At the same time, many Iraqi politicians contend that banning the death penalty was a mistake. Several have said they will push to reinstate capital punishment after the transfer of political authority.

Some of the Iraqis recently appointed by Bremer as inspectors and commissioners said they should have been given their jobs months ago. Had that happened, they insisted, they would have had more time to build support for the activities.

"There are some doubts about my work," said Nabil Bayati, the inspector general in the Ministry of Electricity, who is charged with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. People in the ministry, he said, "don't understand it yet."

Siyamend Othman, the chief executive of the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission, said his fellow commissioners were only appointed three weeks ago. "Had this commissions been set up six months ago, we would have been in a far more secure position that we are today," he said. "We would have had six months to prove and to show to the Iraqi people our worth and what we're capable of doing, and why this commission is such an important institution."

In recent weeks, Bremer has issued orders aimed at setting policy for a variety of controversial issues, including the future use of radioactive material, Arab-Kurd property disputes and national elections planned for January.

On June 15, Bremer signed an order establishing the Iraqi Radioactive Source Regulatory Authority as an independent agency regulating radioactive material in Iraq. His order forbids, even after the transfer of sovereignty, any activity involving radioactive material except under requirements established by the agency.

On June 19, in an effort to keep unemployed Iraqi weapons scientists from working for other nations, Bremer established the Iraqi Non-Proliferation Programs Foundation, a semi-governmental organization set up to provide grants and contracts to people who worked on Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs. An initial grant of $37.5 million was set aside by Bremer to pay the scientists' expenses to attend international conferences so they can be retrained for non-weapons employment.

I read this with utter fascination. Bremer, like Bush, has turned Iraq into Bremerland (we are living in Bushland) where his ideas, his truth, is the only one which prevails. No wonder the American taxpayer travails in the world of paying everything to Halliburton. In this scheme, we don't matter, and neither does the ordinary Iraqi, we are all part of a bid-out scheme for the wealthy. This is not unlike the interview the Bush gave to Irish TV the other night, the wealthy and powerful are a law unto themselves and don't you forget it.

Bush's little tantrum is quite informative. The Boy Emperor doesn't really take questions so much as offer imperial truths.

Drip, Drip

More GIs At Prison May Face Charges
Abu Ghraib Investigators Examine Intelligence Unit

By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 26, 2004; Page A14

BAGHDAD, June 25 -- Army investigators continue to sift through photographs and evidence of alleged abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison to try to identify more soldiers who were involved, possibly including members of military intelligence, and sources close to the investigation said more soldiers would likely be charged.

Investigators are looking closely at the actions of three Army junior reservists with the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion -- Spec. Roman Krol, Spec. Israel Rivera and Spec. Armin J. Cruz, the sources said. All seven soldiers charged to date were members of a military police unit.

Investigators have identified the three military intelligence soldiers in a photograph taken in late October in a hallway in a cellblock on Tier 1 at the prison, where most of the abuse is alleged to have occurred, according to the sources. The picture shows three shackled detainees naked and splayed on the floor, while a military police officer leans over them and the three intelligence soldiers and others stand nearby.

Both Krol and Rivera have acknowledged that they are shown in the photo. Rivera testified to that effect on Thursday at an investigative hearing for Spec. Sabrina Harman, one of the seven soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company charged with abuse, and Krol told The Washington Post last month that he was one of the soldiers in the photograph.

Cruz declined to testify on Thursday, citing his right to avoid self-incrimination.

Harman's court session, known as an Article 32 hearing, concluded on Friday after her defense attorney, Frank Spinner, admonished the Army for assigning her to the prison in the first place. The unit's company commander testified a day earlier that the soldiers were poorly trained for their mission and were overwhelmed by the prison population, which outnumbered them 100 to 1.

"The government prosecution seems to believe that Specialist Harman, who sells, makes and delivers pizza for a living, is supposed to come in and challenge" her superiors, he said. Harman "was caught in a very difficult situation as a junior soldier. . . . I don't think this young woman should ever have been put in that environment. I think the Army set her up. I think the Army should take the blame."

Lawyers for the accused soldiers have said their clients were being made scapegoats for their commanders. No senior officers have been charged with abuse.

The last sentence is telling.

Massive Theft

The multibillion robbery the US calls reconstruction

The shameless corporate feeding frenzy in Iraq is fuelling the resistance

Naomi Klein
Saturday June 26, 2004
The Guardian

Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4bn in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below pre-war levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted the British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and" - get this - "embarrassment". I don't know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame.

In the run-up to the June 30 underhand (sorry, I can't bring myself to call it a "handover"), US occupation powers have been unabashed in their efforts to steal money that is supposed to aid a war-ravaged people. The state department has taken $184m earmarked for drinking water projects and moved it to the budget for the lavish new US embassy in Saddam Hussein's former palace. Short of $1bn for the embassy, Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, said he might have to "rob from Peter in my fiefdom to pay Paul". In fact, he is robbing Iraq's people, who, according to a recent study by the consumer group Public Citizen, are facing "massive outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, nausea and kidney stones" from drinking contaminated water.

If the occupation chief Paul Bremer and his staff were capable of embarrassment, they might be a little sheepish about having spent only $3.2bn of the $18.4bn Congress allotted - the reason the reconstruction is so disastrously behind schedule. At first, Bremer said the money would be spent by the time Iraq was sovereign, but apparently someone had a better idea: parcel it out over five years so Ambassador John Negroponte can use it as leverage. With $15bn outstanding, how likely are Iraq's politicians to refuse US demands for military bases and economic "reforms"?

Unwilling to let go of their own money, the shameless ones have had no qualms about dipping into funds belonging to Iraqis. After losing the fight to keep control of Iraq's oil money after the underhand, occupation authorities grabbed $2.5bn of those revenues and are now spending the money on projects that are supposedly already covered by American tax dollars.

But then, if financial scandals made you blush, the entire reconstruction of Iraq would be pretty mortifying. From the start, its architects rejected the idea that it should be a New Deal-style public works project for Iraqis to reclaim their country. Instead, it was treated as an ideological experiment in privatisation. The dream was for multinational firms, mostly from the US, to swoop in and dazzle the Iraqis with their speed and efficiency.

Iraqis saw something else: desperately needed jobs going to Americans, Europeans and south Asians; roads crowded with trucks shipping in supplies produced in foreign plants, while Iraqi factories were not even supplied with emergency generators. As a result, the reconstruction was seen not as a recovery from war but as an extension of the occupation, a foreign invasion of a different sort. And so, as the resistance grew, the reconstruction itself became a prime target.

The contractors have responded by behaving even more like an invading army, building elaborate fortresses in the green zone - the walled-in city within a city that houses the occupation authority in Baghdad - and surrounding themselves with mercenaries. And being hated is expensive. According to the latest estimates, security costs are eating up 25% of reconstruction contracts - money not being spent on hospitals, water-treatment plants or telephone exchanges.

We saw a trailer for The Corporation last night. Bushco's Mesopotamian misadventure is "all about the Benjamins" for their corporate sponsors.

The fact that the peasants with pitchforks aren't in the streets over this says a great deal about what is wrong with America.

Control Room

Here's the WaPo review:

* CONTROL ROOM (Unrated, 86 minutes) -- The cultural and religious fault lines between Western and Eastern news coverage of the Iraq invasion are made all too clear in Jehane Noujaim's enlightening, if structurally wandering documentary. The Egyptian American filmmaker attended news briefings by Centcom (the abbreviation for the American military's U.S. Central Command), witnessed candid conversations between foreign journalists and Centcom press officer Lt. Josh Rushing, and spent virtually unlimited time in the al-Jazeera newsroom. She also conducted many interviews with, and followed around, al-Jazeera journalists. The documentary covers the main highlights of the war's media coverage, including al-Jazeera's highly controversial decision to show footage of captured American troops, and the eventual fall of Baghdad. It shows a resistance to truth on both sides of the ideological news divide. Many members of the American media may have been embedded prisoners of the Pentagon's propaganda machine, but al-Jazeera has its own agenda, too, using hyperbole and slanted coverage to show the U.S. forces in as poor a light as possible.

Sharon and I saw this because "Fahrenheit: 9-11" was sold out in every theater in Washington by noon yesterday. That says something. "Control Room" is a powerful film. Here is what I wrote to a friend last night:

"Control Room" is the story of the war as seen through the eyes of Al Jazeerah. It's been out a couple of weeks here, but the theatre was packed.

There was much reaction in the theatre to the things we saw and heard on the screen. One of the points made in "Control Room" by a senior (and very wise) Iraqi reporter at Al Jazeerah is that "it is the American people who will deal with America." We broke it, this country, we bought it and it's up to us to fix it. The buzz in the theatre as we filed out: "It's up to us." A full theatre of angry and determined people is a beautiful thing to see. I don't know how often I've gotten to the end of a film and been grateful for the experience. This was one such time.

Failure, Where it Counts

That CIA analyst, Anonymous, and his new book, have already been treated here. Today's WaPo has a further interview, from which I find this new material:

The Bush administration's policy on Afghanistan is described as a failure because it hinges on producing a Western-style democracy with religious tolerance and women's rights -- all of which he characterizes as an "anathema to Afghan political and tribal culture and none of which has more than a small, unarmed constituency."

"We are succeeding only in fooling ourselves" in Afghanistan, he argues. The current insurgency by the Taliban "gradually will increase in intensity, lethality and popular support and ultimately force Washington to massively escalate its military presence or evacuate," he writes. Neither the United States nor its Afghan surrogates "have built anything political or economic that will long outlast the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces," he predicted.

In a broader critique, he said, "U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious: we are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency -- not criminality or terrorism -- and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces."

That other war, the one where Bin Laden actually lives, is a complete and total failure. That ought to alarm us, but instead it gets nearly no press. This story is on page A13 of today's Post. Thanks for setting the agenda, Fourth Estate.

4thGW

Iraq Insurgency Showing Signs of Momentum
Analysts and some U.S. commanders say it could be too late to reverse the wave of violence. Sunnis are seen as the stronger, long-term threat.

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD — As this week's coordinated violence demonstrates, Iraq's insurgent movement is increasingly potent, riding a wave of anti-U.S. nationalism and religious extremism. Just days before an Iraqi government takes control of the country, experts and some commanders fear it may be too late to turn back the militant tide.

The much-anticipated wave of strikes preceding Wednesday's scheduled hand-over could intensify under the new interim government as Sunni Muslim insurgents seek to undermine it, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

"I think we're going to continue to see sensational attacks," said Army Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the 101st Airborne Division commander who will oversee the reshaping of Iraq's fledgling security forces.

Long gone are the days when the insurgents were dismissed as a finite force ticketed for high-tech annihilation by superior U.S. firepower.

Wreaking havoc and derailing plans for reconstruction of this battered nation, the dominant guerrilla movement — an unlikely Sunni alliance of hard-liners from the former regime, Islamic militants and anti-U.S. nationalists — has taken over towns, blocked highways, bombed police stations, assassinated lawmakers and other "collaborators," and abducted civilians.

Although Shiite Muslim fighters took U.S. forces by surprise in an April uprising, the Sunni insurgents represent a stronger, long-term threat, experts agree. The fighters, commanders say, are overwhelmingly Iraqis, with a small but important contingent of foreign fighters who specialize in carrying out suicide bombings and other spectacular attacks, possibly including this week's coordinated strikes that killed more than 100 people.

"They are effective," said Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, operational commander of U.S. troops here.

The insurgent force has picked up legions of part-time nationalist recruits enraged by the lengthy occupation and the mounting toll on civilians. Whether the result of U.S. or insurgent fire, the casualties are blamed on Americans.

The anti-U.S. momentum is evident in both the nation's urban centers and the palm-shrouded Sunni rural heartland, where resentment over military sweeps and the torturous pace of reconstruction is pervasive. Support for the insurgency ranges from quiet assent to participation in the fighting.

"We're talking about people who are the equivalent of the Minutemen," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who served as an advisor for the U.S.-led occupation here. "They pick up their weapons and join the fight and then go back to their homes and farms. It makes it so fluid. And the media functions as the town crier, like the calls from the minaret."

The nimble enemy has kept just far enough ahead of coalition forces to raise the question in Iraqi minds: Who will be here in the long run, the U.S. and its allies or the insurgents?

The characteristics of the insurgency in Iraq are familiar from earlier campaigns in Vietnam and elsewhere, Hoffman wrote in a recent paper: "A population will give its allegiance to the side that will best protect it."

Also like past insurgency campaigns, this one combines classic guerrilla tactics — ambushes and other attacks on occupying troops — with ruthless terror, including the massacres of religious worshipers and restaurant patrons and the beheading of hostages.

The insurgents' decentralized command structure, Hoffman said in an interview, echoes the atomized nature of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Thus, the arrest of deposed President Saddam Hussein in December was not nearly the intelligence windfall that U.S. authorities had predicted. Nor did his capture dry up funding for the insurgents.

Although U.S. officials have labeled Jordanian fugitive Abu Musab Zarqawi a mastermind in the wave of attacks that has shaken the country since last year, commanders say the insurgents' coordination is unclear.

"We can't find … a particular command and control structure that leads to one or two or three particular nodes," Metz said. "But I'm confident there are some leaders who have the wealth to continue … paying people to do business."

U.S. authorities have jailed dozens of cell chiefs but watched in frustration as the groups have regenerated and fought anew. "These kinds of networks, you chop off one part and the other part keeps on moving," Petraeus said.

The insurgents have other strengths: plentiful weapons (in many cases, looted from unguarded armories at the end of the invasion last year); easy mobility, in the form of a relatively modern highway system; and communications, in the form of cellphones and access to regional television channels such as Al Jazeera.

Defeating a force this entrenched and energized is difficult, commanders say.

If you've been reading this site for a while, you know that all of this was predicted, and that Fourth Generation Warfare is already an old doctrine. The lesson was Viet Nam. Rummy didn't learn it. For W., history didn't happen. These folks don't know anything.

Potty Mouths

Cheney Defends Use Of Four-Letter Word
Retort to Leahy 'Long Overdue,' He Says

By Dana Milbank and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 26, 2004; Page A04

Vice President Cheney on Friday vigorously defended his vulgarity directed at a prominent Democratic senator earlier this week in the Senate chamber.

Cheney said he "probably" used an obscenity in an argument Tuesday on the Senate floor with Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and added that he had no regrets. "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it," Cheney told Neil Cavuto of Fox News. The vice president said those who heard the putdown agreed with him. "I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue."

The forceful defense by Cheney came as much of Washington was discussing his outburst on the Senate floor in which a chance encounter with Leahy during a photo session in the usually decorous Senate chamber ended in colorful profanity. The obscenity was published in yesterday's editions of The Washington Post.

President Bush had made his vow to "change the tone in Washington" a central part of his 2000 campaign, calling bipartisan cooperation "the challenge of our moment."

"Our nation must rise above a house divided," he said in his victory speech in December 2000. "I know America wants reconciliation and unity. I know Americans want progress. And we will seize this moment and deliver."

Cheney said yesterday he was in no mood to exchange pleasantries with Leahy because Leahy had "challenged my integrity" by making charges of cronyism between Cheney and his former firm, Halliburton Co. Leahy on Monday had a conference call to kick off the Democratic National Committee's "Halliburton Week" focusing on Cheney, the company, "and the millions of dollars they've cost taxpayers," the party said.

"I didn't like the fact that after he had done so, then he wanted to act like, you know, everything's peaches and cream," Cheney said. "And I informed him of my view of his conduct in no uncertain terms. And as I say, I felt better afterwards."

Leahy, crossing the aisle to the Republican side of the chamber Tuesday, tried to make small talk with Cheney. Cheney yesterday referred to the incident as "a little floor debate in the United States Senate," although the Senate was not in session at the time. According to Leahy's staff, the Vermont senator answered Cheney's complaint about Halliburton with Democrats' complaints that the White House sanctioned a smear of Catholic Democratic senators over their objections to Bush's judicial nominees.

"Ordinarily I don't express myself in strong terms, but I thought it was appropriate here," Cheney said on Fox.

David Carle, Leahy's spokesman, said: "It appears the vice president's previous calls for civility are now inoperative."

As news spread on Thursday of the Cheney-Leahy exchange, Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) appealed to colleagues of both parties to rise above "partisan retaliation" and find a "common ground" for lawmaking.

You've already seen all the comparison quotes elsewhere, the promises to "bring a higher moral tone" to governing by the Bush/Cheney crew. That's not the point I want to make.

Bush has always been comfortable with the F-bomb. We are the people that he's fscked, and he's comfortable with that, and that is the point of Cheney's verbal expression. Pat Leahy is one of the mildest people in the Senate. That Cheney felt so comfortable blowing him off tells you everything you need to know about the Dickster, who sounds increasingly irrational. Verbal harrassment is for punks.

UPDATE: Professor Juan Cole adds:

Should Cheney be Fined $275,000?

And, I propose that the fine go to vocational training for the disadvantaged people that Cheney has made a career of stomping all over.

Upgrade Now

PC Users Warned of Infected Web Sites

By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Friday, June 25, 2004; 3:30 PM

Computer security experts and the federal government are warning Internet users to take extra precautions when browsing the Web after an Internet attack seeded Web sites with programs that hackers can use to steal personal information.

CERT recommends that Internet Explorer users consider different browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Communicator or Opera. For people who continue to use Internet Explorer, CERT and Microsoft recommend setting the browser's security setting to "high."

News you can use from Just a Bump in the Beltway. Go here to download the new release of Mozilla Foxfire. It is simply a better piece of software than IE, and the email client is far superior to Outlook.

Curioser and Curioser

AP Lawyer: It's 'Curious' We've Had to Sue for Bush Records
By Joe Strupp

Published: June 24, 2004 12:01 AM EST

NEW YORK The Associated Press has sued the Pentagon and Air Force, seeking access to all records of President George W. Bush's military service, but the news agency wonders why it has come to this.

The Air National Guard has control of the microfilm, which should be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, the lawsuit claims. AP says the records "are being unlawfully withheld from the public." The lawsuit adds that no one has looked at any of the Bush military records at the state archives since 1996.

Wonder what he's trying to hide?

It's STILL the Economy

Economy Grew More Slowly in 1st Quarter Than First Thought
By REUTERS

Published: June 25, 2004

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew much more slowly than previously thought in the first quarter while inflation was higher, a government report showed on Friday.

The surprise downward revision to gross domestic product - which measures total output within the nation's borders - cut growth to a 3.9 percent annual rate in the first three months of 2004 from the 4.4 percent reported a month ago and below the 4.1 percent pace in the final quarter of last year.

Wall Street analysts had not expected the Commerce Department to change the GDP estimate. The department said the reduction in its final measure of first-quarter economic growth resulted from a sharp upward revision to imports - which subtract from GDP - and a downward revision to the amount consumers spent on bank services.

The government also ratcheted up a key measure of inflation, confirming an acceleration in price rises that has fueled expectations the Federal Reserve will begin raising interest rates next week to head off inflation.

The core price index for consumer spending - a favorite of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan that cuts out volatile food and energy prices - gained at an annual rate of 2.0 percent in the quarter, a bump up from the 1.7 percent reported a month ago.

Commerce also provided its estimate of market-based personal consumption expenditures, a supplemental measure meant to show household purchases of goods and services that excludes implicit prices such as banking services. It said the market-based PCE rose at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, while the core rose at a more moderate 1.6 percent annual rate. The core rate was double the 0.8 percent pace in the fourth quarter.

Until now, the market-based PCE had been released with personal income data, several days after the GDP report.

In its final snapshot of the first-quarter economy, Commerce said after-tax corporate profits rose 2.1 percent from the fourth quarter, a sharp upward revision from the 1.4 percent reported a month ago. Still, the profit climb was well below the 7.6 percent rise notched in the final three months of 2003.

Correction

Tuesday, June 22, 2004; Page A16

On June 19 we wrote that wage increases had kept pace with inflation in the year to May, and criticized Sen. John F. Kerry for suggesting that wages had fallen behind. We were wrong and Mr. Kerry was right: Hourly wages for non-supervisory workers rose 2.2 percent, while the consumer price index rose 3.1 percent.

Most states still face jobs shortfall
Despite good job growth nationally, and strong growth in some states, most states have not recovered their pre-recession job levels. Thirty-five states still have fewer jobs than when the recession started, and the shortfall is wide-spread, from Minnesota (-23,700) to Oregon
(-19,200), and from North Carolina (-96,600) to Pennsylvania (-97,600).

For those of us who work for a living, the economy ain't all that hot. Jobless figures are flat at 5.6%.

Fahrenheit: 9-11

Unruly Scorn Leaves Room for Restraint, but Not a Lot
By A. O. SCOTT

Not that Mr. Moore is kidding around. Perhaps because of the scale and gravity of the subject of "Fahrenheit 9/11," perhaps because his own celebrity has made the man-in-the-street pose harder to sustain, Mr. Moore's trademark pranks and interventions are not as much in evidence as in earlier films. He does commandeer an ice cream truck to drive around Washington, reading the U.S.A. Patriot Act through a loudspeaker (after learning that few of the lawmakers who voted for it had actually read it), and he does stand outside the Capitol trying to persuade members of Congress to enlist their children in the armed forces. (The contortion that one legislator performs to avoid shaking Mr. Moore's hand is an amusing moment of found slapstick.)

Mostly, though, he sifts through the public record, constructing a chronicle of misrule that stretches from the Florida recount to the events of this spring. His case is synthetic rather than comprehensive, and it is not always internally consistent. He dwells on the connections between the Bush family and the Saudi Arabian elite (including the bin Laden family), and while he creates a strong impression of unseemly coziness, his larger point is not altogether clear.

After you leave the theater, some questions are likely to linger about Mr. Moore's views on the war in Afghanistan, about whether he thinks the homeland security program has been too intrusive or not intrusive enough, and about how he thinks the government should have responded to the murderous jihadists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11.

At the same time, though, it may be that the confusions trailing Mr. Moore's narrative are what make "Fahrenheit 9/11" an authentic and indispensable document of its time. The film can be seen as an effort to wrest clarity from shock, anger and dismay, and if parts of it seem rash, overstated or muddled, well, so has the national mood.

If "Fahrenheit 9/11" consisted solely of talking heads and unflattering glimpses of public figures, it would be, depending on your politics, either a rousing call to arms or an irresponsible provocation, but it might not persuade you to re-examine your assumptions. But the movie is much more than "Dude, Where's My Country," carried out by other means. It is worth seeing, debating and thinking about, regardless of your political allegiances.

Mr. Moore's populist instincts have never been sharper, and he is, as ever, at his best when he turns down the showmanship and listens to what people have to say. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is, along with everything else, an extraordinary collage of ordinary American voices: soldiers in the field, an Oregon state trooper patrolling the border, and, above all, citizens of Flint, Mich., Mr. Moore's hometown. The trauma that deindustrialization visited on that city was the subject of "Roger and Me," and that film remains fresh 15 years later, now that the volunteer army has replaced the automobile factory as the vehicle for upward mobility.

The most moving sections of "Fahrenheit 9/11" concern Lila Lipscomb, a cheerful state employee and former welfare recipient who wears a crucifix pendant and an American flag lapel pin. When we first meet her, she is proud of her family's military service — a daughter served in the Persian Gulf war and a son, Michael Pedersen, was a marine in Iraq — and grateful for the opportunities it has offered. Then Michael is killed in Karbala, and in sharing her grief with Mr. Moore, she also gives his film an eloquence that its most determined critics will find hard to dismiss. Mr. Bush is under no obligation to answer Mr. Moore's charges, but he will have to answer to Mrs. Lipscomb.

The Best Friend and I are catching the 7:00 screening. I'm hearing that even Republicans find it moving.

War and Rumor of War

Upper Hand

New Clashes Erupt in Falluja and Baghdad Bomb Kills Iraqi
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and TERENCE NEILAN

Published: June 25, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 25 — A second day of clashes erupted in the Shiite stronghold of Falluja today and a roadside bomb in Baghdad killed an Iraqi policeman and wounded another, witnesses said.

American tanks and armored vehicles on the edges of Falluja fired in several directions, while armed men in an eastern suburb returned fire, witnesses told The Associated Press. Seven people have died in two days of exchanges there, hospital officials said, the agency reported.

The new violence followed a day that saw fighting raging in five cities across Iraq as insurgents unleashed a surge of apparently coordinated attacks that killed at least 105 people and wounded hundreds more.

Meanwhile, Iraq's interim vice president warned that a drastic deterioration in security could lead to emergency laws or martial law, which could put the new government scheduled to take over next Wednesday at odds with the United States.

"Announcing emergency laws or martial law depends on the nature of the situation," the interim vice president, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite and member of the Islamic Dawa Party, told The A.P. in an interview on Thursday. "In normal situations, there is clearly no need for that" he said. "But in cases of excess challenges, emergency laws have their place."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was reported today as arguing against martial law. "It would make our task more complex," a German newspaper quoted him as saying, according to a Reuters report.

A United Nations Security Council resolution approved this month gives the United States a primary security role in Iraq even after the transfer of sovereignty. Washington has made it clear that it feels martial law is undesirable.

In Basra, southern Iraq, eight British servicemen detained for straying into Iran's territorial waters have returned to a military base in southern Iraq, ending their four-day ordeal.

On Thursday plumes of smoke boiled up from the streets of Falluja, Ramadi, Baquba, Mosul and Baghdad as masked insurgents battled American and Iraqi security forces in what several officials said could be the opening salvo in a violent push to derail the June 30 transfer of sovereignty.

See here.

Losing the War

Adversary's Tactics Leave Troops Surprised, Exhausted

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 25, 2004; Page A01

BAQUBAH, Iraq, June 24 -- The 1st Infantry Division soldiers who walked off the battlefield Thursday, exhausted by the frantic pace of combat and a baking summer sun, had seen nothing like it in their three months here.

In dawn-to-dusk fighting, more than 100 armed insurgents overran neighborhoods and occupied downtown buildings, using techniques that U.S. commanders said resembled those once employed by the Iraqi army. Well-equipped and highly coordinated, the insurgents demonstrated a new level of strength and tactical skill that alarmed the soldiers facing them.

By the end of the day, infantry and armored patrols had driven the insurgents from the battered center of the city, though some remained in control of two police stations in districts long hostile to the U.S.-led occupation. Two U.S. soldiers were killed in the fight, including a company commander struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.

"They were definitely better than what we normally face," said Lt. T.J. Grider, 25, whose platoon fought for more than 12 hours. "But I think what we did today was pretty significant."

Coming less than a week before the U.S. occupation formally ends, the attacks brought into sharp focus the threat that lies ahead for Iraq's interim government and the challenge that remains for U.S. forces who will stay here to defend it. The U.S.-trained Iraqi police were routed or abandoned their posts rather than face a more capable foe, and military commanders here said the battle for this city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad was far from over.

The insurgents fought in large, coordinated squads, set complex ambushes and occupied downtown buildings from which they apparently planned a long fight, U.S. military commanders said. Striking first along two key avenues bracketing the city, the insurgents intended to isolate and overrun the local Coalition Provisional Authority compound and other downtown government buildings, the commanders said.

Several U.S. commanders suggested the insurgents had learned the tactics in recent weeks from skilled guerrilla commanders from outside the city, perhaps led by foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight the occupation. They noted that the city's merchants received no warning of the attack, as they had before an armed uprising here in April. Many people struggled through rush-hour traffic, only to be turned away by the fighting.

The preparation had apparently been underway for weeks, with the attacks timed to be part of a series across Iraq on Thursday. After a powerful U.S. airstrike stopped the insurgents' momentum here before noon, soldiers found large weapons stockpiles in the rubble of a building and machine-gun positions set up at a technical college nearby.

"He's still in the city, and he's hiding. But he'll be back," said Lt. Col. Steve Bullimore, the task force commander responsible for Baqubah, referring to his enemy. "I'm regrouping and waiting for the next fight. But I don't know when that will be."

Baqubah, which sits amid groves of date palms and scorched plains, has troubled U.S. forces throughout the occupation. Its political life was controlled for years by tribal leaders and former military officers, who lived well when Saddam Hussein was in power. Now many of them are the foot soldiers and mid-level commanders of the local insurgency, U.S. commanders here said.

In what they believed was a major blow to the insurgents here, Bullimore's troops killed a man suspected of being the local leader of the insurgency, Hussein Ali Septi, in a gun battle last week in the rebellious village of Buhriz, south of the city. Thirteen insurgents and one U.S. soldier were killed in the fighting. But the attacks on troops have continued.

Baquba Sealed off as US Loses Control
by Dahr Jamail
Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard.

Baquba today stood eerily reminiscent of Fallujah in April. On April 4, U.S. Marines sealed the city of Fallujah after losing control of most neighborhoods. A month long siege ensued before the military ceded their security authority to the Iraqi Police, Civil Defense Corps and mujahideen.

Asked if he felt the worst was over, Johnson said, "This is just getting warmed up."

This is a freakin' success.

Sinking Ship

Solicitor General Theodore Olson to Step Down

By Dan Eggen and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 25, 2004; Page A08

Theodore B. Olson, the forceful conservative litigator who served as the Bush administration's top attorney for three eventful years and who lost his wife in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said yesterday that he is stepping down as U.S. solicitor general.

Olson, 63, said in an interview that he wanted to announce his departure before the U.S. Supreme Court issues a flurry of decisions next week on cases ranging from U.S. detention policies to an Internet pornography case. "It's going to be a big deal next week," he said. "I wanted to do it now before the term is up and everyone is dispersed."

"I had planned every year to consider what I was going to do in June when the court is done with arguments," Olson said. "I have been here three years, and it seemed to be the right time."

Olson, a hero of the modern conservative legal movement, gained national fame in 2000 when he represented George W. Bush before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. The court's ruling halted the Florida vote recount and resulted in Bush capturing the presidency.

Olson's nomination as solicitor general the next year prompted fierce opposition from Senate Democrats, who viewed him as an arch-conservative and questioned his role in various challenges to former president Bill Clinton by conservative activists. But Olson also engendered praise from legal scholars on both sides of the political aisle, including liberal Democrats such as Laurence H. Tribe, the Harvard law professor who argued against Olson in the first round of the Supreme Court dispute over the 2000 elections.

Olson has argued 26 cases before the Supreme Court as solicitor general, winning 20 of the 23 that have been decided to date. Two are pending, and one was dismissed with no decision on the merits.

Since the terrorist attacks, Olson has been at the forefront of the Bush administration's legal campaign against terrorism, defending expanded surveillance powers under the USA Patriot Act and arguing for extensive presidential control over detainees. Olson's unusually public role in the campaign had a tragic personal dimension: His wife, Barbara, a lawyer and frequent television commentator, was aboard the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said in a statement that Olson "is among the finest individuals it has been my privilege to know," calling him "a dedicated patriot who brought unbridled energy and enthusiasm, along with brilliant legal acumen and peerless dedication to his office and to Justice."

While his departure at the end of the Supreme Court term is not a surprise, Olson is known inside the Justice Department to be unhappy that he was not informed about controversial memos authored by the Office of Legal Counsel on the use of harsh interrogation methods on detainees overseas, according to a department official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Olson was among the last remaining Justice officials who helped craft the administration's controversial and aggressive legal strategy on terrorism after the attacks. His departure closely follows the announcement last week that the head of the OLC, Jack L. Goldsmith III, also is resigning.

Olson said he has not decided whether he will return to the firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, where he has spent much of his legal career.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue highly anticipated rulings next week in three cases argued by Olson's office. Two involve U.S. citizens Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla, who were declared enemy combatants by Bush and have been held in a military brig without charges. In another case, the court will consider whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction over detainees held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The CW says that Olson was in line for a SCOTUS slot, after Gonzales. Let us be glad that he's taken himself out of that rotation. It also looks like the rats have decided that the ship isn't sea-worthy.

Their Generals

I found this in a comments thread at Whiskey Bar. If true, it signals the beginning of the end for our Iraq campaign.

'The liberation of Baghdad is not far away'
By Alix de la Grange

BAGHDAD - On the eve of the so-called transfer of sovereignty to the new Iraqi caretaker government on June 30, former Saddam Hussein generals turned members of the elite of the Iraqi resistance movement have abandoned their clandestine positions for a while to explain their version of events and talk about their plans. According to these Ba'ath officials, "the big battle" in Iraq is yet to take place.

"The Americans have prepared the war, we have prepared the post-war. And the transfer of power on June 30 will not change anything regarding our objectives. This new provisional government appointed by the Americans has no legitimacy in our eyes. They are nothing but puppets."

Why have these former officers waited so long to come out of their closets? "Because today we are sure we're going to win."
....
"We knew that if the United States decided to attack Iraq, we would have no chance faced with their technological and military power. The war was lost in advance, so we prepared the post-war. In other words: the resistance. Contrary to what has been largely said, we did not desert after American troops entered the center of Baghdad on April 5, 2003. We fought a few days for the honor of Iraq - not Saddam Hussein - then we received orders to disperse." Baghdad fell on April 9: Saddam and his army where nowhere to be seen.

"As we have foreseen, strategic zones fell quickly under control of the Americans and their allies. For our part, it was time to execute our plan. Opposition movements to the occupation were already organized. Our strategy was not improvised after the regime fell." This plan B, which seems to have totally eluded the Americans, was carefully organized, according to these officers, for months if not years before March 20, 2003, the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The objective was "to liberate Iraq and expel the coalition. To recover our sovereignty and install a secular democracy, but not the one imposed by the Americans. Iraq has always been a progressive country, we don't want to go back to the past, we want to move forward. We have very competent people," say the three tacticians. There will be of course no names as well as no precise numbers concerning the clandestine network. "We have sufficient numbers, one thing we don't lack is volunteers."

The five city attack today may well be the proof that this article is true, and that there is a high level of coordination in this insurgency. Another 15,000 troops aren't going to matter.

Unfolding Abu Ghraib

Details of Cover-Up in Detainee's Death Emerge

By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 24, 2004; 4:00 PM

BAGHDAD, June 24 -- The company commander of the U.S. soldiers charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison testified Thursday during a legal hearing that the top military intelligence commander was present the night a cover-up was hatched to deal with the death of a detainee who apparently died during an interrogation.

Capt. Donald J. Reese, commander of the 372nd Military Police Company, said he was summoned to a shower room in a cellblock at the prison one night in November, where he discovered a group of intelligence personnel standing around the body of a bloodied detainee discussing what to do. He said Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of military intelligence at the prison, was among those who were there.

Reese testified that he heard Pappas say, "I'm not going down for this alone." Reese said an Army colonel named Jordan sent a soldier to the mess hall for ice to preserve the body overnight. (It is not clear whether Reese was referring to Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, head of the interrogation center at the prison.) Reese said no medics were called, and the detainee's identification was never logged. An autopsy the next day determined that the man had died of a blood clot resulting from a blow to the head, Reese said, and the body was hooked up to an intravenous drip and taken out of the prison.

Reese's testimony came during the first day of an investigative hearing for Spec. Sabrina Harman, one of seven Army reservists from the 372nd,which is based in Cresaptown, Md., charged with abusing detainees at the prison. During investigations of alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, statements by other witnesses have described the death of the detainee, and the corpse appears in photographs documenting abuse at the prison. But no testimony or evidence had previously indicated Pappas was in the shower room the night the detainee died.

During an earlier hearing for another soldier, Spec. Jason A. Kenner testified that officers from other government agencies , a common term for the CIA, and a Navy SEAL team brought the detainee in alive with a bag over his head. Kenner said he later saw that the man had been severely beaten on his face. Intelligence officers took the detainee to a shower room used for interrogations, Kenner said, and shackled him to a wall. "About an hour later, he died on them," Kenner testified. "They decided to put him on ice. There was a battle between [OGA] and MI as to who was going to take care of the body."

This is it. The wheels are coming off of Bush/Cheney re-elect with this news.

FUBAR, Part II

Security a shambles ahead of handover

With one week to go, 30,000 police officers face the sack amid serious shortages of staff and equipment
Rory McCarthy and Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Thursday June 24, 2004

The Guardian

Up to 30,000 Iraqi police officers are to be sacked for being incompetent and unreliable and given a $60m payoff before the US hands over to an Iraqi government, senior British military sources said yesterday.

Many officers either deserted to the insurgents or simply stayed at home during the recent uprisings in Falluja and across the south.

Fourteen months after the war and just a week before the Iraqis take power on June 30, the sources revealed serious shortfalls of properly trained police and soldiers and vital equipment.

The problems are particularly critical because 35 new police checkpoints are to be set up across Baghdad before the handover, when violence is expected to escalate.

Although the US has set aside $3.5bn to rebuild the security forces, much of the training and many of the contracts have yet to be completed.

The police forces, now the first line of defence, are being drastically overhauled.

There are 120,000 officers on the payroll, although only 89,000 turn up for work - and more than half of these have still had no training. Those who do not turn up are either ghost employees left over from the previous corrupt system or are permanently absent. Most will be encouraged to retire.

In addition, up to 30,000 regular police officers who are now deemed unsuitable will be sacked and replaced. Each will receive $1,000 to $2,000 in severance pay - a total package of up to $60m.

"The feeling is this will allow them to generate a business and feed their family and not force them to become fighters," one source said.

An army of 25,000 is also planned but the first 5,000 soldiers are still in training.

A paramilitary force, now known as the Iraqi national guard, should have 51,000 troops but has only 35,000.

The security forces are also desperately short of equipment, having less than 5% of the radios, a quarter of the body armour, a third of the vehicles and slightly more than half the weapons they need.

A total of 253,000 weapons have been ordered but only 141,000 have arrived so far. Of the 57,000 radios on order, there are only 2,500 in Iraq. And of the 25,000 vehicles needed, there are only 8,500.

The high demand for body armour has been particularly difficult to meet. Of the 174,000 sets procured, only 40,000 have so far been received.

You know, everytime I think the Bushies have screwed everything up nearly perfectly, along comes new evidence that things are even worse than I think. More peaceful, more free, my a**.

In Memoriam

Salon offers figures from a study by The Institute for Policy Studies on the human costs of the Iraq war:

U.S. Military Deaths: Between the start of war on March 19, 2003 and June 16, 2004, 952 coalition forces were killed, including 835 U.S. military. Of the total, 693 were killed after President Bush declared the end of combat operations on May 1, 2003. Over 5,134 U.S. troops have been wounded since the war began, including 4,593 since May 1, 2003.

Human Costs: While Americans make up the vast majority of military and contractor personnel in Iraq, other U.S.-allied "coalition" troops have suffered 116 war casualties in Iraq. In addition, the focus on Iraq has diverted international resources and attention away from humanitarian crises such as in Sudan.

The Prosecutor Calls

Bush Is Interviewed in Inquiry on Leak of Operative's Name
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 24, 2004

WASHINGTON -- President Bush was interviewed by government prosecutors Thursday in connection with the federal investigation of who leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative to the news media.

The president was questioned for 70 minutes in the Oval Office by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is heading the Justice Department investigation.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush has hired a private attorney, Jim Sharp, a Washington trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor.

"The leaking of classified information is a very serious matter," McClellan said, adding that the president repeatedly has said that he wants his administration to cooperate with the investigation. "He was pleased to do his part."

Investigators want to know who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak last July. A federal grand jury in recent months has questioned numerous White House and administration officials.

Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime.

Wilson has said he believes his wife's identity was disclosed to attack his credibility because he criticized Bush administration claims that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. Wilson went to Niger for the CIA to investigate the information about Iraq and he found the allegation to be highly unlikely.

Bullshft, Scotty. You guys leak classified material (or declassify it in order to leak it) all the time. The felony here is leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent, ending her career, her WMD work and endangering her life and all of those who worked with her.

Intel Trouble

Panel Faults CIA's Spying
The GOP-led House Intelligence Committee scolds the agency's clandestine unit, citing a 'dysfunctional denial' of the need to take action.

By Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — The CIA has ignored its core mission of spying, has refused to take corrective action and is heading "over a proverbial cliff" after years of poor planning and mismanagement, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee has concluded in the latest congressional broadside aimed at America's premier intelligence agency.

A report that accompanies the committee's proposed intelligence authorization bill, which was approved by the full House in a 360-61 vote Wednesday night, paints a devastating picture of the CIA division that sends clandestine agents overseas, recruits foreign spies, steals secrets and provides covert commandos for the war on terrorism.

In a strongly worded response to the committee's chairman, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), outgoing CIA Director George J. Tenet staunchly defended the agency's performance. He denounced some of the committee's criticism as "ill informed" and "frankly absurd."

Recent investigations into the CIA's failures on Sept. 11 and in prewar reports on Iraq chiefly have blamed agency analysts, who assess classified information from satellite photos, stolen documents and other intelligence. However, the House committee warned in its majority report that the CIA's problems were broader and in some respects had worsened in recent years.

A Senate report expected next month also was expected to strongly criticize the agency as well as address allegations of links between prewar Iraq and Al Qaeda.

"All is not well in the world of clandestine human intelligence collection," House Intelligence Committee Republicans said in the majority report accompanying the funding measure. "For too long, the CIA has been ignoring its core mission activities. There is a dysfunctional denial of any need for corrective action."

The CIA "continues down a road leading over a proverbial cliff," the committee warned. "The damage to the [human intelligence] mission through its misallocation and redirection of resources, poor prioritization of objectives, micromanagement of field operations, and a continued political aversion to operational risk is, in the committee's judgment, significant and could be long lasting."

The committee's harsh language, representing the position of the House, is notable because CIA officials and the Bush administration previously have blamed problems at the spy service on budget and staffing cuts imposed by the Clinton administration after the Cold War. President Bush has given no indication that he is dissatisfied with the CIA's performance.

But Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence blamed "continued CIA mismanagement," as well as decade-old cuts, for the problems. Goss, the outgoing chairman, is a former CIA clandestine officer and has generally supported the CIA in the past.

This is one of a bunch of fairly blistering critiques of intelligence due out over the next few months. Within the intel community, George Tenet gets generally high marks for re-professionalizing the agency, but had to battle constant pilfering by contractors which has given the agency a hard time in the recruitment and retention department.

New Hire

COMMENTARY
Mercenary Hits It Big, Thanks to the U.S.
A controversial figure wins huge contract in Iraq.
By Robert Young Pelton, Robert Young Pelton is the author of the "World's Most Dangerous Places" (HarperResource, 2003) and "Three Worlds Gone Mad" (Lyons Press, 2004), in which he gives a fuller rendition of Timothy Spicer'

On May 25, the U.S. Army awarded Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, formerly of the British army, and his company, Aegis — a tiny 2-year-old London-based holding corporation — the largest and most important security contract of the Iraq war. Over three years, Aegis will be in charge of all security for the $18.4 billion in ongoing reconstruction projects being overseen by the United States.

As part of the contract, Aegis will hire a "force-protection detail" of about 600 armed men. It will also coordinate the operations of 60 other private military companies already working in Iraq and their 20,000 men, including handling security at prisons and oil fields. It's a no-risk, cost-plus arrangement that could earn the company up to $293 million. And as the owner of almost 40% of Aegis, Spicer could pocket $20 million, according to one financial expert.

No problem there, right? It's the American way.

But it turns out that the United States may have made an enormous error: Apparently nobody bothered to ask who Timothy Simon Spicer really was — a controversial British mercenary.

Spicer has not responded to requests for comment. However, his exploits are well documented.

For example, Spicer's memoir says he was hired by the government of Papua New Guinea in 1997 to put down a rebellion. The prime minister was ultimately forced to step down and Spicer ended up arrested, charged and jailed on weapons violations there. The charges were later dropped.

Spicer was also a central figure in a British "arms to Africa" scandal in which a 1998 U.N. arms embargo was broken. Spicer's company supplied arms to Sierra Leone, and, as he recounts, he accepted $70,000 from a fugitive financier accused of embezzlement to look into overthrowing the government there. And according to the Boston Globe, when he was in the British military he commanded a unit in which two members were convicted of murdering an 18-year-old Catholic in north Belfast. Spicer's business background isn't any more reassuring. He has owned or worked for four private military corporations that have either failed financially, done poorly or have suspended business.

Although Aegis has no track record in Iraq, Spicer is known to members of the Coalition Provisional Authority staff — retired British army Brigadier Tony Hunter-Choat, for example. Hunter-Choat heads security for the program management office of the CPA. He and Spicer both worked in the Balkans, where Hunter-Choat was part of the British U.N. contingent and Spicer was a spokesman for the commander of the U.N. Protection Force.

How did Aegis win the security contract? Last month in Ft. Eustis, Va., an Army board reviewed six competing proposals, including entries from giants like Dyncorp and Control Risks Group and others with long histories of successful contracting with the U.S. military. Army spokesman Maj. Gary C. Tallman said Aegis' proposal did the best in meeting the bid requirements. He said Spicer's resumé showed that he had an impeccable career in the British army and that Spicer had done "security work in Africa and Southeast Asia."

When asked if he knew details of Spicer's background, Tallman replied: "My understanding is that they [Aegis] met all the [bid] requirements." He said that other than checking candidates against an official list of those barred from getting Army contracts, "it's not part of the process to look into the backgrounds of the principals."

The growing controversy over Aegis' qualifications may force the Army to once again review how it hires private contractors. Security analysts and human rights activists have questioned the contract, and one of the losing bidders has asked for a review.

As for Spicer, he is reportedly already at work in Baghdad — Washington's newest private contractor, building a huge private security force with a famous mercenary at its head.

You are known by the company you keep.

War and Failure

I saw the interview last night on CNN. I think the guy gets some things right, some wrong: he's right about the problem, wrong about the solution. Yes, we are at risk and we should dump Bush because of it, but we don't fix terrorism by total war, at least not as Von Clausowitz thought of it. Terrorism is a tactic, not a strategy.

Anonymous's new book, Imperial Hubris, comes out next week. Here's a slice of his interviw with NBC's Andrea Mitchell last night.

Mitchell: "Starting in 1996, the CIA decided to create a station devoted to Osama bin Laden. Why?"

Anonymous: "We're — yes, ma'am. We've won, we won quite a few battles and marvelously so, but we're fighting opponents that perceive tactical losses rather than strategic losses. And it's quite clear that these wars are half-started."

Out of Control

Insurgents Launch Attacks Across Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 24, 2004

Filed at 4:03 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents launched a series of apparently coordinated attacks on police stations in Sunni Muslim-dominated areas of Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 22 people, including two U.S. soldiers, officials said.

The attacks began at dawn on the police stations in Ramadi and Baqouba. Later, explosions hit police stations in the northern city of Mosul. One of them could have been caused by a suicide bomber, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

The level of coordination in the attacks appeared unusual and could signal the beginning of a push by insurgents to torpedo next week's transfer of sovereignty from the U.S.-led occupation authority to an interim Iraqi government.

Two American soldiers were killed and seven wounded in the Baqouba fighting, the U.S. 1st Infantry Division said. U.S. tanks opened fire on insurgent positions amid fierce fighting raged in parts of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Insurgents seized a police station there.

U.S. aircraft dropped three 500-pound bombs against an insurgent position near the city soccer stadium, said Maj. Neal E. O'Brien, a U.S. 1st Infantry Division spokesman. Insurgents roamed the city with rocket launchers and automatic weapons.

Explosions and shelling shook Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. Armed men ran through the streets, witnesses said. Residents said U.S. forces were shelling from positions outside the city, and helicopters were in the skies, but the U.S. military did not immediately be reached for comment.

U.S. forces manning a checkpoint opened fire on local government convoy that included Fallujah's mayor and police chief that was trying to meet the Americans to discuss the violence, said an Iraqi police lieutenant, speaking on condition of anonymity. The convoy turned back, and no casualties were reported.

U.S. forces had launched two airstrikes on Fallujah in recent days against what they said were safehouses of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for the beheading for the beheading of American hostage Nicholas Berg and Kim Sun-il, a South Korean whose decapitated body was found Tuesday between Baghdad and Fallujah.

On Tuesday, an audiotape posted on an Islamic Web site attributed to al-Zarqawi threatened to assassinate Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi.

U.S. Marines besieged Fallujah for three weeks in April after four American civilian contractors working for the Blackwater USA security company were ambushed and killed, their bodies mutilated and hung from a Euphrates river bridge.

The city has been relatively calm since Marines announced a deal to end the siege that created the Fallujah Brigade, commanded by officers from Saddam Hussein's army.

Scores Killed As Insurgents Launch Attacks Across Iraq
Marines Involved in Heavy Clashes in Fallujah

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 24, 2004; 7:39 AM

BAGHDAD, June 24--Iraqi insurgents launched an apparently coordinated offensive against U.S. occupation forces and Iraqi security posts in a number of locations Thursday, setting off continuing battles that killed at least 66 people, including more than 20 Iraqi police and three U.S. soldiers.

The attacks, an unusual display of ability to stage simultaneous assaults, were the broadest and largest-scale so far in an insurgent campaign of bombings and assassinations in the weeks leading up to the June 30 transfer of a limited form of sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim government.

Violence was reported in at least five Iraqi cities -- Baqubah, Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul and Baghdad -- as insurgents attacked police stations, set off car bombs and fought battles with Iraqi government forces and U.S. troops. The U.S. military responded with air strikes on insurgent positions in Baqubah and Fallujah, dropping 500-pound bombs.

The Iraqi Health Ministry said at least 66 people were killed and more than 250 wounded in the attacks. The highest death toll came in the northern city of Mosul, where the ministry said at least 44 people were killed in a series of car bomb blasts. Fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi left at least nine people dead, and clashes around Baqubah killed at least 13, the ministry reported.

The largest and most sustained attack came shortly after dawn on a police station and other government buildings in Baqubah, a farming hub 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. Gunmen firing AK-47 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades took over the town's main police station and occupied the central intersections.

The U.S. military said it was also fighting insurgents near its two bases on Baqubah's outskirts. Two U.S. soldiers were killed and seven wounded in the clashes, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division said.

Local correspondents for the al-Jazeera satellite television network said 26 Iraqis were killed, including 16 policemen, and 30 were wounded in Baqubah. The insurgents raised black flags over the police station, which they still occupied at midday, they reported.

In a similar attack at Ramadi, 50 miles west of the capital, masked gunmen clad in black attacked two police stations and a government building with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, local officials told Iraqi journalists. The attackers seized one police station, killing seven policemen, then set explosives in the building and blew it up, the officials said.

At least five bombs were set off, meanwhile, in Mosul, about 220 miles north of Baghdad. Reports from the city, heavily populated by Kurds but also home to many of former president Saddam Hussein's military officers, said a U.S. soldier was killed and three others wounded. Scores of Iraqis were also killed or wounded when car bombs detonated at an Iraqi police academy, two police stations and a hospital in Mosul, news agencies reported.

In Baghdad, an explosion near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi and U.S. soldiers in the southern part of the city left four Iraqi soldiers dead and at least one American apparently wounded. The blast, which appeared to have been caused by a car bomb, also reportedly injured at least two Iraqi civilians.

In Fallujah, which lies halfway along the road linking Ramadi with Baghdad, U.S. Marines in armored vehicles were reported to be fighting insurgents on the eastern outskirts of the long-rebellious city. A U.S. Marine AH-1H Cobra helicopter gunship was shot down nearby, but its crew walked away unhurt, the Marines announced. U.S. warplanes also were seen over the city.

A group of insurgents in Fallujah issued a statement over al-Jazeera warning that they would attack all Iraq's oil pipelines and wells and set them ablaze unless the Marines halted their push toward the city.

Marines had largely kept out of Fallujah since a cease-fire was agreed early last month. Security responsibilities were turned over to a group of former Iraqi Army officers, the Fallujah Brigade, but U.S. officers have expressed disappointment that armed Islamic radicals still control the city, giving sanctuary to foreign fighters.

Four Marines who had been posted as a sniper squad atop a roof were killed and stripped of their gear earlier this week in nearby Ramadi.

The U.S. military launched a missile strike in Fallujah Tuesday against what it called a safehouse used by followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian border Islamic guerrilla leader whom U.S. officials have blamed for much of the recent violence in Iraq.

Immunity? The Bugs Buzz

U.S. Immunity In Iraq Will Go Beyond June 30

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 24, 2004; Page A01

The administration plans to accomplish that step -- which would bypass the most contentious remaining issue before the transfer of power -- by extending an order that has been in place during the year-long occupation of Iraq. Order 17 gives all foreign personnel in the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority immunity from "local criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their parent states."

U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer is expected to extend Order 17 as one of his last acts before shutting down the occupation next week, U.S. officials said. The order is expected to last an additional six or seven months, until the first national elections are held.

The United States would draw legal authority from Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law and the recent U.N. resolution recognizing the new government and approving a multinational force, but some U.S. officials and countries in the multinational force still want greater reassurances on immunity, U.S. officials said.

Bush's top foreign policy advisers, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, are still debating the scope of immunity to be granted. "The debate is on the extent or parameters of coverage -- should it be sweeping, as it is now, or more limited," said a senior U.S. official familiar with discussions, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue.

In Baghdad, U.S. officials have been engaged all week with interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and national security adviser Mowaffak Rubaie. Both sides hope to finalize the terms before Bush leaves for the NATO summit in Istanbul at week's end, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

The administration is taking the step in an effort to prevent the new Iraqi government from having to grant a blanket waiver as one of its first acts, which could undermine its credibility just as it assumes power. But U.S. officials said Washington's act could also create the impression that the United States is not turning over full sovereignty -- and giving itself special privileges.

The administration's move comes when issues of immunity are particularly sensitive, in light of the scandal over the abuse of U.S. detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yesterday at the United Nations, the administration, citing opposition on the Security Council, withdrew a resolution that would have extended immunity for U.S. personnel in U.N.-approved peacekeeping missions from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.

In Iraq, U.S. officials are already concerned about the potential fallout after June 30 among key players -- from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most powerful religious cleric, to militant insurgents. But the Bush foreign policy team concluded that there are few alternatives until elections select a government that will be powerful enough to negotiate a formal treaty, U.S. officials said.

The issue of immunity for U.S. troops is among the most contentious in the Islamic world, where it has galvanized public opinion against the United States in the past. A similar grant of immunity to U.S. troops in Iran during the Johnson administration in the 1960s led to the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who used the issue to charge that the shah had sold out the Iranian people.

"Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed," Khomeini said in a famous 1964 speech that led to his detention and then expulsion from Iran. The measure "reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog."

I welcome comment from Bump's legal community. I'm not a lawyer and this looks to me like getting away with murder. I welcome your comments.

Classic Bush Flip-Flop

U.S. Offers North Korea Aid if It Phases Out Nuclear Program
By JOSEPH KAHN

Published: June 23, 2004

BEIJING, June 23 — The United States today presented North Korea with a proposal for phasing out its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees, as senior Bush administration officials acknowledged softening their hard-line stance to jump-start negotiations with Pyongyang.

James A. Kelly, the chief American negotiator, presented a proposal to his North Korean counterparts on the opening day of six-nation nuclear talks in Beijing, a senior administration official said, adding that "it was time to start getting specific" in the so-far-inconclusive negotiations.

American officials said North Korea rebuffed an invitation to hold a private meeting on the side of the six-party talks to discuss the proposal in more detail today. The North Korean delegation, which put forward its own plan at the talks, had no immediate reaction to the American offer.

The talks, the third round of negotiations involving China, Japan, South Korea and Russia as well as the United States and North Korea, are expected to continue through Friday. Expectations for achieving a breakthrough at this round remain modest.

Under the American plan, North Korea would have to fully disclose its nuclear program, submit to inspections and pledge to begin eliminating the program after a "preparatory period" of three months.

In exchange, the reclusive regime of Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean leader, would receive shipments of heavy fuel oil to meet its energy needs, be granted a "provisional security guarantee" by the United States, and see the lifting of some sanctions.

The proposal, which American officials said was first presented to them by South Korea earlier this month and was modified in Washington, is a combination of ideas put forward in earlier rounds of talks.

Bushco is a 180-degree flip-flopper on this one. Bush could have had this deal before the North Koreans had gotten their nuclear weapons program fully mature,which it now is. What real motivation do they have to take it down now, when everybody on the planet is now rushing to complete their own nuclear program since it seems to be the only thing which will deter the US from unilateral invasions?

Punk'd on Reality

Progress in Iraq is disputed

David Stout NYT

Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Stay may last years, U.S. official asserts

WASHINGTON The United States may have to keep troops in Iraq for years to come despite "enormous progress" in bringing peace to that country, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Tuesday.
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Wolfowitz's prediction, coupled with a high-ranking general's warning that "we should expect more violence, not less," in the near future, highlighted a sometimes contentious hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.
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Wolfowitz, who returned recently from a tour of Iraq, said he had heard military people from the United States and their allies say again and again that the people back home just do not realize how much progress is being achieved in Iraq as it moves toward sovereignty on June 30.
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"It's something we heard almost everywhere - from Iraqis, from Americans, from a British general down in Basra," Wolfowitz said. "What doesn't get through in all the reporting on problems is, there's also been enormous progress."
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But Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the panel's ranking Democrat, was not persuaded. Conceding that much had been accomplished in Iraq, he asserted that progress had been slowed by "the security quagmire" that exists there now.
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"I see, Mr. Secretary, two Iraqs," Skelton said. "One is the optimistic Iraq that you describe, and we thank you for your testimony. And the other Iraq is the one that I see every morning, with the violence, the death of soldiers and marines.
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"I must tell you, it breaks my heart a little bit more every day."
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When Skelton asked Wolfowitz what lessons he had absorbed in the past 15 months, or roughly since all-out war ended and the mopping up and peacekeeping began, Wolfowitz responded at length about the evils of Saddam Hussein, his henchmen and their followers.
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Skelton then broke in:
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"Mr. Secretary, let me interrupt if I may. My question is, what lessons we have learned, you have learned in the last 15 months."
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Wolfowitz replied that military planners might have underestimated how persistent the anti-American forces might be even after the several dozen leaders of the Baghdad regime had been killed or captured.
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Continuing, Wolfowitz said that the Iraqis themselves must eventually impose security on their country, not just to stabilize the government but to allow ordinary Iraqis to go about their lives.
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Skelton then asked, "You think we might be there, then, a good number of years?"
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"I think it's entirely possible," Wolfowitz replied. "But what I think is also nearly certain is the more they step up, and they will be doing so more and more each month, the less and less we will have to do."

I watched this hearing yesterday. Wolfowitz is living in an alternative universe: Iraq grows more violent and less secure each day. No way are they going to be able to stand up an indigenous security force of any meaningful size in time to matter. We're making so much progress that we're mobilizing more troops:

Iraq force may grow by 25,000
Possible mix of U.S. reservists, regulars would bolster security; 'We may need more people,' officer says

By Tom Bowman
Sun National Staff
Originally published June 23, 2004

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Central Command has informally asked Army planners for up to five more brigades - about 25,000 troops - to augment the American force of 138,000 soldiers and Marines now in Iraq, military officers and Pentagon officials said.

Some officers said any increase might well be lower, perhaps involving 10,000 troops that would be a mix of active-duty and National Guard units.

"For a period of time, we may need more people," said a senior officer familiar with the planning, noting the perilous security situation and the needs of Iraq's new interim government, which is to assume sovereignty a week from today. "It's clearly being driven by requirements in theater."

It is uncertain whether a formal request for more troops has been made by Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region. Neither is it clear that discussions between Central Command and the Army have reached Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Bringing Labor Back

A Global Vision for Labor

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, June 23, 2004; Page A21

SAN FRANCISCO -- He may not have been entirely happy about it, but on Monday, Andy Stern had his John L. Lewis moment.

Addressing roughly 3,000 delegates at the quadrennial convention of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Stern, who's been the SEIU's president since 1996, certainly had plenty to be happy about. While the vast majority of American unions have been shrinking or barely holding their own, the SEIU on Stern's watch has nearly doubled in size, to 1.6 million members, which makes it much the largest on the continent. In the Northeast, the Midwest and on the Pacific Coast, it has won decent wages and health care benefits not just for public employees but for janitors, hospital orderlies and nursing home workers who would otherwise be making the minimum wage and seeing doctors only in emergency rooms. With the rate of private-sector unionization having dwindled to a minuscule 8 percent, however, the SEIU is really no more than a unionized island in a non-union sea. And the tides, as they are for all American unions, are threatening.

So the SEIU is also going global -- for the simple reason that it has to.

With two like-minded unions, the clothing-and-laundry UNITE and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (soon to become one union, UNITE-HERE, next month), the SEIU is embarking on a campaign to organize such multi-service global companies as Sodexho, Aramark and Compass Group -- corporations that provide food, laundry and janitorial services in ballparks, schools and hospital cafeterias, as well as in Iraq. Combined, the three companies employ 1.1 million people globally and 330,000 in the United States. Sodexho has 110,000 workers in the United States, and the three unions are putting up $10 million and 80 organizers and researchers to unionize it. But the battle won't only be fought stateside. In conjunction with unions in Europe, says the SEIU's Tom Woodruff, who is running the campaign, "We are working for agreements in more than one country." The U.S. unions seek company-wide recognition, while unions in, say, Britain, want access to Sodexho's list of workers.

This level of global union cooperation is new, but much about this campaign takes a leaf out of John L. Lewis's 70-year-old book on industrial organizing. Like Lewis, whose United Mine Workers funded the rise of such new unions as the United Auto Workers, the SEIU and UNITE-HERE envision a new union rising for the workers in these three companies. Like Lewis, who signed the first company-wide contracts with General Motors and U.S. Steel, Stern and UNITE-HERE's leaders, Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm, believe the only way to build back union strength is to organize entire companies at a time, rather than go facility by facility.

And like Lewis, whose frustration at the American Federation of Labor's opposition to industrial organizing led him to break away and found the CIO in 1935, Stern called on Monday for the AFL-CIO (the two groups got back together in 1955) to radically change its structure. Currently, the AFL-CIO has 65 member unions, the vast majority too small to fund organizing campaigns, though some -- or their locals -- have been known to pick up new members when employers, facing the prospect of real unionization by the likes of the SEIU, have cut sweetheart deals with them. Stern would like to see the unions consolidated into about 15, with clear sectoral responsibilities and enough resources to organize. On Monday Stern told his delegates that it was time either to "change the AFL-CIO or build something stronger." At that, the floor erupted; delegates stood and whooped for a full minute.

Meyerson is one of the few national paper writers who really understands the labor movement and he is right to point out that Andy Stern may just be the visionary who will be able to bring the movement back from the brink of death. Labor organizing has to be able to move the way that capital does in order to be effective, and this globalization strategy, if implemented correctly, may be just the ticket. The trick here is in the specific steps and tactics. I'll wait for outcomes before I canonize Stern, however.

The Public Square

White (House) Lies

By David Corn, AlterNet. Posted June 22, 2004.

But these critics have overlooked the main point: the case against Bush. The essential issue is not whether Bush detractors hate the man or are angry with him. What matters is whether their indictments are persuasive and well-founded. After all, if Bush has indeed misled the public about his far-ranging tax cuts, global warming, homeland security, stem cells research, the reasons for war and other serious topics, isn't anger an appropriate response? But often commentators (mainly of the right-wing variant) have preferred to focus on what they perceive to be the emotions of Bush's antagonists. It has been an easy way to dismiss the bill of particulars. They self-servingly decry the decline of civil debate and avoid the question: How civil should debate be if the president of the United States is not telling the truth about life-and-death issues? (One exception is columnist George Will, who has at least urged Bush to acknowledge his untrue prewar assertions about the weapons of mass destruction.)

If a president recklessly abandons his obligation to determine whether he is in possession of good, solid information, and then accepts incorrect or misleading material and presents it to the public because doing so serves his own ends, he is engaged in a deceptive practice that can be considered the functional equivalent of lying. Bush has yet to face any consequences for promoting deceptions crucial to his agenda, and he has not assumed responsibility for actively misleading the American public and the world. So the debate over his truth-defying ways will continue until Election Day.

This is the central point facing public debate: the right has defined the left as hating nuts, so that anything we say is taken as shrill and meaningless. Getting the public square back as a reasonable and open space for debate IS the next task.

Circular Reasoning

Perverse Polarity
The mainstream media bemoans the lack of civility in Washington--but won't say who's responsible.

By Paul Glastris

There's something similar about the way the national press has been describing the polarization of our political culture over the last few years. It is a cliché to observe that the parties have drawn further apart, the center no longer holds, and partisans on both sides have withdrawn further into mutual loathing and ever more-homogenous and antagonistic groupings. Where the analysis goes wrong is in its assumption, either explicit or implicit, that both parties bear equal responsibility for this state of affairs. While partisanship may now be deeply entrenched among their voters and their elites, the truth is that the growing polarization of American politics results primarily from the growing radicalism of the Republican Party.

This is the sort of reality that most journalists know perfectly well to be true but cannot bring themselves to say, though this increased polarization drives them crazy. Almost without exception, mainstream reporters in Washington see moderation and bipartisanship as inherently virtuous. (Indeed, reverence for these qualities is essentially the defining belief of the Washington establishment.) Read almost any account of bills becoming law, and you'll notice the reporter's obvious affection for centrists who work both sides of the aisle. Yet they are unable to honestly explain to readers what's causing the decline of bipartisanship, thanks to another form of press bias: The desire not to seem biased. As practiced by the modern press, "objective" journalism requires avoiding the appearance of favoring one party over the other--even when the facts merit such a treatment. That's why, when news stories discuss polarization, they bend over backward to avoid laying the "blame" on the political right.

Movements which close back on themselves, as the Republicans have since Gingrich, typically implode. Sitting around checking my watch as I wait has grown old, however.

Lying Liars

Did Ashcroft brush off terror warnings?
NBC exclusive: 9/11 commission interviews FBI officials who contradict Ashcroft testimony
By Lisa Myers
Senior investigative correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:32 p.m. ET June 22, 2004

WASHINGTON - The 9/11 commission is busy writing its final report, but is still investigating critical facts, including the conduct of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. NBC News has learned that the commission has interviewed two FBI officials who contradict sworn testimony by Ashcroft, about whether he brushed off terrorism warnings in the summer of 2001.

Pickard did brief Ashcroft on terrorism four more times that summer, but sources say the acting FBI director never mentioned the word al-Qaida again in Ashcroft's presence — until after Sept. 11.

Bushco was so focused on Iraq and rolling back the Bill of Rights that they never paid any attention to the real threats. They still aren't, and we are at risk because of it.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

NIH to Curb Its Scientists' Deals With Drug Firms

By David Willman, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The National Institutes of Health will drastically tighten policies that have allowed hundreds of consulting deals between drug companies and scientists at the nation's leading center for public health research, its director told a congressional panel Tuesday.

Announcing a sweeping set of reforms, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni also said that he would demand public disclosure of any future industry payments to agency employees.

He said that, in hindsight, he should have acted sooner to crack down on the private deals that have created potential conflicts of interest between scientists' duties at NIH and their financial ties to industry.

"I have reached the regrettable conclusion that some NIH employees may have violated these [existing] rules and that the agency's ethics system does not adequately guard against these violations," Zerhouni told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The NIH is the nation's premier agency for medical research, spending $27.9 billion this year.

Zerhouni said that as congressional investigators continued to sift through potential conflicts of interest in recent weeks — including the discovery of at least 100 deals that had not been properly reported — he reached a "tipping point" regarding reform at NIH. He vowed that he and his staff would "move diligently to completely change the system of ethics at NIH."

"You have my pledge: Any employees who violated the rules will be subject to appropriate penalties," he said. "It's very painful to me that the actions of a few may have tainted the good work of thousands of scientists who have not participated in any of these actions and who work daily at NIH to solve the mysteries of disease and to advance treatments and cures for these diseases."

Zerhouni said that while not all of the changes could be made overnight, he was "working aggressively" with the office of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson and with the Office of Government Ethics to implement his proposals.

The announced reforms were greeted warmly by Democrats and Republicans on the subcommittee. The panel opened its investigation of company consulting deals with NIH employees in response to a Dec. 7, 2003, report in the Los Angeles Times.

The article noted that until late 1995, top NIH officials were prohibited from accepting consulting fees and stock options from drug companies, but that restriction was lifted by the then-director of NIH, Dr. Harold E. Varmus. Based in part on documents obtained over five years under the Freedom of Information Act, The Times identified hundreds of consulting payments, totaling millions of dollars, to senior NIH scientists. Two of the scientists had pledged to abstain from matters affecting their clients, but nonetheless participated in decisions involving company products used in NIH studies on patients.

In addition, the article reported that 94% of the highest-paid employees at NIH were not required to publicly disclose payments from outside employers, including drug companies.

The politicization and corporatization of the NIH is a scandal that goes back to the Reagan administration. This cleanup is a small one, but welcome.

Crowning the Messiah

This has been kicking around the Web for a couple of weeks. I left it as wingnut stuff, but when it shows up in the WaPo, I'll take it out to play. The Rev. Moon Honored at Hill Reception
Lawmakers Say They Were Misled

By Charles Babington and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 23, 2004; Page A01

More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year honoring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in which Moon declared himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be "reborn as new persons."

At the March 23 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) wore white gloves and carried a pillow holding an ornate crown that was placed on Moon's head. The Korean-born businessman and religious leader then delivered a long speech saying he was "sent to Earth . . . to save the world's six billion people. . . . Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."

Details of the ceremony -- first reported by Salon.com writer John Gorenfeld -- have prompted several lawmakers to say they were misled or duped by organizers. Their complaints prompted a Moon-affiliated Web site to remove a video of the "Crown of Peace" ceremony two days ago, but other Web sites have preserved details and photos.

Moon, 85, has been controversial for years. Renowned for officiating at mass weddings, he received an 18-month prison sentence in 1982 for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice. In a 1997 sermon, he likened homosexuals to "dirty dung-eating dogs."

Among the more than 300 people who attended all or part of the March ceremony was Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), who now says he simply was honoring a constituent receiving a peace award and did not know Moon would be there. "We fell victim to it; we were duped," Dayton spokeswoman Chris Lisi said yesterday.

Other lawmakers who attended or were listed as hosts felt the same, she said. "Everyone I talked to was furious," she said. With Minnesotans demanding to know whether Dayton is a follower of Moon, Lisi said, the senator persuaded the St. Paul Pioneer Press to write an article allowing him to reply.

The event's organizers flew in nearly 100 honorees from all 50 states to receive state and national peace awards. The only "international crown of peace awards" went to Moon and his wife.

Some Republicans who attended the event, including Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (Md.), said they did so mainly to salute the Washington Times, a conservative-leaning newspaper owned by Moon's organization. "I had no idea what would happen" regarding Moon's coronation and speech, Bartlett said yesterday.

But a key organizer -- Archbishop George A. Stallings Jr., pastor of the Imani Temple, an independent African American Catholic congregation in Northeast Washington -- said Moon's prominent role should have surprised no one. He said a March 8 invitation faxed to all lawmakers stated that the "primary program sponsor" would be the "Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP), founded by Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, who will also be recognized that evening for their lifelong work to promote interfaith cooperation and reconciliation." The invitation was signed by Davis and the Rev. Michael Jenkins, as co-chairmen of the IIFWP (USA).

The event's co-sponsors were the Washington Times Foundation, the United Press International Foundation, the American Family Coalition, the American Clergy Leadership Conference and the Women's Federation for World Peace, according to the invitation. Stallings, a former Roman Catholic priest who was married in Moon's church, said Moon's association with those organizations is well known.

"You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not know that any event that is sponsored by the Washington Times . . . could involve the influence, or the potential presence, of the Reverend Moon," he said.

The congressman next door,Tom Davis, was there, it seems. Click the link to see the rest of the attendees. If you see your congresscritter there, you are well within your rights to pen a letter of protest (or a trip to the Hill, if you are within the proximity.) This is truly nutty stuff and I'm glad to see it on A01 of the Post.

Higher Moral Standards

Memo on Interrogation Tactics Is Disavowed
Justice Document Had Said Torture May Be Defensible

By Mike Allen and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 23, 2004; Page A01

President Bush's aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible, saying it had created the false impression that the government was claiming authority to use interrogation techniques barred by international law.

Responding to pressure from Congress and outrage around the world, officials at the White House and the Justice Department derided the August 2002 legal memo on aggressive interrogation tactics, calling parts of it overbroad and irrelevant and saying it would be rewritten.

In a highly unusual repudiation of its department's own work, a senior Justice official and two other high-ranking lawyers said that all legal advice rendered by the department's Office of Legal Counsel on the subject of interrogations will be reviewed.

As part of a public relations offensive, the administration also declassified and released hundreds of pages of internal documents that it said demonstrated that Bush had never authorized torture against detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In doing so, the administration revealed details of the interrogation tactics being used on prisoners, an extraordinary disclosure for an administration that has argued that the release of such information would help the enemy.

The legal memos and policy directives provided a new level of insight into the administration's internal debate and decision-making over how far it should go to gain information from terrorism suspects, including:

• A Feb. 7, 2002, memo signed by Bush saying that he believed he had "the authority under the Constitution" to deny protections of the Geneva Conventions to combatants picked up during the war in Afghanistan but that he would "decline to exercise that authority at this time."

"Our nation recognizes that this new paradigm -- ushered in not by us, but by terrorists -- requires new thinking in the law of war," Bush wrote.

The memo, which had not been scheduled to be declassified until 2012, settled a bitter dispute between the State and Justice departments over the issue. It outlined Bush's rationale -- announced the day he signed it -- that some of the Geneva Conventions would apply to fighters for Afghanistan's Taliban but not to members of the al Qaeda terrorist network. Bush added that "our values as a Nation . . . call for us to treat detainees humanely."

But can we believe anything they say?

Want My Vote?

To Hell With Well Behaved
Women who are interested and involved in politics talk quietly about how no one is chasing their vote. Then they sigh and move on
By Anna Quindlen
Newsweek

More than 20 million unmarried American women, a group polls have found are more liberal than the average person, never even voted in the 2000 presidential election. They didn't think it was worth the effort. If he reached out to those women as aerobically as George W. Bush has to evangelicals, Kerry could be working on his Inaugural speech right now. Instead the Democrats seem to be figuring that most female voters have nowhere else to go.

They're counting on the gratitude factor. Democrats better than Republicans, 14 female senators better than none, America better than Afghanistan. Who thinks this way? Do prison reformers back off because at least in Attica inmates aren't stacked naked in a pile having their pictures taken? Here's an antidote to gratitude: the new interim Constitution for Iraq mandates 25 percent female representation in Parliament, which thoroughly trumps the United States on the democracy scale.

History tells us that women's equality is often becalmed by the press of outside events, that the movement that begat suffrage, for example, slowed in the face of the Great Depression. But I suspect that some of the slowdown is always about our fear of unfolding our hands and pointing a finger. In "Iron Jawed Angels," the recent HBO film about the suffrage movement, you saw young women who fought and kicked all the way to a prison cell. It's dispiriting to think that they were bloodied but unbowed so their granddaughters could halfheartedly vote for someone who assumes their support instead of seeking it. Those suffragists refused to be polite in demanding what they wanted or grateful for getting what they deserved. Works for me.

What I want to hear out of John Kerry: childcare (not my issue, but it is a big one for a lot of single women,) tax policy with regard to saving for retirement--we tend to make less over a lifetime which affects savings rates and social security entitlement--and rolling back the income tax on social security income, more on health care and universal coverage. I want to hear about REAL homeland security, improvement in communications and resources for first responders, hardened ports, chemical and nuclear plants and the power grid. The world is a demnostrably a more dangerous place than we thought when Bush was elected, and this dangerous economy has now sprouted some tangible fears.

The Wal-Mart Effect

The Supremes are a very mixed bag this week, removing Miranda rights, curtailing the right to sue HMOs and then this:

Court OKs Class-Action Against Wal-Mart
The suit, originally filed on behalf of six women workers, alleges Wal-Mart often pays female workers less than their male counterparts.

By Jesus Sanchez, Times Staff Writer

A lawsuit claiming that retail giant Wal-Mart Stores discriminated against its female employees today became the largest civil rights case ever filed after a U.S. judge in San Francisco granted the legal complaint class-action status.

The ruling by U.S. District Court judge Martin Jenkins means that as many as 1.6 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees can now be represented under the 2001 lawsuit filed on behalf of six workers. The world's largest retailer is charged with discriminating against women in promotions, pay and job assignments in a far-reaching lawsuit.

The class-action lawsuit applies to female employees who have worked at Wal-Mart or its sister companies since December 26, 1998.

In granting class-action status, Jenkins rejected Wal-Mart's argument that the huge number of women who could join the lawsuit would make the case impossible to manage. The court found that federal employment laws do not make an exception for big companies.

"Insulating our nation's largest employers from allegations that they have engaged in a pattern and practice of gender or racial discrimination — simply because they are large — would seriously undermine these imperatives," Jenkins wrote.

The judge, noting the significance of the case, pointed out that he granted the class-action status on the 50th anniversary of U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. "This anniversary serves as a reminder of the importance of the courts in addressing the denial of equal treatment under the law whenever and by whomever it occurs," he wrote.

Since most of the news about labor and employment has been pretty grim since the Reagan administration, this is a rare step forward. Here's a link to last November's three part LATimes series on Wal-Mart, in case you aren't familiar with the nasty labor practices of this company.

The Podesta Factor

My "Progress Report" just arrived. Here is some interesting news:

American Progress President John Podesta will appear on the "O'Reilly Factor" tonight on Fox News. Earlier this month, Bill O'Reilly lashed out at Podesta for having the nerve to point out O'Reilly lied about one of our Senior Fellows, Eric Alterman. In reference to Podesta, O'Reilly said on his show, " Have I told any lies, sir? " Have I told any lies, sir? Why don't you come right on this program and produce some proof of that? And if you don't, you're a coward and a sleazy propagandist who deserves to be scorned" (This was from a man who is so divorced from the truth that he actually claimed to win a prestigious Peabody award for journalism, when in fact he did not) ). Well, tonight's the night. For just some of O'Reilly's distortions see American Progress's Claim vs. Fact , database and Media Matters) . The "No Spin Zone" airs at 8PM and 11PM on Fox News.

Down the Graft Drain

UN raps US over Iraqi oil revenues

Simon Jeffery
Tuesday June 22, 2004

US-led authorities in Baghdad are to be sharply criticised in an upcoming UN audit over their use of Iraqi oil revenues, it was reported today.

A leaked copy of an interim report by financial advisers KPMG into the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which collects and spends oil money, has revealed loose book-keeping and "resistance" to scrutiny among Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) staff.

The Financial Times, which obtained a copy of the report, said the auditors judged the fund to be "open to fraudulent acts".

"The CPA does not have effective controls over the ministries' spending of their individually allocated budgets, whether the funds are direct from the CPA or via the ministry of finance," it quoted the report as saying.

The US-run DFI was mandated by the UN security council to collect and spend Iraqi oil revenues in May last year, but has been dogged from its inception by accusations of a lack of transparency.

Agreement on an international advisory body to oversee the DFI was not reached until October as Paul Bremer, the US governor in Iraq, haggled over the scope of the watchdog's power. In the interim, its second function as a repository for all reconstruction money has been largely overtaken by UN and World Bank funds as donor countries became wary of contributing to an unaudited fund.

Officials say the audit only began in earnest in April and expressed fears that if the work was not finished by June 30 - when the CPA is to be wound up - no audit of its spending would ever be complete.

Confusion over the final days of the DFI was highlighted last week in a report by Iraq Revenue Watch - part of Hungarian financier George Soros's Open Society Institute - that said nearly $2bn (£1.09bn) was recently allocated to reconstruction projects in addition to the amounts specified in the revised budget in March.

What I'm hearing is that there is so much graft and corruption on the ground in Iraq that asking the question "how much of this money will actually be spent on reconstruction?" is a legitimate request. Here's a link to Soros' Open Society Initiative "Iraq Revenue Watch."

Fool Some of the People

Facts vs. fiction

By Thomas Oliphant | June 20, 2004

WASHINGTON

What Bush and Cheney are doing is what they have been doing since the summer of 2002 -- confusing the concepts of war in Iraq and war on terrorism. In fact, Bush and Cheney have always made it a point to emphasize that their concept of a nation at war is defined as a war against terror -- almost never Iraq.

The result has been -- up to now at least -- an administration-created confusion between the two, resolved by many Americans in favor of a linkage. Just prior to the invasion of Iraq in March of last year, more than two-thirds of the public believed that Iraq was directly involved in the attacks on this country. I don't remember Bush or Cheney doing anything to disabuse the public of this idea, though there are several incidents where they did all they could to encourage it.

All these months later, the percentage of Americans who still believe this fiction has cracked the 50 percent barrier on the way down. In the view of Bush reelection strategists, it cannot fall much further without further undermining the views of nearly half the public that the invasion was worth its subsequent cost. The administration has already spent six months trying to accommodate the truth that, again contrary to its assertions, Iraq had no stockpiled, ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion; the political team's view is that it can't take another hit of this nature.

That is why Bush and Cheney are pushing back so hard -- and lamely -- with their assertion that there was indeed a "relationship" or a "tie" of several years' duration between Saddam and Osama.

Specifics refute the contention. Bush, programmed as he is, can only manage the silly assertion that "high-level" people from the two sides met in the Sudan. According to the 9/11 Commission, this was in 1994, at the time that terrorist-supporting state was trying to persuade Osama to stop trying to topple the secular Iraqi regime, which he despised. An Iraqi intelligence official had to make three trips to the place before he could see the terrorist, who wanted help in getting equipment, weapons, and training bases. To the day Saddam's regime crumbled there was no evidence that Iraq ever responded, and there is also no evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda ever collaborated on anything, anywhere, anytime.

Cheney's contribution has been repeated ever since a few weeks after the terrorist attacks: peddling an uncorroborated assertion by one Czech intelligence official that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta had been seen five months before meeting with an Iraqi agent in Prague. The 9/11 Commission, citing physical and documentary evidence, said the facts indicate Atta was already here by then and had never left.

Cheney feeds the opinion polls with this garbage, and then wiggles on the hook by claiming that he can spread the tale because it hasn't been refuted. I trust real decisions on security matters are not made in such a slipshod, duplicitous fashion.

Cheney and Bush are squealing so much because the unmasking of their fiction about Iraq is one more shot into the solar plexus of their diminishing credibility -- and in the president's reelection campaign, credibility is a major route to the independent-minded voters who will probably decide the election.

Cheney and Bush, in short, have been caught in a lie, and that is why they are squealing.

I love Tom Oliphant for calling the Cheney spin-blitz what it is: garbage.

Burying the Cost

Senate Backs Ban on Photos of G.I. Coffins
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: June 22, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 21 - The Bush administration's policy of barring news photographs of the flag-covered coffins of service members killed in Iraq won the backing of the Republican-controlled Senate on Monday, when lawmakers defeated a Democratic measure to instruct the Pentagon to allow pictures.

The 54-to-39 vote came after little formal debate, with 7 Democrats joining 47 Republicans to defeat the provision.

Two Republicans, Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and John McCain of Arizona, voted in favor of permitting news photographers to have access to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where coffins containing the war dead from Iraq arrive.

"These caskets that arrive at Dover are not named; we just see them," said Mr. McCain, a former Navy pilot who was a prisoner of war for five years in Vietnam. He added, "I think we ought to know the casualties of war."

But President Bush has insisted that the policy banning the photography protects the privacy of the families of the dead, a view reiterated by lawmakers who opposed the measure.

Some Republicans, including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, complained that Democrats were trying to score election-year points with the effort. Mr. Grassley noted that the policy had been in place since the first Bush administration, in 1991. "This policy has been in place for 13 years," he said. "Nobody has raised a complaint about it until now."

But the policy has not been consistently followed; President Bill Clinton took part in numerous ceremonies honoring dead servicemen. In March 2003, just as the United States embarked on its war with Iraq, the Pentagon issued a directive stating that there would be no news coverage of "deceased military personnel returning to or departing from" air bases.

The measure defeated on Monday was proposed by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, as an amendment to a $447.2 billion Pentagon spending plan for 2005, now under consideration in the Senate. Lawmakers hope to finish work on the bill on Tuesday. Mr. Lautenberg's amendment would have instructed the Department of Defense to work out a new protocol permitting the news media to cover the arrival of the war dead in a manner that protected families' privacy.

"A majority of the Senate are now working on behalf of the president to conceal from the American people the true costs of this war," Senator Lautenberg said in a statement after the vote. He said his amendment "would bring an end to the shroud of secrecy cloaking the hard, difficult truth about war and the sacrifices of our soldiers.

Virtually since its inauguration, the contempt the Bushies have displayed for ordinary Americans has been striking. This refusal to let the press cover the arrival of our war dead is part of that contempt. The electorate is beginning to wake up, but, Lord, it has taken a long time.

Noonday Witches

Noonday in the Shade
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: June 22, 2004

In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.

Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened.

Incidentally, if Mr. Ashcroft's intention was to keep the case low-profile, the media have been highly cooperative. To this day, the Noonday conspiracy has received little national coverage.

At this point, I have the usual problem. Writing about John Ashcroft poses the same difficulties as writing about the Bush administration in general, only more so: the truth about his malfeasance is so extreme that it's hard to avoid sounding shrill.

In this case, it sounds over the top to accuse Mr. Ashcroft of trying to bury news about terrorists who don't fit his preferred story line. Yet it's hard to believe that William Krar wouldn't have become a household name if he had been a Muslim, or even a leftist. Was Mr. Ashcroft, who once gave an interview with Southern Partisan magazine in which he praised "Southern patriots" like Jefferson Davis, reluctant to publicize the case of a terrorist who happened to be a white supremacist?

More important, is Mr. Ashcroft neglecting real threats to the public because of his ideological biases?

Mr. Krar's arrest was the result not of a determined law enforcement effort against domestic terrorists, but of a fluke: when he sent a package containing counterfeit U.N. and Defense Intelligence Agency credentials to an associate in New Jersey, it was delivered to the wrong address. Luckily, the recipient opened the package and contacted the F.B.I. But for that fluke, we might well have found ourselves facing another Oklahoma City-type atrocity.

The discovery of the Texas cyanide bomb should have served as a wake-up call: 9/11 has focused our attention on the threat from Islamic radicals, but murderous right-wing fanatics are still out there. The concerns of the Justice Department, however, appear to lie elsewhere. Two weeks ago a representative of the F.B.I. appealed to an industry group for help in combating what, he told the audience, the F.B.I. regards as the country's leading domestic terrorist threat: ecological and animal rights extremists.

Even in the fight against foreign terrorists, Mr. Ashcroft's political leanings have distorted policy. Mr. Ashcroft is very close to the gun lobby — and these ties evidently trump public protection. After 9/11, he ordered that all government lists — including voter registration, immigration and driver's license lists — be checked for links to terrorists. All government lists, that is, except one: he specifically prohibited the F.B.I. from examining background checks on gun purchasers.

Mr. Ashcroft told Congress that the law prohibits the use of those background checks for other purposes — but he didn't tell Congress that his own staff had concluded that no such prohibition exists. Mr. Ashcroft issued a directive, later put into law, requiring that records of background checks on gun buyers be destroyed after only one business day.

And we needn't imagine that Mr. Ashcroft was deeply concerned about protecting the public's privacy. After all, a few months ago he took the unprecedented step of subpoenaing the hospital records of women who have had late-term abortions.

After my last piece on Mr. Ashcroft, some readers questioned whether he is really the worst attorney general ever. It's true that he has some stiff competition from the likes of John Mitchell, who served under Richard Nixon. But once the full record of his misdeeds in office is revealed, I think Mr. Ashcroft will stand head and shoulders below the rest.

God bless Paul Krugman. Hired by the Times as an opiner on economics, he is one of the few writers at the paper who is doing any actual reporting on John Ashcroft, the most frightening Attorney General in history (and I remember John Mitchell real well.)

I don't understand why the Noonday story hasn't made the front pages of the national papers (although it never showed up on the fronts of even the Texas papers when the story "broke.") Is it true that rightwing terrorists are politically correct?

Through American Eyes or Iraqi?

Death Stalks An Experiment In Democracy
Fearful Baghdad Council Keeps Public Locked Out

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 22, 2004; Page A01

Last of three articles

The nascent political institutions designed to replace the U.S. administration of Iraq are beset by challenges to their popular legitimacy and effectiveness, and by grave risks to Iraqis who have joined the experiment in representative government. As Iraqis prepare for their country to regain sovereignty, it is uncertain how much their political future will be shaped by the $700 million program in democracy-building that has been at the core of the U.S. occupation.

Inside the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, which will dissolve with the handover on June 30, some officials express doubts that Iraq's political system will conform to the American blueprints. "Will this develop the way we hope it will?" a CPA official involved in promoting democracy said. "Probably not."

New political institutions to replace Saddam Hussein's Baath Party dictatorship are among the chief legacies of the U.S. occupation. Every city and province has a local council. New mayors, provincial governors and national cabinet ministers have been chosen. The Shiite Muslim majority, shut out of power in Hussein's government, is widely represented, as are religious minorities and women. Hundreds of political parties have formed, and thousands of people have participated in seminars on democracy.

But Iraqis criticize the local councils and the interim national government as illegitimate because their members were not elected. The country's top Shiite cleric has repudiated the interim constitution drafted by the U.S.-appointed Governing Council. In several recent meetings about the country's political future, Iraqis who favor a Western-style democracy have been drowned out by calls for a system governed by Islamic law.

The cabinet, appointed by a U.N. envoy three weeks ago, has had little time to prepare to govern. Local councils, whose authority had been restricted for months by U.S. military commanders, are also stepping into uncharted areas, uncertain about their responsibilities and powers under a system whose inauguration is a week away.

Yet these uncertainties are overshadowed by the imminent threat of violence. Local council members who once welcomed constituents into their homes now keep armed guards at the front gate. Leaders of the national government travel in armored vehicles and work inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, an area off-limits to ordinary Iraqis. Many foreign contractors hired by the U.S. government to promote democracy have either relocated to Kuwait or hunkered down in protected compounds.

Despite those precautions, more than 100 Iraqi government officials have been killed during the occupation, including two members of the Governing Council. Over the past two weeks, the deputy foreign minister and a senior official in the Education Ministry have been assassinated. On Sunday, masked gunmen shot and killed the council chairman of Baghdad's Rusafa district and his deputy as they sat in a cafe.

Teaching Iraqis about democracy has also been risky. Scott Erwin, a 22-year-old CPA staff member, was critically wounded in an ambush this month as he drove away from a Baghdad university where he was teaching a class on democracy. Two CPA employees who worked on civic education initiatives, Fern Holland and Robert Zangas, were shot to death in March near the city of Hilla.

"Iraq may get to a semi-democratic outcome. But the more-democratic outcomes that were possible a year ago are much more difficult to imagine now because of the security situation," said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who worked on democracy issues for the CPA before leaving Iraq this spring, in part because of concerns about safety. "This is the biggest tragedy of Iraq."

Contrast this news with a WaPo-ABC News poll found on the same front page which reveals that:

Fewer than half of those surveyed -- 47 percent -- say the war in Iraq was worth fighting, while 52 percent say it was not, the highest level of disapproval recorded in Post-ABC News polls. Seven in 10 Americans now say there has been an "unacceptable" level of casualties in Iraq, up 6 points from April and also a new high in Post-ABC News polling. A majority say the United States should keep its forces in Iraq until the country is stabilized, but the proportion who want to withdraw now to avoid further casualties -- 42 percent -- has inched up again to a new high. Two in three Americans say the war has improved the lives of the Iraqi people, and a growing number of Americans say the United States is making significant progress toward a democratic government. Last month, 37 percent said they saw significant progress, while 50 percent say so now.

What this tells me is that the media, television primarily, has been doing a lousy job of telling the Iraq story. Some of this is "Reagan bounce," his death and funeral preparations having shoved the story off the TV. The WaPo headline for this story isn't informative, but there is mixed news for both candidates:

Public anxiety over mounting casualties in Iraq and doubts about long-term consequences of the war continue to rise and have helped to erase President Bush's once-formidable advantage over Sen. John F. Kerry concerning who is best able to deal with terrorist threats, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Exactly half the country now approves of the way Bush is managing the U.S. war on terrorism, down 13 percentage points since April, according to the poll. Barely two months ago, Bush comfortably led Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, by 21 points when voters were asked which man they trusted to deal with the terrorist threat. Today the country is evenly divided, with 48 percent preferring Kerry and 47 percent favoring Bush.

With fewer than 10 days before the United States turns over governing power to Iraq, the survey shows that Americans are coming to a mixed judgment about the costs and benefits of the war. Campaign advisers to both Bush and Kerry believe voters' conclusions about Bush and Iraq will play a decisive role in determining the outcome of the November election.

The shift is potentially significant because Bush has consistently received higher marks on fighting terrorism than on Iraq, and if the decline signals a permanent loss of confidence in his handling of the fight against terrorism, that could undermine a central part of his reelection campaign message.

A new meme is inserting itself here, as well. Up until the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the conventional wisdom was that the economy was going to play a far greater role than the war in making voters' decisions this fall. I always felt that was faulty reasoning. I think the media are simply finally beginning to catch up with reality.

The News

Top Commanders Face Questioning on Prison Abuse
By EDWARD WONG

Published: June 22, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 21 — A military judge ruled Monday that the top American commanders currently involved in the Iraq war will have to submit to questioning by lawyers for two servicemen charged in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse case. The defense lawyers said they would show that the most senior military and civilian officials approved interrogation methods that violated the Geneva Conventions.

Among those who could be questioned are Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of the United States Central Command, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq; and Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, who is overseeing daily military operations.

The judge, Col. James Pohl, also called Abu Ghraib a "crime scene" and ordered the government to "take all steps possible" to preserve the prison, 15 miles west of Baghdad. That command, issued during a pretrial hearing, seemed to override an earlier pledge by President Bush to raze the prison. A defense lawyer, Paul Bergrin, said members of the court should "smell the fecal matter and the urine" that the prison guards lived with every day.

As the court proceedings got under way, Islamic guerrillas threatened to behead a South Korean civilian hostage by sundown, unless the South Korean government canceled plans to send 3,000 troops to Iraq. The deadline passed without any news on the hostage's fate. The South Korean government said Monday that it would not change its plans to send the troops.

I've been a reporter for 30 years, I started in the Watergate years. Sometimes you find the events. Sometimes they find you.

Meme Alert

New meme! About damn time. This is from Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing" today in the WaPo:

Robert Hillman looks at an odd father-son relationship in the Dallas Morning News: "Mr. Bush offers little about his father. And his father is just as guarded about his son, even if they do share so many political parallels -- wars in Iraq, sky-high poll numbers that plummeted and tough re-election battles."

"The comparisons do not always benefit Bush, a polarizing political figure in a tough re-election battle."

The new meme? Bush in a "tough re-election battle." They treated him like an inevitability all winter. Whoohaw. This is a big deal.

Sorry posting has been so light today. I actually got to meet one of you, my readers, for lunch today. If he is typically of you, you are one savvy group of folks, incredibly well informed. I feel like I'm keeping some good company with you. And what a pleasure to share a meal with an informed lefty and talk that lefty talk. Thanks again, Bob!

Too Little, Too Late

Looking Back Before the War

By Michael Getler
Sunday, June 20, 2004; Page B06

My assessment is that The Post did not commit the sins of the New York Times. In fact, The Post had quite a few probing stories. There were, however, a few front-page stories that possibly raised the prewar temperature. "U.S. Suspects Al Qaeda Got Nerve Agent From Iraqis" was the headline on a Dec. 12, 2002, story by staff writer Barton Gellman. It was the subject of an ombudsman's column a few days later. A Gellman story on March 20, 2003, reported, according to U.S. officials, that the United States had obtained potentially valuable new information on Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs and had more information on those programs than it had shared with the public or the United Nations. A story on Sept. 5, 2002, by Joby Warrick, based partly on British sources, focused on concerns about fleets of unmanned Iraqi "drones of death" that could spray biological agents. Those stories, by experienced reporters, were carefully hedged and reflected concerns at the time by unnamed official sources.

My quarrel with Post coverage throughout the prewar period, however, was mostly of a different nature. It was based upon complaints by a fair number of readers and my own sense of the obligation for more balanced coverage and display regarding a huge, approaching event. The criticism was twofold: (1) Too many Post stories that did challenge the official administration view appeared inside the paper rather than on the front page; and (2) too many public events in which alternative views were expressed, especially during 2002, when the debate was gathering steam, were either missed, underreported or poorly displayed.

Throughout 2002 until the start of the war in March 2003, there were 19 ombudsman columns, reflecting reader comments and my own two cents' worth, that dealt with some aspect of the impending war.

The Post did put a number of stories on the front page that challenged the official line. "For Bush, Facts Are Malleable; Presidential Tradition of Embroidering Key Assertions Continues," was the headline on Oct. 22, 2002, over a story by White House reporter Dana Milbank. Pentagon reporter Thomas E. Ricks broke a couple of stories in mid-2002 about military concerns over the timing, tactics and need for an invasion. A story by Warrick on Jan. 24, 2003, carried the headline: "U.S. Claim on Iraqi Nuclear Program Is Called Into Question." There were others as well.

Yet the number of challenging stories that editors put inside the paper was, to some readers and frequently to me, dismaying. Warrick's important initial report on the nuclear program, for example, on Sept. 19, 2002, headlined: "Evidence on Iraq Challenged; Experts Question If Tubes Were Meant for Weapons Program," went on Page A18.

Here's a sampling of other stories that didn't make the front page. "Observers: Evidence for War Lacking; Report Against Iraq Holds Little That's New," by Dana Priest and Joby Warrick, Sept 13, 2002; "Unwanted Debate on Iraq-Al Qaeda Links Revived" by Karen DeYoung, Sept. 27, 2002; "U.N. Finds No Proof of Nuclear Program; IAEA Unable to Verify U.S. Claims," by Colum Lynch, Jan 29, 2003; "Bin Laden-Hussein Link Hazy," by Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, Feb. 13, 2003; "U.S. Increases Estimated Cost Of War in Iraq; Military Expenses Alone Projected at Up To $95 Billion," by Mike Allen, Feb. 26, 2003; "U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms," by Walter Pincus, March 16, 2003; "Legality of War Is A Matter Of Debate; Many Scholars Doubt Assertion by Bush," by Peter Slevin, March 18, 2003; "Bush Clings to Dubious Allegations About Iraq," by Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank, March 18, 2003.

Among the public events that were missed or underreported during the second half of 2002 were early doubts by some Republicans such as former House majority leader Richard K. Armey and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft; hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during which alternative strategies were discussed; hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee at which retired four-star generals urged caution; comprehensive challenges in early speeches by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, both Democrats; coverage of big demonstrations here and abroad that didn't make the front page, and coverage surrounding the views of outgoing Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki.

If we had a sceptical press (Getler is correct that the Post has been less of a lapdog for the administration than the Times, but that's still not saying much), Bush and Kerry wouldn't be polling dead even. Getler's little apologia fails to notice the critical role that the press plays in a democracy. And ours is in danger because of our fawning press corps.

Guantanamera

You know those really, really scary people we've been holding in Gitmo? The ones that Ashcroft re-wrote our torture policy for? Turns out they aren't so scary after all.

U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees
By TIM GOLDEN and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

Published: June 21, 2004

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, June 19 — For nearly two and a half years, American officials have maintained that locked within the steel-mesh cells of the military prison here are some of the world's most dangerous terrorists — "the worst of a very bad lot," Vice President Dick Cheney has called them.

The officials say information gleaned from the detainees has exposed terrorist cells, thwarted planned attacks and revealed vital intelligence about Al Qaeda. The secrets they hold and the threats they pose justify holding them indefinitely without charge, Bush administration officials have said.

But as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legal status of the 595 men imprisoned here, an examination by The New York Times has found that government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they have provided.

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful — some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen — were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.

While some Guantánamo intelligence has aided terrorism investigations, none of of it has enabled intelligence or law-enforcement services to foil imminent attacks, the officials said. Compared with the higher-profile Qaeda operatives held elsewhere by the C.I.A., the Guantánamo detainees have provided only a trickle of intelligence with current value, the officials said. Because nearly all of that intelligence is classified, most of the officials would discuss it only on the condition of anonymity.

Notice this again is all leaks. Cui Bono? is a worthwhile question to keep in the back of your mind.

Crossing the Bar

Judicial Nominee Practiced Law Without License in Utah

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A01

Thomas B. Griffith, President Bush's nominee for the federal appeals court in Washington, has been practicing law in Utah without a state law license for the past four years, according to Utah state officials.

Griffith, the general counsel for Brigham Young University since August 2000, had previously failed to renew his law license in Washington for three years while he was a lawyer based in the District. It was a mistake he attributed to an oversight by his law firm's staff. But that lapse in his D.C. license, reported earlier this month by The Washington Post, subsequently prevented Griffith from receiving a law license in Utah when he moved there.

Under Utah law, Griffith's only option for obtaining the state license was to take and pass the state bar exam, an arduous test that lawyers try to take only once. He applied to sit for the exam, but never took it, Utah bar officials confirm.

Utah State Bar rules require all lawyers practicing law in the state to have a Utah law license. There is no general exception for general counsels or corporate counsels. Lawyers who practice only federal law or whose work is solely administrative can avoid the requirement in some cases.

Griffith has declined to discuss the matter, which is expected to be a subject of his nomination hearings tentatively scheduled for next week. But a Justice Department spokesman said Friday that Griffith sought advice from Utah State Bar officials when he inquired last year about obtaining a license, and followed their suggestions for avoiding any ethical missteps.

Bushco stopped using the American Bar Association's "qualified" rating for judicial nominees. I guess passing the Bar exam isn't as important as ideology. I could be a judge!

Not Going Away

Military judge declares Abu Ghraib prison a crime scene and orders it not to be destroyed

By Fisnik Abrashi, Associated Press, 6/21/2004 07:11

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A military judge on Monday declared the Abu Ghraib prison a crime scene and said it cannot be demolished as President Bush had offered, while defense lawyers in the prisoner abuse case indicated they want to question Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

During a hearing in Baghdad, the judge, Col. James Pohl, also refused to move the trials of three soldiers Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., Sgt. Javal S. Davis and Staff Sgt. Ivan L. ''Chip'' Frederick II to somewhere outside Iraq.

The three are among seven soldiers accused of abusing prisoners. One of them, Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits, pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to a year in prison.

After the pre-trial hearing in Baghdad, lawyers for the three defendants said their clients were following orders by senior officers and military intelligence.

''We can't have American soldiers in a war zone questioning the legality of orders,'' Guy Womack, the civilian lawyer for Graner, told reporters.

Womack said there was ''a good chance'' he would seek to question Rumsfeld. He said he doubted he would try to depose President Bush, although ''certainly we will be considering it.''

President Bush had offered to dismantle Abu Ghraib to help remove the stain of torture and abuse from the new Iraq an offer Iraqi officials had already dismissed, saying it would be a waste of the building. Saddam Hussein used Abu Ghraib to torture and murder his opponents.

Pohl declared the prison a crime scene and said it could not be destroyed prior to a verdict.

Civil lawyers for Davis and Graner won permission to seek testimony from the top U.S. general in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and from the chief of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid.

But the judge turned down a request to seek testimony from higher-ranking witnesses, including Rumsfeld, at this time. Pohl left open the possibility of calling other senior figures if the defense could show their testimony was relevant which Womack said the lawyers intended to do.

Bergrin has also said he wants to question Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the prisoner abuse, though he did not formally present a request in court.

''We would like to interview Bush because we know as a matter of fact that President Bush changed the rules of engagement for intelligence acquisition,'' Bergrin said Monday.

Oh, my. Curioser and curioser.

UPDATE: The WaPo has more...

Questioning of Commanders Allowed in Abu Ghraib Trial
Army Judge Allows Defense Request, Rules Prison Is a Crime Scene

By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 21, 2004; 8:15 AM

BAGHDAD, June 21 -- A U.S. Army judge on Monday accepted a request by attorneys of soldiers accused of abusing detainees to question the military's top commander in Iraq and all his subordinates.

The order affectively compels Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the second-ranking commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and their subordinates to participate in a deposition with defense attorneys and Army prosecutors unless they invoke their rights against self-incrimination.

The judge, Col. James Pohl, rejected defense requests for memos between justice department attorneys, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials regarding the use of interrogation tactics.

"Quite frankly what they do in Washington, D.C., you have to connect it," Pohl said.

Geography

Sy Hersh is back on the job. Make of this what you will, but I don't think it casts a happy look on our efforts in Iraq.

The Neocon Vision for the Mideast was a safer Israel. Guess they took that seriously.

PLAN B
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.
Issue of 2004-06-28
Posted 2004-06-21

In July, 2003, two months after President Bush declared victory in Iraq, the war, far from winding down, reached a critical point. Israel, which had been among the war’s most enthusiastic supporters, began warning the Administration that the American-led occupation would face a heightened insurgency—a campaign of bombings and assassinations—later that summer. Israeli intelligence assets in Iraq were reporting that the insurgents had the support of Iranian intelligence operatives and other foreign fighters, who were crossing the unprotected border between Iran and Iraq at will. The Israelis urged the United States to seal the nine-hundred-mile-long border, at whatever cost.

The border stayed open, however. “The Administration wasn’t ignoring the Israeli intelligence about Iran,” Patrick Clawson, who is the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and has close ties to the White House, explained. “There’s no question that we took no steps last summer to close the border, but our attitude was that it was more useful for Iraqis to have contacts with ordinary Iranians coming across the border, and thousands were coming across every day—for instance, to make pilgrimages.” He added, “The questions we confronted were ‘Is the trade-off worth it? Do we want to isolate the Iraqis?’ Our answer was that as long as the Iranians were not picking up guns and shooting at us, it was worth the price.”

Clawson said, “The Israelis disagreed quite vigorously with us last summer. Their concern was very straightforward—that the Iranians would create social and charity organizations in Iraq and use them to recruit people who would engage in armed attacks against Americans.”

The warnings of increased violence proved accurate. By early August, the insurgency against the occupation had exploded, with bombings in Baghdad, at the Jordanian Embassy and the United Nations headquarters, that killed forty-two people. A former Israeli intelligence officer said that Israel’s leadership had concluded by then that the United States was unwilling to confront Iran; in terms of salvaging the situation in Iraq, he said, “it doesn’t add up. It’s over. Not militarily—the United States cannot be defeated militarily in Iraq—but politically.”

Flynt Leverett, a former C.I.A. analyst who until last year served on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, told me that late last summer “the Administration had a chance to turn it around after it was clear that ‘Mission Accomplished’”—a reference to Bush’s May speech—“was premature. The Bush people could have gone to their allies and got more boots on the ground. But the neocons were dug in—‘We’re doing this on our own.’”

Leverett went on, “The President was only belatedly coming to the understanding that he had to either make a strategic change or, if he was going to insist on unilateral control, get tougher and find the actual insurgency.” The Administration then decided, Leverett said, to “deploy the Guantánamo model in Iraq”—to put aside its rules of interrogation. That decision failed to stop the insurgency and eventually led to the scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison.

....
n early November, the President received a grim assessment from the C.I.A.’s station chief in Baghdad, who filed a special field appraisal, known internally as an Aardwolf, warning that the security situation in Iraq was nearing collapse. The document, as described by Knight-Ridder, said that “none of the postwar Iraqi political institutions and leaders have shown an ability to govern the country” or to hold elections and draft a constitution.

A few days later, the Administration, rattled by the violence and the new intelligence, finally attempted to change its go-it-alone policy, and set June 30th as the date for the handover of sovereignty to an interim government, which would allow it to bring the United Nations into the process. “November was one year before the Presidential election,” a U.N. consultant who worked on Iraqi issues told me. “They panicked and decided to share the blame with the U.N. and the Iraqis.”

A former Administration official who had supported the war completed a discouraging tour of Iraq late last fall. He visited Tel Aviv afterward and found that the Israelis he met with were equally discouraged. As they saw it, their warnings and advice had been ignored, and the American war against the insurgency was continuing to founder. “I spent hours talking to the senior members of the Israeli political and intelligence community,” the former official recalled. “Their concern was ‘You’re not going to get it right in Iraq, and shouldn’t we be planning for the worst-case scenario and how to deal with it?’”

Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, who supported the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq, took it upon himself at this point to privately warn Vice-President Dick Cheney that America had lost in Iraq; according to an American close to Barak, he said that Israel “had learned that there’s no way to win an occupation.” The only issue, Barak told Cheney, “was choosing the size of your humiliation.” Cheney did not respond to Barak’s assessment. (Cheney’s office declined to comment.)

In a series of interviews in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, officials told me that by the end of last year Israel had concluded that the Bush Administration would not be able to bring stability or democracy to Iraq, and that Israel needed other options. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government decided, I was told, to minimize the damage that the war was causing to Israel’s strategic position by expanding its long-standing relationship with Iraq’s Kurds and establishing a significant presence on the ground in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Several officials depicted Sharon’s decision, which involves a heavy financial commitment, as a potentially reckless move that could create even more chaos and violence as the insurgency in Iraq continues to grow.
....
Whitley Bruner, a retired intelligence officer who was a senior member of the C.I.A.’s task force on Iraq a decade ago, said that the new interim government in Iraq is urgently seeking ways to provide affordable security for second-tier officials—the men and women who make the government work. In early June, two such officials—Kamal Jarrah, an Education Ministry official, and Bassam Salih Kubba, who was serving as deputy foreign minister—were assassinated by unidentified gunmen outside their homes. Neither had hired private guards. Bruner, who returned from Baghdad earlier this month, said that he was now working to help organize Iraqi companies that could provide high-quality security that Iraqis could afford. “It’s going to be a hot summer,” Bruner said. “A lot of people have decided to get to Lebanon, Jordan, or the Gulf and wait this one out.”

The New Crew

Iraq Leader Says Army Will Target Insurgents
Prime Minister Outlines Reorganization of Forces

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 20 -- The interim Iraqi prime minister announced a reorganization of the country's fledgling security forces Sunday and declared that all of Iraq's military resources, including the army, will be used to combat anti-U.S. insurgents, whom he denounced as "enemies of God and the people."

The prime minister, Ayad Allawi, acknowledged that Iraq still needed help from "our friends in the multinational forces" to meet the threat posed by daily bombings, assassinations and other attacks. But his announcement, at a news conference organized by U.S. soldiers, sought to play down the dominant role played by U.S. troops here and suggested that Iraqis would take over once formal sovereignty is transferred on June 30.

"We are deeply grateful for the sacrifices from friendly nations here to help us in our struggle," he said, "but the struggle is first and foremost an Iraqi struggle."

U.S. military officials, however, have made clear that they and their 138,000 American soldiers intend to be in charge of security for the foreseeable future. The U.N. Security Council resolution passed June 8, accompanied by an exchange of letters between Allawi and the Bush administration, gives U.S. commanders the authority to conduct military operations as they see fit even after June 30.

Allawi acknowledged, for instance, that he was not involved in Saturday's decision by U.S. commanders to launch precision weapons on what they described as a safe house in the rebellious city of Fallujah. Allawi said he was informed of the strike just before it was launched, but he added that the interim government supports it.

"This pattern will change, of course, once full sovereignty has been transferred," he said.

This is, of course, a complete crock, and nothing more than the complete capitulation of the Iraqi interim regime to US desires.

The Other Shoe

New Abuse Charges
Classified sections of the military's prisoner abuse report detail sexual assaults on women detainees
By VIVECA NOVAK AND DOUGLAS WALLER

Sunday, Jun. 20, 2004

Could the abuse of prisoners in Iraq have gone beyond the beatings and sexual humiliation already alleged? Unreleased, classified parts of the report on prison abuse from Major General Anthony Taguba, which were read to TIME, contain indications of mistreatment of female prisoners. In a Feb. 21 statement to Taguba, Lieut. Colonel Steven L. Jordan, former head of the Abu Ghraib interrogation center, said he had received reports "that there were members of the MI [Military Intelligence] community that had come over and done a late-night interrogation of two female detainees" last October. According to a statement by Jordan's boss, Colonel Thomas Pappas, three interrogators were later cited for violations of military law in their handling of the two females, ages 17 and 18. Senate Armed Services Committee investigators are probing whether the two women were sexually abused. The Pentagon declined to comment.

Meanwhile, a class action filed in California on behalf of former detainees raises the specter of brutal physical abuse.

One plaintiff, identified only as Neisef, claims that after he was taken from his home on the outskirts of Baghdad last November and sent to Abu Ghraib, Americans made him disrobe and attached electrical wires to his genitals. He claims he was shocked three times. Although a vein in his penis ruptured and he had blood in his urine, he says, he was refused medical attention. In another session, Neisef claims, he was held down by two men while a uniformed woman forced him to have sex with her. "I was crying," said Neisef, 28. "I felt like my whole manhood was gone." The class action also claims that detainees were raped in prison. On June 6, Neisef was released, after a U.S. civilian told him, he says, that he had been wrongly accused by informants. A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad confirms that a prisoner with Neisef's ID number was released on that date, and TIME has obtained a copy of his release order. But the Pentagon would not comment on the specifics of Neisef's account.

From what I'm hearing, there is a whole lot more to this scandal yet to be revealed. More than just another shoe, it's more like Imelda Marcos's whole closet. Note that this is another leak, and a classified leak at that, meaning that this is not going to be allowed to go away. I saw The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh on CNN this afternoon, and the further he digs, the higher up the chain of command this goes.

Here's an op-ed from today's WaPo on the DoJ torture memo:

The Convention Against Torture provides that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture." And Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions provides that the rights and duties concerning fundamental humane treatment apply whether a person detained is a prisoner of war, unprivileged belligerent, terrorist or ordinary civilian.

It's hard to believe that the memo was poorly researched, so it makes one wonder whether the Justice Department was being disingenuous. A lawyer who is arguing to a court is allowed to be disingenuous because it is up to the judge to evaluate that argument against the adversary's and decide what the law is. But a lawyer who is writing an opinion letter is ethically bound to be frank.

How could Bybee have written such a scandalous opinion? Lawyers who tell their clients what they want to hear -- rather than the advice they need -- are sometimes rewarded with career advancement. Last year, Jay Bybee was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

There is a proud tradition of lawyers bravely telling clients not what they want to hear, but what the law requires. Judge Bybee's actions stand in stark contrast to the best traditions of the bar.

Leaks

2 Allies Aided Bin Laden, Say Panel Members
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan let terrorists flourish before 9/11, apparently in return for protection from attacks by Al Qaeda.

By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Pakistan and Saudi Arabia helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks by cutting deals with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden that allowed his Al Qaeda terrorist network to flourish, according to several senior members of the Sept. 11 commission and U.S. counter-terrorism officials.

The financial aid to the Taliban and other assistance by two of the most important allies of the United States in its war on terrorism date at least to 1996, and appear to have shielded them from Al Qaeda attacks within their own borders until long after the 2001 strikes, those commission members and officials said in interviews.

"That does appear to have been the arrangement," said one senior member of the commission staff involved in investigating those relationships.

The officials said that by not cracking down on Bin Laden, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia significantly undermined efforts to combat terrorism worldwide, giving the Saudi exile the haven he needed to train tens of thousands of soldiers. They believe that the governments' funding of his Taliban protectors enabled Bin Laden to withstand international pressure and expand his operation into a global network that could carry out the Sept. 11 attacks.

Saudi Arabia provided funds and equipment to the Taliban and probably directly to Bin Laden, and didn't interfere with Al Qaeda's efforts to raise money, recruit and train operatives, and establish cells throughout the kingdom, commission and U.S. officials said. Pakistan provided even more direct assistance, its military and intelligence agencies often coordinating efforts with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they said.

Such efforts allowed Al Qaeda's network of cells to burrow deeply into the social and religious fabric of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, enabling the organization to survive the U.S.-led demolition of its headquarters in Afghanistan in 2001, to regroup and to launch new waves of attacks — including the kidnapping and beheading of an American engineer in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last week.

Time for some rank speculation, kids. This leak is exclusive to the LATimes, and it looks like it comes from Kean and/or Hamilton themselves. The other of the big three papers are hammering the "no direct link between Iraq and 9/11" meme, and Bush attacking his hand-selected commission as "partisan,"so it is interesting to see this story get play. I wonder what else is in this report that we haven't heard about yet?

Today in Mesopotamia

A Transition Under Fire in Iraq

One Bush administration forecast about Iraq is clearly coming true. As the days count down to next week's transfer of limited powers to an interim Iraqi government, things are getting worse. Attacks against Iraqis working with the American occupation authorities seem increasingly frequent and audacious. Last Thursday, Iraq's deadliest car bombing in months killed at least 35 people waiting to sign up for the new national army and injured more than 100 others.

Without a turnaround in the security situation, significant progress toward a self-governing, let alone democratic, Iraq is unlikely. So far, neither increasing American troop levels nor crash efforts to recruit and train reliable Iraqi security forces have helped. Improving the Iraqi military and police forces is critical, but increasingly problematic now that recruitment offices have become a prime target for attack.

Control over Iraq's small and wobbly national army is one of the few scraps of real power Washington has agreed to hand over to the interim government, and last week Iraq's newly named interior minister floated the idea of declaring martial law. Given the state of the Iraqi forces, the gesture was both politically jarring and militarily futile.

The ceremonial passage of power on June 30 is unlikely to usher in any immediate improvement in the security situation. With millions of Iraqis resentful of American occupation and attendant horrors like Abu Ghraib, residential neighborhoods terrorized by kidnappers and other criminals, another stifling summer under way without adequate electric power and economic revival a distant dream, it takes only a few thousand armed insurgents to generate an atmosphere of random carnage and rampant anarchy.

With this in mind, the Pentagon now plans to keep 138,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely, almost 25,000 more than it was projecting a few months ago. Even more may be needed, although the idea of a larger and more visible American military presence will not be popular with Iraqis. According to a recent poll commissioned by the occupation authorities, increasing numbers of Iraqis would like to see American troops go home.

The road that got us to this point will be fully examined during the American election cycle. But there is no way to avoid the current reality. Iraqis are being protected — to the degree they are protected at all — by American troops they do not want and Iraqi soldiers who have shown a disturbing tendency to melt away in battle. Building a reliable Iraqi military and police will take time, and will depend on how well the country's interim leaders can establish their own authority and win the trust of a highly skeptical Iraqi population.

Juan Cole tells us this morning:

Guerrillas detonated a bomb outside Iraq's central bank in Baghdad on Sunday, wounding 2 employees and a guard.

I don't mean to be a killjoy, but for an Occupying Power to drop bombs on residential neighborhoods is a war crime. The three women and five children killed are not "collateral damage." They are human beings. They were killed by the United States. There are no such things as "precision strikes" in residential neighborhoods. Bombs not only throw off shrapnel themselves, they create lots of deadly flying debris, including flying glass from broken windows, that can kill and maim. Dropping bombs on an tank corps assembled in the desert and intending to do harm is one thing. Dropping bombs on a residential district is another.

It's Still the Economy

The Slump Has Ended, but Not the Gloom
By DAVID LEONHARDT

Published: June 20, 2004

AFTER enduring three years of a deteriorating job market and one economic false start after another, Americans finally have reason to think that the long slump of the early 21st century has ended. Employers are hiring again. The stock market has risen more than 40 percent since early last year.

And how have the American people celebrated? By becoming a lot grumpier about the economy.

Since January, more than a million jobs have been added to the payrolls, yet the percentage of people who say the economy is in good shape has dropped, polls say. Fewer people now than at the start of the year are willing to say it is improving. George W. Bush's marks for economic stewardship have reached the lowest level of his presidency, according to recent Gallup and CBS News surveys.

It may sound discordant, but the early days of the new boom really do feel worse for many families than the recession of 2001 or its long aftermath did. The layoffs of the past three years totaled in the millions, but they touched only a small segment of the population. The stagnant wages that have followed job losses, the recent spike in gasoline and other consumer prices and the slow climb of interest rates, by contrast, reach into the pocketbooks of every household. Americans notice when milk reaches $4.43.

The gap between economic indicators and public mood has left strategists for both Mr. Bush's campaign and that of Senator John Kerry swearing that the economy will benefit their man in November. On Monday, Mr. Kerry began what aides described as two weeks of focus on the economy by saying that people who work hard should be able to pay their bills. Mr. Bush countered that he is an optimist and chided those who "can't see the sunshine."

Republicans argue that the nation's angst is merely an echo of the downturn and that it will soon fall silent. "The economy has really turned," said Senator Jim Talent, Republican of Missouri, a swing state. "It just takes awhile longer for that to filter through to folks."

If this does end up being the high point for pessimism, Mr. Bush will stand for re-election while Americans are feeling pretty good about the economy. Even with gloom rising, consumer confidence is at roughly the level as it was during the summers before Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon won second terms, according to University of Michigan monthly surveys. It is significantly higher than it was in the run-up to losses by Jimmy Carter and Mr. Bush's father.

But unlike recent presidents who won twice, Mr. Bush has presided over a significant slide in confidence, from record highs in 2000. The recent burst of worry has given Democrats new reason to think he is vulnerable on more than Iraq. Swing voters are even more concerned than the rest of the population, according to the Gallup Poll. Only 16 percent of independents described the economy as excellent or good, compared with more than 30 percent of people who say they usually vote for one party of the other.

It may come as news to media elites, but working class to middle class salaries aren't up, even as inflation starts to rise. The long term unemployment rate is at historical highs. Nathan Newman has the charts and graphs. Nathan says,

Look at that graph some more. Get some friends to look at it. And they should just get really, really, really pissed that Bush took such good care of his corporate buddies during the recession, while giving working americans the shaft.

FUBAR

As Handover Nears, U.S. Mistakes Loom Large
Harsh Realities Replaced High Ideals After Many Missed Opportunities

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 20, 2004; Page A01

First of three articles

In many ways, the occupation appears to have transformed the occupier more than the occupied. Iraqis continue to endure blackouts, lengthy gas lines, rampant unemployment and the uncertain political future that began when U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad. But American officials who once roamed the country to share their sense of mission with Iraqis now face such mortal danger that they are largely confined to compounds surrounded by concrete walls topped with razor wire. Iraqis who want to meet them must show two forms of identification and be searched three times.

The Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. entity that has administered Iraq, cites many successes of its tenure. Nearly 2,500 schools have been repaired, 3 million children have been immunized, $5 million in loans have been distributed to small businesses and 8 million textbooks have been printed, according to the CPA. New banknotes have replaced currency with ousted president Saddam Hussein's picture. Local councils have been formed in every city and province. An interim national government promises to hold general elections next January.

But in many key quantifiable areas, the occupation has fallen far short of its goals.

The Iraqi army is one-third the size U.S. officials promised it would be by now. Seventy percent of police officers have not received training. When violence flared across the country this spring, many soldiers and policemen refused to perform their duties because U.S. forces failed to equip them, designate competent leaders and win trust among the ranks.

About 15,000 Iraqis have been hired to work on projects funded by $18.6 billion in U.S. aid, despite promises to use the money to employ at least 250,000 Iraqis by this month. At of the beginning of June, 80 percent of the aid package, approved by Congress last fall, remained unspent.

Electricity generation remains stuck at around 4,000 megawatts, resulting in less than nine hours of power a day to most Baghdad homes, despite pledges from U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer to increase production to 6,000 megawatts by June 1.

Iraq's emerging political system is also at odds with original U.S. goals. American officials scuttled plans to remain as the occupying power until Iraqis wrote a permanent constitution and held democratic elections. Instead, Bremer will leave the Iraqis with a temporary constitution, something he repeatedly promised not to do, and an interim government headed by a president who was not the Bush administration's preferred choice.

Credibility Problem

Politicians Face Censure From Bishops on Abortion Rights
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: June 19, 2004

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops approved a statement on Friday on "Catholics in Political Life" that brands politicians who support abortion rights as "cooperating in evil" and leaves the door open for bishops to deny communion to such lawmakers.

The bishops, meeting outside Denver, stopped short of saying that those lawmakers should be forbidden to take communion. But they reminded all Catholics that they were not worthy to receive communion until they had examined their consciences, including their "fidelity to the moral teaching of the church in personal and public life."

The bishops also asserted unequivocally that "the Catholic community and Catholic institutions" should not give "awards, honors or platforms" to Catholics who "act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles."

This means that Catholic universities, for example, may not give honorary degrees or speaking invitations to politicians who have a record of supporting abortion. Some Catholic universities already have such bans, but many do not. Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president and a Catholic who supports abortion rights, for example, recently gave an address at Georgetown University, which often provides a forum for presidential candidates.

The statement provides backing to bishops on both sides of what has become a very public debate set off by the candidacy of Mr. Kerry, who would be the first Catholic to obtain a major party nomination in 44 years. It lends support to both those who would sanction defiant politicians and those who draw the line at teaching and persuading. It says, "Bishops can legitimately make different judgments on the most prudent course of pastoral action."

What bishop is going to take this take when their credibility is already through the floor?

Report: Accused Priests Moved Around World

Saturday June 19, 2004 3:01 PM

DALLAS (AP) - Between 100 and 200 Roman Catholic priests around the world were moved from country to country after they were accused of sex offenses against minors, according to an 18-month investigation by the Dallas Morning News.

Brooks Egerton, one of three reporters on the series, gave an overview of the investigation Friday on National Public Radio's ``Morning Edition'' program. The first story in the series will run in Sunday editions.

Vatican officials declined comment Friday on the report.

``We're focusing on international movement of abusive priests, people who have been accused and in many cases criminally charged, in some cases even convicted or otherwise admitted'' abuse, Egerton said. He did not say what time period was covered by the investigation.

He said initial coverage will focus on the Salesians, a large order that was founded in 19th century Italy by St. John Bosco. It works mainly with poor and needy children.

``We have found a systematic practice of moving the most serious abuse cases on to other countries to protect the accused,'' Egerton said.

Egerton also said the newspaper found that some of the priests who were shuffled between countries spent long periods of time in the United States.

``Frequently, what we've seen are priests who worked for a long time in America but remained citizens of another country,'' he said. ``They came here and, when trouble arose, there was an easy escape hatch, and that was to go back to their native lands.''

Miserable Failure

US paranoid and isolated as Green Zone policy fails
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

19 June 2004

This isolation helps explain the CPA's repeated mistakes. When it arrived 14 months ago Iraqis were evenly divided on whether they had been liberated or occupied by the US. The CPA's own poll shows that just 2 per cent of Iraqis say they feel liberated and 92 per cent say they are occupied. The CPA may be the least successful organisation ever created by the US government. It is certainly one of the strangest. "It is really like living in an open prison,' said one CPA official.

Much of the security is in the hands of private companies. One day I had an interview with an Iraqi minister inside the zone. We had arranged it over the phone. The meeting never took place. I was first asked who I was by a friendly Nepalese soldier, then questioned by a nervous Algerian and finally stopped by a paunchy security man who, from his accent, came from Mississippi or Alabama.

"We can't let in journalists," he said in a suspicious and hostile tone. "They are a security threat." I asked exactly whom they had threatened. The security man said: "They killed the president of Afghanistan."

It turned out he had read somewhere of Ahmed Shah Massood, the Afghan warlord, being assassinated by two Moroccans with Belgian passports pretending to be a television crew. I said these were hardly typical of the journalistic profession but he was unconvinced.

Uncertain where real threats come from, the guards of the CPA - both regular US army and private security firms - treat all Iraqis as equally suspicious. According to one former Iraqi minister a suicide bomber was able to blow up Izzedin Salim, the head of Iraq's Governing Council, on 17 May after his convoy had been prevented from passing through US security into the Green Zone because a vital document was missing. His vehicle turned around giving the bomber his opportunity.

The difficulty getting into the Green Zone is less than that of CPA officials getting out. It is now truly dangerous for them to do so but most remained cocooned behind the walls even when it was less so.

One official remarked: "What shocks me is the number of people in the CPA who never even want to see the city where they live." Even the plastic cutlery in the dining hall was imported and almost ran out in April when insurgents destroyed the convoys bringing it in.

Presiding over the CPA until 30 June when power is supposedly handed over to an Iraqi government, is Paul Bremer. He has remained a remote figure to his own staff as well as Iraqis. When a rocket hit the Republican Palace, where the CPA has its headquarters earlier this month, officials wondered if he would make a reassuring visit, but were not entirely surprised by his absence.

It is still unclear why Mr Bremer and the CPA showed such poor judgement. The swift overthrow of Saddam Hussein showed few Iraqis supported him. But Mr Bremer disbanded the army and persecuted the Baath party pushing their members towards armed resistance.

By last summer he had alienated the Sunni Arabs (20 per cent of Iraqis) and by this spring he had infuriated the Shia (60 per cent). He turned the hitherto marginal Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr into a respected martyr and the hillbilly city of Fallujah into a patriotic symbol.

Many able and intelligent CPA officials are mystified by the extent of the failure, perhaps the greatest in American foreign policy. "Bremer stuffed his office full of neo-conservatives and political appointees who knew nothing of the country or the region," one said. "They actively avoided anybody who did."

Impeachment is too good for these incompetents. Criminal prosecutions and jail time should be awaiting those who have done this TO US.

Whistleblowing

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands
Al-Qaida may 'reward' American president with strike aimed at keeping him in office, senior intelligence man says

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday June 19, 2004
The Guardian

In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as "Anonymous", described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would "inevitably" acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them.

He said Bin Laden was probably "comfortable" commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army claimed a big success in the "war against terror" yesterday with the killing of a tribal leader, Nek Mohammed, who was one of al-Qaida's protectors in Waziristan.

But Anonymous, who has been centrally involved in the hunt for Bin Laden, said: "Nek Mohammed is one guy in one small area. We sometimes forget how big the tribal areas are." He believes President Pervez Musharraf cannot advance much further into the tribal areas without endangering his rule by provoking a Pashtun revolt. "He walks a very fine line," he said yesterday.

Imperial Hubris is the latest in a relentless stream of books attacking the administration in election year. Most of the earlier ones, however, were written by embittered former officials. This one is unprecedented in being the work of a serving official with nearly 20 years experience in counter-terrorism who is still part of the intelligence establishment.

The fact that he has been allowed to publish, albeit anonymously and without naming which agency he works for, may reflect the increasing frustration of senior intelligence officials at the course the administration has taken.

Peter Bergen, the author of two books on Bin Laden and al-Qaida, said: "His views represent an amped-up version of what is emerging as a consensus among intelligence counter-terrorist professionals."

Anonymous does not try to veil his contempt for the Bush White House and its policies. His book describes the Iraq invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage.

"Our choice of timing, moreover, shows an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq."

In his view, the US missed its biggest chance to capture the al-Qaida leader at Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains in December 2001. Instead of sending large numbers of his own troops, General Tommy Franks relied on surrogates who proved to be unreliable.

"For my money, the game was over at Tora Bora," Anonymous said.

Yesterday President Bush repeated his assertion that Bin Laden was cornered and that there was "no hole or cave deep enough to hide from American justice".

Anonymous said: "I think we overestimate significantly the stress [Bin Laden's] under. Our media and sometimes our policymakers suggest he's hiding from rock to rock and hill to hill and cave to cave. My own hunch is that he's fairly comfortable where he is."

The death and arrest of experienced operatives might have set back Bin Laden's plans to some degree but when it came to his long-term capacity to threaten the US, he said, "I don't think we've laid a glove on him".

"What I think we're seeing in al-Qaida is a change of generation," he said."The people who are leading al-Qaida now seem a lot more professional group.

"They are more bureaucratic, more management competent, certainly more literate. Certainly, this generation is more computer literate, more comfortable with the tools of modernity. I also think they're much less prone to being the Errol Flynns of al-Qaida. They're just much more careful across the board in the way they operate."

As for weapons of mass destruction, he thinks that if al-Qaida does not have them already, it will inevitably acquire them.

The most likely source of a nuclear device would be the former Soviet Union, he believes. Dirty bombs, chemical and biological weapons, could be home-made by al-Qaida's own experts, many of them trained in the US and Britain.

Anonymous, who published an analysis of al-Qaida last year called Through Our Enemies' Eyes, thinks it quite possible that another devastating strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, as was the case in the Madrid bombing, but of keeping the same one in place.

"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now," he said.

"One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president."

The White House has yet to comment publicly on Imperial Hubris, which is due to be published on July 4, but intelligence experts say it may try to portray him as a professionally embittered maverick.

The tone of Imperial Hubris is certainly angry and urgent, and the stridency of his warnings about al-Qaida led him to be moved from a highly sensitive job in the late 90s.

But Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations at the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said he had been vindicated by events. "He is very well respected, and looked on as a serious student of the subject."

Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy.

He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"

Intel Dump

The Big Lie
by Andrew Wilkie

By early 2003, as part of my work at the Office of National Assessments (ONA), I was spending considerable time trawling through the vast intelligence database on Iraq so as to be ready to help cover the war once it started.

What jumped out at me was that the war had little to do with weapons of mass destruction and almost nothing to do with al-Qaeda. We were on the cusp of waging an unjustified war on the basis of a preposterous lie. Importantly, my work with ONA on transnational issues, such as people smuggling, had exposed me to some raw intelligence of very poor quality, which gave me a more critical eye in general when it came to analysing intelligence information. BY LATE 2002 nothing could stop the countdown to war.

Tony Blair and John Howard understood this clearly because their intelligence agencies were telling them so - I know this was the case in Australia and I'm certain the situation was identical in the UK. ONA knew Australia would participate in a war by late 2002; the Australian Defence Force had begun to prepare even earlier. As far back as mid-2002, for example, the Special Air Service Regiment in Perth was focused on the need to be ready for the formal order to deploy troops to Iraq.

Blair and Howard knowingly recycled the US's case for invading Iraq so as to stay in step with Bush. They understood the broader US agenda and were sympathetic to much of it.

Although Howard had clearly decided by late 2002 to support Bush's war, this decision was not a formal decision of Government. Rather it was an understanding of the US's intentions and a determination to support them, at any cost. In this sense, Howard is correct in saying, as he has repeatedly, that no decision was made by the Government to support the war until just before the invasion began.

Nevertheless, Howard knew what was brewing long before the National Security Committee of Cabinet formally deliberated on the decision to commit Australian troops. ONA's reporting on the US - in accordance with the Government's direction - was prolific during the lead-up to hostilities. Moreover, the occasional telephone conversations with George Bush, about which Howard boasted publicly, also ensured that the Australian Government was well informed enough to be able to read the situation in Washington.

Washington was not always frank with its allies during the build-up to the war, so little so that UK and Australian intelligence agencies sometimes needed to treat the US more as a focus of intelligence interest than as a close ally. A reluctance to share information with allies is fine some of the time. US and UK officials presumably aren't fussed about not receiving the Australian intelligence assessments on issues such as border security that shed light on the effectiveness or otherwise of specific Australian government policies. But it is a different matter when vitally important information, such as the latest thinking in the White House, isn't shared about an issue as grave and all-encompassing as the impending invasion of Iraq.

To overcome problems of this kind, the agreement between the US, UK and Australia (as well as Canada) not to spy on each other is interpreted somewhat loosely. Although Australia is not inclined to spy on the US, it has always been my assumption, one shared by at least some of my former colleagues, that the US spies on Australia.

Australia's corresponding capacity to collect information concerning the US and the UK is far more limited; we must rely instead on the work of diplomats, military staff and intelligence liaison officers who prowl like bottom-feeders for scraps and titbits in the corridors of power in Washington and London.

Thanks to such efforts, Howard (and by his own means, Blair) knew before the war began that the US was intent on invading Iraq for many reasons, not only those involving WMD and terrorism. I recall numerous ONA assessments that explored the machinations in Washington and the thinking of George Bush and his circle.

If this knowledge is juxtaposed with the public case for war that was made in London and Canberra, something very interesting is revealed: Blair and Howard's oft-repeated justifications for going to war were quite hollow. Their statements about WMD and terrorism were made in the full knowledge that such justifications were not the central reasons for the US's actions.

The invasion of Iraq was sold on the basis of that country possessing a massive arsenal of WMD and co-operating actively with terrorists. These claims were made in many different ways and have since been radically re-engineered, but the heart of the official case against Iraq made in Washington, London and Canberra was always as follows: Iraq possessed significant quantities of chemical and biological weapons, it was determined to acquire nuclear weapons, and it was consorting with al-Qaeda.

For his part, John Howard made it quite clear in his February 4, 2003, address to the Australian Parliament that his Government endorsed the views being expressed in Washington and London, including those contained in the American and British reports released on Iraq. He also sought to make clear Iraq's association with the war on terror: "The Australian Government knows that Iraq still has chemical and biological weapons and that Iraq wants to develop nuclear weapons." THERE is no single issue, or shocking secret report, or classified intelligence assessment that I can refer to in order to explain how the Iraq threat was blatantly exaggerated for political purposes. The process was not that dramatic. Most often the deceit lay in the way Washington, London and Canberra deliberately skewed the truth by taking the ambiguity out of the issue. Key intelligence assessment qualifications were frequently dropped and much more definite words put in their place, even though such embellishments had not been offered to the governments by their intelligence agencies. Before we knew it, our political leaders had created a mythical Iraq, one where every factory was up to no good.

Crucially, there were significant intelligence gaps on Iraq.

These were consistently filled with sequences of doubtful information based on worst-case assumptions, all of this finely tuned to reinforce the need to invade.

Two of these gaps are especially important: the unaccounted-for pre-1991 Gulf War WMD, and the uncertainty surrounding Iraq's actions between the withdrawal of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1998 and the arrival of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in late 2002.

The US, the UK and Australia all went to a great deal of trouble to highlight that, based on UN assessments, unaccounted for WMD material included up to 360 tonnes of bulk chemical agent, up to 3000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, enough growth media to produce tens of thousands of litres of biological agent, and over 30,000 special munitions suitable for delivery of chemical and biological agents.

However, the continued reference to these figures in the case for war appeared to me to be simply ridiculous, not least because no one, not even the Iraqis themselves, knew exactly how much chemical and biological agent they'd produced, exactly how much was used during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war or exactly how much was destroyed later outside of UNSCOM control.

On balance the strong, unambiguous language contained in the case for war seemed more the work of salespeople than professional intelligence officers. The claims that the repeated assertions reflected accurately the views of national intelligence agencies are plainly wrong. They were simply too much at odds with the piles of intelligence material I was privy to. In all the material I saw on Iraq, never did I see such a string of unqualified and strong judgements as was contained in the official case for war presented by Bush, Blair and Howard.

By late 2003, however, there was no possibility that Bush, Blair and Howard were unaware of the true situation in Iraq or that they were in some form of understandable denial. No, they were well aware of the fix they were in, but decided to deal with it with more prevarications, fabrications, distortions and exaggerations. Lies beget lies, as they say.

IN Australia, the intelligence chain, from the Iraq WMD analyst through to the director-general, was a ludicrously short one: only a single full-time strategic analyst on Iraq, one middle manager and the director-general, Kim Jones. All three are decent people - two remain friendly to me - who most of the time adopted a commendably measured view on Iraq.

Except in one case: the marked shift made clear in the unexpectedly hardline ONA assessment produced in mid-September 2002. This was an unclassified report put together at the request of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Specifically, the September 13 ONA assessment on Iraq stated that a range of intelligence and public information suggests that "Iraq is highly likely to have chemical and biological weapons". It also commented that, "there is no reason to believe that Saddam Hussein has abandoned his ambition to acquire nuclear weapons". Yet only the previous day, the 2004 inquiry revealed, ONA had reported that there was no firm evidence of new chemical and biological weapon production.

ONA's sudden shift to a more gung-ho position on Iraq is striking. For years it had treated the CIA's claims about Iraq with great caution and, along with Australia's military intelligence agency, the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), it had continued to take a much more measured view than the US and the UK. What happened to change this stance? I believe the explanation is at its core rather simple. The Australian Government's extraordinary request in mid-September for an unclassified report for use in the preparation of the Prime Minister's and Foreign Minister's speeches sent a clear signal to ONA to deliver something much stronger. Crucially, ONA is not a policy organisation and does not normally prepare unclassified notes for anyone's public speeches.

All [ONA reports to the Government] are rigidly capped in length and written in simple terms for the benefit of the non-experts who will read them; often only the most basic explanation of the issue at hand is provided. Adding to the pressure to condense was Howard's personal direction that ONA's reports be produced in a larger 13-point script so that they would be easier for him to read.

This is an edited extract from Axis of Deceit by Andrew Wilkie, published by Black Inc. Agenda, $29.95, available from Tuesday.

It remains to be determined if any of the other parties can mount a creditable challenger to Howard, but the man is clearly not popular in Australia

Who's Fooling Who

The Wrong Elections For Iraq

By Michael Rubin
Saturday, June 19, 2004; Page A23

On June 30 the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq will cease to exist. A caretaker Iraqi government will run the country until elections in January. While the transfer of sovereignty is a watershed, Iraqis say true legitimacy will come only with the elections.

But now technocratic decisions having to do with these elections are threatening to undercut the durability of any democracy in the country. There are two ways to hold direct elections: by party slates, with each party gaining representation according to its portion of the vote, or by single-member constituencies, somewhat like our own congressional districts. On June 4 Carina Perelli, head of the U.N. electoral advisory team in Iraq, endorsed party slates.

When I was a roving CPA political adviser, I lived outside the Green Zone and interacted not only with Iraqi politicians but also with ordinary people. Voting was the topic of conversations at teahouses and mosques. Islamist parties tended to favor a party-slate system. Advocates of an Iranian-style Islamic republic were blunt: "The first article in a democracy is the rule of the majority over the minority," Sayyid Hadi Modarresi, one of Karbala's most influential clerics, told the Arabic daily Al-Hayah.

Liberal Iraqis favor constituency-based elections. The Transitional Administrative Law calls for a 275-member National Assembly, which translates into each district's member representing approximately 87,000 people. Contests would occur not between parties but between individuals, who would be accountable to local residents rather than party bosses. Former Governing Council members condemned as irrelevant by CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer could win some districts. Raja Khuzai, an outspoken Shiite advocate for women's rights, is popular in her home town of Diwaniyah. Residents of Khadimiya favor Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi. A religious party leader, Abdul Aziz Hakim, is popular in Najaf. Less successful would be uncharismatic, corrupt or abusive party hacks who hope to win power on the coattails of party bosses.

Older Iraqis also favor constituencies. Distrust of political parties is deeply rooted. One recent poll indicated that political parties have only a 3 percent favorability rating. Pensioners remember the 1960s as a time of pitched street battles between adherents of leftist and nationalist parties. Younger generations view parties through the lens of the Baath Party experience, in which employment depended on a party membership card. Distrust of parties extends to Iraqi Kurdistan, where I taught in the 2000-01 academic year. With few exceptions, my students associated local Kurdish parties with corruption, abuse of power and nepotism.

Even Perelli, the U.N. official, acknowledged Iraqi ill feeling toward political parties. "The anti-political party feeling of the population is extremely high," she told journalists in May. But at her news conference this month, Perelli explained her rationale for abandoning the accountability of single-member constituencies in favor of pursuing party-slate elections. "There are a lot of communities that have been broken and dispersed around Iraq," she said, "and these communities wanted to be able to accumulate their votes and to vote with like-minded people."

With that one sentence, Perelli would set Iraq on the slippery slope to the failed Lebanese-style communal system. According to an Iraqi electoral commission member, Bremer agreed to a party-slate system to bypass the tricky question of who votes where, thereby trading Iraq's long-term health for short-term expediency.

The U.N. endorsement of a party-slate system fails to correct the mistakes of the past year. While Bremer condemned the Governing Council as irrelevant, the truth was more nuanced. Many Iraqis adopt the same "throw-the-bums-out" mentality that Americans voice about Congress, even while supporting their own representatives. Distrust of the Governing Council was more pronounced in towns such as Kut, which had no representation, than in cities, such as Najaf, which were represented. Even in Iraq, politics is about patronage.

The party-slate system will not bolster representation. Many Iraqis share ethnicity but not local interests. Tel Afar, a town of 160,000 east of Mosul, is 95 percent Shiite Turkmen. Its Turkish-speaking residents have little in common with Turkmen in Erbil or Kirkuk. The party-slate system might also undercut religious freedom. Christians, for example, represent less than 3 percent of Iraq's population. They remain concentrated in towns such as Alqosh, Ainkawa and Duhok. Many Christians do not support parties such as the Assyrian Democratic Movement. Without district-based elections, they may find themselves without representation. Smaller religious communities that do not have their own political parties but who live in clustered districts may find themselves without political representation in the important constitutional process.

Four years ago, my University of Baghdad-trained translators repeatedly stumbled over words such as tolerance and compromise, concepts that simply did not exist in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Now, with the decision to transfer responsibility for Iraq to an international body concerned more with technical convenience than with democracy, the White House threatens the future stability of Iraq. A one-person, one-vote, one-time election based on communal identity may please men like Hadi Modarresi, but Iraqi democrats will view it as a betrayal of their future.

No one is going to be fooled by this, least of all the Iraqis. If the rationale for going in to Iraq was building a free democracy, we're liars.

Remembering

Using the "D"

Show Us the Proof

When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.

Mr. Bush said the 9/11 panel had actually confirmed his contention that there were "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said his administration had never connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Both statements are wrong.

Before the war, Mr. Bush spoke of far more than vague "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said Iraq had provided Al Qaeda with weapons training, bomb-making expertise and a base in Iraq. On Feb. 8, 2003, Mr. Bush said that "an Al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990's for help in acquiring poisons and gases." The 9/11 panel's report, as well as news articles, indicate that these things never happened.

Mr. Cheney said yesterday that the "evidence is overwhelming" of an Iraq-Qaeda axis and that there had been a "whole series of high-level contacts" between them. The 9/11 panel said a senior Iraqi intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan in the early 1990's, meeting with Osama bin Laden once in 1994. It said Osama bin Laden had asked for "space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded." The panel cited reports of further contacts after Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, but said there was no working relationship. As far as the public record is concerned, then, Mr. Cheney's "longstanding ties" amount to one confirmed meeting, after which the Iraq government did not help Al Qaeda. By those standards, the United States has longstanding ties to North Korea.

Mr. Bush has also used a terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush used to refer to Mr. Zarqawi as a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner" who was in Baghdad working with the Iraqi government. But the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor under the direction of Al Qaeda.

When it comes to 9/11, someone in the Bush administration has indeed drawn the connection to Iraq: the vice president. Mr. Cheney has repeatedly referred to reports that Mohamed Atta met in Prague in April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence agent. He told Tim Russert of NBC on Dec. 9, 2001, that this report has "been pretty well confirmed." If so, no one seems to have informed the C.I.A., the Czech government or the 9/11 commission, which said it did not appear to be true. Yet Mr. Cheney cited it, again, on Thursday night on CNBC.

Mr. Cheney said he had lots of documents to prove his claims. We have heard that before, but Mr. Cheney always seems too pressed for time or too concerned about secrets to share them. Last September, Mr. Cheney's adviser, Mary Matalin, explained to The Washington Post that Mr. Cheney had access to lots of secret stuff. She said he had to "tiptoe through the land mines of what's sayable and not sayable" to the public, but that "his job is to connect the dots."

The message, if we hear it properly, is that when it comes to this critical issue, the vice president is not prepared to offer any evidence beyond the flimsy-to-nonexistent arguments he has used in the past, but he wants us to trust him when he says there's more behind the screen. So far, when it comes to Iraq, blind faith in this administration has been a losing strategy.

Minding the Gap

From the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committe blog, The Stakeholder, comes a new analysis of the economy that matches my experience. The rich are doing well, the rest of us are fscked:

The Economic Numbers May Appear Strong, But Many Folks Are Hurting

But reports by health insurance companies, consumers are facing a sizable cost-sharing increases in 2004. As a result, employers are increasing cost sharing to control rising premiums, but in contrast they made little change in the total premium that employees pay. Employers appear to be using increased patient cost sharing to encourage less use of health services. With demand for healthcare relatively inelastic, those who pay premiums will realize most of their savings by shifting costs to those who use services.

Vote your pocketbook this fall. Bush refused to back unemployment compensation extensions at just the moment when mine ran out.

Cognitive Dissonance

At least 42 Iraqis killed, 142 injured in car bombings

By Tom Lasseter

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A pair of car bombings in Iraq on Thursday killed at least 42 Iraqis and injured 142.

The majority of those casualties - at least 36 dead and 138 wounded - came from a suicide car bomber outside the gates of an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps recruiting station.

A white Toyota Land Cruiser slammed into the crowd in front of the station at about 9 a.m. Shrapnel from a stack of artillery rounds attached to explosives in the vehicle ripped through men, women and children across four lanes of traffic and 50 yards in either direction.

"It was a terrible view. I saw many dead bodies lying in the street; many of them were burning," said Hussam Mohammed, a taxi driver who drove up as the bomb exploded. "There were body parts everywhere. I saw hands and heads. It was like a garden, with red everywhere, but instead of roses, there was flesh."

Witnesses said many of those caught up in the attack were ordinary people sitting in traffic. There was, for example, a bus full of families and workers starting their day that had stopped to let off some potential recruits.

Several people at the scene, including Iraqi policemen, said they thought the numbers of dead and wounded given by the Ministry of Health were low because of families picking up the dead and taking them home without making official reports, and bodies blown into fragments that hadn't yet been counted.

In the second bombing Thursday, six Civil Defense Corps troops were killed and four wounded in a car bombing near Balad, to the north of Baghdad.

I don't think the spiralling violence in Iraq is being well reported, however:

Americans more upbeat about Iraq, poll shows

By Ron Hutcheson

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A new poll shows that Americans have become much more upbeat about events in Iraq, giving President Bush his first political boost in months.

About 57 percent of Americans think that the military effort is going well, up from 46 percent last month. During the same period, Bush went from trailing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to leading slightly, 48 percent to 46 percent. A month ago, Kerry was on top in the presidential race, 50 percent to 45 percent.

The results of the latest Pew Research poll show how quickly the public mood can shift and underscore that the November election could hinge on the headlines of the moment. Bush's advantage over Kerry is within the poll's margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, which means the race is statistically too close to call.

"The terrain will surely shift between now and Election Day," Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said in a campaign analysis posted on the Internet. "Anyone who believes that the election could not go either way is too partisan to be helped."

The brightening public mood on Iraq may stem from several recent developments that pierced the gloom of continuing suicide bombings and other attacks. Perhaps most important, the number of U.S. deaths in Iraq declined sharply after U.S. forces negotiated a shaky truce with militia forces led by rebel cleric Moqtada al Sadr, ending open combat against a two-month Shiite uprising.

In addition, a United Nations envoy brokered the selection of a new Iraqi interim government, and the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the planned June 30 power shift there. At the same time, news coverage of the prisoner-abuse scandal has fallen off.

Pew poll director Andrew Kohut said the latest results show that public opinion is fluid toward Iraq. "The public has the capacity to rethink the situation," he said. "It underscores that this is going to be an event-driven election."

While Americans seem to be feeling better about Iraq, they remain ambivalent about aspects of the U.S. invasion and aren't optimistic about Iraq's future.

Only 41 percent think it's possible that Iraqis will form an effective government. About 44 percent think the Iraq invasion hurt efforts to combat terrorism, compared with 43 percent who share Bush's view that it has helped. Only 37 percent think Bush has a clear plan for Iraq, essentially unchanged from late April.

The poll also indicates that Bush got a significant boost from the extensive coverage of former President Reagan's funeral. Nearly all of the improvement in Bush's approval rating, from 44 percent to 48 percent, occurred after Reagan's death on June 5.

Dear Misleader

This is a pretty stinging indictment from a historically conservative organ:

LEADER: Bush has misled Americans on Iraq

Financial Times; Jun 18, 2004

The congressional commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US has concluded that there is no evidence to support the Bush administration's thesis that Saddam Hussein helped Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation carry them out. This conclusion, emerging from a strong tradition of congressional oversight, could be taken further.

The evidence the administration produced to demonstrate the link was, at best, spurious, at worst, fabricated. This is not a small matter, especially in the context of the Bush team's case for its war of choice against Iraq.

The first public justification for the war was that the Iraqi dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction with which he could dominate his neighbours and threaten the west. This was always an exaggeration. There was some reason to believe he had residual chemical and biological weapons, but none whatsoever to suggest he had reconstituted a nuclear arms programme. As we now know, no WMD of any description have been found; not one US assertion to the United Nations Security Council by Colin Powell, secretary of state, in February last year, has been substantiated.

The second public justification - which was wheeled on stage to distract the audience from the embarrassing absence of WMD - was that the war was about freeing Iraqis and, indeed, the Middle East from tyranny. After Falluja and Abu Ghraib, however, 92 per cent of Iraqis regard US troops as occupiers, while 2 per cent see them as liberators, according to a Coalition Provisional Authority poll.

Yet there was nothing intrinsically absurd about the WMD fears, or ignoble about opposition to Saddam's tyranny - however late Washington developed this. The purported link between Baghdad and al-Qaeda, by contrast, was never believed by anyone who knows Iraq and the region. It was and is nonsense, the sort of "intelligence" true believers in the Bush camp lapped up from clever charlatans they sponsored such as the now disgraced Ahmad Chalabi. Yet, even this week, vice-president Dick Cheney continues to assert Saddam had "long-established ties with al-Qaeda".

No wonder that, until recently, polls regularly showed more than half of Americans believed Iraq was behind the attack on New York's twin towers.

Whether the Osama and Saddam thesis was more the result of self-delusion or cynical manipulation, it - along with Washington's mismanagement of the whole Iraqi adventure - has been enormously damaging.

The Bush administration has misled the American people. It has isolated the US, as American diplomats and commanders pointed out this week. And its bungling in Iraq has given new and terrifying life to the cult of death sponsored by Osama bin Laden. Above all, it inspires little confidence it is capable of defeating the spreading al-Qaeda franchise, which always was the clear and present danger.

Words v. Deeds

So, are all the cable channels going to give the next Kerry speach a free play? W's 45 minute exercise in moral idiocy just got wall to wall coverage by MSNBC, CNN and Fox, according to my clicker. By my count, every third word was "terrah." As I noted back in January, the Bush sales ticket is going to be the War on Terrah. But, are we safer? No? That seems reason enough to vote these morons out.

Voting Blocs

Fr. Greeley is a priest of the Diocese of Chicago and a sociologist affiliated with both the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center and the sociology department of the University of Arizona.

The Abortion Issue Has Little, if Any, Effect on the Catholic Vote
Few are swayed by a candidate's pro-choice policy.

By Andrew Greeley

In the 2000 election, it would appear from available data (such as the 2002 General Social Survey of the National Opinion Research Center and the National Election Study of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan) that Catholics were more likely than white Protestants to favor Al Gore, by a margin of about 10 percentage points — a similar margin to that of John Kerry in current polls. Indeed, according Voter News Service exit polls, Gore did well in states with a substantial number of Catholic voters — margins of 30 percentage points among Catholics in Massachusetts, 17 in Illinois, 15 in New York, Maryland and Arizona. So much for the realignment to the Republicans.

But what about the Catholic pro-life vote? According to the National Opinion Research Center, or NORC, Catholics and Protestants differ little on a battery of abortion questions; large majorities think that abortion should be available when there is a risk of a defective child, a threat to the mother's health or a pregnancy caused by rape, while similar majorities reject abortion if the woman is unmarried or cannot afford another child or simply doesn't want a child. Only 4% of American Catholics consider themselves pro-life on all seven NORC questions, and a third of those voted for Gore anyway, despite his pro-choice stand. One might argue that Catholics should oppose abortion in all circumstances, but in fact they do not.

A useful item to measure the effect of such attitudes is abortion after rape. Among Protestants questioned, 20% reject the availability of abortion in such circumstances, as do 24% of Catholics. The latter group was 10 percentage points less likely to vote for Gore than other Catholics. The net loss of Catholic votes to the vice president therefore was 10% of 24%, or 2.4%. Because Catholics are approximately a quarter of the American population, one quarter of 2.4% is six-tenths of 1%. That is the small amount by which Gore's popular vote victory would have increased if abortion had not been an issue for some Catholics. Moreover, these calculations assume that abortion was the reason why anti-abortion Catholics did not vote for Gore. So the effect of Catholic abortion attitudes might have been even smaller.

To rephrase the mayor's comment, most Catholics do not vote on the basis of the abortion issue, and those who do have little effect. What then of the publicity created by some bishops who say Kerry has no right to receive communion and by the bishop of Colorado Springs, who contends that Catholics will lose the right to the sacraments if they vote for Kerry? An ad hoc committee of the bishops on such issues is unlikely to endorse draconian measures of this sort. Moreover, it is improbable that the Catholic hierarchy, disgraced and discredited as it is by the sexual abuse scandal, has the moral high ground to influence Catholic voters any more than it ever did, which was not at all.

A generation ago, the Catholic Church was "the Democratic Party at prayer." The abortion issue has made that less true, as has the the financial success of the children of Catholic immigrants. But Catholics are still more likely than Prots to pull the D lever.

Distraction from Truth

Questioning Nearly Every Aspect of the Responses to Sept. 11
By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: June 18, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 17 - For most of 2002, President Bush argued that a commission created to look into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks would only distract from the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism.

Now, in 17 preliminary staff reports, that panel has called into question nearly every aspect of the administration's response to terror, including the idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda were somehow the same foe.

Far from a bolt from the blue, the commission has demonstrated over the last 19 months that the Sept. 11 attacks were foreseen, at least in general terms, and might well have been prevented, had it not been for misjudgments, mistakes and glitches, some within the White House.

In the face of those findings, Mr. Bush stood firm, disputing the particular finding in a staff report that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization. "There was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Mr. Bush declared.

Such assertions, attributed by the White House until now to "intelligence reports," may now be perceived by Americans as having less credibility than they did before the commission's staff began in January to rewrite the history of Sept. 11, in one extraordinarily detailed report after another.

With its historic access to government secrets, the panel was able to shed new light on old accountings, demonstrating, for example, that Mr. Bush himself, in the weeks before the attack, had received more detailed warnings about Al Qaeda's intentions than the White House had acknowledged.

For now, the panel is casting its work in tentative terms. Its final report is due next month, on the eve of the Democratic convention. In this election year, its contribution has already been to portray Sept. 11 not just as a starting point in the war on terrorism, but also as a point on a continuum, one preceded and followed by other treacheries and failures.

At a briefing, a senior White House official sought again to turn away attention from the past. "The real issue is how do we move forward," the official said. "We've made a lot of changes since Sept. 11, because this country was simply not on war footing at the time of the attacks."

In the studies, Mr. Bush in particular has come off as less certain and decisive than he has portrayed himself. The final report, issued on Wednesday, reminded Americans that Mr. Bush remained in a classroom in Florida for at least five minutes after the second jet struck the World Trade Center, in what he told the panel was an effort "to project calm" for a worried nation.
....
The staff has been critical of the Clinton administration, too, pointing out missed opportunities in the late 1990's, when that White House shied from what might have been opportunities to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda.

But it was Mr. Bush and his top aides, particularly Mr. Cheney and Ms. Rice, who were most in the spotlight, particularly in this final week of the public hearings. On Thursday, it was Mr. Bush's self-image of being calm under fire that came under scrutiny, with a portrayal of a White House that was slow to respond as the attacks unfolded.

Starker still were preliminary staff conclusions on Wednesday that took aim at the assertions made by Mr. Cheney, in particular, of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda in connection to Sept. 11, including what the White House has repeatedly said might well have been a meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the chief hijacker, and a senior Iraqi intelligence officer.

Much of the support for the American invasion of Iraq last year was based, polls have suggested, on a perception that Mr. Hussein and his government were behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush acknowledged last fall that there was no evidence of such ties, but it was a perception that the White House never actively sought to squelch.

With the commission staff's saying it did not believe that the Prague meeting had occurred and that there was no evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq in connection with the attacks, Mr. Bush on Thursday sounded very much on the defensive.

"This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda," he said.

The sole example he cited of "numerous contacts" between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda was a meeting between a senior Iraq intelligence agent and Mr. bin Laden in Sudan in 1994, one that the commission said appeared to have gone nowhere.

In 2002, Mr. Bush did finally sign off on the plan to form the commission, bowing to Congressional pressure. Until now, he has resisted other proposals being pushed by Congress, including a major overhaul of intelligence agencies.

A plan for such an overhaul is expected to be among the commission's final recommendations next month, presenting Mr. Bush and the White House with yet another challenge.

And exactly how are we safer in our post-9/11 world? We're not? What will we tell the children?

Single and Paying Taxes

Finally. I've been yelling about this for some time.

Sex and the Single Voter
By BELLA M. DePAULO

Published: June 18, 2004

SUMMERLAND, Calif.

Want to attract single voters? Drop the underpants.
....

I have a different view about 2000. I don't think singles were cowering in fear of politics, or too dazzled by the whirl of their social lives, to get to the polls. I think they were singled out of a system that ignored them. In one of the debates in the 2000 election, a woman from the audience tried to focus the candidates on her demographic. "How will your tax proposals affect me as a middle-class, 24-year-old single person with no dependents?" she asked. Neither candidate acknowledged that she was one of millions of single voters. Neither promised to fight for the votes of single people. Mr. Bush had the facts on his side; the questioner would keep more of her money under his plan rather than under Mr. Gore's. But Mr. Bush did not mention that. He did, though, describe the great prescription drug plan she would get under Medicare.

Singles are getting another message this year. No matter how many thousands of lives you may have saved with your lifelong, relentless advocacy for safer cars and workplaces, and purer food and water; no matter how doggedly you have pursued the causes of government and corporate accountability, and inspired countless others to do the same, you can still be dismissed as immature and irresponsible if you are not married.

Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC program "Hardball," captured that sentiment when he said this to Ralph Nader about the current president: "He's raised two daughters; he's had a happy marriage. You've never been married. Isn't he more mature in his lifestyle than you are?" The unmarried Mr. Nader, Mr. Matthews said, lives "a life that's about as responsible as what's on the movies tonight."

So what's a candidate to do? Here are four suggestions.

1. Hit the books. Learn about the real place of singles in contemporary American society. Singles account for more than 40 percent of the electorate and work force. Households consisting of two parents and their children are slightly outnumbered by households comprised of a single person living alone. And most singles do not live alone. About nine million households are single-parent homes. Singles are also homeowners. Last year, they accounted for 46.7 percent of house sales. Singles are not predominantly youthful; only a third are aged 18 to 29. Singlehood is no longer a way station on the road to marriage. Women on average now spend more years of their adult lives single than married, and men are not far behind.

2. Learn the actual voting patterns. Despite the hype, it was not single women who had the lowest rate of voting in 2000, but single men. In their candidate preferences, the men stood out in their support of Ralph Nader (7 percent, compared to 4 percent for single women, and 2 percent for married men and women).

3. Master the issues of concern to singles. You will find, for example, that singles would like to make a decent living, have affordable health care and enjoy retirement. Their values are not antifamily — they are human values. The language of singles is the language of inclusiveness. Here is an example: "If you are willing to work hard and play by the rules, you are part of our family, and we're proud to be with you." It is from Bill Clinton's 1996 speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president.

4. Oh, and about those panties? Kiss them goodbye.

Your Airwaves

What Liberal Media, Vol. 3, NPR

That NPR harbors a liberal bias is an article of faith among many conservatives. Spanning from the early ’70s, when President Richard Nixon demanded that “all funds for public broadcasting be cut” (9/23/71), through House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s similar threats in the mid-’90s, the notion that NPR leans left still endures.

Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge, individual Republicans were NPR’s most popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of appearance. George Bush led all sources for the month with 36 appearances, followed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (8) and Sen. Pat Roberts (6). Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Secretary of State Colin Powell, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and Iraq proconsul Paul Bremer all tied with five appearances each.

There was a day when NPR was liberal. I worked there then. It was a long time ago.

FAKE ISSUE

Not So Frivolous
By BOB HERBERT

ALLIANCE, Ohio

President Bush traveled to Youngstown, Ohio, a few weeks ago to talk about health care, and before long he was reprising his complaint about "junk and frivolous" malpractice suits, which he said are discouraging good doctors from practicing medicine.

As he often does, the president called for reforms to make it more difficult for patients to seek compensation and to restrict the amount of damages that could be paid to those who prove they have been harmed.

To bolster his argument Mr. Bush introduced a local doctor, Compton Girdharry, to an audience at Youngstown State University. Dr. Girdharry, an obstetrician/gynecologist, said he had been driven from a practice of 21 years by the high cost of malpractice insurance.

The president praised Dr. Girdharry and thanked him for his "compassion."

If Mr. Bush was looking for an example of a doctor who was victimized by frivolous lawsuits, Dr. Girdharry was not a great choice. Since the early 1990's, he has settled lawsuits and agreed to the payment of damages in a number of malpractice cases in which patients suffered horrible injuries.

"It's been four years since my son passed away, and I don't feel any stronger or any happier than the day I lost him," said Lisa Vitale, whose suit against Dr. Girdharry and a hospital was settled out of court.

During an interview in her home in Alliance, Ms. Vitale said she went into Alliance Community Hospital on the morning of Aug. 17, 1993, for the delivery of her second child.

Her first delivery had been by Caesarean section, but Ms. Vitale said she was told that a vaginal delivery this time would not be a problem. While she was in the delivery room, however, the fetal monitoring strip was not properly checked and, she said, she was left alone and in pain for long periods. Dr. Girdharry stopped by around 6 p.m. and then went to dinner.

No one noticed that the baby was in serious distress.

Dr. Girdharry blamed the ensuing tragedy on the nurse. Ms. Vitale, he told me, "was being monitored by a nurse who was what they call a casual part-time nurse, who was not very well trained in reading fetal monitor strips."

By the time he was called back from dinner, he said, it was "too late" to take the steps, including a Caesarean delivery, that might have prevented permanent injury.

The baby was born with severe brain damage. He was unable to even drink from a bottle. He lived six years and four months, requiring nursing care the entire time.

Judy Mays, another patient of Dr. Girdharry, delivered a son by Caesarean section on March 26, 1999. The baby was fine. But, as alleged in a suit filed by Ms. Mays, when the incision was closed, a sponge with a cord and a ring attached to it was left inside.

Ms. Mays said she complained repeatedly to Dr. Girdharry about the pain she experienced, which at times was incapacitating. "When I brought it to the doctor's attention," she said, "he told me, `Well, you just had major surgery. You've got to heal."

After four and a half agonizing months, Ms. Mays felt a bulging growth beneath the skin, "about the size of a grapefruit."

She was petrified, she said, thinking it was a tumor. She said an associate of Dr. Girdharry ordered tests, including a CAT scan. The sponge was spotted, but by that time it had adhered to her internal organs and her intestines were surrounding it.

Dr. Girdharry told me he began operating to remove the sponge but found the damage was worse than he had expected. Another surgeon was called to complete the surgery.

Ms. Mays said she learned after the surgery that part of her large and small intestines had been removed, and that she probably would have died if the sponge had stayed inside her for another month. The surgery, she said, has left her with a variety of permanent ailments.

These are just two of the cases settled by Dr. Girdharry, who told me that his appearance in Youngstown with President Bush was "a dream come true."

5% of doctors accrue nearly all of the torts, but they keep their licenses. I have difficulty understanding this. The profession licenses itself, but it doesn't police itself, so I don't see where legislatures need to step in. It seems to me that the state Medical Associations need to step up.

Then there is that whole bogus problem of rising malpractice insurance. Warning: it's a .pdf. Bottom line: malpractice insurance rates have almost nothing to do with insurance payouts and almost everything to do with the investment profiles of the insurers. Docs are rewarded or punished by their insurers for how well the latter do on the stockmarket. BTW, you are similarly rewarded or punished by the rates the docs charge.

War. What is it Good For?

Patriot Act Provision Invoked, Memo Says
FBI Request Came Weeks After Ashcroft Denied Using Controversial Part of Law

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2004; Page A11

The FBI asked the Justice Department last fall to seek permission from a secret federal court to use the most controversial provision of the USA Patriot Act, four weeks after Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that part of the law had never been used, according to government documents disclosed this week.

A one-paragraph memo -- saying the FBI wanted to use the part of the law that allows investigators in terrorism and espionage cases easier access to people's business and library records -- was in a stack of documents the government has released under court order, as debate persists over whether use of the anti-terrorism law violates civil liberties.

The 383 pages of documents, many with names and other information blacked out, are the first results of a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit filed against the Justice Department by a coalition of civil rights groups. Last month, Ellen Segal Huvelle, a federal appeals court judge for the District, ordered the agency to release certain documents indicating how the FBI is carrying out the law. She denied the government's request to withhold such information for another year.

The Patriot Act was passed by Congress at the Bush administration's urging six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The law strengthens the executive branch's power to conduct surveillance, share intelligence with criminal prosecutors and charge suspected terrorists with crimes. Critics have been frustrated that the law allows many of its most controversial powers to be carried out in secret.

The newly disclosed documents, and a second batch the judge has ordered to be issued next month, come as an election-year fight is raging over whether several parts of the law should be extended beyond the end of next year, when they are scheduled to expire. President Bush argues that all of the law should be made permanent, but many Democrats and some conservative Republicans disagree.

The memo involves the provision at the core of that political debate. Until last September, Ashcroft had insisted that the government could not disclose how many times investigators had used the part of the law that allows his agency to get approval from an obscure secret body, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, which requires less proof than other courts to authorize wiretaps and other surveillance. Ashcroft had repeatedly said that information was classified. But last September, he unexpectedly declassified a memo saying that the provision had never been used.

The newly disclosed memo, dated Oct. 15, shows that an office of the FBI had asked an office at Justice to ask the FISA court to approve a search. The memo does not indicate the nature of the search, whether Justice ever asked the court and -- if so -- whether the court granted the request.

Jameel Jaffer, a staff attorney for the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, did not accuse Ashcroft of being untruthful in September. But Jaffer said the memo "tells us the attorney general was selectively declassifying information to serve his purposes." He added that the administration did not make public the FBI's request when, late last year, it argued a separate lawsuit over the Patriot Act that the ACLU filed in Michigan.

Secret court, secret acts. This is the America I vote for every four years

War on Americans

Pentagon seeks OK to spy on Americans
New bill would allow Pentagon to gather intelligence on US residents without their knowledge.
by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Newsweek reports that the US Department of Defense is looking for the right to gather information from, and about, Americans, without having to tell them that they are doing so. "Without a public hearing or debate," the news magazine reports, "Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants."

Currently all military intelligence organizations must comply with the Privacy Act. The act is a Watergate-era law that requires that any government official who is seeking information from a resident of the US disclose who they are and why they are seeking the information. But Newsweek reports that last month the Senate Intelligence Committee, in closed session, added the provision that would exempt the Pentagon from this restriction.

Among those pushing for the bill was "NORTHCOM," the new North American command set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Colorado. NORTHCOM's mission is to over see "homeland defense."

A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. The justification: "Current counterterrorism operations," the report explains, which require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States." ... Pentagon lawyers insist agents will still be legally barred from domestic "law enforcement." But watchdog groups see a potentially alarming "mission creep." "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a group frequently critical of the war on terror. "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night."

Spencer Ackerman, of The New Republic, writes on how the operation of the office of undersecretary of defense for intelligence in March of 2003, currently filled by the controversial Stephen Cambone, has turned into a power struggle for the control of intelligence between the Pentagon and the CIA.

Currently, all intelligence agencies, even military ones, fall under the titular control of the director of central intelligence – the soon-to-be retired, George Tenet. But the creation of the new undersecretary position, Mr. Ackerman writes, has prompted intelligence observers to suggest that Mr. Rumsfeld is trying to create a new center of gravity for the US intelligence community in the Pentagon.

Terrorism is being used to turn us into a de facto police state. Thank God the Bushies are completely inept.

Toss the Bums

Legal scholars say condoning abuse could be impeachable offense

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON- More than 400 legal scholars from across the country urged Congress Wednesday to consider impeaching President Bush and any high-level administration officials who approved the Iraqi prisoner abuses.

In a letter released by two Harvard Law School professors, scholars asked Congress to identify everyone who should be held accountable for the torture at Abu Ghraib prison, and determine what sanctions are appropriate. The sanctions, they said, could include "impeachment and removal from office of any civil officer of the United States responsible."

But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., meeting with the professors, declined to specifically address the impeachment issue. He instead said the best way to correct the matter is to "elect John Kerry" president.

He said Democratic senators are trying to round up enough support for a vote Thursday to subpoena the Justice Department for memos that could have laid the legal groundwork for justifying the prisoner abuse. Attorney General John Ashcroft has declined to make public the Justice Department memos, written in 2002.

In the letter, scholars said the prosecution of low-level military personnel for the abuses is not enough. Harvard law professor Christine Desan said Congress would have to determine if the abuses rose to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors which would be punishable by impeachment.

The prisoner abuse, made public in photos and video, is being investigated by military and Justice Department officials. And Congress is looking into administration memos that could have laid the legal groundwork justifying the abuse.

Bush has said he directed U.S. officials to conform to the law and international treaties.

The letter was signed by a host of legal notables, including former O.J. Simpson defender Alan Dershowitz and the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a former Massachusetts Congressmanmember who teaches at Georgetown University Law Center.

In a more just world, maybe. Let's just vote the criminals out in November. Okay?

Need to Know

Spy Work in Iraq Riddled by Failures
Informers' accounts were not properly vetted and electronic data were misread, officials say.

By Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — A pair of British-recruited spies in Iraq, whose alarming reports of Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons were rushed to the White House shortly before the U.S.-led invasion last year, were never interviewed by the CIA and are now viewed as unreliable, current and former U.S. intelligence officials say.

The CIA's reliance on the two Iraqis, who were recruited by Britain's MI6 in late 2002 and thought to have access to Hussein's inner circle, is the latest example to come to light of the failures in human intelligence gathering in Iraq. U.S. agencies were also beset by broader, more systemic problems that included failures in analyzing communications intercepts and spy satellite images, the officials interviewed by The Times said.

U.S. experts, for example, still have not been able to determine the meaning of three secretly taped conversations that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell played to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 in making the case for war. Investigators have been unable to identify who was speaking on the tapes or precisely what they were talking about.

U.S. analysts also erred in their analysis of high-altitude satellite photos, repeatedly confusing Scud missile storage places with the short, half-cylindrical sheds typically used to house poultry in Iraq. As a result, as the war neared, two teams of U.N. weapons experts acting on U.S. intelligence scrambled to search chicken coops for missiles that were not there.

"We inspected a lot of chicken farms," said a former inspector who asked not to be identified because he now works with U.S. intelligence. His U.N. team printed "Ballistic Chicken Farm Inspection Team" on 20 gray T-shirts to mark the futile hunt.

The problems the U.S. experienced in gathering and analyzing intelligence mirrored difficulties experienced by other Western intelligence agencies. Investigations of intelligence agencies in at least four countries have found the misjudgments of Iraq's weapons were founded on circumstantial evidence, unverified secondhand accounts, false assumptions, old intelligence and shoddy tradecraft.

The 9-11Commission is pointing out failures of intelligence pre-9-11, we had failures on the ground in Iraq, Tenet has resigned, and in a demonstrably dangerous world we simply don't have enough eyes and ears. We are probably at least a decade where we ought to be in terms of intelligence. That scares me.

War Crimes at the Top

Rumsfeld Issued an Order to Hide Detainee in Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER

Published: June 17, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 16 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison's rolls, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials said Wednesday.

This prisoner and other "ghost detainees" were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy, officials said.

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, the Army officer who in February investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, criticized the practice of allowing ghost detainees there and at other detention centers as "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law."

This prisoner, who has not been named, is believed to be the first to have been kept off the books at the orders of Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Tenet. He was not held at Abu Ghraib, but at another prison, Camp Cropper, on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport, officials said.

Pentagon and intelligence officials said the decision to hold the detainee without registering him - at least initially - was in keeping with the administration's legal opinion about the status of those viewed as an active threat in wartime.

Seven months later, however, the detainee - a reputed senior officer of Ansar al-Islam, a group the United States has linked to Al Qaeda and blames for some attacks in Iraq - is still languishing at the prison but has only been questioned once while in detention, in what government officials acknowledged was an extraordinary lapse.

"Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him," a senior intelligence official conceded Wednesday night. "The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn't."

The detainee was described by the official as someone "who was actively planning operations specifically targeting U.S. forces and interests both inside and outside of Iraq."

But once he was placed into custody at Camp Cropper, where about 100 detainees deemed to have the highest intelligence value are held, he received only one cursory arrival interrogation from military officers and was never again questioned by any other military or intelligence officers, according to Pentagon and intelligence officials.

The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Wednesday that officials at Camp Cropper questioned their superiors several times in recent months about what to do with the suspect.

But only in the last two weeks has Mr. Rumsfeld's top aide for intelligence policy, Stephen A. Cambone, called C.I.A. senior officials to request that the agency deal with the suspect or else have him go into the prison's regular reporting system.

Mr. Di Rita referred questions about the prisoner's fate to the C.I.A.

A senior intelligence official said late Wednesday that "the matter is currently under discussion."

In a more just world, Rumsfeld would be in the dock at The Hague.

Terrorism Preparedness

Air Defenses Faltered on 9/11, Panel Finds
Report Documents Command and Communication Errors

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 17, 2004; 8:00 AM

Vice President Cheney did not issue orders to shoot down hostile aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, until long after the last hijacked airliner had already crashed, and the order was never passed along to military fighter pilots searching for errant aircraft that morning, according to a new report issued this morning by the panel investigating the attacks.

A painstaking recreation of the faltering and confused response by military and aviation officials on Sept. 11 also shows that fighter jets never had a chance to intercept any of the doomed airliners, in part because they had been sent to intercept a plane, American Airlines 11, that had already crashed into the World Trade Center.

The jets also would probably not have been able to stop the last airplane, United Airlines Flight 93, from barreling into the White House or U.S. Capitol if it had not crashed in Pennsylvania, according to the report.

"We are sure that the nation owes a debt to the passengers of United 93," the report's authors wrote, referring to an apparent insurrection that foiled the hijackers' plans. "Their actions saved the lives of countless others, and may have saved either the U.S. Capitol or the White House from destruction."

The stark conclusions come as part of the last interim report to be issued by the staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which is racing to complete a final book-length report by the end of next month. The 10-member bipartisan panel will hear its last public testimony from military and aviation officials today.

Among the new information contained in the latest report is a detailed reconstruction of the reactions of President Bush, Cheney and other top government leaders that morning, including a recitation of a call between the two at 9: 45 a.m. after the Pentagon had been hit.

"Sounds like we have a minor war going on here," Bush tells Cheney, according to notes of the call. "I heard about the Pentagon. We're at war. . . . Somebody's going to pay."

The report also documents a succession of mistakes, wrong assumptions and puzzling errors made on the morning of Sept. 11 by air defense and aviation employees, who often did not communicate with each other when they should have and frequently seemed unsure of how to respond to the unprecedented assault by the al Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden.

Panel investigators also tersely conclude that authorities with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) repeatedly misinformed the commission in testimony last fall about its scrambling of fighters from Langley Air Force Base. NORAD officials indicated at the time that the jets were responding to either United 93 or American Airlines 77, which struck the Pentagon.

In fact, they were chasing "a phantom aircraft," American 11, which had already struck the Twin Towers, the panel found.

Air defense agencies "were unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11, 2001," the report concludes.

"They struggled, under difficult circumstances, to improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never trained to meet."

The new account essentially shifts the terms of the debate about air-defense response that day, because it indicates that none of the jetliners could likely be intercepted given the time available. But the report also suggests that time to respond might have been lengthened if the status of the flights had been communicated more quickly to and among military and Federal Aviation Administration officials.

No plan. No nothing. Richard Clark's hair might have been on fire but it is pretty clear that nobody else had a flaming head.

9/11 and it's discontents

With 9/11 Report, Bush's Political Thorn Grows More Stubborn
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, June 16 - The bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks further called into question on Wednesday one of President Bush's rationales for the war with Iraq, and again put him on the defensive over an issue the White House was once confident would be a political plus.

In questioning the extent of any ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the commission weakened the already spotty scorecard on Mr. Bush's justifications for sending the military to topple Saddam Hussein.

Banned biological and chemical weapons: none yet found. Percentage of Iraqis who view American-led forces as liberators: 2, according to a poll commissioned last month by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Number of possible Al Qaeda associates known to have been in Iraq in recent years: one, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose links to the terrorist group and Mr. Hussein's government remain sketchy.

That is the difficult reality Mr. Bush faces 15 months after ordering the invasion of Iraq, and less than five months before he faces the voters at home. The commission's latest findings fueled fresh partisan attacks on his credibility and handling of the war, attacks that now seem unlikely to be silenced even if the return of sovereignty to the Iraqis comes off successfully in two weeks.

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, was quick to seize on the commission's report to reprise his contention that Mr. Bush "misled" the American people about the need for the war. Even some independent-minded members of Mr. Bush's own party said they sensed danger.

"The problem the administration has is that the predicates it laid down for the war have not played out," said Warren B. Rudman, the former Republican senator from New Hampshire, who has extensive experience in assessing intelligence about terrorism. "That could spell political trouble for the president, there's no question."

Mr. Bush has said that he knows of no direct involvement by Mr. Hussein and his government in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the president has repeatedly asserted that there were ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, a position he stuck to on Tuesday when he was asked about Vice President Dick Cheney's statement a day earlier that Mr. Hussein had "long-established ties with Al Qaeda."

Mr. Bush pointed specifically on Tuesday to the presence in Iraq of Mr. Zarqawi, a Jordanian jihadist who sought help from Al Qaeda in waging the anti-American insurgency after the fall of Mr. Hussein, and who has been implicated by American intelligence officials in the killing of Nicholas Berg, the 26-year-old American who was beheaded by militants in Iraq in March.

The White House said Wednesday that there was a distinction between Mr. Bush's position and the commission's determination that Iraq did not cooperate with Al Qaeda on attacks on the United States.

The commission's report did not specifically address that distinction or Mr. Zarqawi's role. It found that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan in 1994, but that Iraq never responded to Mr. bin Laden's subsequent request for space to set up training camps and help in buying weapons. It said there were reports of later contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but "they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."

It quoted two senior associates of Mr. bin Laden denying adamantly "that any ties existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq." It concluded that there never was a meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence officer and Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers; in an interview with National Public Radio in January, Mr. Cheney cited intelligence reports about the possibility of such a meeting in asserting that there was not confirmation "one way or another" about links between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Democratic strategists said there was now no question that Mr. Bush would be dogged through the rest of the campaign by questions about whether the war was necessary, justified and sufficiently well planned. But Mr. Bush's supporters said that in political terms, the amazing thing was how well he had weathered the problems thrown at him by Iraq.

It is astonishing that Bush can continue to weather the loss in blood and treasure and still have any support at all. Compare these war crimes with Clinton's blowjob.

Collaboration

Oil official is assassinated as guerrillas blow up last Iraq pipeline
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

17 June 2004

Insurgents stopped all oil exports from Iraq yesterday by blowing up the one remaining pipeline to the Gulf, and assassinated the head of security for Iraqi oilfields in the north.

A bomb blast early yesterday morning destroyed a pipeline in the desolate Fao peninsula south of Basra, where saboteurs had struck the previous day. Crude oil gushing from the broken pipe formed deep black ponds in the sand. All crude oil exports from terminals in Basra and Khor al-Amaya have been stopped.

The attacks show that anti-government guerrillas now have the skill and the organisation to cripple permanently Iraq's oil exports. This will seriously damage the prospects of the new Iraqi interim government, which is badly in need of high oil revenues in order to restore the economy and create an army.

Three gunmen assassinated Ghazi Talabani, the top security official for the state-run Northern Oil Company, yesterday when his car stopped in a crowded market in Kirkuk. He was the third senior Iraqi official to be murdered since Saturday. The export pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields through Turkey to the Mediterranean was blown up on 25 May.

An escalation in bombings and assassinations was expected by the US before the so-called handover of power to an Iraqi interim government on 30 June. But the attacks on the oil industry and the electric power supply have been more sophisticated and effective than had been expected.

The international price of oil did not rise significantly after sabotage stopped Iraqi oil exports but this may change if, as appears likely, the saboteurs can sustain their attacks. Iraq had been hoping to raise its output to 2.5 million barrels a day in the near future.

Iyad Allawi, the new Iraqi Prime Minister, is hoping to restore security by getting senior officers from the old Iraqi army, disbanded by the US last May, to reconstitute their units. This is very different from the American plan to allow carefully vetted officers and men from Saddam Hussein's army to join a freshly raised military force on an individual basis. Iraqi officials estimate the cost of this new army will be between $3bn (£1.6bn) and $4bn.

The US may have difficulty, however, in stomaching an Iraqi military force consisting of the same military units that it triumphantly defeated 14 months ago. Officials here suspect that the US would prefer to create an army in Iraq which would be like Latin American security forces, easily influenced by Washington and independent of the civil government.

Although the US has said for a year that it is trying to build up an Iraqi army it has provided no budget for communications, ensuring that all messages will have to be passed through the US military forces.

Collateral Damage

Explosion Outside Iraqi Recruiting Station Kills Dozens

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 17, 2004; 5:21 AM

BAGHDAD, June 17 -- A car bomb steered to its target by a suicide driver exploded in a tremendous blast outside an Iraqi security forces recruiting station in downtown Baghdad Thursday, killing several dozen people and wounding scores from a line of men waiting to sign up.

The explosion ripped apart the vehicle carrying the bomb, demolishing it so thoroughly that a blackened engine block lay in one spot in the street and charred pieces of chassis were strewn about for yards. Another car, a battered blue sedan, was pushed astraddle the concrete median more than 80 yards away.

Ambulances wailed back and forth, carrying dead and wounded would-be soldiers and policemen to several Baghdad hospitals. Iraqi military police and members of the U.S.-organized Iraqi Civil Defense Corps waved sidearms and shouted excitedly, venting their frustration. Their U.S.-supplied combat boots crunched loudly on shattered glass as they strutted around the site of the bombing as if a display of force and rage could somehow undo the carnage.

Police and military officers on the scene estimated the number killed anywhere from 12 to 35 as nearby hospitals sought to deal with the steady arrival of dead and wounded. An Iraqi Health Ministry official, Saad Amili, told the Associated Press that the death toll was more than 30, with another 132 people wounded. There were no immediate reports of foreigners killed.

The same recruiting center was hit by a bomb Feb. 11 that killed 47 people, including passersby and Iraqi men signing up for duty.

The bomb, which unleashed its fury into a line of more than 100 men hoping to find jobs in the army or the paramilitary ICDC, was the latest in a daily drumbeat of explosions and assassinations designed to shake popular confidence in the 14-month-old U.S. occupation and the U.S.-sponsored interim government in the countdown to Iraq's recovery of limited sovereignty scheduled for June 30.

U.S. soldiers and foreign civilians have remained targets of choice for insurgents carrying out the attacks. But increasingly in recent days, the underground bombers also have aimed at Iraqis cooperating with the U.S. occupation or the interim Iraqi administration, from police to senior civil servants.

A frightened-looking Iraqi man near the scene of the blast said that, for him, the campaign of violence has worked. A former first lieutenant in the Iraqi air defense command, he was just driving up to the recruiting center when the bomb exploded but now has no intention of going back.

"I'll never go back to this place or the army, no matter what happens to Iraq," he said. "Nothing is worth giving my life for."

But Capt. Mohammed Imad, a 30-year-old ICDC officer, said that despite the attacks, he will persist in his job. "If I quit, who is going to stop these attacks?" he asked. "If we quit, only terrorists will have jobs in Iraq."

Britain, which has been the chief U.S. ally in the war in Iraq, condemned the attack. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the Associated Press said it was aimed at disrupting the transfer of power later this month.

"This is an attack directly at the Iraqi people," Straw said. "The terrorists used to justify their terror saying it was against the occupation. The occupation is going to end in 12 days time; now the terrorists appear to be trying to stop the transfer of power to the Iraqi people themselves."

A U.S. soldier who declined to give his name said Iraqi officers at the center refused to heed suggestions from him and other American troops patrolling the area that Iraqis showing up to volunteer should line up inside the facility, behind a concrete wall that would offer a measure of protection against such suicide bombers.

My, this is working out well.

Blood for Oil

Insurgents Assassinate Iraqi Oil Security Official
Bomb Closes Key Oil Pipeline in Southern Iraq

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 2:50 PM

BAGHDAD, June 16 -- Insurgents assassinated a senior Iraqi security official in the rich northern oilfields Wednesday and blew up another key pipeline in the south, closing off the spigot of Iraq's vital petroleum exports through the Persian Gulf.

The attacks on the state-owned oil industry, the country's main source of revenue, were part of an intensifying campaign of violence aimed at the 14-month-old U.S. military occupation and the interim Iraqi government scheduled to take over formal sovereignty June 30. With exports via the gulf shut down, the country stood to lose up to $60 million a day during repairs that oil experts said will take at least several days.

The mortal rhythm of car bombings, roadside explosions and other assaults have generated a climate of fear and instability among many Iraqis -- particularly those associated with the occupation -- instead of the national pride U.S. occupation authorities were hoping for as the handover date approaches. In addition to U.S. soldiers and foreigners working here, the insurgents increasingly have directed their fire at middle-ranking Iraqi officials participating in the U.S.-sponsored provisional administration of the country, from police to professors and bureaucrats.

A roadside bomb blew up Wednesday near Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi policeman and wounded five Iraqi civilians, the U.S. military said. Marines took into custody three Iraqi civilians who tried to flee the site and six U.S.-trained Iraqi Civil Defense Corps policemen suspected of participating in the bombing, a military spokeswoman said.

A similar attack Tuesday, this one by gunmen who fired down from an overpass on a convoy of vehicles driving near Baghdad International Airport, killed three Iraqi security personnel contracted by the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. command reported Wednesday.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed Wednesday and 21 people were wounded when a rocket crashed into a U.S. base near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military reported. A statement from the U.S. command said aircraft and other forces were called in but failed to find those who fired the rocket.

Ghazi Talabani, who was chief of security for the Northern Oil Co., was gunned down as he drove to work in Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's northern oil fields, police told reporters. Talabani was related to Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two main parties that with their militias have run Iraq's Kurdish area as a semi-independent zone under U.S. protection for more than a decade.

If I hear W talking about his "leadership" for a world which is more peaceful and more free one more time, I'm going to start throwing shoes at the TV.

War Crimes

Bush has a lot to answer for on Iraq torture

BY ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN
Elizabeth Holtzman is a former congresswoman, New York City comptroller and Brooklyn district attorney. She served on the House Judiciary Committee during impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

June 16, 2004

At a Senate hearing last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that President George W. Bush never ordered torture in connection with abusive interrogations of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan and violated no criminal laws of the United States. But the attorney general did not describe what the president did order with respect to these interrogations - and he refused to turn over key documents to the Senate.

The attorney general's self- serving sweeping denial disqualifies him from investigating and holding accountable those responsible for these interrogations. Ashcroft should appoint a special prosecutor to do so.

Under a little known statute, any American involved in the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, including the president of the United States, could be guilty of a federal crime.

The War Crimes Act of 1996 punishes any U.S. national, civilian or military, who engages in a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach means the "willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of prisoners. If death results, the act imposes the death penalty.

The possibility of prosecution must have haunted President Bush's chief lawyer, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. In order to reduce "the threat" of prosecution for the brutal interrogations of Taliban and al-Qaida members, Gonzales urged President Bush (in a January 2002 memo) to opt out of the Geneva Conventions for the war in Afghanistan. Although Gonzales doesn't mention that top officials could be targets of prosecutions under the War Crimes Act, plainly that is his concern. The president followed his advice.

Gonzales' logic was simple: Whenever the Geneva Conventions applied, so did the War Crimes Act of 1996. Since President Bush has repeatedly stated that the Geneva Conventions apply to Iraq, the War Crimes Act clearly applies to willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Whether the gimmick of opting out of the Geneva accords precludes War Crimes Act liability for Afghanistan remains to be seen.

Clearly, U.S. personnel subjected Iraqi detainees to inhuman treatment, such as forcing hooded prisoners into stressful positions for lengthy periods of time, using dogs to intimidate and bite naked prisoners, dragging naked prisoners on the ground with a leash around their necks, forcing prisoners to engage in or simulate sexual acts, beatings and on and on.

There is no shortage of evidence to document the inhuman treatment, including the notorious photos of Abu Ghraib prisoners as well as Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's inquiry, which found "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses." The UN high commissioner for human rights recently reached similar conclusions. The International Red Cross repeatedly protested the treatment of Iraqi detainees.

The key question is how high up the responsibility goes for these abhorrent acts. The War Crimes Act covers government officials who give the orders for inhuman treatment as well as those who carry them out. Since the War Crimes Act punishes for inhuman treatment alone, prosecutions under that act can by-pass any disagreement over the exact meaning of torture - and whether the Justice Department's absurdly narrow definition is correct. In addition, under international law, officials who know about the inhuman treatment and fail to stop it are also liable.

We need to know what directives Bush gave for CIA and military interrogations in Iraq. We also need to know what the president and his subordinates, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, knew about the inhuman treatment of Iraqi prisoners - and when they knew it and what they did about it.

Bush must stop claiming that the problems lie with just a few bad apples. That is simply not true. We know that orders for inhuman treatment came directly from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military officer in Iraq. But we don't yet know where he got his orders. Similarly, the president should disclaim the contention that his powers as commander-in-chief override U.S. criminal laws; it smacks of President Richard Nixon's unsuccessful claim of "national security" during the Watergate scandal, and is baseless.

We simply cannot prosecute only the "small fry" for this scandal that has undercut our mission in Iraq and besmirched our reputation. We have to demonstrate that the rule of law applies to everyone responsible, including the president, if the evidence warrants - as we did in Watergate. There must be a thorough investigation of the higher-ups, and that requires a full congressional inquiry and the appointment of a special prosecutor.

The horrendous mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners has disgraced the United States and endangered our troops and citizens. The best way to vindicate our country and undo the damage done to Iraqi prisoners is to ensure that everyone responsible is held accountable - without exceptions. We may pay a terrible price if we fail to do so.

Strong leadership. Right.

Culture of Cruelty

Ex-Soldier Recalls Beating He Received in Guantanamo Drill

By David Zucchino, Times Staff Writer

GEORGETOWN, Ky. — Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sean Baker reenlisted in the Kentucky National Guard. He considered himself a patriot, he says, and felt a strong call to serve his country.

Baker, 37, a Persian Gulf War veteran, was disappointed when his unit wasn't activated. So he volunteered for another Kentucky National Guard unit assigned to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where as a military policeman he guarded detainees accused of being Talibs and Al Qaeda members.

There, early on the morning of Jan. 24, 2003, Spc. Baker says, he was choked and beaten by fellow MPs on the steel floor of a 6-by-8 prison cell during a botched training exercise. Since then, he claims, the military has abandoned him.

Baker says he volunteered to put on an orange prison jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative detainee in a training drill. But the five-man MP "immediate response force" sent in to extract him was not told of the exercise. According to Baker's lawyer, the soldiers were told that Baker was an unruly detainee who had been doused with pepper spray after assaulting a sergeant.

Four MPs slammed Baker to the floor, he says, then choked him and pounded his head at least three times against the floor. Gasping for breath, he managed to spit out a code word — "red" — and to croak: "I'm a U.S. soldier! I'm a U.S. soldier!"

But the beating continued, according to Baker, until the jumpsuit was yanked down in the struggle, revealing his military uniform. Only then did the MPs realize that they had been beating an American soldier — causing a traumatic brain injury, Baker alleges.

"What happened to me is something that should never have happened to any American soldier," Baker wrote in an e-mail response to questions from the Los Angeles Times. "I pray it will never happen again."

Honorably discharged with a medical retirement in April, Baker spends dreary days inside a nondescript duplex in central Kentucky, unable to work because of what he says are seizures caused by the beating. He is taking nine prescription medications for seizures and headaches, his lawyer said. He has yet to receive disability payments promised by the military.

"The way the military treated Sean is unconscionable — and the way they continue to treat him is even worse," said attorney Bruce Simpson.

The military at first said Baker's medical discharge was not related to the beating at Guantanamo. Last week, the military reversed itself, saying the incident was partly responsible for his discharge.

Lt. Col. Jim Marshall, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said that an internal investigation in February 2003 concluded that no one was liable for Baker's injuries and there was no need for a criminal inquiry. Another spokeswoman, Maj. Laurie Arellano, said the investigation concluded that Baker's injuries were a "foreseeable consequence" of the drill.

Nick Kristof surfaced this story more than 10 days ago, but now we hear from Sean Baker directly. What kind of military culture are we condoning where things like this can happen?

Consent of the Governed

Halliburton, Once Again

Vice President Dick Cheney's penchant for secrecy has repeatedly thrust him into an embarrassing spotlight. It began with his clandestine energy task force. Now it involves contracts in Iraq for Halliburton Inc., which Cheney ran from 1995 to 2000.

For months, Cheney has denied knowing about a controversial Pentagon contract awarded to Halliburton in 2002. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 14, Cheney stated that he had not been informed about any Halliburton contracts and that political appointees were not involved with them. But Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Cheney's staff was briefed at least twice by political appointees who awarded Halliburton the contract.

The meetings may have been harmless, a simple notification of how the Pentagon intended to handle the restoration of Iraq's oil facilities after the war. And there is no evidence that Cheney used his influence to get Halliburton the contract. But what makes this more than just another Washington blip is the next chapter, the emergence of six whistle-blowers who have told Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, that Halliburton appears to be fleecing the U.S. Treasury on its cost-plus contracts.

The incentive for the company is strong. Cost-plus means Halliburton gets a set percentage above actual costs, so in general the more it spends, the more it makes.

Five of the whistle-blowers worked directly for Halliburton, and one for a major Halliburton subcontractor. The head of the Government Reform Committee, Tom Davis (R-Va.), refused to allow them to testify in a hearing Tuesday about Iraq and contracting.

David Wilson, a convoy commander for Halliburton, and James Warren, a Halliburton truck driver, stated that new $85,000 Halliburton trucks in Kuwait were "torched" if they got a flat tire. According to Wilson, the company "removed all the spare tires in Kuwait," presumably so the entire truck would have to be replaced after a blowout. In addition, they said, they were instructed not to change the oil on trucks. Warren claims that after he expressed his concerns to Randy Harl, the head of a Halliburton subsidiary, he was fired. Marie deYoung, who worked in the subcontracts department of Halliburton, said the company paid for a laundry service that was so inefficient it cost $100 a bag.

Other evidence suggests this is more than sour grapes from former employees. A May 13 Pentagon audit said Halliburton exercised little control over subcontractors and didn't monitor the costs of contracts. The General Accounting Office has also investigated and found numerous problems.

On Tuesday, Reps. Davis and Waxman made some progress by agreeing that Halliburton executives would be asked to testify to their committee and that the two House members would consult with each other on whether any documents should be subpoenaed. There may be nothing to hide in regard to the execution of the Halliburton contract. Holding open hearings is the way to demonstrate that.

Bushco holds us and our oversight in open contempt. We can respond to that.

From the Top

Can it be? Is the press starting to wake up?

Torture Policy

Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A26

SLOWLY, AND IN spite of systematic stonewalling by the Bush administration, it is becoming clearer why a group of military guards at Abu Ghraib prison tortured Iraqis in the ways depicted in those infamous photographs. President Bush and his spokesmen shamefully cling to the myth that the guards were rogues acting on their own. Yet over the past month we have learned that much of what the guards did -- from threatening prisoners with dogs, to stripping them naked, to forcing them to wear women's underwear -- had been practiced at U.S. military prisons elsewhere in the world. Moreover, most of these techniques were sanctioned by senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Iraqi theater command under Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez. Many were imported to Iraq by another senior officer, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller.

In December 2002, Mr. Rumsfeld approved a series of harsh questioning methods for use at the Guantanamo Bay base. According to the Wall Street Journal, these included the removal of clothing, the use of "stress positions," hooding, "fear of dogs," and "mild non-injurious physical contact." Even before that, the Journal reported, interrogators at Guantanamo forced prisoners to wear women's underwear on their heads. A year later, when some of the same treatment was publicized through the Abu Ghraib photographs, Mr. Rumsfeld described it as "grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty."

Administration officials have said that tougher techniques are available at Guantanamo, where the Geneva Conventions are considered inapplicable, than in Iraq, where they unquestionably apply. Yet through much of the past year, the opposite appears to have been the case. After strenuous protests from legal professionals inside the military, Mr. Rumsfeld ordered a review of interrogation techniques in early 2003 that led, in April that year, to the dropping of a number of methods at Guantanamo that he had earlier approved, including the use of dogs, stress positions and nudity.

Later, several of the techniques that were banned in Guantanamo were adopted in Iraq. In late August and September 2003 Gen. Miller visited Abu Ghraib with the mandate to improve interrogations. Senior officers have testified to Congress that he brought "harsh" techniques from Guantanamo. Gen. Sanchez's command then issued a policy that included the use of stress positions and dogs, along with at least five of seven exceptional techniques approved by Mr. Rumsfeld in the revised Guantanamo policy. After further objections from uniformed lawyers, Gen. Sanchez modified the policy in mid-October, but interrogators and guards at Abu Ghraib went on using the earlier rules. They were committing crimes, but they were not improvising: Most of what they did originally had been sanctioned by both the defense secretary and U.S. Central Command.

It's not clear why interrogation techniques judged improper or illegal by a Pentagon legal team were subsequently adopted in Iraq. Nor is it clear what those standards are today, either in Iraq or elsewhere -- breaking with decades of previous practice, the Bush administration has classified them. Congressional leaders who have vowed to get to the bottom of the prisoner abuse scandal still have much to learn; they will not succeed unless the scale and pace of their investigations are stepped up.

The Senate, however, has an opportunity today to directly address the mess the administration has made of interrogation policy and of America's global standing. An amendment to the defense authorization bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), would reaffirm the commitment of the United States not to engage in torture, and it would require the defense secretary to provide Congress with guidelines ensuring compliance with this standard. Sadly, the Bush administration's policy decisions have cast doubt on whether this country accepts this fundamental principle of human rights. Congress should insist that it does.

Here is Today In Congress. If you aren't seeing your business there, write your congresscritter. Faxes work better than emails, by the way.

Cruel and Unusual

Top Iraqi Official Objects To Treatment as POW

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A24

Gen. Amir Saadi, the onetime liaison between Saddam Hussein's government and U.N. weapons inspectors, has been kept in solitary confinement since he surrendered to U.S. troops on April 12, 2003, according to his wife and friends.

Saadi was classified as a prisoner of war by U.S. authorities a month after his surrender. The Geneva Conventions say prisoners of war "may not be held in close confinement except where necessary to safeguard their health." They also may not be "threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," if they refuse to answer questions, according to the conventions.

Detlev F. Vagts, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in international law governing wartime, said in a telephone interview, "Clearly we [U.S. forces] and Iraqi forces will have the right to confine people causing trouble or suspected of insurgency," but he added: "That would not cover al-Saadi."

A Defense Department spokesman would neither confirm nor deny yesterday that Saadi is in isolation, saying it has been the department's "policy not to discuss the disposition of individual detainees . . . because of Geneva Convention prohibitions on subjecting detainees to public scrutiny." But he said Saadi "is being treated fairly and humanely."

"It is cruel to detain innocent people in solitary confinement indefinitely, but it is far worse to be cut off from family and loved ones when they are only 15 minutes drive away and phone connections not accessible," Saadi, 66, wrote in a message delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross to his wife, Helma, on Feb. 16. She made excerpts from that message and others available to The Washington Post.

"My daily high is the exercise in fresh air, one hour in the morning, another in the afternoon," he wrote in another message that month. "These two hours are frequently curtailed" and "the twice weekly showers are sometimes missed."

Saadi was the first of the 55 most wanted senior officials in the Hussein government, the "deck of cards," to surrender, and he is among about 100 "high-value targets" who have been held in a VIP prison near the Baghdad airport. That prison is controlled by Maj. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, military head of the Iraq Survey Group, whose task has been to study Hussein's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs and to determine whether there were connections between his government and al Qaeda terrorists.

Under current procedures, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz must sign off on the release of Saadi or any other "deck of cards" official, a senior Pentagon official said. But under Article 118 of the Geneva Conventions, Vagts said, POWs "shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities."

With the transfer of limited authority in Iraq on June 30, leaders of the U.S.-led occupation and the interim Iraqi government are negotiating a transfer of custody of Hussein and former senior officials in his government. Yesterday, U.S. occupation administrator L. Paul Bremer publicly discussed the possibility of transferring legal custody of Hussein to the Iraqis while retaining physical custody until the government has an appropriate prison.

In case you haven't figured it out, these people are both incompetent AND nuts.

The Timeline

Panel Investigating 9/11 Attacks Cites Confusion in Air Defense
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, June 15 - The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks has found that the Pentagon's domestic air-defense command was disastrously unprepared for a major terrorist strike on American soil and was slow and confused in its response to the hijackings that morning, according to officials who have read a draft report of the commission's findings.

The officials said the draft had been circulated in recent days among commission members and at the Pentagon in preparation for public release of the report at a hearing on Thursday.

[In Spain on Tuesday, a judge ordered 15 people to stand trial in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.]

The 9/11 commission draft summarized the response of the military, the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies with this passage:

"On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen. What ensued was a hurried attempt to create an improvised defense by officials who had never encountered or trained against the situation they faced."

The report, they said, suggests - though it does not say explicitly - that a more organized response by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, might have allowed fighter pilots to reach one jetliner and shoot it down before it flew into the Pentagon, more than 50 minutes after the first of the hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

Instead, the report finds, an emergency order from Vice President Dick Cheney authorizing the hijacked planes to be shot down did not reach pilots until the last of the four commandeered jetliners had crashed into a field in western Pennsylvania, after a struggle between terrorists and passengers aboard that plane.

A spokesman for Norad, which is based in Colorado, had no immediate comment on accounts of the report. Norad's commander, Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are to testify before the commission at the Thursday hearing, along with former officials of the F.A.A., which has been harshly criticized by the commission in the past.

Commission officials said that Norad and the F.A.A. believed that elements of the criticism in the draft report were wrong or exaggerated, and that they were pressing for last-minute corrections. The 10-member bipartisan commission, which is in the final weeks of its investigation, has repeatedly tangled with the air-defense command and the aviation agency, and issued subpoenas to both last year in trying to gather documents and testimony.

The commission's public hearings this week - Wednesday on Al Qaeda and the development of the Sept. 11 plot, Thursday on the chronology of that morning and how Norad, the F.A.A. and other agencies responded to the attacks - are the last the panel is scheduled to hold before it delivers a final, all-encompassing report late next month.

Thomas H. Kean, the commission's chairman and a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said in an interview Tuesday that the hearings this week would "close the circle" on the inquiry and alter the public's understanding of exactly what happened on Sept. 11 and of the plotting of Qaeda terrorists in the months before.

While Mr. Kean said he could not disclose in advance what exactly the commission had learned, other panel officials said the hearings this week would depict widespread chaos within the federal government on the day of the attacks, offering extensive new evidence of how the White House, the Pentagon and federal emergency response agencies were slow to react.

Members of the commission, they said, are expected to question witnesses about hesitation among White House aides on the morning of the attacks, why President Bush was allowed to remain in a meeting with Florida schoolchildren for several minutes after it became clear that a terrorist attack was under way and why he was then taken on a perplexing, hopscotch series of flights on Air Force One that created the appearance of chaos among the nation's leaders.

"There was a lot of chaos," Mr. Kean said. "We'll go over what the president did, what the vice president did, what was going on in the PEOC - the whole story." PEOC is the acronym for the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a White House bunker where Mr. Cheney and senior aides were sheltered in the hours after the attacks.

Mr. Kean said that in a closed meeting on Tuesday, the panel began to debate the report's final recommendations in earnest, including proposals for a sweeping overhaul of the nation's intelligence agencies. He said he remained optimistic that the commission could produce a unanimous report.

Commission officials have made clear in the past that the report will offer blistering criticism of the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and other intelligence and counterterrorism agencies for failures before Sept. 11. Some members have suggested that the commission may want to recommend the creation of domestic intelligence-gathering agencies separate from the F.B.I., similar to Britain's MI-5.

The intelligence overhaul "is probably the most complex and the most difficult" of the issues under consideration by the panel, Mr. Kean said. "But yes, I'm optimistic. Even with 10 very independent-minded people, this is not impossible."

What WAS the Preznit doing sitting and reading to those schoolkids? How come fighter jets weren't scrambled after the first plane went into the WTC? I want to know.

Moral Terpitude as Policy

Robert Scheer:
Tout Torture, Get Promoted
Defending cruelty can be a career booster in Bush's administration.

What a revelation to learn that the Justice Department lawyer who wrote the infamous memo in effect defending torture is now a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge. It tells you all you need to know about the sort of conservative to whom George W. Bush is turning in his attempt to pack the federal courts.

Conservatives once were identified with protecting the rights of the individual against the unbridled power of government, but this is not your grandfather's conservatism. The current brand running things in D.C. holds that the commander in chief is above all law and that the ends always justify the means. This has paved the way for the increasingly well-documented and systematic use of torture in an ad hoc gulag archipelago for those detained anywhere in the world under the overly broad rubric of the "war on terror."

Those still clinging to the hopeful notion that photographic evidence of beatings, dead detainees, sexual degradation and threats of electric shock were all the work of a few twisted reservists aren't reading the newspapers. Press accounts are following the paper trail up the chain of command to a heated and lengthy debate inside the White House about how much cruelty constitutes torture.

On Sunday, the Washington Post published on its website an internal White House memo from Aug. 1, 2002, signed by then-Assistant Atty. Gen. Jay S. Bybee, which argued darkly that torturing Al Qaeda captives "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted under President Bush. The memo then continued for 50 pages to make the case for the use of torture.

Was it as a reward for such bold legal thinking that only months later Bybee was appointed to one of the top judicial benches in the country? Perhaps he was anointed for his law journal articles bashing Roe vs. Wade and legal protection for homosexuals, or for his innovative attack on the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the popular election of U.S. senators. But it's hard to shake the notion that his memo to Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales established Bybee's hard-line credentials for an administration that has no use for moderation in any form.

This president has turned his war on terror into an excuse for undermining due process and bypassing Congress. For Bybee and his ideologue cohorts, however, the American president is now more akin to a king, and legal or moral restraints are simply problems that can be overcome later, if anybody bothers to question the tactics: "Finally, even if an interrogation method might violate Section 2340A [of the U.S. Torture Convention passed in 1994], necessity or self-defense could provide justification that would eliminate any criminal liability."

In fact, though, this was an argument of last resort for Bybee, whose definition of torture "covers only extreme acts … where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure…. Because the acts inflicting torture are extreme, there is [a] significant range of acts that, though they might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, fail to rise to the level of torture."

Bybee's generous standard should bring comfort to the totalitarian governments that find the brutal treatment of prisoners a handy tool in retaining power or fighting wars. Even Saddam Hussein, who always faced the threat of assassination and terrorism from foreign and domestic rivals, can now offer in his defense Bybee's memo that his actions were justifiable, on the grounds of "necessity or self-defense."

When confronted by the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee with the content of Bybee's torture defense, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft responded that the memo did not guide the administration. Yet, the Bybee memo was clearly the basis for the working group report on detainee interrogations presented to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld a year later. And if Bybee's work was rejected as reprehensible, why was he rewarded — with Ashcroft's deepest blessings — with a lifetime appointment on the judicial bench only one level below the Supreme Court?

Frighteningly, the Bybee memo is not some oddball exercise in moral relativism but instead provides the most coherent explanation of how this administration came to believe that to assure freedom and security at home and abroad, it should ape the tactics of brutal dictators.

These people have turned every traditional American value on its head. They are not worthy to even walk among the rest of us.

Getting Noticed

I gave an interview to a reporter for the Bergen (NJ) Record a couple of weeks ago. It was printed today.

By BRIAN KLADKO
STAFF WRITER

The war in Iraq is not only being fought in Iraq. It's also being fought online.

Hawks and doves have turned to their personal Web logs, or blogs, to vent in a way that wasn't possible a decade ago. The war may even be giving blogging more momentum.

"There's no doubt that a lot of Web logs began because of the war, and more are born, even today, because of the war," said Jay Rosen, a blogger, avid blog-watcher, and chairman of New York University's journalism department.

The result: A rancorous, nasty debate is unfolding online, and it's far less polite than those found in politicians' speeches, newspaper and magazine editorials, or even cable television talk shows.

Take, for example, Absit Invidia (Latin for "let there be no ill will"), the blog of Steve Sipperly, a university employee in Connecticut:

"Here is a president who thinks it responsible to use American kids as cannon fodder to advance a Wilsonian vision of freedom at the point of a gun. He's not only dim, he's damn well delusional as well. ... Seeing that smirking, incompetent dolt promise more of the same inspired me to actively work against his reelection this November."

War supporters also have a highly visible presence in the blogosphere, and can be equally passionate about their cause.

"The great struggle of our time - not only for the United States, but for the West in general - is a struggle against a viciously intolerant, totalitarian, and oppressive strain of fundamentalist Islam," Dale Franks, a writer and software programmer from Escondido, Calif., wrote last week on his three-person blog, QandO ("Questions and Observations"). "If they have their way, they will destroy our culture, change our political and religious beliefs, and destroy all those things that make us a free people. And fighting against that is neither pointless nor senseless."

Blogging, which began to catch on four years ago, is touted by some adherents as the next leap forward for the Internet, or even for society as a whole - a way for the masses to share their views with the world, and to hear back. To blogging evangelists, it's the personal, opinionated nature of blogs that makes them more engaging than traditional news sites.

"I don't really get 'the news.' I get a sense of the news, which I don't think I could ever say before the Web log era," said Howard Greenstein, a Mahwah resident who keeps track of about 75 blogs. "I get a spectrum of opinions and a spectrum of ideas, and I guess it's then up to me as a reader to figure out what part of it I believe and what parts I don't."

For now, however, the people most excited about blogs are the people who create them. In the pre-Web era, they would have had to content themselves with writing letters to the editor, or spouting off on a barstool. Now they have a megaphone to the world, no matter how many are actually tuning in.

The much-touted blog of Howard Dean - the presidential candidate who lost to John Kerry in the Democratic primary but helped galvanize opposition to the war - likely inspired a lot of like-minded folks to get up on their own soapbox.

"The left is pissed," said Melanie Mattson, an out-of-work theologian from Falls Church, Va., whose blog is called "Just a Bump in the Beltway." "And blogging is one of the ways to relieve that frustration, which is why all of us on the left who blog are really pretty prolific."

Greenstein and a couple of West Coast friends started their own blog in April 2002, Correspondences.org, calling it a "newspaper out of the box" - a collection of mostly first-person accounts from about 80 volunteers around the world. It doesn't try to have a particular point of view, and carries articles on a wide range of topics. But Iraq and the war on terror are probably the most frequent topics, and most of the postings are critical of President Bush, Greenstein said.

If a recent survey is any guide, the people reading blogs lean left. An advertising firm that caters to bloggers - yes, some of them actually make a little money from their sites - conducted an online survey of blog readers between May 17 and May 19 and found that the largest share, 40 percent, identified themselves as Democrats, followed by Republicans (23 percent), Independents (20 percent), Libertarians (11 percent), and Greens (4 percent). The survey, by Blogads, had more than 17,000 respondents.

Although the survey indicates that liberals outnumber conservatives by a healthy margin, two of the most popular bloggers, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com and Andrew Sullivan at andrewsullivan.com, are hawks. And a May 27 Technorati search for the word "Iraq" turned up a fairly balanced mix of those who support Bush's policy and those who don't.

The blogosphere is so young, amorphous, and ever-changing that it's difficult to pin it down. But bloggers believe that anti-war, anti-Bush voices have been ascendant in the past year.

"As things have gotten worse and worse in Iraq, the blogosphere has become the liberals' version of talk radio," said Sean-Paul Kelly, founder of the Agonist, a left-leaning blog. "It really has evolved into our trump card."

Bobby Eberle, founder of the conservative Web site GOPUSA.com, thinks the blogging left, after a slow start, has caught up to the right. At this point, however, he can't tell which side holds sway.

"You can get opinions on all sides, from the extreme to the more mainstream, both left and right," Eberle said. "And I don't see one really dominating right now. But you definitely get all sides represented."

Political Asset

Mainstream Anti-Americanism

By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 15, 2004; 10:00 AM

The unexpected eruption of anti-American rage among young Iraqi men swarming to the site of a suicide bombing in downtown Baghdad Monday is no isolated incident. Rather, Iraq can be seen as the violent epicenter of a slow-motion earthquake of anti-Americanism with tremors felt thousands of miles away in countries once known for their American sympathies.

In Australia, the Federal Labor Party leader Mark Latham has called for withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq, a fairly bold stance in a country that has long prided itself on its tight alliance with the United States. His party has also enlisted Peter Garrett, former lead singer for the rock band Midnight Oil, as a parliamentary candidate.

Arrogance wedded to incompetence doesn't make a lot of friends.

Waste, Fraud, Abuse

GOP refusing to allow testimony on Halliburton spending

By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Halliburton Inc. paid high-priced bills for common items, such as soda, laundry and hotels, in Iraq and Kuwait and then passed the inflated costs along to taxpayers, according to several former Halliburton employees and a Pentagon internal audit.

Democrats in the House of Representatives, who are feuding with House Republicans over whether the spending should be publicly aired at a hearing on Tuesday, released signed statements Monday by five ex-Halliburton employees recounting the lavish spending.

Those former employees contend that the politically connected firm:

-Lodged 100 workers at a five-star hotel in Kuwait for a total of $10,000 a day while the Pentagon wanted them to stay in tents, like soldiers, at $139 a night.

-Abandoned $85,000 trucks because of flat tires and minor problems.

-Paid $100 to have a 15-pound bag of laundry cleaned as part of a million-dollar laundry contract in peaceful Kuwait. The price for cleaning the same amount of laundry in war-torn Iraq was $28.

-Spent $1.50 a can to buy 37,200 cans of soda in Kuwait, about 24 times higher than the contract price.

-Knowingly paid subcontractors twice for the same bill.

Halliburton is already under fire for allegations of overcharging the Pentagon for fuel and soldiers' meals. The latest accusations center on whether Halliburton properly keeps track of its bills from smaller subcontractors, Pentagon auditors said in a month-old report released Monday by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

The 36-page report by the Defense Contract Audit Agency said that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had a billing system that was "inadequate," had numerous deficiencies and billing misstatements and that KBR didn't follow laws and regulations relating to spending and recordkeeping. Its contracting practices are so bad, the auditors said, that KBR shouldn't be allowed to bill the Pentagon directly without the government poring over every detail in advance.

Statements by the whistleblowers - five of whom were identified - and the government's audit report "portray a company and a contracting environment that has run amok," Waxman wrote in a letter to Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., on Monday.

Government Reform -- 11 a.m. Rebuilding Iraq. 2154 Rayburn.

Government Reform -- 2 p.m. National security subc. Iraq. 2247 Rayburn.

Set your VCRs or Tivos accordingly.

Bizarre

Reporters in chains
Under Homeland Security orders, journalists from England, Sweden, Holland and other friendly countries are being detained at U.S. airports, strip-searched and deported.

By Robert Schlesinger

June 15, 2004 | The Department of Homeland Security has started enforcing an obscure provision in immigration law requiring foreign journalists to seek special visas before entering the United States, even though their nonreporting countrymen can enter without any visa at all. Last year, at least 13 foreign journalists were detained and deported at U.S. airports -- most in Los Angeles -- according to the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. At least one more journalist was similarly turned away this year after being detained, interrogated and strip-searched.

Lappin's case is not isolated. In 2003, 12 journalists were detained at and deported from LAX. Last March, a Danish photographer had DNA samples taken before he was deported. That same month, a Swedish reporter was turned away at a Washington airport, where he was photographed and fingerprinted, and not allowed to call his embassy. Last May, six French reporters in two groups were detained at LAX; they were on assignment to cover a video-game trade fair. All were deported, the first three "after being repeatedly questioned and body-searched six times," according to Reporters Without Borders. Similar fates awaited a Swedish freelancer in May, a pair of Dutch reporters that same month trying to cover an awards ceremony for world film stunt champions, a British reporter in October and an Austrian in December. In many of the cases, the reporters were treated like criminals: handcuffed and taken to prison holding facilities where some were not allowed to sleep.

Have we in this country simply lost any collective sense of decency?

Piss-poor Planning

U.S. missed need for prison personnel in war plans
Shortage haunts military months later at Abu Ghraib

By Dave Moniz and Peter Eisler
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- The world's most powerful military, which had crushed Saddam Hussein's regular army in a matter of weeks, found itself in an unexpected predicament last year when U.S. forces began jailing thousands of suspected guerrilla fighters and criminals in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The Army desperately needed information from prisoners about a growing insurgency that was killing more American troops than had died throughout the war itself. But commanders had far too few trained interrogators and guards to question and control the burgeoning population at Abu Ghraib.

In a scramble for personnel, commanders wound up staffing Abu Ghraib with reserve military police who had never taken the Army's four-week course for prison guards. And because the military intelligence unit sent to Abu Ghraib was short of interrogators, commanders patched together substitutes from other military units and from private contractors.

As investigators try to piece together what led to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in the fall of 2003, the shortage of trained personnel appears to be one of the keys to what went wrong.

Although exactly what led to the abuse remains murky, it is clear that the Pentagon was not ready for the demand for interrogators or prison guards in Iraq. Planners apparently did not foresee the need to control large numbers of hostile Iraqis, and the Army had for years diminished its emphasis on training guards and interrogators. That meant that at Abu Ghraib and other detention sites, commanders had to rely on a patchwork of personnel, including many with little or none of the special training that military experts say is crucial to controlling prisoners.

The Army has military police trained to manage prisons, but it doesn't have many. The Army has even tried to get out of the prison-guarding business, according to former Army secretary Tom White, who says Army officials have explored turning over management of U.S. military prisons to private contractors.

Of an active-duty force of roughly 500,000 soldiers, only about 1,000 are certified for prison guard duty, and the vast majority of them are posted in stateside military prisons. These are MPs -- ''31 Echoes'' in military jargon -- who have spent four weeks at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri working in a mock prison and learning the basics: how to keep track of inmates, establish rapport with prisoners and quell a riot.

Col. George Millan, director of training and leader development at the U.S. Military Police School, says guarding prisoners is a specialized skill that requires careful training. Prospective prison guards are observed by non-commissioned officers who grade them on how they treat ''prisoners'' under their care and instruct them on the proper way to deal with violent inmates.

But the military unit that was put in charge of running prisons in Iraq, the 800th Military Police Brigade, was an Army Reserve outfit that was not trained to run prisons. The vast majority of its troops, including its commander, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, were part-time soldiers.

The sheer incompetence of the Rumsfeld Pentagon is breathtaking

Broken Tool

Iraq Conflict Disrupts U.S. Plans for Military
Goals of moving troops and building new bases to reflect end of Cold War are put on hold.

By Esther Schrader, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The prolonged war in Iraq has frustrated Bush administration efforts to modernize the U.S. military and has complicated plans to reposition troops from long-established bases around the world.

The pressing need for manpower in Iraq has delayed the shift of troops from Germany to the United States and drove the Pentagon to announce last week that it would move troops off the Korean peninsula to Iraq.

"The Iraq war is a vortex that is ripping apart the American armed forces and it is ripping up the ground forces," said Donald Abenheim, a professor at the Pentagon-run Naval Postgraduate School.

"The problem the leadership has is that it has this grand strategic plan that involves moving chess pieces around the globe. But its strategy does not seem to be working very well," he said.

Bush administration officials have been trying since their first days in office to take a cold-eyed look at changing security needs brought about by the close of the Cold War and advances in military technology.

Although it is too soon to know how severe the problem will be, U.S. officials acknowledged that the need to replenish forces in Iraq and keep troop numbers above 135,000 was affecting long-range planning. Observers in the defense establishment have begun questioning whether the strategic review can remain relevant in the face of the continuing conflict.

The Bush administration has not abandoned plans to revamp its global defense posture, but major pieces of the review have been buffeted by the mission in Iraq. The need to find replacements for battle-weary soldiers is delaying the repositioning of troops in Europe while accelerating the same goal on the Korean peninsula.

And although the Iraq war hastened a withdrawal of troops from South Korea, it also limited the administration's choices. Some of those 12,500 troops are being sent to Iraq, foreclosing the option of sending them elsewhere or paring overall troop numbers, outside experts say.

Over the past month, the U.S. has announced two historic movements of troops out of South Korea, a shift that had been considered unthinkable for decades because of the North Korean threat. But with at least 3,500 troops — and possibly more — heading directly to Iraq from their bases in South Korea, anticipated opposition to the move has been muted.

In Germany, however, a cherished goal of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — to move the Army's two fighting divisions from garrisons there to smaller bases to be built throughout Eastern Europe, where the troops would be closer to potential trouble spots — is on hold because of the burdens the Iraq conflict has put on an already stretched Army.

One of the German-based divisions, the 1st Armored, already has been sent to join the fight in Iraq. Moreover, 14,000 members of the division have been ordered to remain, after a year of service there and dozens of casualties. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said it was not out of the question that the 1st Armored would be asked to remain in the fight still longer, although other military officials expect the division to leave Iraq next month.

Because of the length of the deployment, the strain it has placed on soldiers' families and the larger constraints of the war in Iraq, defense officials say the idea of rotating the 1st Armored into and out of bases in Eastern Europe for short tours without the soldiers' families will have to wait.

This LAT piece is pretty muted, given what is really going on. And what is really going on is the complete nullification of any ability on our part to project ground forces if needed for at least the next five years. God help us if the North Koreans get frisky.

We Know What's Good for You

Iraq must have a leadership Iraqis can respect
By Bathsheba Crocker
Published: June 15 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: June 15 2004 5:00

After June 30, there will be tensions between the new Iraqi government and US military commanders. Bowing to pressure from other Security Council members, the US agreed to include a reference in the new resolution to an Iraq-US exchange of letters that spells out the planned relationship. But those letters insist only on ensuring co-ordination, without delineating how disagreements will be handled. Given the continuing violence, ambiguity could prove dangerous. It could also undermine the new government's authority.

Another measure of sovereignty is Iraqi control over resources. Under the May 2003 UN resolution, the Coalition Provisional Authority has controlled how Iraq's oil revenues are spent. The new resolution gives Iraq's interim leaders control over how those revenues are spent, which should alleviate concerns that the new US embassy will merely be a continuation of the occupation. But the UN Security Council has nonetheless mandated where Iraq's oil proceeds must be deposited, as well as insisting on continued international oversight. The resolution is also silent on Iraqi input into how US reconstruction funds - Iraq's largest source of revenue - will be spent.

Moreover, the new resolution will continue the arrangement established last year whereby 5 per cent of Iraq's oil revenues are set aside to pay Gulf War reparations. Added to Iraq's $120bn debt overhang, those reparations take a massive bite out of the money available to Iraq. The resolution encourages substantial debt reduction, but the issue fell flat at last week's meeting of the Group of Eight.

Finally, the resolution does not address the legal framework for the interim authority. Contentious issues abound, such as the validity, after the end of the month, of CPA edicts that allow foreign investment in Iraq and shield US personnel (including contractors) from legal liability in Iraq. To stave off controversy about Iraq's interim constitution, the US and Britain decided not to mention it in the resolution, which has already caused problems for the Kurds. Yet the resolution endorses the constitution's timetable for elections and reverses its security arrangements. By incorporating only some of the constitution's provisions, the resolution increases confusion about the continued application of the rest of that law.

The credibility of the handover is critical to putting Iraq on the right track. With Security Council agreement, the door is open for pragmatic and creative improvisation on the ground between the new Iraqi government, the US and the UN. There is a huge burden on all sides to turn round the legacy of the US occupation and give the new government authority and legitimacy. Ultimately, the calibre of decisions made will determine whether the Iraqis give their new government a real chance.

The problem is contained in the last sentence, "their new government." It isn't theirs. They didn't create, they didn't choose the people. It is an imposed artiface and they know it.

Both Brit and American media have been amazingly patronizing of the Iraqis in their attempts to bestow any kind of legitimacy on this con job.

Accountability

Nation Builders and Low Bidders in Iraq
By P. W. SINGER

Published: June 15, 2004

WASHINGTON — From the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison to the mutilation of American civilians at Falluja, many of the worst moments of the Iraqi occupation have involved private military contractors "outsourced" by the Pentagon. With no public or Congressional oversight, the Pentagon has paid billions of dollars to companies that now have as many as 20,000 employees carrying out military functions ranging from logistics and troop training to convoy escort and interrogations. Yet despite the problems and the widespread accusations of overbilling, it appears the civilian leadership at the Pentagon has learned absolutely nothing from the whole experience.

Last month the Pentagon awarded a $293 million contract for coordination of security support to a British firm called Aegis Defense Services. The huge contract has two aspects: Aegis will be the coordination and management hub for the more than 50 other private security companies in Iraq, and it will provide its own force of up to 75 "close protection teams," each made up of eight armed civilians who are to protect staff members of the United States Project Management Office.

The contract is a case study in what not to do. To begin with, a core problem of the military outsourcing experience has been the lack of coordination, oversight and management from the government side. So outsourcing that very problem to another private company has a logic that would do only Kafka proud. In addition, it moves these companies further outside the bounds of public oversight.

Moreover, with the handover of Iraqi sovereignty in just weeks, why is the Pentagon, rather than the Iraqis themselves, making this decision? Indeed, it seems contrary to the overall American strategic goal of handing over the responsibilities for security to the Iraqis as a prelude to getting out of the business ourselves.
....
The chief executive of Aegis, Tim Spicer, is a former British Army officer turned private warrior who titled his memoir "An Unorthodox Soldier." He is infamous in Britain for his role in the Sandline affair of 1998, in which a company he founded shipped 30 tons of arms to Sierra Leone in contravention of a United Nations arms embargo. His client in the case was described by Robin Cook, the British foreign minister, as "an Indian businessman, traveling on the passport of a dead Serb, awaiting extradition from Canada for alleged embezzlement from a bank in Thailand." When Mr. Spicer told the press that the British government had encouraged his operation, it nearly brought down Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mr. Spicer also was a key character in a 1997 army mutiny in Papua New Guinea. The local army, upset that Mr. Spicer had received a $36 million contract to eradicate a rebellion there, instead toppled the government and put him in jail.

It seems hard to believe that the people awarding the Iraq contract had any knowledge of this history. But it may actually be the case, considering the skewed way in which responsibility for private military contracts is spread out over the government to some of the strangest of places. (Recall that the private military interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison were originally hired through a computer services contract overseen by an Interior Department office in Arizona.) The Aegis deal was awarded by the Army transportation command in Fort Eustis, Va., an office with no apparent experience in dealing with the private military industry.

The strength of systems of democracy and capitalism are that they are supposed to be self-correcting and self-improving. When mistakes are made, lessons are learned so that the errors are not repeated. When it comes to the private military world, though, our government seems to be doing its utmost to learn nothing. It repeatedly ignores not just the basic lessons of better business, but also those of smart public policy.

This contract is paradigmatic of Bushco. The combination of cluelessness and corruption is the hallmark of the misadministration.

Ashcroft Nation

Travesty of Justice
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: June 15, 2004

No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history.

For this column, let's just focus on Mr. Ashcroft's role in the fight against terror. Before 9/11 he was aggressively uninterested in the terrorist threat. He didn't even mention counterterrorism in a May 2001 memo outlining strategic priorities for the Justice Department. When the 9/11 commission asked him why, he responded by blaming the Clinton administration, with a personal attack on one of the commission members thrown in for good measure.

We can't tell directly whether Mr. Ashcroft's post-9/11 policies are protecting the United States from terrorist attacks. But a number of pieces of evidence suggest otherwise.

First, there's the absence of any major successful prosecutions. The one set of convictions that seemed fairly significant — that of the "Detroit 3" — appears to be collapsing over accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. (The lead prosecutor has filed a whistle-blower suit against Mr. Ashcroft, accusing him of botching the case. The Justice Department, in turn, has opened investigations against the prosecutor. Payback? I report; you decide.)

Then there is the lack of any major captures. Somewhere, the anthrax terrorist is laughing. But the Justice Department, you'll be happy to know, is trying to determine whether it can file bioterrorism charges against a Buffalo art professor whose work includes harmless bacteria in petri dishes.

Perhaps most telling is the way Mr. Ashcroft responds to criticism of his performance. His first move is always to withhold the evidence. Then he tries to change the subject by making a dramatic announcement of a terrorist threat.

For an example of how Mr. Ashcroft shuts down public examination, consider the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former F.B.I. translator who says that the agency's language division is riddled with incompetence and corruption, and that the bureau missed critical terrorist warnings. In 2002 she gave closed-door Congressional testimony; Senator Charles Grassley described her as "very credible . . . because people within the F.B.I. have corroborated a lot of her story."

But the Justice Department has invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege" to prevent Ms. Edmonds from providing evidence. And last month the department retroactively classified two-year-old testimony by F.B.I. officials, which was presumably what Mr. Grassley referred to.

For an example of changing the subject, consider the origins of the Jose Padilla case. There was no publicity when Mr. Padilla was arrested in May 2002. But on June 6, 2002, Coleen Rowley gave devastating Congressional testimony about failures at the F.B.I. (which reports to Mr. Ashcroft) before 9/11. Four days later, Mr. Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference and announced that Mr. Padilla was involved in a terrifying plot. Instead of featuring Ms. Rowley, news magazine covers ended up featuring the "dirty bomber" who Mr. Ashcroft said was plotting to kill thousands with deadly radiation.

Since then Mr. Padilla has been held as an "enemy combatant" with no legal rights. But Newsweek reports that "administration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention — that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific purpose of setting off a radiological `dirty bomb' — has turned out to be wrong and most likely can never be used in court."

But most important is the memo. Last week Mr. Ashcroft, apparently in contempt of Congress, refused to release a memo on torture his department prepared for the White House almost two years ago. Fortunately, his stonewalling didn't work: The Washington Post has acquired a copy of the memo and put it on its Web site.

Much of the memo is concerned with defining torture down: if the pain inflicted on a prisoner is less than the pain that accompanies "serious physical injury, such as organ failure," it's not torture. Anyway, the memo declares that the federal law against torture doesn't apply to interrogations of enemy combatants "pursuant to [the president's] commander-in-chief authority." In other words, the president is above the law.

The memo came out late Sunday. Mr. Ashcroft called a press conference yesterday — to announce an indictment against a man accused of plotting to blow up a shopping mall in Ohio. The timing was, I'm sure, purely coincidental.

NIxonian is the word that comes to mind. Ashcroft's blatant refusal to provide documents to the Senate Armed Services Committee two weeks ago ought to net him a contempt of Congress citation, but the Repubs won't do it I don't know if the Dems will grow cujones large enough to enforce the Constitution. Now blowjobs, that's another matter altogether.

Predicting Terror

The American Prospect interviews former senator Gary Hart, who co-chaired the first homeland security/terrorism threat commission which reported early in 2001.

As co-chair of a national security commission in early 2001, you spoke about an imminent terrorist attack. What happened when you tried to report to Condi Rice and others in the Bush administration?

If you go over to the Department of Homeland Security, they'll say, "Well, we just increased spending by X amount." That's the Washington approach. "Well, the Defense Department has $400 billion so we must be safe." You need to ask, "Does the Denver fire department have the equipment it needs?" The answer: No. "Does the Denver police department have catastrophic drills?" The answer: No. "Is the Denver public safety director plugged into the communications system of the FBI?" The answer: No. So that's how we're doing. But the press isn't asking these questions. Neither is Congress. It drives me mad.

It should be driving all of us mad, and we should be breathing down our congresscritters necks, long and hard, everyday.

Here is a linkto the Hart-Rudman Commission Report. It is terrifying reading.

Brilliant Analogies

Jesse Taylor at Pandagon was also watching the formal hanging of the Clinton portraits at the White House today.

When Worlds Collide

I think the space-time continuum just wept.

Re-upping

GIs marching away from re-enlistment

War may have some Fort Carson troops leaving the ranks

By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News
June 14, 2004

COLORADO SPRINGS - Army re-enlistments have dropped suddenly and dramatically at Fort Carson and several other posts where combat units have recently returned from Iraq.

The surprising decline within the past 21/2 months has jolted recruiters and military analysts and provoked questions about the war's effect on the Army's recruiting ability.

Since Fort Carson units began coming home in April, post recruiters have met only 57 percent of their quota for re-enlisting first-term soldiers for a second hitch, according to an Army report.

More disturbing, recruiters say, is they're re-enlisting only 46 percent of the quota for "mid-career" noncommissioned officers. These are the young sergeants with four to 10 years of experience who are the backbone of the Army - its skilled soldiers, mentors and future senior NCOs.

"That's a lot lower than where we want to be, especially on mid-careers," said Master Sgt. Scott Leeling, a Fort Carson recruiter.

"But I don't see this as being a trend," he said. "Last quarter, we were unbelievably successful. I look to see a dramatic increase in the next 30 to 45 days."

Fort Carson is just about meeting quotas for re-enlistments of smaller numbers of older career soldiers - those serving 10 or more years.

This is anecdotal information relative to Fort Carson. The numbers are pretty dramatic, however. If you are seeing stories in your local papers about re-enlistment rates for military bases in your area, I'd appreciate a link. The Bush Pentagon will do everything it can to make service wide information as hard to find as possible, and we may need to collect a batch of local stories to get an idea of the scope.

Additionally, Soldiers for the Truth has posted a letter they received from an Individual Ready Reserve soldier who is already on his way to mobilization.

“On the same day on which an AP article (see Boston Globe 5/13/04 ‘Army Scans Ready Reserve for Possible Active Duty’) quotes an Army public affairs officer saying that no IRR soldiers have been called up involuntarily, I was flying to Fort Sill on mobilization orders! “According to the Army, incoming IRR soldiers are being screened during an assessment period, but the reality is that there is no real ‘assessment’ period. Nobody has received a physical – depending on who you ask there is either not enough time or not enough money, there is no PT or PT testing and classes are given as briefings instead of the traditional Task/Condition/Standard, Go/No Go format.” “We've got soldiers who have been out for 5, 10 years or more who would never qualify for active-duty status being sent down range.

Sounds to me like we're in trouble.

Real Exceptionalism

U.S.-Europe Division Runs Deeper Than Iraq

By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge

In private, liberal internationalists on both sides of the Atlantic venture that Iraq, in its own ghastly way, will prove self-correcting. The bloody nose that America has received in the streets of Baghdad has re-taught Washington the value of alliances. Once the Toxic Texan, with his atypically conservative views, is removed in November and nice John Kerry is installed, things will return to normal.

This optimism is naive. There is mounting evidence that the division goes deeper than mere personalities, that there are fundamental differences in values between Europe and America that will continue to drive the continents apart.

Consider, for instance, the President Kerry whom Europe so yearns for. On most of the main areas of transatlantic disagreement, the presumed Democratic candidate is actually quite close to Bush.

On Iraq, Kerry certainly criticizes the White House's record, but he voted for the war and his current set of prescriptions is little different. As for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Europeans looking for a more "balanced" approach should remember that Kerry rapidly endorsed the Bush-Sharon peace plan. On Kyoto, he has shown no sign of wanting to take America into a global warming treaty the Senate rejected 98 to 0. His advisors are similarly dismissive of America joining the International Criminal Court.

Kerry is not straying from the American norm; he is simply a Democrat trying to get elected in a country where conservatives outnumber liberals 2 to 1. Even if he becomes president, he will still have to deal (probably) with a Republican Congress and (certainly) with a conservative movement that is vastly more powerful and organized than any in Europe.

This gives some clue to the biggest underlying difference gnawing away at the transatlantic alliance: America is simply a more right-wing place than Europe. That does not mean that all Americans are conservatives (you only have to go to Berkeley, Boulder or Brentwood to discover that), but the center of gravity is further to the right.

Look at any poll of attitudes toward the basic questions of politics — the size of government, the role of capitalism, spending on defense, crime and punishment, attitudes to multinational institutions like the U.N. — and America takes a more right-wing approach than any other developed country.

Even set alongside Britain, its nearest equivalent, America tolerates a far higher degree of inequality, with 1 in 6 households earning less than a third of median income (in Britain, the figure is closer to 1 in 20); its incarceration rate is five times that of Britain, Europe's toughest sentencer; America spends much less on government in general, but twice as much on defense per head; it brings religion into politics far more often.

The gap is more extreme if you compare America with France or Germany.

Does the fact that America is the only Western country to retain the death penalty explain why France and Germany didn't support the Iraq war? Of course not. But it does help explain why American policy seems so foreign to so many Europeans. The conservative parts of the country — the South, much of the West, the suburbs — are exactly the bits most Europeans never visit.

The decision to invade Iraq exaggerated the disagreements between Europe and America. But these had already begun to roil the transatlantic relationship more than it was at the end of the Cold War. When they shared the Soviet Union as a common enemy, America and Europe did not bother to study these basic differences too closely. Now they are much more obvious. Being different does not mean the alliance is impossible to run, but it makes the marriage harder — no matter how many reconciliatory hands are shaken and toasts drunk this month.

Americans like to think that we are the norm. Among first world liberal democracies, we are the outlier.

Documenting Torture

Unit Says It Gave Earlier Warning of Abuse in Iraq
By ANDREA ELLIOTT

FRANKFURT, June 13 — Beginning in November, a small unit of interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison began reporting allegations of prisoner abuse, including the beatings of five blindfolded Iraqi generals, in internal documents sent to senior officers, according to interviews with military personnel who worked in the prison.

The disclosure of the documents raises new questions about whether senior officers in Iraq were alerted about serious abuses at the prison before January. Top military officials have said they only learned about abuses then, after a soldier came forward with photographs of the abuse.

"We were reporting it long before this mess came out," said one of several military intelligence soldiers interviewed in Germany and the United States who asked not to be identified for fear they would jeopardize their careers.

The Red Cross has said it alerted American military commanders in Iraq to abuses at Abu Ghraib in November. But the disclosures that the military's own interrogators had alerted superiors to abuse back then in internal documents has not been previously reported.

At least 20 accounts of mistreatment were included in the documents, according to those interviewed. Some detainees described abuse at other detention facilities before they were transferred to Abu Ghraib, but at least seven incidents said to be cited in the documents took place at the prison, four of them in the area controlled by military intelligence and the site of the notorious abuses depicted in the photographs.

The abuse allegations were cited by members of the prison's Detainee Assessment Branch, a unit of interrogators who screened prisoners for possible release, in routine weekly reports channeled to military judge advocates and others.

This had to happen. Military culture is such that EVERYTHING is documented in triplicate. The only question which remains for me is: who is out to get whom with this leak? My guess is the uniformed professionals are gunning for Rummy, at the very least.

CHAOS

Baghdad car bomb kills at least 13

Monday, June 14, 2004 Posted: 7:25 AM EDT (1125 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A car bomb exploded in Baghdad during Monday morning rush hour, killing 13 people -- including five foreign nationals in a convoy -- and injuring at least 60, a senior coalition official told CNN.

Sunday's car bomb exploded about 9:15 a.m. (1:15 a.m. ET) near Camp Curvo, a U.S. forward operating base in the southeastern part of the city, Lt. Col. James Hutton said.

Note the assassinations. The so-called "turnover" at the end of the month is meaningless, the appointed government has no legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqis.

Who Rules the Bandits?

Contractor Immunity a Divisive Issue
Interim Government Resists U.S. Proposal to Exempt Foreigners From Iraqi Law

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 14, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 13 -- In an early test of its imminent sovereignty, Iraq's new government has been resisting a U.S. demand that thousands of foreign contractors here be granted immunity from Iraqi law, in the same way as U.S. military forces are now immune, according to Iraqi sources.

The U.S. proposal, although not widely known, has touched a nerve with some nationalist-minded Iraqis already chafing under the 14-month-old U.S.-led occupation. If accepted by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, it would put the highly visible U.S. foreign contractors into a special legal category, not subject to military justice and beyond the reach of Iraq's justice system.

The U.S. request, confirmed Sunday by Allawi's office, is one of a number of delicate issues revolving around government authority that will confront the incoming U.S. ambassador, John D. Negroponte, when Allawi's interim government assumes formal sovereignty June 30.

Although the Bush administration repeatedly has promised that Iraqis will receive authentic sovereignty, the U.S. military has made it clear that U.S. officers will remain in charge of security, the country's top concern. People here widely assume that U.S. influence will remain decisive for a long time in almost every domain.

The in-control status of U.S. troops and officials -- from Humvee drivers who demand priority in traffic to civilian administrators intervening in the choice of Iraqi leaders -- often has been cited by Iraqis who oppose the occupation on nationalist grounds. The civilian contractors, particularly armed security personnel, have generated similar resentment from Iraqis, many of whom long ago tired of having foreigners tell them where they can and cannot go.

The question of the contractors' status also has arisen because of two U.S. contract employees at Abu Ghraib prison who were accused in a Pentagon report of participating in illegal abuse of Iraqi prisoners. The two -- Steven Stephanowicz of CACI International, an Arlington-based defense firm, and John B. Israel of the Titan Corp. of San Diego -- have not been charged with any crimes in Iraq or the United States, although some of their Army colleagues face military tribunals.

We touched on this briefly yesterday. If the contractors are not subject to either Iraqi or US law, then what governs them? Obviously, this is not just an academic question.

Tortured Definitions

Justice Dept. Memo Says Torture 'May Be Justified'

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 14, 2004; 4:00 AM

Today washingtonpost.com is posting a copy of the Aug. 1, 2002, memorandum "Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. 2340-2340A," from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel for Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to President Bush.

The memo was the focus of a recent article in The Washington Post.

The memo was written at the request of the CIA. The CIA wanted authority to conduct more aggressive interrogations than were permitted prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The interrogations were of suspected al Qaeda members whom the CIA had apprehended outside the United States. The CIA asked the White House for legal guidance. The White House asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel for its legal opinion on the standards of conduct under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The Office of Legal Counsel is the federal government's ultimate legal adviser. The most significant and sensitive topics that the federal government considers are often given to the OLC for review. In this case, the memorandum was signed by Jay S. Bybee, the head of the office at the time. Bybee's signature gives the document additional authority, making it akin to a binding legal opinion on government policy on interrogations. Bybee has since become a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Another memorandum, dated March 6, 2003, from a Defense Department working group convened by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to come up with new interrogation guidelines for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, incorporated much, but not all, of the legal thinking from the OLC memo. The Wall Street Journal first published the March memo.

At a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, senators asked Attorney General John D. Ashcroft to release both memos. Ashcroft said he would not discuss the contents of the Justice and Pentagon memos or turn them over to the committees. A transcript of that hearing is also available.

President Bush spoke on the issue of torture Thursday, saying he expected U.S. authorities to abide by the law. He declined to say whether he believes U.S. law prohibits torture. Here is a link to the White House transcript of the president's press conference, which included questions and answers on torture.

The Post deleted several lines from the memo that are not germane to the legal arguments being made in it and that are the subject of further reporting by The Post.

If you ever had any doubt that our country hasn't been taken over by something out of Orwell, this will dispell your doubts.

Spy v. Spy

"A temporary coup"
Author Thomas Powers says the White House's corruption of intelligence has caused the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in modern U.S. history -- and sparked a civil war with the nation's intel agencies.

The Salon Interview

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mark Follman

What do you make of the Byzantine twists of the Ahmed Chalabi story? By the time photos of his ransacked Baghdad compound filled the newspapers, the tale of his rise and fall seemed almost unbelievable, the stuff of a spy novel.

I think the truth about what happened at the policy level will eventually come out. We know, because it was on paper, that on Aug. 6, 2001 the CIA gave the president a very explicit warning. When 9/11 actually occurred, you would expect to look back and see, once the distress light was on, various U.S. intelligence and police organizations scurrying around frantically responding to the warning. But what do you find? Nothing.

This is all rank speculation, but it does a nice job of fitting with the facts. For you conspiracy theorists, this will be cool water on a hot day.

An Old Story

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Alcohol Cited as Problem at Prison
Officials at Abu Ghraib tried to rein in the illicit behavior before abuse of inmates surfaced.
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Weeks before U.S. military investigators began uncovering evidence of mistreatment of detainees, commanders at the Abu Ghraib prison launched a crackdown on alcohol abuse and told intelligence troops that guards were suspected of soliciting sex from Iraqi prostitutes, according to soldiers and officers who worked at the compound.

Commanders at the prison outside Baghdad launched a series of measures to stem the illegal behavior, the soldiers said, including inspecting troops' living quarters for stashes of liquor and banishing Iraqi vendors who were suspected of helping to procure alcohol and make arrangements for soldiers to visit prostitutes.


The steps were part of an attempt by senior officers at Abu Ghraib to impose order on a facility that had spun out of control. Officers who worked at the prison said the measures were imposed in late December and early January, after the reported abuses of detainees but shortly before military investigators received a computer disc containing photos of prisoner abuse that became public in April.

Some officers believe that alcohol may have been a factor in the behavior of guards who have been charged with beating prisoners, stripping them naked, forcing them to masturbate and stacking them in pyramid-shaped piles on the prison floor. At least one prisoner has told investigators that he frequently smelled alcohol on the guards' breath in the cellblock where most of the abuses occurred.

In a report on his investigation this year into abuses at the prison, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba cited at least two cases of military police officers being disciplined for drinking alcohol against Army rules. The incident took place in May 2003, before the U.S. was using Abu Ghraib as a detention facility.

Five military intelligence soldiers who worked at the prison said they learned of the crackdown during an impromptu meeting with an irate Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, one of the senior officers at the prison and the leader of the interrogation operation. In telephone and e-mail interviews, the soldiers said that Jordan told them he had recently learned of an outbreak of alcohol abuse and that members of MP units on base had been seeking sex with Iraqi prostitutes. The soldiers said Jordan warned that he intended to put a stop to the illegal behavior.

Spc. Israel Rivera, an Army analyst at Abu Ghraib at the time, said Jordan "came in one evening and said, 'There's a prostitution ring and a liquor smuggling ring…. I'm going to pursue it and I hope there's no military intelligence people involved."

Another soldier who was at the meeting, Spc. Paul Son, said Jordan lectured the assembled troops that it was "absolutely unacceptable and a definite 'no-go' for anybody to be taking sexual advantage of and forcing desperate Iraqi women to prostitution. He said that as American soldiers we were sent to Iraq to do good and not exploit poor Iraqis that are trying to survive."

Other soldiers offered similar accounts of the meeting and the ensuing sweep. All said they did not have firsthand knowledge of the alleged solicitation of prostitution by soldiers at Abu Ghraib but said that alcohol abuse was evident in the compound from early on in its use as a U.S.-run detention facility.

Several members of military police units assigned to Abu Ghraib disputed the prostitution claims, saying they saw no evidence of such behavior during their time there. They acknowledged that alcohol use was a recurring problem. Several soldiers said there were numerous warnings about alcohol — possession of which was prohibited by General Order No. 1 issued by U.S. Central Command — and that there was even an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter at Abu Ghraib.

Armies, booze and whores is a story as old as the Bible.

Privatization

This Spy for Rent
By JAMES BAMFORD

WASHINGTON

Assessing, cultivating and recruiting spies has long been a key job of Central Intelligence Agency officers. But now it is the C.I.A. officers themselves who are being assessed, cultivated and recruited — sometimes right out of the agency's cafeteria. In what is leading to a critical spy drain, private companies are aggressively seeking highly trained employees of our espionage agencies to fill government contracts.

With the resignation of George Tenet as director of central intelligence and the final hearings of the 9/11 commission this week, the stage is set for the first major restructuring of the intelligence community in decades. While there has been much discussion of moving agencies and creating an "intelligence czar," the privatization of our spies has been largely overlooked.
....

While there is nothing inherently wrong with the intelligence community working closely with private industry, there is the potential for trouble unless the union is closely monitored. Because the issue is hidden under the C.I.A.'s heavy layers of secrecy, it is impossible for even Congress to get accurate figures on just how much money and how many people are involved. But many experts inside and outside the agency feel that we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of contractors.

As was made clear by the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, involving private contractors in sensitive intelligence operations can lead to disaster. And the potential for disaster only grows when not just the agents on the ground, but their supervisors and controllers back at headquarters too, are working for some private company.

Another problem has been an increased cost to taxpayers. Desperate to fill their contracts, the companies frequently offer to double a federal employee's salary. Because the recruiters have security clearances, they often make their recruiting pitches at the C.I.A.'s headquarters in Langley, Va. And many of those who do sign on end up going right back to their old office — only now working for a private company. Thus, after spending millions of dollars training people to be clandestine officers, taxpayers are having to pay them twice as much to return as rent-a-spies.

"The money is incredible," one agency veteran, who handled spies overseas for years, told me. "I doubled my salary to go out and come back in and continue doing what I was doing."

But some of these former officers warned me that their talents are being wasted on unsophisticated tasks, and that because of the slap-dash nature of the rush to expand, the quality of intelligence produced has become questionable. "The problem is these jobs are mindless," one officer-turned-contractor with decades of Middle East experience told me. "So we're all just sitting there looking at each other, and we're making a ridiculous amount of money."

Another former agency employee told me that he was among a group of contractors assigned to analyze e-mail messages on computer hard drives snatched by operatives in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. "A lot of it was in Arabic and none of us spoke Arabic — just a little problem," he said. "None of us really knew what we were doing and we had management who didn't know what they were doing either."

As the United States gets more deeply involved in the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, there will be a corresponding increase in private spies. This isn't all bad: by marrying well-trained federal employees with innovative contractors working in a less structured role, perhaps we can find more effective ways of tackling old problems.

But better oversight is critical. If Congress doesn't even know whom the C.I.A. is hiring, how can anyone ensure that what they are doing (and how much they are being paid) is acceptable? As we decide how to remake our intelligence services, we need to find the right balance between the people who make the cloaks and daggers and the people who wear them.

Ya know, there are genuine issues out there in need of discussion, and this is one of them. What's on the TV news? Bush senior's parachute jump. Cry-ey.

The Odious Comparison

June 13, 2004,
FRANK RICH:
First Reagan, Now His Stunt Double

Whether you liked or loathed the performance that Mr. Reagan would give as president, it derived from this earlier immersion in the real world. The script he used in the White House was often romanticized and fictional; he invented or embroidered anecdotes (including that ugly demonization of a "welfare queen") and preached family values he didn't practice with his own often-estranged children. But even the fiction was adapted from experience. While he had arrived in politics in middle-age with the aid of a kitchen cabinet of wealthy financial backers, there had been decades when he lived in an America broader than that of Justin Dart and Alfred Bloomingdale.

Mr. Bush's aw-shucks persona, by contrast, has been manufactured from scratch. He has rarely, if ever, ventured out of the cocoon of privilege. He "lost a lot of other people's money in the oil business," said Ron Reagan Jr. in 2000. "What is his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk?" While the young Ronald Reagan used his imagination to improvise play-by-play radio accounts of baseball games based on sparse telegraphic accounts, Mr. Bush made a killing on a baseball team with the help of cronies and sweetheart deals. He has no history of engagement with either issues or people beyond big oil or the Andover-Yale-Harvard orbit until he belatedly went into the family business of politics.

He does the down-home accent well, and he dresses the part. In the new issue of The Atlantic, a linguist hypothesizes to James Fallows that Mr. Bush, a smoother speaker in his Texas political career than now, may have "deliberately made himself sound as clipped and tough as John Wayne" since then "as a way of showing deep-down Nascar-type manliness." It's as if he's eradicating his patrician one-term father to adopt the two-term Gipper as his dad instead. But unlike Reagan, Mr. Bush is so inured to the prerogatives of his life of soft landings that his attempts to affect a jus' folks geniality are invariably betrayed by nastiness whenever someone threatens to keep him from getting his own way. It's impossible to imagine Reagan countenancing the impugning of the patriotism of war heroes like John McCain and Max Cleland as the Bush machine has done in the heat of close campaigns.

Last weekend in Normandy, the president sat for an interview in which Tom Brokaw challenged his efforts to pull off a bigger flimflam than impersonating Ronald Reagan — the conflation of the Iraq war with World War II. "You referred to the `ruthless and treacherous surprise attack on America' that we went through during our time," Mr. Brokaw said. "But that wasn't Iraq who did that, that was al Qaeda." With the gravesites of the World War II dead behind him, the president retreated to his familiar script ("Iraq is a part of the war on terror"). Even if you think the lines make sense, the irritated man delivering them did not sound like someone who had ever experienced pain of the life-and-death intensity that comes with war. The problem is not merely that Mr. Bush lacks Reagan's lilting vocal delivery. As any professional actor can tell you, no performance, however sonorous, can be credible if it doesn't contain at least a kernel of emotional truth.

Rummy Broke the Army

Perpetual war hits military families hard

By Drew E. Altman and Robert J. Blendon | June 13, 2004

Half of the spouses of US Army soldiers who have had their deployments extended say that they would be less likely to want their spouse to reenlist if they knew there was going to be another big deployment within the next two years, according to a recent survey we conducted with The Washington Post. Two-thirds of these spouses believe that the Army is headed for a major problem with retaining personnel.

The survey showed that military families are overwhelmingly proud of their service. However, one in four spouses of soldiers who have had their deployments extended report that coping with deployment has been a major problem for them. Among military families with children, 37 percent report that extended deployment has posed a major problem for their children. Half of the spouses of deployment-extended soldiers rate the overall support they have gotten from the Army during deployment as only fair or poor.

The financial stress of extended deployment can be severe for military families. Fully three in 10 report that in the past year, they and their family have had trouble paying bills. For more than one in five, their current financial situation is such that they have to get food stamps or Women, Infants, and Children program aid from the government. (Even 6 percent of families of officers say they receive food stamps or WIC.) Clearly more financial support is needed for the families of soldiers risking their lives for their country for an extended period of time.

The emotional toll that soldiers and their families pay when they are overseas for extended periods can also be high. Fifty-six percent of spouses of extended-duty soldiers are living day-to-day with the fear that their husband or wife will be injured or killed overseas. When asked about the families in their spouse's unit, half report that marital problems are very common; 40 percent cite depression as a very common problem; 27 percent report alcohol or drug abuse problems in the unit; and 16 percent say domestic violence is very common. The military may have to provide much greater support for people living with these issues for long periods of time if it hopes to avoid a possible reenlistment crisis.

In addition, half of the spouses of soldiers on extended deployment report having had difficulty sending or receiving communications with their husband or wife. In an era of instant telecommunications, we should not have a situation where soldiers and their families cannot have the kind of regular contact that can help to minimize the fear and stress they must live with every day.

This is astonishing--more than 20% of service families qualify for welfare or food stamps. If that isn't and indictment of the system, I don't know what is. And, oh, yes, we are headed for a re-enlistment crisis the likes of which cannot be foreseen.

Havoc

Car bomb kills 12 Iraqis
Iraqi government official assassinated

Sunday, June 13, 2004 Posted: 10:07 AM EDT (1407 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A car bomb near a U.S. military installation killed 12 Iraqis -- eight civilians and four police officers -- and wounded 13 others in southeastern Baghdad, according to a coalition news release.

In mid-May, a suicide bomber killed Izzedine Salim, who was just two weeks into his monthlong term as the council's president. Six others were killed in the blast outside the Green Zone.

Gee, they aren't talking about all the good news out of Iraq....

Two Front Quagmire

Afghan election delay is new blow for Bush campaign

Duncan Campbell
Saturday June 12, 2004
The Guardian

The elections in Afghanistan seem certain to be delayed for a second time, dealing a damaging blow to President George Bush's own election campaign.

The delay comes amid growing concern about the security of the election process after the killing on Thursday of 11 Chinese construction workers.

It is now impossible for the election to be held legally in September, the date for which both the interim government of President Hamid Karzai and the United Nations were aiming, itself a delay from the intended June polling day. It is understood that the new date is likely to be around October 5.

It has also emerged that not a single dollar pledged to pay for the elections has been given by donor countries, including members of the EU and the US.

Even if the $70m (£38m) pledged is given, there is still a shortfall in paying for the $101m costs of a proper election, an indication of how far the international community's attention has shifted away from Afghanistan since the official end of the hostilities. The lack of money is hampering registration.

Under Afghanistan's electoral process, 120 days have to elapse between the certification of the constituencies and polling day.

That work was only completed last week, which rules out the September date still being promoted by the authorities. According to Reg Austin, the chief technical adviser to the UN's joint electoral management body, the earliest possible date is early October.

"We are not in September any more," he said. "The law is quite clear and that takes us inexorably into October."

Even this date is by no means certain. If the security situation worsens or the registration process stalls because of violence and intimidation in the southern and south-eastern areas, a decision could be made to post pone the vote until next spring, although President Karzai is strongly committed to a vote this year. There are concerns within the international community that not enough time has been given for the electoral process.

COLUMN LEFT by Robert Scheer
Electorate Is Wising Up to the Iraq Blunder

Though Bush's approval ratings have been falling steadily, they remained high in the areas of national security and Iraq. But no more. Polls now show that only a minority of Americans think that his handling of terrorism is good, or are "proud" of the US role in Iraq.

It's about time. With the US military bogged down in Iraq, and Afghanistan still a chaotic terrorist breeding ground overrun by warlords, we are being warned that Al Qaeda is as big a threat as ever, with recruitment booming and major attacks possibly planned for this summer.

All this despite Congress writing a blank check for $200 billion and additional expenditures--mostly for the Iraq war. This inevitably means, as an internal White House budget memo leaked to the Washington Post last week acknowledges, an impending cut across the board in 2006 funding of domestic programs such as education and even for the Department of Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, the United States has moved away from its historical posture as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, with Bush abandoning a peace effort that goes back four administrations and even his own much-trumpeted "road map" to peace. Many supporters of Israel are critical of Bush's ill-conceived invasion of Iraq and his embrace of fellow preemptive warrior Ariel Sharon.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, "that the road to [peace in] Jerusalem led through Baghdad, when just the opposite is true, the road to Baghdad led through Jerusalem." These remarks from the former commander of US forces in the Middle East were part of his comprehensive analysis of why the Iraq invasion was doomed to failure from the beginning, based as it was on lies, false premises, poor planning and a disregard for the history of the region.

For those who argued that Bush's reckless use of military violence was defensible to protect human rights comes a rebuke in Amnesty International's cover letter to its 2004 annual report: "The global security agenda promulgated by the U.S. administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle. Sacrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using preemptive military force where and when it chooses have neither increased security nor ensured liberty."

Even the once-cocky neoconservative intellectuals who pushed so hard for this war for a decade--and who are now enraged that their darling Ahmad Chalabi is being called to account--are suddenly abandoning ship like rats, claiming the Bush Administration ruined their beautiful vision with its incompetence. "I would be the first to acknowledge we allowed the liberation [of Iraq] to subside into an occupation," longtime invasion booster Richard Perle said last week.

Oops! Too bad, we rolled craps and now more than 800 young Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead. We tortured detainees, lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and gave Western democracy a huge black eye by showing how easy it was for a self-aggrandizing "war President" to hoodwink Congress and the people. One of those who was fooled was Sen. John Kerry. It is high time he showed some real, from-the-gut, anger over a president who so shamelessly led him and the nation astray. The public is onto Bush, but Kerry has to provide it an alternative by exposing the lies and deceptions that have weakened our country.

History Lesson

via Mark A. R. Kleiman:

Interrogation abuses were 'approved at highest levels'
By Julian Coman in Washington
(Filed: 13/06/2004)

New evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure on the White House.

The Telegraph understands that four confidential Red Cross documents implicating senior Pentagon civilians in the Abu Ghraib scandal have been passed to an American television network, which is preparing to make them public shortly.

According to lawyers familiar with the Red Cross reports, they will contradict previous testimony by senior Pentagon officials who have claimed that the abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison was an isolated incident.

"There are some extremely damaging documents around, which link senior figures to the abuses," said Scott Horton, the former chairman of the New York Bar Association, who has been advising Pentagon lawyers unhappy at the administration's approach. "The biggest bombs in this case have yet to be dropped."

A string of leaked government memos over the past few days has revealed that President George W Bush was advised by Justice Department officials and the White House lawyer, Alberto Gonzalez, that Geneva Conventions on torture did not apply to "unlawful combatants", captured during the war on terror.

Members of Congress are now demanding access to all White House memos on interrogation techniques, a request so far refused by the United States attorney-general, John Ashcroft.

As the growing scandal threatens to undermine President Bush's re-election campaign, senior aides have acknowledged for the first time that the abuse of detainees can no longer be presented as the isolated acts of a handful of soldiers at the Abu Ghraib.

"It's now clear to everyone that there was a debate in the administration about how far interrogators could go," said a legal adviser to the Pentagon. "And the answer they came up with was 'pretty far'. Now that it's in the open, the administration is having to change that answer somewhat."

In the latest revelation, yesterday's Washington Post published leaked documents revealing that Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the senior US officer in Iraq, approved the use of dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and sensory deprivation for prisoners whenever senior officials at the Abu Ghraib jail wished. A memo dated October 9, 2003 on "Interrogation Rules of Engagement", which each military intelligence officer was obliged to sign, set out in detail the wide range of pressure tactics they could use - including stress positions and solitary confinement for more than 30 days.

The White House has ordered a damage-limitation exercise to try to prevent the abuse row undermining President Bush's re-election campaign. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, has ordered that all deaths of detainees held in US military custody are to be reported immediately to criminal investigators. Deaths in custody will also be reported to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, and to Mr Rumsfeld himself.

The Pentagon has also announced an investigation into the condition of inmates at Guantanamo Bay, where more than 600 prisoners suspected of links with al-Qaeda are being held. The inquiry will be led by Vice-Adml Albert Church, who has been ordered to investigate reports that extreme interrogation techniques "migrated" from Guantanamo to Iraq. "This is not going to be a whitewash," said the Pentagon adviser. "The administration is finally realising how damaging this scandal could become."

A new investigator has also been appointed to lead the inquiry into abuse at Abu Ghraib. Gen George Fay, a two-star general, will be replaced by a more senior officer. Gen Fay, according to US military convention, did not have the authority to question his superiors. His replacement indicates that the Abu Ghraib inquiry will now go far beyond the activities of the seven military police personnel accused of mistreating Iraqi detainees.

Legal and constitutional experts have expressed astonishment at the judgments made by administration lawyers on interrogation techniques. In one memo, written in January 2002, Mr Gonzalez told President Bush that the nature of the war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions".

The Telegraph is a Tory paper.

A Look Behind the 'Wire' At Guantanamo
Defense Memos Raised Questions About Detainee Treatment as Red Cross Sought Changes

By Scott Higham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 13, 2004; Page A01

On the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the newly arriving detainees thought they were walking into certain death. Dressed in reddish jumpsuits, a hue reserved for condemned men in the Arab world, the captives believed they were about to be executed.

U.S. military officers wondered whether the fears could work in their favor.

"The detainees think they are being taken to be shot," the military officers noted in one of a series of Defense Department memos written at the base and obtained by The Washington Post. "Should we continue not to tell them what is going on and keep them scared."

The previously undisclosed memos provide one of the most complete pictures to date of life behind the "wire" at Guantanamo. The detainees wanted an extra pair of shorts to wear in the shower, for privacy. They asked that the call to prayer be broadcast in camp, but a CD player could not be found. They asked for tea with "lots of sugar." The response: "Not now. However, we will reconsider in the future." Of the 600 detainees, 200 cooperated with their keepers.

The memos also document for the first time the precise nature of a number of long-standing concerns issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross over the treatment of suspected al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters held at the base.

Iraq Tactics Have Long History With U.S. Interrogators

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 13, 2004; Page A08

A CIA handbook on coercive interrogation methods, produced 40 years ago during the Vietnam War, shows that techniques such as those used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a long history with U.S. intelligence and were based on research and field experience.

Declassified 10 years ago, the training manual carries in its title the code word used for the CIA in Vietnam, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963." Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presents "basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation."

The specific coercive methods it describes echo today's news stories about Guantanamo and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. At Abu Ghraib, for example, photographs and documents have shown that detainees were hooded, blindfolded, dressed in sloppy garb and forced to go naked.

The KUBARK manual suggests that, for "resistant" prisoners, the "circumstances of detention are arranged to enhance within the subject his feelings of being cut off from the known and the reassuring and of being plunged into the strange."

The 1963 handbook describes the benefits and disadvantages of techniques similar to those authorized for use at Abu Ghraib, such as forcing detainees to stand or sit in "stress positions," cutting off sources of light, disrupting their sleep and manipulating their diet.

And among the manual's conclusions: The threat of pain is a far more effective interrogation tool than actually inflicting pain, but threats of death do not help.

404 Errors Don't Kill

Errors Are Seen in Early Attacks on Iraqi Leaders
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: June 13, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 12 - The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

Only a few of the 50 airstrikes have been described in public. All were unsuccessful, and many, including the two well-known raids on Saddam Hussein and his sons, appear to have been undercut by poor intelligence, current and former government officials said.

The strikes, carried out against so-called high-value targets during a one-month period that began on March 19, 2003, used precision-guided munitions against at least 13 Iraqi leaders, including Gen. Izzat Ibrahim, Iraq's No. 2 official, the officials said.

General Ibrahim is still at large, along with at least one other top official who was a target of the failed raids. That official, Maj. Gen. Rafi Abd al-Latif Tilfah, the former head of the Directorate of General Security, and General Ibrahim are playing a leadership role in the anti-American insurgency, according to a briefing document prepared last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The broad scope of the campaign and its failures, along with the civilian casualties, have not been acknowledged by the Bush administration.

A report in December by Human Rights Watch, based on a review of four strikes, concluded that the singling out of Iraqi leadership had "resulted in dozens of civilian casualties that the United States could have prevented if it had taken additional precautions."

The poor record in the strikes has raised questions about the intelligence they were based on, including whether that intelligence reflected deception on the part of Iraqis, the officials said. The March 19, 2003, attempt to kill Mr. Hussein and his sons at the Dora Farms compound, south of Baghdad, remains a subject of particular contention.

A Central Intelligence Agency officer reported, based primarily on information provided by satellite telephone from an Iraqi source, that Mr. Hussein was in an underground bunker at the site. That prompted President Bush to accelerate the timetable for the beginning of the war, giving the go-ahead to strikes by precision-guided bombs and cruise missiles, senior intelligence officials said.

But in an interview last summer, Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, of the Air Force, who directed the air campaign during the invasion, acknowledged that inspections after the war had concluded that no such bunker existed. Various internal reviews by the military and the C.I.A. have still not resolved the question of whether Mr. Hussein was at the location at all, according to senior military and intelligence officials, although the C.I.A. maintains that he was probably at Dora Farms.

One possibility, a senior intelligence official and a senior military officer said, is that Mr. Hussein was above ground in one of the houses that were not destroyed in the raid.

In the raid, the Air Force primarily used deep-penetrating munitions because of their ability to destroy an underground bunker. The person who was the primary source of the information about the bunker was killed in the raid, according to intelligence officials, but had described it using an Arabic word, manzul, that could have been translated either as place of refuge or as bunker.

Has there been any part of this effort that hasn't been marked by ineptitude? The war was wrong in the first place, and made wronger by all of the mistakes of the evil and incompetent bunch running it ever since. Time to throw them out.

UN Muddle

UN sources: Iraq envoy Brahimi announced his resignation
By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent

NEW YORK - United Nations special envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi announced his resignation a few days ago during a UN retreat, diplomatic sources in the world body told Haaretz on Saturday.
Though the UN envoy had not yet filed a resignation letter, the sources said, a replacement for him was already being sought.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Saturday that Brahimi did not resign, nor did he threaten to resign, and added that his mission to Iraq has simply ended. According to Dujarric, Brahimi is no longer interested in the mission but will continue to serve as Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on various issues, including Iraq.

According to the report, Brahimi had been frustrated for some weeks, feeling he had been sidelined by the United States in the process of setting up the Iraqi interim government.

Approximately one month ago it seemed that Brahimi was a key figure in shaping Iraq's future. The country's leaders, as well as the Americans, were happy to hear that Secretary General Kofi Annan decided to send him to assist in the transfer of power over to the Iraqi interim government.

Many understood that Brahimi's role was also to assist in making the major appointments in the new government. But the Americans and the Governing Council members close to them were not about to clear the way for the UN envoy.

Iraqi officials were later surprised at the massive pressure the Americans laid on Brahimi, and at his passive attitude toward the pressure. When the new appointments were announced, Brahimi's spokesman expressed concern. "This is not the way we imagined things," he said.

The UN envoy seemed to have been completely taken aback by the way the 23-member Governing Council announced its choice of Iyad Allawi as the country's interim prime minister.

A spokesman for Brahimi had said the envoy would now work with Allawi to form a government.

This is only from Ha'aretz and I haven't seen it confirmed anywhere else. Take with salt, but I've been hearing rumors of this move for over a month.

The Revenge of the Turtles

Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go
The 26 ex-diplomats and military leaders say his foreign policy has harmed national security. Several served under Republicans.

The signatories
While not explicitly endorsing Sen. John F. Kerry for president, 26 former diplomats and military officials, including many who served in Republican administrations, have a signed a statement calling for the defeat of President Bush in November. Their names and some of the posts they have held are:

Avis T. Bohlen — assistant secretary of State for arms control, 1999-2002; deputy assistant secretary of State for European affairs 1989-1991.

Retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. — chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Committee, 1993-94; ambassador to Britain, 1993-97; chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1985-89.

Jeffrey S. Davidow — ambassador to Mexico, 1998-2002; assistant secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1996

William A. DePree — ambassador to Bangladesh, 1987-1990.

Donald B. Easum — ambassador to Nigeria, 1975-79.

Charles W. Freeman Jr. — assistant secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs, 1993-94; ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 1989-1992.

William C. Harrop — ambassador to Israel, 1991-93; ambassador to Zaire, 1987-1991.

Arthur A. Hartman — ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1981-87; ambassador to France, 1977-1981.

Retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar — commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, overseeing forces in the Middle East, 1991-94; deputy chief of staff, Marine Corps, 1990-94.

H. Allen Holmes — assistant secretary of Defense for special operations, 1993-99; assistant secretary of State for politico-military affairs, 1986-89.

Robert V. Keeley — ambassador to Greece, 1985-89; ambassador to Zimbabwe, 1980-84.

Samuel W. Lewis — director of State Department policy and planning, 1993-94; ambassador to Israel, 1977-1985.

Princeton N. Lyman — assistant secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1995-98; ambassador to South Africa, 1992-95.

Jack F. Matlock Jr. — ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1987-1991; director for European and Soviet Affairs, National Security Council, 1983-86; ambassador to Czechoslovakia, 1981-83.

Donald F. McHenry — ambassador to the United Nations, 1979-1981.

Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. McPeak — chief of staff, U.S. Air Force, 1990-94.

George E. Moose — assistant secretary of State for African affairs, 1993-97; ambassador to Senegal, 1988-91.

David D. Newsom — acting secretary of State, 1980; undersecretary of State for political affairs, 1978-1981; ambassador to Indonesia, 1973-77

Phyllis E. Oakley — assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research, 1997-99.

James Daniel Phillips — ambassador to the Republic of Congo, 1990-93; ambassador to Burundi, 1986-1990.

John E. Reinhardt — professor of political science, University of Vermont, 1987-91; ambassador to Nigeria, 1971-75.

Retired Air Force Gen. William Y. Smith — deputy commander in chief, U.S. European Command, 1981-83.

Ronald I. Spiers — undersecretary-general of the United Nations for Political Affairs, 1989-1992; ambassador to Pakistan, 1981-83.

Michael Sterner — deputy assistant secretary of State for Near East affairs, 1977-1981; ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, 1974-76.

Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner — director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1977-1981.

Alexander F. Watson — assistant secretary of State for Inter-American affairs, 1993-96; deputy permanent representative to the U.N., 1989-1993. Source: Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change
By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week arguing that President George W. Bush has damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November.

The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, will explicitly condemn Bush's foreign policy, according to several of those who signed the document.

"It is clear that the statement calls for the defeat of the administration," said William C. Harrop, the ambassador to Israel under President Bush's father and one of the group's principal organizers.

Those signing the document, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, include 20 former U.S. ambassadors, appointed by presidents of both parties, to countries including Israel, the former Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia.

Others are senior State Department officials from the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations and former military leaders, including retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East under President Bush's father. Hoar is a prominent critic of the war in Iraq.

Some of those signing the document — such as Hoar and former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill A. McPeak — have identified themselves as supporters of Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. But most have not endorsed any candidate, members of the group said.

It is unusual for so many former high-level military officials and career diplomats to issue such an overtly political message during a presidential campaign.

A senior official at the Bush reelection campaign said he did not wish to comment on the statement until it was released.

But in the past, administration officials have rejected charges that Bush has isolated America in the world, pointing to countries contributing troops to the coalition in Iraq and the unanimous passage last week of the U.N. resolution authorizing the interim Iraqi government.

One senior Republican strategist familiar with White House thinking said he did not think the group was sufficiently well-known to create significant political problems for the president.

The strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said the signatories were making an argument growing increasingly obsolete as Bush leans more on the international community for help in Iraq.

"Their timing is a little off, particularly in the aftermath of the most recent U.N. resolution," the strategist said. "It seems to me this is a collection of resentments that have built up, but it would have been much more powerful months ago than now when even the president's most disinterested critics would say we have taken a much more multilateral approach" in Iraq.

But those signing the document say the recent signs of cooperation do not reverse a basic trend toward increasing isolation for the U.S.

"We just felt things were so serious, that America's leadership role in the world has been attenuated to such a terrible degree by both the style and the substance of the administration's approach," said Harrop, who served as ambassador to four African countries under Carter and Reagan.

"A lot of people felt the work they had done over their lifetime in trying to build a situation in which the United States was respected and could lead the rest of the world was now undermined by this administration — by the arrogance, by the refusal to listen to others, the scorn for multilateral organizations," Harrop said.

Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was appointed by Reagan as ambassador to the Soviet Union and retained in the post by President Bush's father during the final years of the Cold War, expressed similar views.

"Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. has built up alliances in order to amplify its own power," he said. "But now we have alienated many of our closest allies, we have alienated their populations. We've all been increasingly appalled at how the relationships that we worked so hard to build up have simply been shattered by the current administration in the method it has gone about things."

The GOP strategist noted that many of those involved in the document claimed their primary expertise in the Middle East and suggested a principal motivation for the statement might be frustration over Bush's effort to fundamentally reorient policy toward the region.

Wow. This is a blockbuster move and the LAT picked up a scoop with it. I'll be monitoring the other media outlets to see what happens. The chat shows today will be already moving to deal with this story, which busts their plans wide open.

A Puzzle Wrapped in an Enigma

Baghdad fumes as the Americans seek safety in 'tombstone' forts
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

12 June 2004

The US army is paralysing the heart of Baghdad as it builds ever more elaborate fortifications to protect its bases against suicide bombers.

"Do not enter or you will be shot," reads an abrupt notice attached to some razor wire blocking a roundabout at what used to be the entrance to the 14 July bridge over the Tigris. Only vehicles with permission to enter the Green Zone, where the occupation authorities have their headquarters, can now use it. Iraqis who want to cross the river must fight their way to another bridge through horrendous traffic jams.

Gigantic concrete slabs, like enormous grey tombstones, now block many roads in Baghdad. They are about 12 feet high and three feet across and for many Iraqis have become the unloved symbol of the occupation. Standing side by side, they form walls around the Green Zone and other US bases, with notices saying it is illegal to stop beside them.

It is the ever-expanding US bases and the increasing difficulties and dangers of their daily lives which make ordinary Iraqis dismiss declarations by President George Bush about transferring power to a sovereign Iraqi government as meaningless. As Mr Bush and Tony Blair were speaking this week about a new beginning for Iraq, the supply of electricity in the country has fallen from 12 hours a day to six hours. On Canal Street yesterday, close to the bombed-out UN headquarters, there was a two-mile long queue of cars waiting to buy petrol.

Salahudin Mohammed al-Rawi, an engineer, dismisses the diplomatic manoeuvres over Iraq at the UN in New York and the G8 meeting in Georgia as an irrelevant charade. He said: "At the end of the day they cannot cheat the Iraqi people because the Iraqis are in touch with the real situation on the ground."

For many people in Baghdad the real situation is very grim. Twenty years ago Abu Nawas Street on the Tigris used to be filled with restaurants serving mazgouf, a river fish grilled over an open wood fire and a traditional Baghdadi delicacy. These days Abu Nawas is largely deserted and is used mainly by American armoured vehicles thundering down the road.
....
The reason why Abu Nawas is sealed off is that at the end of the street are the Palestine and Sheraton hotels, where many foreign company employees as well as journalists stay. A few hundred yards away is Sadoun Street, once a main four-lane artery in central Baghdad, but now reduced to two lanes opposite a side street leading to the Baghdad Hotel. This was attacked by a suicide bomber last year, without much damage to the hotel, which was universally believed by Iraqi taxi drivers to be a centre for the CIA. About 30 shops within the cordon sanitaire around the hotel now face ruin. Nadim al-Hussaini, who has a shop selling large air conditioners, says: "My business has completely disappeared, first 30 to 40 per cent when they put up a concrete barrier and 100 per cent when they closed the road." In theory he should get compensation from the Coalition Provisional Authority, but so far he has seen no sign of it.

Next door, Zuhaar Tuma owns a café which is not so badly affected because he still has his regular customers, smoking hubble-bubble pipes and playing dominoes. He was a little more understanding about why the road had been closed, saying: "I don't want to get blown up any more than the Americans do. But the real solution is simply for the Americans staying at the hotel to leave it."

The same could be said of the thousands of other American officials and soldiers in central Baghdad. Had they based themselves on the outskirts of the capital they would have been far less visible. But, cut off as they are in their compounds from real Iraqi life, they probably do not know and may not care about the sea of resentment that surrounds them.

Mr. Cockburn may be spending too much time on one of those "hubble-bubble" pipes: the Americans ARE moving into hardened forts outside of the cities. Baghdad will always be a puzzle that the military will never solve, we shouldn't be there in the first place.

Liberacion

Iraqis Put Contempt For Troops On Display

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 12, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 11 -- A pair of AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships thumped back and forth overhead, scouring residential streets for insurgents. Dun-colored Bradley Fighting Vehicles snorted and wheeled around, their tracks gouging holes in the tarmac. A dozen Humvees stood sentry, closing off the four-lane avenue to Iraqi cars, while nervous American soldiers with M-16 automatic rifles forbade local residents from approaching.

"Look at this," said Ghassan Abu Ahmed, raising his hand in a sweeping gesture toward the tableau of military might. "This is freedom? It is crazy."

A car bomb had just hit a U.S. military convoy passing down the main avenue Friday afternoon in southwest Baghdad's Sayediyeh neighborhood, one of the near-daily attacks on occupation troops across Iraq. By the standards of Iraqi violence over the past two months, it was not particularly bloody. The U.S. military reported no serious casualties. But for what it told about Iraqis' attitudes toward the 13-month-old U.S. occupation, the attack was devastating.

"What Saddam did was awful, but what the Americans are doing is worse," said Abu Ahmed, a laborer who lives with his wife and four sons in a government-built apartment house flanking the road. "They say they are bringing us freedom. But this is what they bring."

Since U.S. forces drove to Baghdad and overthrew President Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the 138,000 American soldiers stationed here have lost their status as liberators in the eyes of most Iraqis. Polling by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority has chronicled a steady souring of opinion, with the most recent surveys showing about 80 percent of Iraqis with an unfavorable opinion of U.S. troops.

They have been encouraged in their views by Muslim preachers, who, judging by their sermons, have concluded that the U.S. occupation should end immediately if peace is to be restored to Iraq. To buttress their arguments, they repeatedly have cited the abuse of Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib prison, which has helped crystallize opinion against the presence of U.S. soldiers.

"It was discovered that the freedom in this land is not ours. It is the freedom of the occupying soldiers in doing what they like, such as arresting, carrying out raids, killing at random or stealing money," Sheik Mohammed Bashir declared in his sermon Friday at Um al-Oura, a Sunni Muslim mosque in the middle-class Ghazaliya neighborhood.

"No one can ask them what they are doing, because they are protected by their freedom," he continued. "No one can punish them, whether in our country or their country. The worst thing is what was discovered in the course of time: abusing women, children, men, and the old men and women whom they arrested randomly and without any guilt. They expressed the freedom of rape, the freedom of nudity and the freedom of humiliation."

Sheik Bagir Saad at the Hikma Mosque in Sadr City, a stronghold of Shiite Muslim militiamen who have confronted the occupation militarily, denounced U.S. and U.N. plans that he said call for increased involvement by the international body and an increased emphasis on military forces from a variety of countries.

"The new U.N. resolution calls for multinational forces, but we want to inform all the countries that we don't want their armies, whether Arab, Islamic or foreign armies, because we will look at any army coming to Iraq as an occupation, and they should not send their children into this trap," he said.

The Baghdad residents who lined up to watch as U.S. soldiers clustered around their wrecked Humvees on Friday were clearly among the majority who have heeded the call of their sheiks. No one was heard expressing concern for the soldiers who were bombed. Judging by their comments, the neighbors of Sayediyeh's middle-class apartments looked at the avenue and saw enemies in desert camouflage.

Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 24, a worker who lives nearby, complained that the wounded U.S. soldiers were picked up and driven away for medical care by an Iraqi civilian ambulance that happened by. Iraqi ambulances are not for occupying troops, he declared.

"They shouldn't have taken them in the ambulance. They should have left them there, left them to die," Ahmed said to a neighbor.

"That's not right," objected Aqil Kitab, 28, another worker who was standing next to him. "Have you ever been in the army? Even your enemy, when he is wounded, you have to treat him. Then you can interrogate him or put him in a prisoner-of-war camp. The ambulance driver did his job. It was the right thing to do."

Ahmed conceded Kitab was probably right. But he predicted that such attacks would continue as long as U.S. forces remained in Iraq.

"I think that when the Americans leave Iraq, these kinds of things will stop, and we will have security again. These guys have a big organization behind them," he said, referring to the insurgents. "That's why they can do this. But I don't think it's right. If the Americans leave, we will start to fight among ourselves."

Fortunetelling

Juan Cole prognosticates:

California and Florida: Polls and Demographics work against Bush:
Has W. morphed from Neo to Smith?

(Here's a try: Neo and Smith in The Matrix are actually similar in many ways. Both of them want to overturn the Matrix status quo, both of them use violence, both of them are seeking to become something more than they are, are seeking to escape the trap of the pods in which the machines have imprisoned them. But Neo is open to reality, is willing to question, to go where the leads take him. Perhaps most Americans saw Bush as like Neo in the months immediately after September 11. Smith is "too ideological and stubborn," and as a result over-reaches at a crucial moment. It seems to me that his Iraq misadventure, Abu Ghuraib, Torturegate, the proto-fascist memos of the counsels to the president--all this has made Bush look increasingly Smith-like. If you are running for office, you want to be seen by the young people as like Neo, and not at all like Smith.)

Those of you who know films can explain the Neo and Smith references to me. Dr. Cole is 'way too subtle for me, sometimes.

Limbaughtomy

Limbaugh announces end of 10-year marriage

JILL BARTON

Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh announced Friday that he and his wife, Marta, were divorcing.

The Limbaughs "mutually decided to end their marriage of 10 years" and have "separated pending an amicable resolution," according to a statement released by Limbaugh's publicist.

The couple shared a $24 million oceanfront mansion in nearby Palm Beach. Limbaugh often broadcasts his daily three-hour show from a studio in a commercial area of Palm Beach.

Spokesman Tony Knight said the matter was personal and declined further comment.

It was the third marriage for both Limbaugh, 53, and his 44-year-old wife, who were wed May 27, 1994 at the Virginia home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas officiated the ceremony.

These are the people who dictate values to the rest of us?

Investigating the Investigators

General Granted Latitude At Prison
Abu Ghraib Used Aggressive Tactics

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 12, 2004; Page A01

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished, according to newly obtained documents.

The U.S. policy, details of which have not been previously disclosed, was approved in early September, shortly after an Army general sent from Washington completed his inspection of the Abu Ghraib jail and then returned to brief Pentagon officials on his ideas for using military police there to help implement the new high-pressure methods.

The documents obtained by The Washington Post spell out in greater detail than previously known the interrogation tactics Sanchez authorized, and make clear for the first time that, before last October, they could be imposed without first seeking the approval of anyone outside the prison. That gave officers at Abu Ghraib wide latitude in handling detainees.

Unnamed officials at the Florida headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which has overall military responsibility for Iraq, objected to some of the 32 interrogation tactics approved by Sanchez in September, including the more severe methods that he had said could be used at any time in Abu Ghraib with the consent of the interrogation officer in charge.

As a result, Sanchez decided on Oct. 12 to remove several items on the list and to require that prison officials obtain his direct approval for the remaining high-pressure methods. Among the tactics apparently dropped were those that would take away prisoners' religious items; control their exposure to light; inflict "pride and ego down," which means attacking detainees' sense of pride or worth; and allow interrogators to pretend falsely to be from a country that deals severely with detainees, according to the documents.

The high-pressure options that remained included taking someone to a less hospitable location for interrogation; manipulating his or her diet; imposing isolation for more than 30 days; using military dogs to provoke fear; and requiring someone to maintain a "stress position" for as long as 45 minutes. These were not dropped by Sanchez until a scandal erupted in May over photographs depicting abuse at the prison.

The Army has never said whether any of the particularly tough tactics that were authorized were used on detainees at Abu Ghraib or the other U.S.-run detention camps in Iraq before October, in the five-month period after the end of major combat operations in May 2003.

Officials have said that Sanchez approved the use of only one of the more severe techniques -- long-term isolation -- on 25 occasions after Oct. 12 and before the third set of rules was issued this May. The officials have described the abusive acts committed by Army personnel at Abu Ghraib before and during this time as aberrant activities conducted outside the rules.

One of the documents, an Oct. 9 memorandum on "Interrogation Rules of Engagement," which each military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib was asked to sign, sets out in detail the wide range of pressure tactics approved in September and available before the rules were changed on Oct. 12. They included methods that were close to some of the behavior criticized this March by the Army's own investigator, who said he found evidence of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuse" at the prison.

From Thursday:

WASHINGTON, June 9 — The commander of American forces in the Middle East asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week to replace the general investigating suspected abuses by military intelligence soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison with a more senior officer, a step that would allow the inquiry to reach into the military's highest ranks in Iraq, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The request by the commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, comes amid increasing criticism from lawmakers and some military officers that the half dozen investigations into detainee abuse at the prison may end up scapegoating a handful of enlisted soldiers and leaving many senior officers unaccountable.

General Abizaid's request, which defense officials said Mr. Rumsfeld would most likely approve, was set in motion in the last week when the current investigating officer, Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, told his superiors that he could not complete his inquiry without interviewing more senior-ranking officers, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq.

But Army regulations prevent General Fay, a two-star general, from interviewing higher-ranking officers. So General Sanchez took the unusual step of asking to be removed as the reviewing authority for General Fay's report, and requesting that higher-ranking officers be appointed to conduct and review the investigation.

"General Sanchez did this to ensure that there was a complete, thorough and transparent investigation that leaves no doubt as to the veracity of its findings," said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman.

Mr. Rumsfeld was expected to act on General Abizaid's request soon, Mr. Whitman said. It was unclear Wednesday night who would replace General Fay, who would almost certainly remain an important part of the inquiry that he has headed since his appointment on April 15. One possible candidate is Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the vice chief of staff of the Army, who is expected to replace General Sanchez in Iraq soon after the transfer of authority on June 30 to the new interim Iraqi government.

It was unclear whether how this change might delay the delivery of the final report, which had been expected in early July. Some lawmakers have said they would delay their calls for an independent congressional investigation or one modeled after the inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, until General Fay's report was completed.

Summing up the Reagasm

My head is nearly exploding. Many thanks for the commentor earlier this week who wished me strength to get through this day. It has not been easy. I hung in with PBS's coverage until the end of the funeral rite (a rite is not a "ceremony" you nitwits) and then switched to CNN, which has meant the afternoon has been abysmal. The Judy and Wolf show repeated all the predictable lies (longest economic expansion in history, most popular president, yada yada.) But the place where I went nuclear was when they played the footage of Hamid Karzai and the new Prime Minister of Iraq paying their respects in the Capital Rotunda yesterday. Is it only me that gets the irony? CNN didn't tell you, of course, that St. Ronnie was responsible for propping up Saddam and the Proto-Taliban Mujahadeen, the very forces responsible for oppressing these new politicians.

I'm giving the BoGlo/TAP writer Charles Pierce the last word today because I love his work. This is from Prospect Online. In this imaginary letter, St. Ronnie writes to the Nooner from heaven.

My friend, I miss you and send you love.

Seriously. Most of the Founders are up here (though Franklin's still in Purgatory) and James Madison and I had a nice chat about how he was different from Alfonso Calero. We started with their hairstyles and worked from there. He said he didn't necessarily agree that the Contras were the moral equivalents of his bunch; for one thing, he said, he was a lot better at designing a balance of power than razing a hamlet, and that he wouldn't even know which end of an M-16 you blow into. He pointed out that a lot fewer people died at the Constitutional Convention than did in Nicaragua in the 1980s. I told him about how it was Morning in America again, and he said he was glad to hear it. I think we're playing tennis some time next week. I'll be pretty busy until then. A couple of thousand Guatemalans want to say hello.

Click on the link to read the rest. It's a fitting end to a wooly day.

Looking for Work

via The Stakeholder, the DCCC blog, an analysis of the current jobs picture by Jonas Morris:

No Rosie Scenario

Finally, The loss of manufacturing jobs in the US isn’t the result of consumers wanting more foreign goods or the result of improved productivity in the manufacturing sector, as claimed by some. To the contrary, trade imbalances in manufacturing have accounted for only 34 percent of the decline in that sector since 2000. This translates into about 1.78 million jobs since 1998 and 935,000 jobs since 2000 that have been lost due to rising manufactured imports.

Sources: DOL May unemployment survey
Federal Budget» Economy and Jobs Watch, 04/05/2004
EPI Briefing Paper #149, By Josh Bivens, April 8, 2004

Jonas's analysis comports with my experience: there has been damn little to even apply for in the last few months.

The Stakeholder is a terrific blog that needs more exposure. When you get a minute, go take a look.

Criminal Enterprise

Halliburton Nigeria Payments Investigated
By REUTERS

Published: June 11, 2004
Filed at 1:29 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government is investigating payments made by a Halliburton Co. (HAL.N) joint venture to the Nigerian government in connection with a liquefied natural gas plant project in Nigeria, the company said on Friday.

Houston-based Halliburton, one of the biggest providers of field and engineering services to the energy industry, said it met with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department to discuss the matter. Investigators have asked Halliburton for information regarding the payments in light of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the company said.

Halliburton, once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, said it does not believe it violated the act but ``there can be no assurance that government authorities would not conclude otherwise.'' The company also said it continues to investigate the issue internally.

TSKJ is a Portugal-registered consortium equally owned by Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root, Technip SA (TECF.PA) of France, Eni SpA (ENI.MI) affiliate Snamprogetti Netherlands and JGC Corp. (1963.T) of Japan.

TSKJ and others have entered into contracts to build and expand a liquefied natural gas facility project for Nigeria LNG Ltd, a major venture owned by Nigeria's state oil company and affiliates of three European oil companies including Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD.AS) (SHEL.L), France's Totaland Italy's Agip.
....
In February, Nigeria said it was investigating allegations that the consortium paid from $150 million to $180 million in kickbacks to help secure a contract to build the LNG plant. The Justice Department at that time asked for documents in connection with the allegations.

The Nigerian kickbacks issue extended to France, where a French investigating magistrate opened a probe last year into the payments. Halliburton said its representatives recently met with the magistrate and expressed willingness to cooperate.

Meanwhile in May of last year, Halliburton disclosed it owed as much as $5 million in taxes to Nigeria.

The company said an internal audit discovered that one of its overseas units paid $2.4 million to an entity owned by a Nigerian national to get favorable tax treatment in the oil-rich West African country.

An official from a local tax authority presented himself as a consultant, the company said.

What Reuters doesn't tell you: this happened on Cheney's watch. Is there any doubt that Bushco is a criminal enterprise.

The Dogs of War

Use of Dogs to Scare Prisoners Was Authorized
Military Intelligence Personnel Were Involved, Handlers Say

By Josh White and Scott Higham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 11, 2004; Page A01

U.S. intelligence personnel ordered military dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers provided to military investigators.

A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were "having a contest" to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs, according to the previously undisclosed statements obtained by The Washington Post.

The statements by the dog handlers provide the clearest indication yet that military intelligence personnel were deeply involved in tactics later deemed by a U.S. Army general to be "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses."

President Bush and top Pentagon officials have said the criminal abuse at Abu Ghraib was confined to a small group of rogue military police soldiers who stripped detainees naked, beat them and photographed them in humiliating sexual poses. An Army investigation into the abuse condemned the MPs for those practices, but also included the use of unmuzzled dogs to frighten detainees among the "intentional abuse."

So far, the only charges to emerge have been against seven MPs and do not include any dog incidents, even though such use of dogs is an apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Army's field manual. The military intelligence officer in charge of Abu Ghraib later told investigators that the use of unmuzzled dogs in interrogation sessions was recommended by a two-star general and that it was "okay."

The LA Times' readership responds:

Before Abu Ghraib, I was merely looking forward to watching the voters politely tell our president that his services were no longer needed. But with each new revelation, my anger has grown. Did President Bush actually create a climate in which lawyers wrote memos that even considered using torture? If Bush approved the torture, or even asked for circumstances where its use would be allowed, we need to impeach him.

Miguel Munoz

Los Angeles

*

This president has been going around proclaiming that he is the war president. I just reread the Constitution and I see nothing in the executive section about the power to declare war. Article I, Section 8 clearly states that Congress shall have the power to declare war. Have I missed something? Has Congress declared war?

Since this president has so blatantly jettisoned the articles of the Geneva Convention, could the Constitution be next?

Joe Sevenliss

Corona

UPDATE: Here is a link to the WaPo photo gallery. The images are disturbing.

Going to Hell in a Handbasket

Withering National Parks

What's the price of tax cuts for wealthy Americans and fighting the war in Iraq? Well, start with continued decay of the national park system. The tax cuts and the war affect every other part of the federal budget, of course, but the cost to the parks became particularly evident this week as the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee drafted the National Park Service budget.

Give credit to House members for increasing the National Park Service's basic operations budget by $32 million, adding $10 million to the original request by President Bush, for a total of about $1.6 billion. But the increase doesn't begin to match the $130 billion in homeland security, law enforcement and other new costs imposed by the federal government. Park superintendents have already cut the cuttable corners and can barely maintain the most basic services.

For example, the law enforcement staff at Death Valley National Park was reduced from 23 to 15 over the last several years. Vast stretches of the park now go unpatrolled, though Death Valley is a favored route of drug runners.

The parks "are running to stand still," said Blake Selzer, a budget specialist for the National Parks Conservation Assn. Still, the $32-million annual increase pales beside the estimated $93-million cost of the war in Iraq per day. "America's national parks are in a bad way and they are only getting worse," former Supt. Bill Wade of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia told the Washington Post in late May. Wade is a spokesman for a group of retired Park Service officials that is an advocate for the parks.
....
The Senate committee is scheduled to take up its version of the parks budget in a couple of weeks. Park advocates are counting on allies such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). However, as the deficit grows, even the most beloved domestic causes are on the block.

For a while, the deficit — seemingly ignored — just increased while Congress kept spending. Now sobriety has returned in some corners of the Capitol. But as the hunt for savings grows urgent, lawmakers will look in ever more difficult places, including national forests and monuments and parks, to avoid touching the tax cuts. What will later generations think of this squandering?

This is one of the many costs of Bushco. Others include the national highway system (maybe when the bridges start to collapse they'll get some attention.) This, too, is part of the Reagan legacy.

Democracy in Decline

Poor Version of Democracy

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, June 11, 2004; Page A25

While the United States wages war to expand democracy around the world, how is our own democracy doing? Not very well, says a group of distinguished scholars.

"[T]he voices of American citizens are raised and heard unequally," declares a task force of the American Political Science Association. "The privileged participate more than others and are increasingly well organized to press their demands on government. Public officials, in turn, are much more responsive to the privileged than to average citizens and the least affluent."

Disparities in political participation, the report says, "ensure that ordinary Americans speak in a whisper while the most advantaged roar."

All citizens, especially politicians, should study the report of the association's Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy, which was released this week. The political scientists proclaim what many of us know instinctively: A government that ought to be helping ordinary citizens rise up tends to help those who are already up. But the report puts facts behind our instincts and shows how unfairness breeds more unfairness.

Since the early 1970s, the report says, we have seen "a massive mobilization into politics of advantaged groups that had not previously been active in Washington." With the decline in union membership, "the already privileged are better organized through occupational associations than the less privileged."

If the golden rule means that those who have the gold make the rules, that principle is alive and well in our campaigns. The task force, chaired by Lawrence Jacobs of the University of Minnesota, notes that while "[o]nly 12 percent of American households had incomes over $100,000 in 2000," 95 percent of the donors who made "substantial contributions" to political activity were in those wealthy households.

The Internet has been used this year to democratize the political money chase. But it is no cure-all. One of its effects, the report says, may be to "activate the active" and "widen the disparities between participants and the politically disengaged by making it easier for the already engaged to gain political information, to make political connections, and contribute money."

Wonder why it's so hard to pass universal health insurance or other programs to help the disadvantaged? "Americans who take part in politics are much less likely than many of their fellow citizens to have faced the need to work extra hours to get by," the report says. "The privileged are unlikely to have delayed medical treatment for economic reasons or cut back on spending for food or the education of children."

Even when the poor are spoken for, they are unlikely to do the speaking themselves. "The less advantaged are so absent from discussions in Washington," the report finds, "that government officials are likely to hear about their concerns, if at all, from more privileged advocates who try to speak for the disadvantaged."

And moderates, take note: "Americans who are very active in politics often have more intense or extreme views than average citizens who participate less or only sporadically."

The rise of the extremes combined with "the proliferation of interest groups speaking for very specialized constituencies" makes it "harder for government to work out broad compromises" and respond "to average citizens who have more ambiguous or middle-of-the-road opinions."

The report argues, rightly, that "[w]hat government does not do is just as important as what it does." In the not-so-distant past, government created programs to benefit broad groups of citizens -- Social Security, Medicare, the GI Bill, student loan programs and Pell Grant scholarships.

There have been few comparable innovations recently, and some of the traditional programs have been cut back. "The educational and training benefits for America's all-volunteer military are modest compared with those in the original G.I. Bill and, consequently, have made less impact in boosting the schooling of veterans to the level of non-veterans," the task force writes. So we praise and praise those who serve their country, but do little for them.

"Moreover," the task force says, "rising tuition, the declining value of individual Pell Grants, and state budget cuts have made higher education less affordable to non-veterans at a time when its economic value has risen and its contribution to counteracting the bias in political participation is invaluable." The political system reinforces the inequalities of political participation by cutting off the less privileged from the tools that encourage participation.

The report concludes with a call for "a vigorous campaign to expand participation and make our government responsive to the many, rather than just the privileged few."

"A government for the many, not the few" is a good political slogan. It's also the democratic ideal and an excellent idea.

You can read American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality in .pdf.

Sins and Crimes

Nathan Newman has a reflective post for this day of mourning:

In Memorium: Reagan's Victims

A moment of silence for the hundreds of thousands of people who died due to the murderers funded by his administration.

Nathan has a reading list if you want to learn more. Nathan also notes that the assaults on trade unionism begun by the Reaganites have now been picked up by the Bush administration. Bastards.

Blaming the Poor

Punishing the Poor
By BOB HERBERT

Published: June 11, 2004

If you want to see "compassionate" conservatism in action, take a look at Mississippi, a state that is solidly in the red category (strong for Bush) and committed to its long tradition of keeping the poor and the unfortunate in as ragged and miserable a condition as possible.

How's this for compassion? Mississippi has approved the deepest cut in Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled that has ever been approved anywhere in the U.S.

The new policy will end Medicaid eligibility for some 65,000 low-income senior citizens and people with severe disabilities — people like Traci Alsup, a 36-year-old mother of three who was left a quadriplegic after a car accident.

The cut in eligibility for seniors and the disabled was the most dramatic component of a stunning rollback of services in Mississippi's Medicaid program. The rollback was initiated by the Republican-controlled State Senate and Mississippi's new governor, Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the national Republican Party. When he signed the new law on May 26, Mr. Barbour complained about taxpayers having to "pay for free health care for people who can work and take care of themselves and just choose not to."

The governor is free to characterize the victims of the cuts as deadbeats if he wants to. Others have described them as patients suffering from diseases like cerebral palsy and Alzheimer's, and people incapacitated by diabetes or heart disease or various forms of paralysis, and individuals struggling with the agony of schizophrenia or other forms of serious mental illness.

The 65,000 seniors and disabled individuals who will lose their Medicaid eligibility have incomes so low they effectively have no money to pay for their health care. The new law coldly reduces the maximum income allowed for an individual to receive Medicaid in Mississippi from an impecunious $12,569 per year to a beggarly $6,768.

Many of the elderly recipients have Medicare coverage, but their Medicare benefits in most cases will not come close to meeting their overall requirements — which include huge prescription drug bills, doctor visits and often long-term care.

According to the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, which is coordinating an effort to somehow maintain the Medicaid coverage: "The people affected are low-income retirees now subsisting on Social Security or other pension benefits and people who have permanent disabilities that prevent them from being able to work."

Jane Powell, a 75-year-old Jackson resident who fears she will be lopped off the program, told reporters she has 10 different prescriptions for a variety of ailments, including heart disease and osteoporosis.

She worried aloud that if the law is not changed she might someday be found "dead in the street."

While Mr. Barbour insists he won't reconsider the matter, a backlash is developing against the cutbacks, which are extreme even for Mississippi.

The Democratic-controlled House opposed the cuts all along but gave in at the last minute. Democratic leaders insisted they were coerced. Technical aspects of the state's Medicaid law have to be renewed every year by the Legislature. If they are not, control of the entire Medicaid program can go to the governor. The Democrats said they were afraid that under those circumstances Mr. Barbour would have cut services even more.

At the time the bill was signed, the House speaker, Billy McCoy, called it "an absolute sin on society."

Now, with public clamor growing, the House (including most of the Republican members) is attempting to have the law reversed.

Representative Steve Holland, chairman of the House Public Health and Human Services Committee, told me this week: "My heart has been broken and crushed and stomped to pieces over this. I knew this was wrong."

He added, "This governor is my friend, but he's a Republican and his mantra is to starve this beast of big government in Mississippi."

This is the logical conclusion of the extreme Calvinism of the hard right: the poor are unworthy in the eyes of God. I seem to recall Jesus saying something rather different than John Calvin.

The Way We Live Now

via Digby: an email sent to Prof. DeLong regarding an appearance in Chicago by Sy Hersh....

Brad: Torture and rumors of torture. In my email inbox this morning...

Email this, people.

Consider the Log in Your Own Eye

Most Voters Say It Was Not Worth Going to War in Iraq
By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer

Most voters say it was not worth going to war in Iraq, but an overwhelming majority reject the idea of setting a deadline to withdraw all U.S. forces from the country, according to a new Times Poll.

Though the survey found voters increasingly worried that America is becoming ensnarled in Iraq and pessimistic that a democratic government will take root there, less than 1 in 5 said America should withdraw all its forces within weeks. And less than 1 in 4 endorse the idea advanced by some Democratic-leaning foreign policy experts and liberal groups to establish a specific date for withdrawal.

"I never thought we should go to war in Iraq," said Anne Wardwell, a retired museum curator in Cleveland who responded to the poll. "But I think we have to see it through, because if we don't, it is going to be a disaster in the region."

The survey also showed widespread concern that the war has damaged America's image in the world, a strong desire to see NATO take the lead in managing the conflict, and deep division over whether President Bush can rally more international support for the rebuilding effort.

The Times Poll, supervised by director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 1,230 registered voters from Saturday through Tuesday. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Anxiety over the war's direction and reluctance to abandon the cause in Iraq radiate through the survey.

Most Americans retain faith that the U.S. can control the military situation in the country. Just over half of those polled - 52% - said the U.S. is winning the war; only 24% said the insurgents are winning.

But voters are uncertain about the prospects of achieving broader goals in Iraq. Just 35% said the U.S. "is making good progress in Iraq," while 61% said they believed the U.S. "is getting bogged down." Those agreeing with bogged down included three-fifths of independents and more than four-fifths of Democrats.

A majority of Republicans, like Rosemary Wolfram of Cincinnati, agreed that progress is occurring. "I think we see some light at the end of the tunnel on the war," said Wolfram, a legal assistant.

Noting that an Iraqi interim government is preparing to assume sovereignty on June 30, she added, "That is going in the right direction."

In perhaps the most emphatic measure of anxiety about Iraq, 53% said they did not believe the situation there merited the war; 43% said it did. When the Times Poll asked that question last November and March, the numbers were essentially reversed.

In the latest survey, more than four-fifths of Republicans viewed the war as justified, while more than four-fifths of Democrats and 54% of independents said it was not.

"Since there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I have doubts that it was worth it, especially considering the amount of resentment and distrust that this has caused, not only with our allies but in the whole Muslim world," said Ray Luechtefeld, a professor at the University of Missouri.

The poll underscores how attitudes about the war loom as a dividing line in the presidential election. Among those who believe the threat from Iraq justified war, Bush leads Kerry, 83% to 13%. Among those who now believe the war was not justified, Kerry leads, 84% to 11%.

Expectations are limited for the Iraqi interim government now taking power. Nearly two-thirds of those polled said they don't believe the interim government will be able to govern the country without help from the U.S. and its allies.

And many are pessimistic that the Iraqis can sustain a democratic government: just 38% believe it is likely that Iraq will maintain a democracy after the U.S.-led coalition forces leave, while 49% consider it unlikely.

The Banality of Evil

Josh Marshall's column in The Hill:
When a picture doesn’t tell the whole story

Let’s start by discussing what’s in the pictures: limited violence against detainees, the use of nudity and sexual humiliation as a means of “softening up” detainees, psychological “torture” like the threat of death (such as the case of the picture of the man standing, arms outstretched, who was told he’d be electrocuted if he fell), and the use of attack dogs to frighten if not necessarily attack prisoners.

Those are the acts contained in those lurid photos. But even from the internal reports and official statements coming from the Pentagon and other branches of the administration, it’s clear that each of these methods was approved and authorized as a way of preparing detainees for interrogations.

Upon which Digby reflects:

What was the process by which they came to these dry legalistic definition of when, how and where on is allowed to inflict terrible pain as long as it doesn't reach the level of intensity that would accompany serious physical injury or organ failure? Did they discuss this around a conference table over a take-out Chinese dinner? Did they all nod their heads and take notes and write memos and have conference calls and send e-mails on the subject of what exactly the definition of "severe pain" is? Did they take their kid to school on the way to the meeting in which they finalized a report that says the president of the United States has the unlimited authority to order the torture of anyone he wants? Did they tell jokes on the way out?

These people who set about legalizing inhumane behavior on behalf of a president on whom they confer absolute power to order it at will are as shallow and evil as the cliché spouting president who demanded it. The slippery slope to totalitarianism started in a conference room where coffee and donuts and microsoft power point presentations on torture and pain were on the agenda one morning.

This is the thought that struck me as I read through the memoranda the WSJ released yesterday: beaurocracy as torture. This is psychology of Hitler's "Willing Executioners," the long slide of dehumanization from abuse to torture to mass murder which has been so much of the history of the last century. Talk about humanity's shadow side--we should be teaching in our health classes and psychology courses that the flip from ordinary Joe to monster can be accomplished with very little urging and cautioning our children that this is our human state.

The New Religious Left

Religious Left Seeks Center of Political Debate
Conferees Call For Stronger Voice

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 10, 2004; Page A02

More than 350 political liberals of many faiths gathered in Washington yesterday to begin what some pollsters say is a quixotic task: restoring the voice of the religious left in the nation's political debate.

"Progressive religious voices, which historically have fueled so much social change in this country, seem to have been washed out of the public dialogue in recent years," said John D. Podesta, a Roman Catholic who was White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton. Podesta now heads the Center for American Progress, the Democratic think tank that organized the conference to highlight the "proud past" and "promising future" of the religious left.

Speakers celebrated the role of religious liberals in the civil rights movement, protests against the Vietnam War, the nuclear freeze campaign and sanctions against South Africa's former apartheid system. They called for a stronger, more clearly religious voice against the Bush administration's foreign policy and for environmental stewardship, universal health insurance, and efforts to fight poverty at home and abroad.
....
"It really bothers me that whenever the media and others talk about people of faith, they talk only about the religious right and don't seem to realize there are people like me, who grew up Baptist and believe in God and have strong religious values, but who want different policy outcomes," said Melody Barnes, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former chief counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

But some of the Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims at the conference also said they have felt excluded or even disdained by the secular left. The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister at the Riverside Church in New York City, told the audience in his keynote address that "we have got to find a way not to be embarrassed" to speak about religion with secular progressives.

And there was no lack of hand-wringing among the conferees about what the religious left has done wrong.

"Part of it is our fault. We should take back the Bible, take back the theological principles and not just cede them to the religious right," said the Rev. Susan B. Thistlethwaite, a minister in the United Church of Christ and president of the Chicago Theological Seminary. "It's not good enough to talk in vague terms about values. We can do better than that. We can make the theological arguments."

Historian Taylor Branch said that in the 1970s, the abortion issue split the progressive religious alliance that had formed in the civil rights movement. Since then, the left has done no better than the right in "moving beyond polemics," he said.

"Not many people who call themselves pro-choice actually want to celebrate abortion, and not many of those who call themselves pro-life want to put women in jail for having abortions," he said. "It's more of a show than a debate, with polarizing options that aren't real. Both sides profess that they love children, but you don't really have the two sides doing very much to cooperate to reduce the number of neglected and abandoned and unwanted children, or to care for them."

The Rev. Charles Henderson, a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister who publishes the interfaith quarterly CrossCurrents, said that from the 1950s through the 1970s, the mainline Protestant denominations took for granted that their values would infuse television and the public schools. Evangelicals, who felt shut out of establishment institutions, created their own schools and broadcast outlets. "Then you wake up one day in 1984 and the Christian right is dominant, and you wonder why," he said.

The Evangelical right sprang up alongside the hardline conservatives and intertwined with them. The religious left is behind in the same way that the political left is, and detente between the two would be a very good idea.

SCOTUS and the Boy King

This stunner is by way of Phillip Carter, who further reports that this is all the buzz in DC's legal community.

Facing Defeat?
Justice Department lawyers, said to be pessimistic about winning upcoming Supreme Court cases on enemy combatants and Guantanamo prisoners, are now scrambling to bring a case against alleged 'dirty bomber' Jose Padilla
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 5:35 p.m. ET June 09, 2004

June 9 - Justice Department lawyers, fearing a crushing defeat before the U.S. Supreme Court in the next few weeks, are scrambling to develop a conventional criminal case against “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla that would charge him with providing “material support” to Al Qaeda, NEWSWEEK has learned.

The prospective case against Padilla would rely in part on material seized by the FBI in Afghanistan—principally an Al Qaeda “new applicant form” that, authorities said, the former Chicago gang member filled out in July 2000 to enter a terrorist training camp run by Osama bin Laden's organization.

But officials acknowledge that the charges could well be difficult to bring and that none of Padilla’s admissions to interrogators—including an apparent confession that he met with top Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah and agreed to undertake a terror mission—would ever be admissible in court.

Even more significant, administration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention—that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific purpose of setting off a radiological “dirty bomb”—has turned out to be wrong and most likely can never be used against him in court.

The reassessments of Padilla come amid a growing sense of gloom within Justice that the Supreme Court is likely to rule decisively against the Bush administration not just in the Padilla case but in two other pivotal cases in the war on terror: one involving the detention of another “enemy combatant,” Yasir Hamden, and another involving the treatment of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the Padilla and Hambdi cases, the administration is arguing it has the right to hold the two U.S. citizens indefinitely without trial. In the Guantanamo case, the administration argues that foreign nationals being interrogated there there do not have the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.

Lawyers within the Justice Department are now bracing for defeat in both the enemy-combatant and Guantanamo cases, both of which are expected to be decided before the Supreme Court ends its term at the end of the month, according to one conservative and politically well-connected lawyer. “They are 99 percent certain they are going to lose,” said the lawyer, who asked not to be identified. “It’s a very sobering realization.”

While Supreme Court forecasts are hazardous at best, the conventional wisdom among former Supreme Court clerks is that recent disclosures about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and internal administration memos disavowing compliance with international treaties involving treatment of prisoners has badly hurt the government’s arguments before the court and turned two key “swing” justices—Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy—against it, the lawyer said.

Insider thinking within Justice has the Supreme Court voting six to three against the administration on Guantanamo and by a perhaps even larger margin in the Padilla and Hamdi cases.

A newly declassified Pentagon report on Padilla—released by Deputy Attorney General James Comey—was in part intended to influence public thinking about his case and establish more clearly that Padilla was a dangerous Al Qaeda operative who intended to inflict harm on innocent civilians.

But some little-noticed passages in the report also raise new questions about the accuracy of previous administration statements about Padilla—questions that could subtly undermine one of the administration’s main positions before the court: that in times of war, it should be trusted when it locks up American citizens without trial in order to protect the public.

We should know within a week. Please, God, let them strike down the Imperial Bush Executive.

Making Nice

Middle East Dominates As G-8 Summit Ends
Jun 10, 9:51 AM (ET)

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

SEA ISLAND, Ga. (AP) - President Bush and European leaders are pledging a united effort to promote democracy and prosperity across the larger Middle East, but the rare show of unity masks lingering discord on both that plan and, more urgently, on ways to support Iraq.
.....
The G-8 leaders on Wednesday adopted a compromise version of Bush's plan to push democracy across the greater Middle East, but tied such an effort to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, at European insistence.

The plan aims to spur democracy by providing support to grass-roots groups, training 100,000 new teachers over the next decade and providing loans to fledgling entrepreneurs.

While all countries endorsed the aims, European countries grumbled that they have been pursuing many of these goals for years in the Middle East.

And many Arab countries remained suspicious of the whole enterprise, seeing it as unwanted meddling by the Bush administration.

"Change should not be imposed from the outside," said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one of the Middle East leaders who attended Thursday's discussion. "The character and traditions of each country must be taken into consideration."

Bush did not elaborate on what he meant by an expanded role for NATO now that an interim Iraqi government is in place, but Chirac said, "I do not believe it is NATO's purpose to intervene in Iraq."

Chirac and other G-8 leaders said they would be open to further discussions, and administration officials said they were not discouraged by the initial skepticism.

The Bush administration would like the alliance to take on additional duties, such as training Iraq's new army. It also would like NATO to send forces, but recognizes that is unlikely given strong German and French opposition, aides said.

Likewise, the administration was looking for upcoming talks to produce a breakthrough on forgiving a substantial portion of Iraq's estimated $120 billion in foreign debt.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is prepared to "eliminate the vast majority" of the Iraq debt that Japan holds if other members of the Paris Club of wealthy creditor nations do the same, said Japanese delegation spokesman Jiro Okuyama.

The United States is looking for significant reduction in Iraq's massive debt to give the country's war-shattered economy a chance to rebound.

Look, even if France and Germany and Canada were willing, NATO doesn't have the horses. Between Afghanistan and the Balkans, NATO is already stretched. This is another "lipstick on a pig" story.

Sunshine State

Not sure what to do with all of this:

Defending the ballot
Hiding voter information undermines confidence in the democratic system

Florida and the nation must not endure another presidential election disaster.

With five months to go before the Nov. 2 vote, time is running out to restore trust in the ballot and the confidence of the public in the democratic process.

That's why Gannett newspapers in Florida, including FLORIDA TODAY, are joining CNN, other news organizations, the Tallahassee-based First Amendment Foundation and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Tallahassee, in a suit seeking public access to state voter lists.

Set for a hearing today, the suit asks a Leon County circuit judge to throw out a 2001 law passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature that shuts off public access to lists of voters.

Even more critical, the law refuses public access to a list of those the state says are felons to be removed from the rolls.

Mistakes on the list mean qualified voters would be rejected at the polling place, with no defense against being refused their most basic rights as citizens.

Think it's not a problem?

Before the 2000 election, a private company hired by the state named thousands of people felons, purging them from voter rolls.

Later reviews showed more than 1,000 voters were wrongly purged. George W. Bush won by 537 votes.

In Florida, which has a long record of open government under the Sunshine Laws, keeping voting lists virtually secret is absolutely unacceptable.

Even worse, this wrongheaded law does the opposite of what a democracy should do, which is accommodate -- not frustrate -- every possible oversight of voting procedure.

Even the state doesn't deny the voting lists are public record. But conveniently for lawmakers, only political candidates can get the lists.

Others who want to be sure voters have not been wrongly purged as felons can look at the records, but only one record at a time.

That's ridiculous and insulting to the citizens who -- in case the state of Florida has forgotten -- own this government.

So far, 47,000 voter names are set to be purged, as gathered by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. And already, a review in Leon County shows problems with 10 percent of the records.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood claims allowing public access to voters lists would be "an invasion of privacy."

Tell that to the candidates who bombard voters with campaign mailings matched to voters' parties, neighborhoods, voting records, use of absentee ballots and other information available through databases.

'Or' could stop release of state felon voter lists

By Jim Ash, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Thursday, June 10, 2004

TALLAHASSEE -- A single word in the Florida Constitution could be enough to block Cable News Network and journalists across the state from investigating a controversial list of 47,000 suspected felons on the state voter rolls.

Attorneys for CNN and a handful of Florida media outlets appeared before Leon County Circuit Judge Nikki Clark on Wednesday and asked her to strike down a 2001 law that election officials cite as a reason for restricting access to the list.

"We believe that the section in question was unconstitutionally passed by the Florida Legislature," said CNN attorney Gregg Thomas.

CNN filed suit against the state Division of Elections last week when division director Ed Kast refused to turn the list over to the media. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the First Amendment Foundation and several newspapers have asked to join in.

Kast said he was merely following the law, which allows only politicians, political action committees, political parties and government officials to obtain copies. Anyone else can view the list, but cannot make copies or take notes while doing so.

Thomas argued that lawmakers failed to follow a constitutional mandate that requires them to state a specific reason when they pass laws closing public records.

But Joseph Klock, an attorney for the state, said there is no constitutional conflict. Lawmakers weren't creating a public records exemption when they passed the election reforms package, Klock insisted, because the public is still able to view the records, even though it can't make copies of them.

And the law follows the constitutional provision that gives everyone the right to inspect "or" copy public documents, Klock said. He pointed out that the provision does not say inspect "and" copy them.

"People were presumably smart enough to know what they meant by 'or' or 'and,' " when they voted on the constitutional amendment in 1992, Klock said.

Clark appeared to agree.

"I can't add words to the constitution," Clark told Thomas.

Florida elections division chief quits amid controvery on voter rolls
By Bob Mahlburg
Tallahassee Bureau

June 8, 2004

TALLAHASSEE · The head of Florida's elections division resigned Monday amid reports he was feeling political heat over a push to purge thousands of suspected felons from the state's voter rolls.

Ed Kast, who has worked for the state elections division for more than a decade, said only that he was resigning to "pursue other opportunities."

But Kast has told a handful of associates that he was uncomfortable with growing pressure to trim felons from voter rolls in time for the fall election, friends say.

"I've known him for 20 years, and I believe he has acted because under the circumstances it's the only thing he could do," said Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho, past president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections.

"Ed had made a number of comments that the nature and timing of this felons list was not something he was responsible for. I think he felt in good conscience he could no longer be involved in the operations."

Hours earlier, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson joined a lawsuit to force state election officials to reveal the names of 47,000 suspected felons who could be dropped from voting lists, saying he wanted to be sure mistakes in 2000 are not repeated.

"This year, Ohio and Florida are looked upon as the two states that could decide the presidential election and we just can't go through this again," the Florida Democrat said.

In the 2000 election, which President Bush won after taking Florida by 537 votes over Al Gore, there were accusations that thousands were wrongly disenfranchised when the state purged the voter roles of suspected felons.

Even a former state Republican Party executive called Kast's resignation "very strange."

"The timing is very suspicious," said Geoffrey Becker, now a GOP consultant. "I know there's a lot of concern about getting out the message that voting is OK this time."

Kast's sudden resignation was the No. 1 topic for county election supervisors from around the state who gathered Monday in Key West for a five-day meeting, a conference where Kast is scheduled to appear.

Kast, 53, told The Associated Press he wasn't resigning because of any problems at the agency.

He said he simply wanted to pursue other interests after working at the Department of State since 1994.

"I just thought that this was the time to do it," Kast said. "I'm not getting any younger."

Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who accepted Kast's resignation, did not return messages.

Hood named Dawn Roberts, the agency's attorney and a former legislative election specialist, to replace Kast.

Groups who have criticized the felon purge efforts seized on the announcement within minutes.

"It's a sign of serious disarray and instability," said Sharon Lettman, state director for People For the American Way Foundation.

Can any Floridian readers supply some light?

Bully Nation

Ex-Detainees Sue Companies for Their Role in Abuse Case
By KATE ZERNIKE

Published: June 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 9 - Lawyers representing former detainees who say they were sexually humiliated, beaten, and tortured at Abu Ghraib prison said Wednesday that they have sued two private companies that provided translators and interrogators at the prison.

The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and a Philadelphia law firm, accuses the Titan Corporation and CACI International Inc. of conspiring to abuse detainees in order to secure more contracts from the United States government.

It alleges that the two companies and three men who worked for them directed and participated in illegal conduct at the prison to squeeze information from detainees in an effort to prove that the companies should be awarded more contracts.

The plaintiffs say they were hooded, raped, stripped naked and kept in isolation, and subjected to repeated beatings with chains and boots.

Two of the men, Stephen A. Stefanowicz and John B. Israel, worked as interrogators for CACI; a third, Adel L. Nakhla, was a translator for Titan.

"It is patently clear that these corporations saw an opportunity to build their businesses by proving they could extract information from detainees in Iraq, by any means necessary," Susan Burke, of the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker, & Rhoads, said in a statement.

A Titan spokesman, Ralph Williams, called the lawsuit "frivolous."

Jody Brown, a CACI spokeswoman, said the allegations were "irresponsible and malicious" and noted that no charges had been filed against any of the company's employees.

"As we have said before, we do not condone, tolerate or endorse any illegal behavior by our employees in any circumstance or at any time," she said in a statement. "We will act forcefully if the evidence shows that any of our employees acted improperly. But we will not rush to judgment on the basis of slander, distortion, speculation, innuendo, partial reports or incomplete investigations."

I invite you to read Beating Specialist Baker from earlier this month.

At the Beach

Leaders Dispute NATO Role in Iraq
Chirac's Rejection of Bush Idea Hints at Summit's Underlying Tensions

By Glenn Kessler and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 10, 2004; Page A06

SAVANNAH, Ga., June 9 -- France and the United States clashed anew over Iraq on Wednesday, jarring the Group of Eight summit that the Bush administration had hoped would bury the diplomatic battles of the past.

Just hours after President Bush expressed hope that NATO could play an expanded role in providing security for Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac emphatically rejected the idea. "I do not think that it is NATO's job to intervene in Iraq," Chirac told reporters in a videoconference from Sea Island, the private resort where the leaders have gathered. "Moreover, I do not have the feeling that it would be either timely or necessarily well understood," said Chirac, adding that he had "strong reservations on this initiative."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a guest at the summit, later echoed Chirac's concern. Asked whether NATO, which includes Turkey as a member, should have a role in Iraq, Erdogan said: "The concept we've been emphasizing is the role of the United Nations."

The dispute hinted at the tensions simmering beneath the surface of the summit. The administration is eager to capitalize on the unanimous passage Tuesday of a U.N. Security Council resolution recognizing the interim Iraqi government, and it has pressed for agreements here on a range of issues, including Bush's signature effort to promote democracy in the Middle East. But officials from other nations said they reluctantly accepted some of the administration's ideas, and then only in watered-down or otherwise revised form.

Bush also failed to win support from the other leaders for writing off the vast majority of Iraq's $120 billion in debt, after France and Germany balked at giving the new Iraqi government a discount of more than 50 percent, officials said.

Leaders of the G-8 countries -- which also include Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan and Russia -- met in the relaxed setting of the private island off the coast of Georgia. All the leaders but Chirac were tieless as they arrived at the sessions in golf carts decked in national colors.

The dispute over NATO's role with Iraq came on a day on which the Bush administration had sought to showcase unity over its plans for Iraq and for the region. Bush was host of a lunch for G-8 leaders and the leaders of seven countries from what the G-8 calls the broader Middle East and North Africa -- Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Turkey, Algeria, Afghanistan and Iraq -- to highlight the administration's plans to spread democracy in Islamic countries.

The formal text of the plan, released Wednesday, said the G-8 would create a forum for discussions on reform with leaders of business and civil society in the region, among other initiatives. Leaders of key countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco spurned Bush's lunch invitation.

After lunch, Bush held his first meeting with Ghazi Yawar, the new interim Iraqi president.

"I really never thought I'd be sitting next to an Iraqi president of a free country a year and a half ago, and here you are," Bush said. Hailing the U.N. Security Council's new resolution on Iraq, an emotional Bush reiterated his intention for a "transfer of full sovereignty" to Iraq, adding: "It's been a proud day for me."

Yawar, in white headdress and brown robe, thanked Americans for "the sacrifices" endured during the war in Iraq and said Iraqis are "determined to have a free, democratic, federal Iraq." He assured Bush that "we are moving in steady steps towards it."

Bush had unexpectedly raised the question of a NATO role after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the morning. He said he had discussed NATO's involvement in Iraq over breakfast with Blair, "and we believe NATO ought to be involved." He added that he understood that "there is going to be constraints" and "a lot of NATO countries are not in a position to commit any more troops."

NATO, which operates on consensus, will hold a summit later this month in Istanbul, and a senior administration official briefing reporters on the Bush-Blair session said the two agreed to explore this question in the weeks leading up to the summit. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity before Chirac spoke, said the French and Germans have "expressed strong reluctance" about sending troops to Iraq but "they have not been quite as categorical about NATO's role in Iraq."

Click on the link to see the picture, which tells you everything. The Cowboy President is wearing a polo shirt, the President of France is in a suit. Appearances don't tell you everything, but they do tell you something. Where are the grownups?

The Lying Truth

The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Are You Better Off?

Economy Provides No Boost For Bush
Foreign Policy Concerns Hurt Approval Ratings

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 10, 2004; Page A01

The nation's economy is growing smartly, wages have begun to rise, and employers have added more than 1.4 million jobs to their payrolls in the past nine months. Yet voters continue to give President Bush poor ratings on his handling of the economy.

It may sound baffling, but interviews with voters, pollsters and economists suggest Bush's stubborn difficulties on domestic policy boil down to an obvious problem abroad.

"It all goes back to Iraq," said Steven Valerga, 50, a Republican in Martinez, Calif., who voted for Bush in 2000 but plans to vote for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in November. "It's a drain on the economy, when there's so much needed elsewhere. My gosh, we didn't need to be there."

War has usually been good for the economy in the short run, and this one appears no different. In the first three months of this year, defense work accounted for nearly 16 percent of the nation's economic growth, according to the Commerce Department.

But amid the car bombings, assassinations and continuing casualties, voters are generally pessimistic about the direction the nation is taking. Bush's negative ratings are rising not just on the economy but also on energy policy, foreign affairs and his handling of the prescription drug issue. Voters fixated on Iraq so far are not willing to see the improving economy through a positive prism, according to pollsters and Bush campaign aides.

"There's a general anxiety that is at heart about security," said Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt, "and that's why security is so central to the campaign. Security underlies our feelings about prosperity."

Bush's ratings have not just been impervious to good economic news; they have fallen with it. In April 2003, 52 percent of voters approved of his handling of the economy, although at that time payrolls had not pulled out of a skid that began in March 2001.

By late May, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, the president's approval rating on the economy had slipped to 44 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. By then, virtually every economic indicator was heading skyward.

Conversations about the economy gravitate to foreign policy, and voters find the corrosive influence of war in the most unlikely places.

To Valerga, the fighting has driven up the cost of the plywood he needed to redo his roof. Clint Doherty, a small-business man in Clarkston, Wash., sees the war in stainless-steel bolts, which have risen in price by more than 120 percent in a month and a half. To Jeremy Tuck, 31, a Republican in Hamilton, Ala., standing by Bush, it has sucked taxpayer dollars away from where it is needed: "We're spending $150 billion on the war. That's what's hurting us."

For numerous voters, it is the nagging sense that a president consumed with foreign affairs no longer cares about the plight of citizens at home. Jodie Flickinger, 52, a lifelong Republican in Columbia, S.C., recalled being taken aback by economic conditions during a Memorial Day weekend trip to her native Youngstown, Ohio.

"I think he gets more joy, he gets a bigger rush, out of doing world war," she said of Bush. "The United States economy just bores him or confuses him, I guess."

Patricia Smith, 70, a Republican in Newport News, sensed the same problem: "He's gotten so overwhelmed with these other things that he's forgotten what he promised he would do for us."

The nation's voters are right to have some questions about the health of the economy. Many months into what should be seen as an economic expansion, jobs remain elusive. Growth in wages, unless you are a CEO, is still flat. Higher health insurance premiums have gobbled up what little wage improvement most have seen. This is not an optimistic scenario.

Does the Gibbering Idiot who leads us right now have a plan for dealing with these problems? More tax cuts? Never mind.

And a Child Shall Lead Them

Higher-Ranking Officer Is Sought to Lead the Abu Ghraib Inquiry
By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: June 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 9 — The commander of American forces in the Middle East asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week to replace the general investigating suspected abuses by military intelligence soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison with a more senior officer, a step that would allow the inquiry to reach into the military's highest ranks in Iraq, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The request by the commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, comes amid increasing criticism from lawmakers and some military officers that the half dozen investigations into detainee abuse at the prison may end up scapegoating a handful of enlisted soldiers and leaving many senior officers unaccountable.

General Abizaid's request, which defense officials said Mr. Rumsfeld would most likely approve, was set in motion in the last week when the current investigating officer, Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, told his superiors that he could not complete his inquiry without interviewing more senior-ranking officers, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq.

But Army regulations prevent General Fay, a two-star general, from interviewing higher-ranking officers. So General Sanchez took the unusual step of asking to be removed as the reviewing authority for General Fay's report, and requesting that higher-ranking officers be appointed to conduct and review the investigation.

"General Sanchez did this to ensure that there was a complete, thorough and transparent investigation that leaves no doubt as to the veracity of its findings," said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman.

Mr. Rumsfeld was expected to act on General Abizaid's request soon, Mr. Whitman said. It was unclear Wednesday night who would replace General Fay, who would almost certainly remain an important part of the inquiry that he has headed since his appointment on April 15. One possible candidate is Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the vice chief of staff of the Army, who is expected to replace General Sanchez in Iraq soon after the transfer of authority on June 30 to the new interim Iraqi government.

It was unclear whether how this change might delay the delivery of the final report, which had been expected in early July. Some lawmakers have said they would delay their calls for an independent congressional investigation or one modeled after the inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, until General Fay's report was completed.

Even caissons and horses with boots reversed in their stirrups cannot make this go away.

Vocabulary Builder

Epitaph and Epigone
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: June 10, 2004

For the neocons, ideology is thicker than blood. Bush père is the weakling who broke his tax pledge and let Saddam stay in power. Just as Ronnie was a poor kid from Dixon, Ill., who reinvented himself as a brush-clearing cowboy of grand plans and simple tastes, so W. was a rich kid from Yale and Harvard and a blue-blooded political dynasty who reinvented himself as a brush-clearing cowboy of grand plans and simple tastes.

While W. talks the optimistic talk, he doesn't walk the walk; the Bush crew conducted its Iraq adventurism with a noir and bullying tone.

But Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz tried to merge Junior and Gipper. Mr. Perle said on CNN that Mr. Reagan wouldn't have been "pushed out of Iraq before completing the mission," and Wolfie agreed that 9/11 had "changed everything. I think it would have changed it for Ronald Reagan. We've gone from just being concerned with the freedom of other people in the Middle East to the threat to our own country from totalitarian regimes that support terrorism."

These maunderings forget that Mr. Reagan sometimes avoided risk, compromised and retreated; when 241 marines were blown up in Beirut, he rejected advisers' pleas and pulled out. Mr. Wolfowitz has told friends this was Mr. Reagan's low point.

As Alexander Haig told Pat Robertson yesterday, Mr. Reagan won the cold war without a shot. He championed freedom but didn't impose it at the point of a gun barrel. He had "Peace Through Strength"; Mr. Bush chose Pre-emption Without Powell.

The Bush crowd's attempt to wrap themselves in Reagan could go only so far. While Laura Bush and Donald Rumsfeld shared memories of fathers who had suffered from Alzheimer's, Mrs. Bush said she could not support Mrs. Reagan's plea to remove the absurd and suffocating restrictions on stem cell research.

Whether he was right or wrong, Ronald Reagan was exhilarating. Whether he is right or wrong, George W. Bush is a bummer.

epigone \EP-uh-gohn\, noun:
An inferior imitator, especially of some distinguished writer, artist, musician, or philosopher.

Mythical WMD

Items That Could Make Illict Arms Gone From Iraq, U.N. Told
By WARREN HOGE

Published: June 9, 2004

UNITED NATIONS, June 9 — Equipment and material that could have been used to produce banned weapons and long-range missiles have been emptied from Iraqi sites since the war and shipped abroad, the head of the United Nations inspectors office told the Security Council today.

Demetrius Perricos, deputy to the former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and now the acting executive chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, told a closed-door session of the council that many of the items bear tags placed by United Nations inspectors as suspect "dual use" ones having capabilities for creating harmless consumer products as well as unconventional weapons.

Mr. Perricos accompanied his briefing with a report showing satellite photos of a fully built-up missile site near Baghdad in May 2003 and the same site denuded in February 2004.

His spokesman, Ewen Buchanan, said that items removed from the site included fermenters, a freeze drier, distillation columns, parts of missiles and a reactor vessel — all tools suitable for making biological or chemical weapons.

"It raises the question of what happened to the dual use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for," Mr. Buchanan said.

He said that a fermenter was a good example of a dual use item that was potentially dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. "You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter," he said. "You can also use it to breed anthrax."

Another photo showed an engine from a banned SA-2 surface-to-air missile that had been tagged by the United Nations in Iraq in 1996 and recently discovered in a scrapyard in Rotterdam, the Dutch port.

The report said that workers there had told inspectors from UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency that as many as 12 such engines may have passed through the yard in January and February 2004 and that additional items made of stainless steel and other corrosion-resistant metal alloys with the inscriptions "Iraq" and "Baghdad" had been observed since November 2003.

"This is only a snapshot," said Mr. Buchanan. Two inspectors, he said, acting on information from the Netherlands, went to scrapyards in Jordan this past week and found 20 more such engines in addition to tagged processing equipment such as chemical reactors, heat exchangers and a solid propellent mixing bowl.

"The problem for us is that we don't know what may have passed through these yards and other yards elsewhere," he said. "We can't really assess the significance and don't know the full extent of activity that could be going on there or with others of Iraq's neighbors." Inspectors are hoping to check scrapyards in Turkey, he said.

Last month, The New York Times reported that large quantities of new reconstruction equipment and sensitive military material was being plundered in Iraq and trucked to Jordan to be sold as scrap. Mohamed El Baradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned the Security Council in April that nuclear facilities were unguarded and that large amounts of material, some of it contaminated, were being smuggled out of the country.

The United Nations inspectors were removed from Iraq just before the war broke out in March 2003, and, the report says, have been ignored by the American-led Iraq Survey Group that has been searching for arms since then.

In the negotiations leading to Tuesday's passage of a Security Council resolution on Iraq, Russia pressed for inclusion in the measure of language promising to reinvigorate the United Nations inspectors, but the final version simply pledged to "revisit" their mandate.

This article strikes me as deeply dishonest. A great deal of Iraq has been stripped of things since the invasion, but I have grave doubts that there was anything in the way of WMD on the ground before the invasion. With Scott Ritter, I think they were allowed to degrade after the first Gulf War and never amounted to anything as an argument in favor of our invasion. The once-great NYT is still shilling for Bush. Warren Hoge used to be one of the great correspondents on the military and intel beats. I hope he was embarrassed to submit this story.

State Funeral

The caisson and entourage are approaching the West Front of the Capitol. Reagan understood symbols, in language and in vision, about as well as the great users of symbol in the presidency, TR Roosevelt, FDR, Kennedy and Lincoln. He understood the uses of mythology, and what is going on this evening is part of the myth. Nixon didn't get this and this is why he had a private burial. Truman eschewed the symbols of power, Eisenhower had already learned to use them when they were efficient, he was an efficient man.

When Reagan was in town, he loved the symbols of power. His entourages when he had to take a car someplace are still legendary in this city--traffic was screwed up all over town for hours everytime he went someplace. Washington was very clear on the fact that he loved power and loved exercising it. I've heard him called a humble man by some conservative commentators. He was a charming man, and a charming man can get away with a lot and he did. But humble? No. I hated his politics and his policies, but I think he would have been the consummate dinner companion. He knew how to argue without being disagreeable, and that is a rare gift and what got him elected twice, along with the American dream of fewer taxes, none of which ever arrived for the middle to lower brackets. The American people are easily sold on pretty pictures and greed, and that was the essential Reagan (and Bush II) package.

The Vision Thing

Ronald Reagan, Hedgehogs And The November Election
by Arianna Huffington

The memorial pomp and circumstance and remembrance of GOP triumphs past surrounding Reagan's death have already given Bush's sagging approval ratings a bounce. But in the end, the president's vision is an irrevocably dark one, with fear at its heart. While Reagan rarely missed an opportunity to invoke America's greatness, Bush rarely misses a chance to scare and divide us.

He should use the break to come out swinging with his inner hedgehog in full public view.

Ethnic Tensions

Kurds Threaten to Bolt Iraqi Government

Jun 9, 12:02 PM (ET)

By TODD PITMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Kurdish parties warned Wednesday that they might bolt Iraq's new government if Shiites gain too much power. In another challenge to the interim administration, saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline, forcing a 10 percent cut in electricity output.

Kurdish fears of Shiite domination rose after the Americans and British turned down their request to have a reference to the interim constitution - which enshrines Kurdish federalism - included in the U.N. resolution approved Tuesday.

The country's most prominent Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, rejected any mention of the interim charter in the resolution. Shiites oppose parts of the charter that give Kurds a veto over a permanent constitution due to be drawn up next year.

Meanwhile, clashes persisted Wednesday around Fallujah, a rebellious Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad. Four members of an Iraqi force given control of the city last April were wounded when a mortar round exploded.

The pipeline attack appeared to be part of an insurgent campaign against infrastructure to shake confidence in the new government, due to take power on June 30.

The blast occurred about 9:30 a.m. near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, said Col. Sarhat Qadir of the Kirkuk police. Huge fireballs rose into the air, witnesses said.

Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told Dow Jones Newswires that the attack would not effect exports from the northern oil fields. However, the blast cut supplies to the Beiji electric power station, forcing a reduction of 400 megawatts in power generation, Jihad said.

Iraq now produces around 4,000 megawatts. Power cuts in the country have now reached more than 16 hours a day, making it difficult to cope with soaring heat, which is already more than 100 degrees.

The U.S.-run coalition had made its ability to guarantee adequate electricity supplies a benchmark of success in restoring normalcy to Iraq. However, sabotage and frayed infrastructure have impeded efforts to eliminate power outages, especially in the capital.

Yesterday's UN "sovereignty" debate was so besides the point when these are the facts on the ground. There really isn't any good news from Iraq.

Timing is Everything

Prison Interrogators' Gloves Came Off Before Abu Ghraib

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — After American Taliban recruit John Walker Lindh was captured in Afghanistan, the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld instructed military intelligence officers to "take the gloves off" in interrogating him.

The instructions from Rumsfeld's legal counsel in late 2001, contained in previously undisclosed government documents, are the earliest known evidence that the Bush administration was willing to test the limits of how far it could go legally to extract information from suspected terrorists.

The Pentagon and Congress are now investigating the mistreatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in late 2003 and trying to determine whether higher-ups in the military chain of command had created a climate that fostered prisoner abuse.

What happened to Lindh, who was stripped and humiliated by his captors, foreshadowed the type of abuse documented in photographs of American soldiers tormenting Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

At the time, just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. was desperate to find terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. After Lindh asked for a lawyer rather than talk to interrogators, he was not granted one nor was he advised of his Miranda rights against self-incrimination. Instead, the Pentagon ordered intelligence officers to get tough with him.

The documents, read to The Times by two sources critical of how the government handled the Lindh case, show that after an Army intelligence officer began to question Lindh, a Navy admiral told the intelligence officer that "the secretary of Defense's counsel has authorized him to 'take the gloves off' and ask whatever he wanted."

Hmmm. Earlier today I called this "tin-foil hat territory." Now I think they may be absolutely correct, given the quality and quantity of leaks in the last couple of weeks.

If they are correct, this explains a great deal:

Under Executive Privilege, a principle intended to protect the constitutional separation of powers, officials in the Executive Branch cannot give testimony in a legal case against a sitting President. The Bush administration has invoked or threatened to invoke the privilege several times. Dick did it over the secret records of his energy task force and George Bush tried to use it to prevent Condoleezza Rice from testifying before the "Independent" Commission investigating September 11th.

Former officials of the Executive Branch are, however, free to testify if they are no longer holding a government office when subpoenaed or when the charges are brought.

This would explain the timing of the resignations of George Tenet and James Pavitt last week. Pavitt was Valerie Plame's direct boss.

I seem to recall predicting all of this last summer when I was a commentor at dKos.

What Liberal Media?

via The Agonist (now on Scoop):

News Audiences Increasingly Politicized
Online News Audience Larger, More Diverse

Released: June 8, 2004

Despite tumultuous events abroad, the public's news habits have been relatively stable over the past two years. Yet modest growth has continued in two important areas online news and cable news. Regarding the latter, the expanding audience for the Fox News Channel stands out. Since 2000, the number of Americans who regularly watch Fox News has increased by nearly half from 17% to 25% while audiences for other cable outlets have been flat at best.

For the most part, these audiences have not increased in size in recent years, but they have not suffered the long-term declines experienced by newspapers and network evening news. In addition, more specialized news outlets ranging from the Weather Channel to religious radio also have held their own in the changing news environment.

Look at the second to last paragraph. The study equates "serious news consumers" with those who favor "liberal" sources. Interesting.

Enron Tapes

via Suburban Guerrilla:

More Enron Tapes, More Gloating

June 8, 2004

(CBS) The Department of Justice reportedly has thousands of hours of Enron employees recorded during the West Coast power crisis. Now, some in Congress want all the tapes released.

The first employee adds, "No, this is marketing,"

ENRON'S INTERNAL MEMOS
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released two Enron memos describing company plans to inflate energy prices during California's energy crisis of 2000.
The practices were considered so outrageous, that an attorney with the California Public Utilities Commission dubbed them a "smoking gun memo."

Dec. 6, 2000 memo (pdf)

Dec. 8, 2000 memo pdf)

Dental Work

Easier Than Pulling Teeth

It's simply not true that the Bush administration is hostile to congressional oversight. Why just a couple of weeks ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld answered an eight-month-old request by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for Defense Department e-mails and other records pertaining to Air Force decision-making about a controversial $23.5 billion tanker leasing deal with Boeing Co.

Okay. It took eight months. But Rumsfeld fully agreed to allow Congress to see the documents. Just a couple of teensy restrictions. The Pentagon, not Congress, will decide which documents the lawmakers can see.

Oh, and the senators, along with a "limited number" of Senate Armed Services Committee staff members, must schlep over to a special room in the Pentagon and can look at the documents for only six hours a day, for five days. No copying permitted. No note-taking, either.

One other thing, Rumsfeld said. The senators will not, alas, be able to see any documents related to the tanker-leasing deal that mention him, or the deputy defense secretary, or the president, or anybody who works for the president's executive office or the Office of Management and Budget, or the Pentagon's attorney, or that discuss budget options or base closings.

In short, they can see anything that mentions nothing of any conceivable interest.

Predictably, McCain is fuming. The General Accounting Office, the Congressional Research Service and the Defense Science Board more or less agree with him that the tank deal's a waste of money. The Pentagon's inspector general found numerous improprieties, and a former senior Air Force official has been indicted.

McCain not only wants to kill the deal, he wants to know how and why the Air Force agreed to it in the first place. Internal Boeing documents, obtained under threat of subpoena, showed its intense lobbying efforts and White House involvement in the deal.

Who knows what internal Pentagon documents -- which McCain now wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to subpoena -- might show?

But there's no need for that, Rumsfeld says. "Should a senator bring to our attention an allegation of impropriety contained in the documents made available for review, we would forward that information" to the IG.

See? Nothing if not cooperative.

Reflections

The Roots of Abu Ghraib

This week, The Wall Street Journal broke the story of a classified legal brief prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in March 2003 after Guantánamo Bay interrogators complained that they were not getting enough information from terror suspects. The brief cynically suggested that because the president is protecting national security, any ban on torture, even an American law, could not be applied to "interrogation undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority." Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt reported yesterday in The Times that the document had grown out of a January 2002 Justice Department memo explaining why the Geneva Conventions and American laws against torture did not apply to suspected terrorists.

In the wake of that memo, the White House general counsel advised Mr. Bush that Al Qaeda and the Taliban should be considered outside the Geneva Conventions. But yesterday, Attorney General John Ashcroft assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mr. Bush had not ordered torture. These explanations might be more comforting if the administration's definition of what's legal was not so slippery, and if the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House were willing to release documents to back up their explanation. Mr. Rumsfeld is still withholding from the Senate his orders on interrogation techniques, among other things.

The Pentagon has said that Mr. Rumsfeld's famous declaration that the Geneva Conventions did not apply in Afghanistan was not a sanction of illegal interrogations, and that everyone knew different rules applied in Iraq. But Mr. Rumsfeld, his top deputies and the highest-ranking generals could not explain to the Senate what the rules were, or even who was in charge of the prisons in Iraq. We do not know how high up in the chain of command the specific sanction for abusing prisoners was given, and we may never know, because the Army is investigating itself and the Pentagon is stonewalling the Senate Armed Services Committee. It may yet be necessary for Congress to form an investigative panel with subpoena powers to find the answers.

What we have seen, topped by that legalistic treatise on torture, shows clearly that Mr. Bush set the tone for this dreadful situation by pasting a false "war on terrorism" label on the invasion of Iraq.

The Howell Raines NYT has been a house organ of the GOP for the last 12 years. This editorial breaks with their masters.

The WaPo goes even further off the reservation:

This week, thanks again to an independent press, we have begun to learn the deeply disturbing truth about the legal opinions that the Pentagon and the Justice Department seek to keep secret. According to copies leaked to several newspapers, they lay out a shocking and immoral set of justifications for torture. In a paper prepared last year under the direction of the Defense Department's chief counsel, and first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal, the president of the United States was declared empowered to disregard U.S. and international law and order the torture of foreign prisoners. Moreover, interrogators following the president's orders were declared immune from punishment. Torture itself was narrowly redefined, so that techniques that inflict pain and mental suffering could be deemed legal. All this was done as a prelude to the designation of 24 interrogation methods for foreign prisoners -- the same techniques, now in use, that President Bush says are humane but refuses to disclose.

There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with the Bush administration, to go on torturing and killing detainees.

Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries. Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.

While America Slumbers

via Kos:

CCR OBTAINS INTERNAL PENTAGON REPORT OUTLINING FRAMEWORK FOR USE OF TORTURE

Opinions and Documents
Pentagon Report March 2003 (PDF) 6.7MB

Synopsis

CCR has posted the controversial Pentagon “Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy and Operational Considerations” on its website. The report is further proof of the Bush administration’s disregard for the Constitution and civil liberties and shows there was planning at high levels of government to abuse and torture detainees.

CCR President Michael Ratner stated, “This memo and others show there was planning far up the chain of command to torture detainess; the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere cannot be swept under the rug by going after low-level soldiers. Apparently highly placed U.S. officials were willing to approve interrogation methods that violate every convention on torture the United States has ever signed. But they needed to find cover for their actions and a defense to possible criminal prosecution. Government lawyers writing this report wildly distorted the law in an effort to exempt officials from potential criminal prosecution.”

For further information about the report and all CCR cases, contact Jen Nessel 212.614.6449

For questions about the report as it relates to international law, please consult Mary Ellen O'Connell, Ohio State University Professor of Law at [email protected]

NPR has the leak. Ashcroft is in contempt of Congress. Atrios is right; this entire administration is a criminal enterprise and should go to prison. Since that isn't an option, we have the voting box in November.

A reader sends along this link, which I regard as tin-foil hat territory, but given where the facts have gone this week, anything is possible. For your dining and dancing pleasure. Yikes, echoing some op-ed writer I scanned yesterday, I find myself longing for the crimes of the Nixon and Reagan administrations, which seem childlike and naive in comparison to the current crop of crooks.

Nation of Laws

Faithful reader and lawyer Frederick has some reflections on laws against torture and the like at his blog. The man DOESN'T write like a lawyer and you don't have to be one to read him. Go and learn.

Character Disorders

I've had a number of friends with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. You will be fscked by these people, no matter how careful you are. Here's the WaPo's story on Bush:

Friendship, His Way
Bush Sets the Terms in Forming Relationships With World Leaders

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; Page A01

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair asked President Bill Clinton three years ago for guidance on dealing with a successor, Clinton offered some succinct advice: "Be his friend."

"Friendship" may seem like a strange word for world leaders, who are responsible for representing the interests of their nations when they meet at events such as this week's Group of Eight summit in Sea Island, Ga. But personal bonds can help smooth out rough patches when national interests conflict -- or sometimes cause a blind spot when a cold assessment is required.

Clinton forged links with leaders who had similar outsized appetites and personalities, and he generally did not let disputes over policy interfere with those personal relationships. In President Bush's case, the relationships are very much on his terms, said former and current officials, as well as officials overseas.

Bush bonds with leaders who see the world as he does, who in his view "get" the war on terrorism, who talk simply and straightforwardly and do not break any private commitments and understandings, officials said. Leaders who are willing to accept his point of view may be able to modify it somewhat, or gain something in return, but those looking for real negotiations or give-and-take are liable to come away disappointed, officials and diplomats say.

According to one former White House official, Bush appears to have a simple test for evaluating his fellow leaders: Good people or bad people? Do they have a vision for their countries or not?

"Whenever he talked about leaders, these were the categories he used," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He said a CIA official who regularly attended the president's daily intelligence briefings first pointed out to him Bush's use of these terms, which was then confirmed by his own experience as a senior policymaker in the White House.

Beginning with the G-8 summit this week, Bush will socialize and negotiate with key leaders at a series of high-profile summits this month. The stakes are high for the president, who is seeking to win international approval for the U.S. plan to grant some political authority to an interim Iraqi government that will lead the war-torn nation until elections next year.

Bush has had mixed relations with the world leaders who will gather this week. Among them will be two, Blair and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who have given much thought to understanding Bush's personality and his approach to the issues. Both have assiduously courted him because they believe their nations' interests are enhanced by a close relationship with the American president.

Blair immediately figured out how important missile defense was to Bush at the start of his presidency -- and leveraged that to forge a common position on a range of issues. Koizumi backed Bush to the hilt on Iraq, even taking the unprecedented pledge of sending Japanese troops there. Koizumi's loyalty helped ensure Bush's acceptance of his trips to North Korea.

On the other hand, Bush has never really clicked with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. After a G-8 summit in Canada two years ago, a former U.S. official recalled, Bush told his aides in the White House situation room that Chirac just didn't "get" the war on terrorism. By contrast, he lavished praise in the same meeting on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- who will also attend this summit -- for understanding the terrorism threat.

Meanwhile, Schroeder's decision to oppose the war in Iraq to ensure his reelection -- after Bush believed he had promised to support it -- made it difficult for the president to trust Schroeder again.

Over the weekend, the continuing testiness between Bush and Chirac was on full display during a joint news conference in Paris. Chirac insisted he was never convinced there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- and told Bush that before the war -- and also scolded Bush for comparing the Iraq war to World War II.

But the common struggles and stresses of leadership these leaders face sometimes helps bridge the gap. When the space shuttle Columbia blew up two months before the Iraq war started -- and the United States and France were at diplomatic loggerheads -- Chirac immediately called Bush and spoke emotionally about the tragedies that heads of state sometimes had to face. Before hanging up, Chirac told Bush he was praying with him over the accident, a French official said.

Bush puts a lot of stock in his gut-level assessments of his fellow leaders. The fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin treasures a cross given by his mother -- and had it blessed in Israel -- convinced Bush he could deal with the former KGB operative. As a result, Bush declared after their first meeting that Putin was "very straightforward and trustworthy" and he was able to "get a sense of his soul."

Since then, Bush has continued to have close relations with Putin, who also will attend the summit, even as questions have arisen about whether Putin was smothering Russia's fragile democracy. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the relationship is "so broad and deep, the presidents could talk about anything on the map" when they meet at the summit.

Bush thinks personal chemistry trumps history and diplomacy. He "bonds" with an ex-KGB guy and gives our historical allies short shrift, thinking he can "see into the soul" of Pooty-Poot. Are these the actions of a sane or mature man? I don't think so.

I'm a spiritual director, the "cure of souls" thing is part of our mandate. Am I capable of JUDGING a soul? Hell, no. But can I tell you when actions are a screw up? Some of the time, I can.

State Funeral

Region Braces for Funeral Processions
D.C. Government, Schools Closed Friday; Local Officials Adjust Schedules

By Steven Ginsberg and Mark Stencel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; 4:58 PM

The city government and public schools in the District will be closed Friday to honor Ronald Reagan and to help ease traffic on a day when thousands of mourners are expected in the nation's capital to bid farewell to the former president, who died Saturday.

Local officials across the Washington area Tuesday were still adjusting plans and rescheduling events, including some high school graduation ceremonies, to account for the crowds and traffic disruptions expected for the three days of public ceremonies that begin Wednesday.

President Bush has declared Friday a national day of mourning and closed the federal government that day.

"Our city will be the focus of international attention over the next few days as our nation comes together with tributes, prayers, and heartfelt sympathy from millions of Americans who have been moved by the news of President Reagan's death," D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said in a statement Tuesday.

The graduation ceremonies for four Montgomery County high schools scheduled for Wednesday and Friday at DAR Constitution Hall have been adjusted to account for the arrival of Reagan's coffin in Washington on Wednesday and his funeral on Friday. On Wednesday, Quince Orchard High School will now hold its graduation at 2 p.m. on Wednesday and Thomas S. Wootton High School will hold its ceremony at 8 p.m., the school system said in a statement. On Friday, Watkins Mill High School holds its graduation at 9:30 a.m. and Northwest High School's ceremony was moved to 3 p.m. Montgomery County schools will be open on Friday, the statement said.

Local transportation officials have issued warnings to commuters and travelers in the hopes of avoiding three days of gridlock in the region. Alerts sent across the East Coast advised drivers to avoid the eastern arc of the Capital Beltway on Wednesday evening, when Reagan's coffin is taken from Andrews Air Force Base to the Capitol.

The Virginia Department of Transportation has lifted HOV restrictions on Northern Virginia interstates Friday.

Officials have asked people to use mass transit Wednesday through Friday, try to leave work early Wednesday and even take time off, if possible.

Great. Friday is going to be an absolute friggin' zoo. I'm supposed to go to a Washington Mystics basketball game that evening and the Metro is going to be a mess. This is about the same level of disruption as a 5" snowfall here in Paris on the Potomac.

International Cover

U.S. Bends to France, Russia on U.N. Iraq Resolution
Bush Predicts Unanimous Support in Security Council Vote

By Robin Wright and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; 1:10 PM

In a major push to win international backing before the Group of Eight summit begins, the United States made several last-minute concessions to incorporate French and Russian demands in a proposed United Nations resolution on Iraq. It should win unanimous support in a Security Council vote today, U.N. diplomats and President Bush predicted.
....
Passage of the resolution would represent a pivotal victory for the Bush administration as it ends a 14-month occupation of Iraq. The Security Council's approval also would be a stark contrast to the divisions and diplomatic disarray at the world body when the United States failed last year to win U.N. backing for a resolution authorizing military intervention in Iraq.

The resolution is critical for Iraq, because it bestows international legitimacy on the new government 22 days before the occupation ends. With the U.N. vote today, U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte said, Iraq will soon begin "a new phase in the political history, the full restoration of sovereignty and authority over Iraq's own affairs."

Even France, the most demanding party in the U.N. debate, sounded pleased with the resolution after both major and minor modifications yesterday. "It's much improved. . . . Things are going in the right direction," said French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere. "We're almost finished."

In a widely backed move, France and Germany had insisted that Baghdad have the right to veto Iraqi participation in "sensitive offensive operations" led by a U.S.-dominated multinational force, which was the final major concession by the United States and Britain, the resolution's co-sponsors.

Of course this represents very little of substance. The Iraq security forces are still so far from being able to take part in "sensitive offensive operations" that this is a lot of hooey. It's window dressing, but it does represent a significant climbdown, rather than a "pivotal victory" for Bush. Does it do anything to bring in more forces or money? No? Then what is it worth?

Some Balance for Krauthammer

President's analyst? Doctor puts 'Bush on the Couch'

President Bush has never had much use for talking to shrinks. And, according to one Washington-based psychoanalyst, we may all be paying for it.

Dr. Justin Frank has taken it upon himself to put "Bush on the Couch" (the title of his new book). Based on his applied psychoanalysis of Dubya's life, the White House is occupied by an "untreated ex-alcoholic" with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies. Even though he's a helluva nice guy.

"He's very affable," Frank, a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, tells us. "I like his sense of humor."

But although Frank has never met Dubya, the doc also finds:

# Bush shows an inability to grieve - dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction - no funeral and no mourning - set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who contends Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

# His mother, Barbara Bush - tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" - had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.

# George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."

# Bush has shown a "lifelong streak of sadism," ranging from "childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs)" to "insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad."

# Bush's years of drinking "may have affected his brain function - and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse."

Frank's recommendation? "The sole treatment option - for his benefit and ours - is to remove [him] from office."

Reality Trumps Rhetoric

The rich have been warned to leave Baghdad. But for the poor, there is no escape from crime
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

08 June 2004

Qasim Sabty, a painter who owns the Hewar art gallery in Baghdad, is scared. "So many of my relatives have been kidnapped that I fear I am going to be next," he says. He mentions the name of another gallery owner who had to pay kidnappers $100,000 (£60,000) for the return of her grandson.

Fear of kidnap is pervasive in Baghdad. Mr Sabty is not a particularly wealthy man but kidnapping comes at the top of his list of reasons why he feels insecure. He said: "You feel lucky if your son goes to school in the morning and comes back safe in the evening." Kidnap is now so common new words have been added to Iraqi thieves' slang. A kidnap victim is called al-tali or the sheep and the person who identifies a potential target to kidnappers is called al-alaas.

Suicide bombs and battles between US troops and militias get the attention of the outside world. But the chronic sense of insecurity felt by Iraqis is almost equally the result of the impact of violent crime.

At the headquarters of the Iraqi police serious crime organisation, Lieutenant-Colonel Farouk Mahmoud, the deputy head of the 40-member kidnap squad, said criminals turned to kidnapping as highly profitable and almost risk-free. He says: "Their favourite targets are doctors and businessmen. In 95 per cent of cases, the kidnappers have been tipped off by somebody close to the victim such as a friend or an assistant."

Usually the family of the hostage is told to call a Thuraya satellite phone number. The failure of the US security forces to help Iraqi police track a Thuraya call is a major source of complaint among the officers. "They gave us the information only once," Col Mahmoud says. "We found the house where the kidnappers were immediately though the victim, a doctor for whom $10,000 was being asked, had been killed already."

But the kidnap squaddoes have its successes. One day an informer told Major Abdel Karim to look in a house in the town of Salman Pak south-east of Baghdad. "We found two men bound and gagged," Major Mahmoud says. "There was a whole family of kidnappers who owned a farm." He shows a photograph of the two victims, one elderly with white hair and the other dark-haired and much younger, surrounded by the triumphant officers of the police kidnap squad.

Not all kidnaps end happily. In one case, the daughter of a businessman was taken hostage. During talks about her release, her brother shot dead the kidnapper's negotiator. A few days later the girl's head was returned in a sack. With horror stories like this making the rounds it is not surprising that many Iraqi exiles who returned after the fall of Saddam Hussein have now disappeared.

"I am making a little money but not enough to justify this sort of risk," one told me. It is not known how many kidnaps there are every month. Many are never reported to the police. One man asked Major Mahmoud if he had equipment to track a Thuraya phone call. When he was told he did not, he said: "In that case, I will handle this kidnapping myself."

Asked how an Iraqi businessman should try to avoid being kidnapped Major Mahmoud says brightly, to laughter from other officers: "Go abroad." If this is not possible, they should conceal the fact that they have money, watch those who work for them and vary their routine. Not surprisingly, many wealthy Iraqis decided the safest course is to move with their families to Jordan.

Kidnapping is not the only threat. The son of one of the richest men in Baghdad was attacked in his car by gunmen a few weeks ago and the vehicle was riddled. His wife and son were killed. It is still unclear who wanted to assassinate him but the random violence is similar to that in parts of Russia in the early 1990s. The difference is that in Iraq there is also the danger of being killed by the insurgents or the notoriously trigger-happy American troops.

Peaceful, free Iraq.

Bring Back the Grownups

Kerry Faces the World

What would a John Kerry foreign policy look like? In some ways a lot like one the current President's father could endorse

by Joshua Micah Marshall

Last December, Kerry delivered a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations titled "Making America Secure Again," in which he declared, "Those of us who seek the Democratic presidential nomination owe the American people more than just anger, more than just criticisms of the Bush policy, or even piecemeal solutions. We need to convince America that we Democrats are responsible stewards of our national security and of America's role in the world."

As a Democrat trying to unseat a Republican in time of war, Kerry faces a historic challenge. In the period after Vietnam the Democratic Party became a house divided against itself, with an articulate and energetic dovish base battling a diffuse but larger Cold War constituency. This had two effects. First, it created a poisonous dynamic whereby Democratic politicians came to approach national-security policy less in substantive than in tactical terms—searching for the sweet spot of political safety or attempting to dispense with national security as quickly as possible in order to move on to matters with which they were more comfortable. Over the years this habit of reflexively adopting the politically expedient position sent voters a clear message: many Democratic politicians were just not serious about national security. The second effect was to cede the ideological and intellectual battlefield to Republicans. In the post-Cold War era Republicans developed a foreign-policy vision based on the notion that America should aggressively assert itself abroad, and in which the problem of Saddam Hussein became an idée fixe.

These twin perceptions—of Democratic feebleness and Republican assuredness—combined to devastating effect in the 2002 elections. Democrats were trounced, and President Bush seemed unstoppable. But as conditions in Iraq have grown steadily worse, the terrain has shifted. What voters once viewed as the President's steely resolve many now see as stubbornness, which has led to skepticism about his practical know-how and ability to carry out the mission of stabilizing and democratizing Iraq. Against this backdrop Kerry's foreign policy could prove attractive.

Democratic foreign-policy hands tend to be less ideologically driven than Republican ones. Their strengths lean toward technocratic expertise and procedural competence rather than theories and grand visions. This lack of partisan edge is best illustrated by the fact that two of Kerry's top advisers served on Bush's National Security Council staff as recently as last year (Beers as senior director for counterterrorism, and Flynt Leverett as senior director for Middle East initiatives). The team that advised candidate Bush in 1999 and 2000—the so-called "Vulcans"—was practically the mirror opposite of the Kerry team. Though all its members had served at least one stint in government, most had held political appointments rather than working for decades in the security bureaucracy, as Beers did. And whereas Kerry's team is the embodiment of the nation's professional national-security apparatus, key members of Bush's team, such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had spent entire careers trying to overthrow it.

Josh's piece points to a fundamental choice facing the electorate this fall: the choice between competent professionals or ideological amateurs.

Stirring the Pot

Karzai Shows He'll Cast Lot With a Corps of Warlords
By CARLOTTA GALL

Published: June 8, 2004

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 6 - President Hamid Karzai has accepted the support of powerful mujahedeen leaders for the presidential elections scheduled for September, indicating he will continue an alliance with them in a future government. His move has dismayed many Afghans who were hoping that the nation's first democratic elections would herald an end to the power of the warlords, who have dominated politics for the past decade.

Mr. Karzai is far and away the leading candidate to win a five-year term as president, with Afghanistan's first pre-election opinion survey putting his approval rating at 85 percent. The leaders of the powerful Northern Alliance faction have already said they will not field a candidate and will support Mr Karzai, who is scheduled to meet with American soldiers at Fort Drum, N.Y., on Tuesday to personally thank them for their help in Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai met last Thursday with the former president and leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami party, Burhanuddin Rabbani; the leader of the Ittehad-e-Islami, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf; and with some of the most powerful mujahedeen commanders, including Gov. Ismail Khan of Herat Province. All pledged support for him. The education minister, Yunus Qanooni, also publicly expressed his support this week. The defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, and four other important Pashtun mujahedeen party leaders have done the same, presidential aides said.

Mr. Karzai insisted Thursday that he had not made a deal with the faction leaders and was opposed to a coalition government. Yet it is clear that Mr. Karzai, rather than testing his popularity by standing alone, has opted to join forces with the mujahedeen, men who fought the jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet occupation in the 1980's and who have been his traditional allies over the years.

"The president welcomed the offer of support of the two parties," the presidential chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, said in an interview this week. "These are the two distinguished leaders of jihad whom we always respect, and the president of course was also a leader of jihad, and therefore there is no reason that the president would not accept their offer."

Impartial observers say there is more involved than camaraderie among fellow former jihadis. "He knows it is the most important thing to make a bargain with the jihadis," said one Western diplomat. "He came to power with them, and he is not going to change the political dynamic," he said.

Other officials explained it is not Mr. Karzai's style to go it alone, and his strategy has always been a "big tent policy," to co-opt the warlords rather than confront them.

But his joining forces with the jihadi leaders, many of whom still retain armed militias and pay only lip service to the central government, has dismayed some.

"The deal that has taken place is against the national benefit and the will and desires of the people of Afghanistan," said another presidential candidate, a doctor from Kabul, Massouda Jalal.

She accused Mr. Karzai of agreeing to give half the cabinet posts to Mr. Sayyaf and Mr. Rabbani in return for their support in the elections. Mr. Karzai was concerned that he could not win the election without their support, she said.

A coalition with the mujahedeen would prolong the many problems facing the government, she said. "With this coalition, the reconstruction of Afghanistan will not take place, collection of weapons will not take place, we will keep on having instability and anarchy, the unfairness of the current situation will not improve, and the free will of the people will not be implemented," she said.

Underscoring the precariousness of the security situation, United States military officials said one American soldier was killed and two were wounded Monday when an explosive device detonated under their Humvee near the town of Deh Rawood in Uruzgan Province in the south. The attack was the latest in a stretch of violence that has intensified during the last few weeks.

Gee, nationbuilding turns out to be hard, particularly if you really aren't paying attention to it and are pursuing major unnecessary wars elsewhere. Afghanistan is a failed state, and such are the natural home of stateless terrorists. This failure on our part makes us and the rest of the world markedly less safe.

Ruins of War

via yankee doodle, the hero of the blogosphere:

Military families protest Iraq services

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press
Last updated: 3:41 a.m., Tuesday, June 8, 2004

WASHINGTON -- It's been 550 days since members of the 94th Military Police Company left their homes.

Children have been born, marriages delayed, jobs put on hold. And family members Monday demanded to know why their loved ones are still escorting convoys into Baghdad, while other units have done their service and come home.

In the wake of the prisoner abuse scandal and amid growing concerns about the extended service being required for the Iraq war, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserves, hosted aggrieved family members at the Pentagon for the first time.

And in meetings that lasted all morning, military leaders armed with briefing papers and a slide show presentation tried to answer their questions.

But while the families were happy someone finally heard their concerns, they didn't get the answer they wanted.

"This is war," Helmly told the more than two dozen New England family members who took a bus from Massachusetts to ask him about the unit's status.

They were hoping for a July 4th homecoming, but Helmly wouldn't guarantee a return date. Instead, he promised to visit the Army reserve unit when he goes to Iraq soon, and said he would check into their service time.

"They've been deployed for a very long time. They're tired and they feel like they've done their part," said Bob Wennerstrand of Norwood, Mass., whose son Derek, 20, left home not long after his high school graduation. "We asked the general to look into it, and the general has agreed to do that."

While the Pentagon acknowledged that the 94th is one of the longest serving units in Iraq, no one could provide details on who has been there the longest. Instead, Army Reserve spokesman Al Schilf said specialized companies like the 94th -- which does combat support and convoy escorts -- were kept in Iraq longer because of their particular expertise.

That, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, points to a problem the military must address. "It's evident our active duty army does not have the right mix of troops," said Collins, who helped set up the meetings. "Otherwise they would not be putting such stress and strain on our guard and reserve."

Family members from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire came off the bus at the Pentagon with lists of other military police units that served and came home, and talk of active duty soldiers who served their one-year mission and were done.

The 94th's 152 members have had their military mission extended twice, and by the time they come home in October -- as currently scheduled -- they will have served 685 days, or just short of two years.

Voluntary Guard and Reserve and Active service is now being turned into impressment. This is the return of the draft by other means.

Let's be clear about this. When men enlisted or were drafted during the second World War, they served in theater for years, it is true. Iraq is not the second World War, however much Baby Bush would like to make it so.

The sequellae from C+ Augustus's personal war are going to be huge. I've treated the diplomatic failures elsewhere, but what concerns me most is what has been done to our fighting forces. I don't pretend to understand the psychodrama inside W's mind that led to this conflict, but whatever it was, the readiness of our Armed Services have been undermined for at least a decade to come. In a world which is demonstrably more threatening than we understood in 2001, this is unconscionable and treasonous behavior.

There. I said it. If this website disappears, blame the Patriot Act.

Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Worse

The Wall Street Journal broke this story yesterday and it has already been much discussed in the blogosphere. I don't subscribe, so I was unable to link yesterday, but today both the WaPo and the NYT have summaries. Here is the Post:

Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture
Justice Dept. Gave Advice in 2002

By Dana Priest and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; Page A01

In August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may be justified," and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted in President Bush's war on terrorism, according to a newly obtained memo.

If a government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity, "he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network," said the memo, from the Justice Department's office of legal counsel, written in response to a CIA request for legal guidance. It added that arguments centering on "necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability" later.

The memo seems to counter the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, assumption that U.S. government personnel would never be permitted to torture captives. It was offered after the CIA began detaining and interrogating suspected al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the wake of the attacks, according to government officials familiar with the document.

The legal reasoning in the 2002 memo, which covered treatment of al Qaeda detainees in CIA custody, was later used in a March 2003 report by Pentagon lawyers assessing interrogation rules governing the Defense Department's detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At that time, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had asked the lawyers to examine the logistical, policy and legal issues associated with interrogation techniques.

Bush administration officials say flatly that, despite the discussion of legal issues in the two memos, it has abided by international conventions barring torture, and that detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere have been treated humanely, except in the cases of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for which seven military police soldiers have been charged.

Still, the 2002 and 2003 memos reflect the Bush administration's desire to explore the limits on how far it could legally go in aggressively interrogating foreigners suspected of terrorism or of having information that could thwart future attacks.

In the 2002 memo, written for the CIA and addressed to White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, the Justice Department defined torture in a much narrower way, for example, than does the U.S. Army, which has historically carried out most wartime interrogations.

In the Justice Department's view -- contained in a 50-page document signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee and obtained by The Washington Post -- inflicting moderate or fleeting pain does not necessarily constitute torture. Torture, the memo says, "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

By contrast, the Army's Field Manual 34-52, titled "Intelligence Interrogations," sets more restrictive rules. For example, the Army prohibits pain induced by chemicals or bondage; forcing an individual to stand, sit or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time; and food deprivation. Under mental torture, the Army prohibits mock executions, sleep deprivation and chemically induced psychosis.

Human rights groups expressed dismay at the Justice Department's legal reasoning yesterday.

"It is by leaps and bounds the worst thing I've seen since this whole Abu Ghraib scandal broke," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid legal accountability. The effect is to throw out years of military doctrine and standards on interrogations."

But a spokesman for the White House counsel's office said, "The president directed the military to treat al Qaeda and Taliban humanely and consistent with the Geneva Conventions."

Mark Corallo, the Justice Department's chief spokesman, said "the department does not comment on specific legal advice it has provided confidentially within the executive branch." But he added: "It is the policy of the United States to comply with all U.S. laws in the treatment of detainees -- including the Constitution, federal statutes and treaties." The CIA declined to comment.

The Justice Department's interpretation for the CIA sought to provide guidance on what sorts of aggressive treatments might not fall within the legal definition of torture.

The 2002 memo, for example, included the interpretation that "it is difficult to take a specific act out of context and conclude that the act in isolation would constitute torture." The memo named seven techniques that courts have considered torture, including severe beatings with truncheons and clubs, threats of imminent death, burning with cigarettes, electric shocks to genitalia, rape or sexual assault, and forcing a prisoner to watch the torture of another person.

"While we cannot say with certainty that acts falling short of these seven would not constitute torture," the memo advised, ". . . we believe that interrogation techniques would have to be similar to these in their extreme nature and in the type of harm caused to violate law."

"For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture," the memo said, "it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years." Examples include the development of mental disorders, drug-induced dementia, "post traumatic stress disorder which can last months or even years, or even chronic depression."

Of mental torture, however, an interrogator could show he acted in good faith by "taking such steps as surveying professional literature, consulting with experts or reviewing evidence gained in past experience" to show he or she did not intend to cause severe mental pain and that the conduct, therefore, "would not amount to the acts prohibited by the statute."

In 2003, the Defense Department conducted its own review of the limits that govern torture, in consultation with experts at the Justice Department and other agencies. The aim of the March 6, 2003, review, conducted by a working group that included representatives of the military services, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the intelligence community, was to provide a legal basis for what the group's report called "exceptional interrogations."

Much of the reasoning in the group's report and in the Justice Department's 2002 memo overlap. The documents, which address treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, were not written to apply to detainees held in Iraq.

In a draft of the working group's report, for example, Pentagon lawyers approvingly cited the Justice Department's 2002 position that domestic and international laws prohibiting torture could be trumped by the president's wartime authority and any directives he issued.

At the time, the Justice Department's legal analysis, however, shocked some of the military lawyers who were involved in crafting the new guidelines, said senior defense officials and military lawyers.

"Every flag JAG lodged complaints," said one senior Pentagon official involved in the process, referring to the judge advocate generals who are military lawyers of each service.

"It's really unprecedented. For almost 30 years we've taught the Geneva Convention one way," said a senior military attorney. "Once you start telling people it's okay to break the law, there's no telling where they might stop."

A U.S. law enacted in 1994 bars torture by U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon group's report, prepared under the supervision of General Counsel William J. Haynes II, said that "in order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority."

The Pentagon group's report, divulged yesterday by the Wall Street Journal and obtained by The Post, said further that the 1994 law barring torture "does not apply to the conduct of U.S. personnel" at Guantanamo Bay.

It also said the anti-torture law did apply to U.S. military interrogations that occurred outside U.S. "maritime and territorial jurisdiction," such as in Iraq or Afghanistan. But it said both Congress and the Justice Department would have difficulty enforcing the law if U.S. military personnel could be shown to be acting as a result of presidential orders.

The report then parsed at length the definition of torture under domestic and international law, with an eye toward guiding military personnel about legal defenses.

The Pentagon report uses language very similar to that in the 2002 Justice Department memo written in response to the CIA's request: "If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," the draft states. "In that case, DOJ [Department of Justice] believes that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions."

The draft goes on to assert that a soldier's claim that he was following "superior orders" would be available for those engaged in "exceptional interrogations except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful." It asserts, as does the Justice view expressed for the CIA, that the mere infliction of pain and suffering is not unlawful; the pain or suffering must be severe.

A Defense Department spokesman said last night that the March 2003 memo represented "a scholarly effort to define the perimeters of the law" but added: "What is legal and what is put into practice is a different story." Pentagon officials said the group examined at least 35 interrogation techniques, and Rumsfeld later approved using 24 of them in a classified directive on April 16, 2003, that governed all activities at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon has refused to make public the 24 interrogation procedures.

Last time I checked, if you pulled any of this stuff on your kids (for example) your custody would be terminated. If you pulled any of it on your spouse (for example) you would be prosecuted. Is anyone not clear that any of these practices constitutes torture, and that finding legal ways for the executive to condone it violates the Constitution?.....Good, that's what I thought.

The Measure of the Man

A friend sent me this by email last evening. It feels like the plain truth to me.

The dignity and candor of Reagan’s farewell letter to the American people was as magnificent a departure from public life as any that has been seen in our history, but the ugly truth of his illness was that he lived on, and on, and on. His family and friends watched as he faded from the world of the real, as the simple dignity afforded to all life collapsed like loose sand behind his ever more vacant eyes. Only those who have seen Alzheimer’s Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to die.

In the final analysis, however, the legacy of Ronald Reagan—whether he had an active hand in its formulation, or was merely along for the ride—Is beyond dispute. His famous question, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” is easy to answer. We are not better off than we were four years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve, or twenty. We are a badly damaged state, ruled today by a man who subsists off Reagan’s most corrosive final gift to us all: It is the image that matters, and be damned to the truth.

Extended Stay

General Refuses to Rule Out Longer Extension for U.S. Troops in Iraq

By Panos Kakaviatos Associated Press Writer
Published: Jun 7, 2004

WIESBADEN, Germany (AP) - Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday he could not rule out keeping soldiers from the 1st Armored Division in Iraq beyond a previously announced three-month extension.

"I think it is unlikely, but in the end we are going to have to do what is needed to be done - never say never," Myers told reporters during a visit to Wiesbaden, where the 1st Armored Division is based.

Soldiers from the division were to have begun returning to Germany in April, but had their tour extended because of a surge in violence in Iraq.

"The decision to extend the 1st Armored Division was very difficult, but they are also involved in a very important mission," Myers said.

Myers stopped over after attending Sunday's D-Day commemorations in France to talk with 120 family members, and said he was "impressed with the spirit and resolve of our military families."

He said he had no plans to meet Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the commander of a Wiesbaden-based military intelligence brigade implicated in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

U.S. Army officials investigating the mistreatment are examining whether military intelligence officers ordered or encouraged the abuse. Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, was named in Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report as someone "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses."

We are so understaffed that God only knows when these troops will be able to come home. The Army is broken.

Funeral Week

White House Briefing
by Daniel Froomkin

The Reagan Comparison
Monday, Jun 07, 2004; 11:26 AM

The death of Ronald Reagan places President Bush squarely in the role of mourner-in-chief. But it's not entirely clear if Bush will emerge from a solid week of tributes and reminiscences resplendent as a self-styled heir to the Reagan legacy, or if he will suffer in comparison from a stature gap.

And some of the things they have in common -- massive deficits, a disengaged management style, ideological stubbornness -- are not necessarily Bush's strongest assets.

Given that the Bushies have an eerily perfect record at screwing things up, I'll bet this reaches back to bite them. The only good thing for Bush about this is that is keeping Abu Ghraib off the TV screens for another week.

Coprorate Rape

The Contrasts of Padre Island

Padre Island is the largest undeveloped barrier island in America, and, like all barrier islands, it is a fragile place, subject to the incremental forces of wind and water as well as the blunt trauma of occasional hurricanes. The thin strip of land between the gulf and the lagoon on the mainland side is a sea of grasses and wetlands, a critical oasis for resident and migratory birds. But like most national parks, Padre Island is caught between conservation and recreation. Far worse, it is also threatened by unsightly, unnecessary and potentially damaging industrial development.

In this delicate world, it is disturbing to see the line of vehicles filled with tourists driving along the sand on busy weekends. But that pales beside the weekday traffic — a convoy of huge tractor-trailers, most of them carrying well-drilling rigging. The convoy drives into the park and down the beach, preceded and followed by scouts on four-wheelers, to the far side of the island and a drilling pad the size of a suburban house lot. There, a crew is erecting a gas well, the second of 18 possible wells being developed by BNP Petroleum, a Corpus Christi company, in a project whose majority investors are Australian and Japanese.

When Congress created Padre Island in 1962, private owners were allowed to retain the mineral rights, as well as access to any land and water necessary to extract them. The National Park Service, which administers Padre Island, has been forced to live with this absurd arrangement and to do its best to help mitigate the inherent damage of so much heavy traffic across such a fragile ecosystem.

In other words, Americans may own the surface of Padre Island, but our collective rights are subordinate to the rights currently owned by the Dunn-McCampbell Royalty Interest — the former owner's heirs (whose lobbyist happens to be Tom DeLay's brother) — and leased by BNP.

Local residents and environmentalists have pressed the government to buy and retire these mineral rights, freeing the National Seashore from drilling. The Bush administration tried unsuccessfully two years ago to provide just that kind of protection for Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve, an attempt that may soon be revived. In Florida — a swing state, with a Bush as governor — the administration has tended to favor popular environmental protection programs. But in Texas, a safe state for the president, there is little political pressure even to try to buy out the Padre Island mineral rights. This administration's petroleum fever — and the recent crest in prices — makes it even unlikelier.

The national park system was not created to hold property for future exploitation when commodity prices were right. It was created to set aside lands in perpetuity for their inherent natural and scenic value, to preserve them for public use and to protect them from private development. On the gulf coast of Texas, oil and gas rigs abound. What does not abound — and what is threatened now — is undeveloped public land, a refuge not only for sea turtles but for ordinary Americans. The value of visitors to the island over time will be far greater than the profits and write-offs extracted from these wells. No economic logic can warrant the drilling of Padre Island.

The Costs of War of Choice

Fear of rising violence sends bills for bodyguards soaring
By Severin Carrell and Paul Lashmar

06 June 2004

The Foreign Office is paying £1m a week for private bodyguards to protect its diplomats in Iraq amid growing fears that attacks against Westerners will surge in ferocity as the coalition hands over power to the interim government at the end of the month.

The Independent on Sunday has learnt that Foreign Office ministers have tripled their spending on personal security after advisers said staff in Iraq are at even greater risk of being targeted by insurgents and al-Qa'ida forces in the run-up to 30 June.

This leap in spending will focus fresh attention on the increasingly significant role played by private security firms in Iraq after a little-known company run by Lt Col Tim Spicer - the former Guards officer at the centre of the "arms to Sierra Leone" scandal in 1999 - won a huge £280m deal with the Pentagon last month to provide security staff in Iraq.

Security experts now openly predict that the recent attacks on Westerners and non-Iraqis - culminating in the deaths of two Japanese journalists and several British civilians - could be dwarfed by more violence in the next few weeks.

Two of the British "close protection" staff killed in Iraq last month worked for Control Risks and ArmorGroup - the two firms now earning £1m a week with the Foreign Office. One was a former British soldier hired by Control Risks to protect FCO diplomats and its contractors. Mark Carman, 38, was killed alongside Bob Morgan, a 63-year-old oil expert from Merthyr Tydfil coaxed out of retirement by the FCO to work in Iraq, in a rocket attack outside the coalition's headquarters on 24 May. Six days earlier, an ArmorGroup employee, Andrew Harries, 34, from Aberdare, was shot dead by a sniper when his convoy was attacked near Mosul, northern Iraq.

A spokesman for Control Risks said: "We've seen much greater targeting of civilian contractors and their support teams. I think in the run-up to 30 June the situation will become more dangerous and more volatile, because there are so many people with an interest in making it volatile."

The two firms, which have been working for the FCO in Iraq since July last year have now been awarded short-term contracts worth £8.2m just for bodyguards and security staff for May and June - staff mainly drawn from former members of the British Army, SAS and Royal Marines. The money is being spent on providing specialist personal bodyguards for the FCO's 180 diplomats and junior staff, private security advisers and static guards at its offices in cities such as Baghdad and Basra.

That £1m a week bill is roughly three times the value of the previous contracts with Control Risks and ArmorGroup, which added up to more than £14m for the nine months between July last year and April 2004.

I'm digging around looking for American costs for private security firms. If you find a link, please send it along. The info is damnably hard to find.

Killing Fields

300,000 Deaths Foretold

Monday, June 7, 2004; Page A22

THE EARLY PREPARATION for the genocide in Darfur, Sudan's vast western province, played out behind a veil of ignorance: Almost no foreign aid workers operated in the region, and the world failed to realize what was happening. Stage two of the genocide, the one we are now in, is more acutely shameful: A succession of reports from relief agencies, human rights groups and journalists informs us that hundreds of thousands of people are likely to perish, yet outsiders still cannot muster the will to save them. Unless that changes, we are fated to live through the genocide's third stage. There will be speeches, commissions of inquiry and sundry retrospectives, just as there were after Cambodia and Rwanda. Never again, we will be told.

It is already too late to prevent death on a scale that taxes the imagination. Sudan's murderous government and its allies in the death squads known as the Janjaweed have killed an estimated 30,000 people in Darfur since a rebellion broke out there a bit over a year ago. The crackdown has chased more than 1 million people from their homes and villages. Refugees crowd into camps that the Janjaweed encircle, as food supplies dwindle and their children die for lack of clean water and medicines. The rainy season, now beginning, will make it hard to deliver relief supplies, and starvation seems probable. On Thursday, Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, declared that in an optimistic scenario -- meaning one in which significant relief is delivered -- some 300,000 people might perish. That is the equivalent of Sept. 11, 2001, 100 times over. The worst-case scenario, according to Mr. Natsios, is a death toll that approaches 1 million.

Sudan's government is delighted with this slaughter. It perfected the art of ethnic cleansing in its long war against the country's southern rebels, and it has expertly repeated the process in Darfur. The formula is to destroy villages using a combination of informal militias and government air power, then to deny relief organizations access and let starvation do the rest. When international protests heat up toward the boiling point, some humanitarian access is granted, but it's always late and inadequate.

So it is now in Darfur. The United States recently landed nine planeloads of relief supplies, and the government has relaxed visa restrictions that had kept aid workers out. But the Sudanese regime still demands that relief supplies be transported on Sudanese trucks and distributed by Sudanese agencies, and that medicines not manufactured in Sudan undergo time-consuming testing. The only plausible explanation: Sudan's government wants people to die by the tens of thousands. Meanwhile, Darfur's rebels do not make things easier. Sketchy reports over the weekend indicated that the rebels took 16 aid workers hostage before releasing them Sunday.

The United States, Britain and Norway have been anxious to broker and implement a north-south peace and so have shrunk from pressuring the northern government for greater access to Darfur. Outsiders pretend to believe that a team of 60 or 100 observers from the African Union will be enough to end the atrocities in Darfur, a region the size of France, and they pretend to hope that Sudan will grant full humanitarian access without being bullied into doing so.

The tragedy is that aggressive diplomatic pressure would have a good chance of working. In the past, Sudan's government has been pushed into expelling Osama bin Laden, negotiating with the southern rebels and signing a paper cease-fire in Darfur. The United States and its allies should press for a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding full and immediate humanitarian access. They should encourage Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, to force the world's attention onto the crisis; a letter by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) calling upon Mr. Annan to visit Darfur has attracted 45 signatures in Congress. And they should authorize the use of military escorts for emergency aid. The United States is overcommitted militarily in Iraq and elsewhere. But this is a mission for which European countries ought to make troops available.

"Never again" are just words. We've tolerated genocide since forever and we still do.

Requiem

Not being able to find anything better to, the NY Times's Adam Nagourney decides to campaign for W.

Reagan Legacy Looming Large Over Campaign
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: June 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 6 — From the shores of Normandy to President Bush's campaign offices outside Washington, Mr. Bush and his political advisers embraced the legacy of Ronald Reagan on Sunday, suggesting that even in death, Mr. Reagan had one more campaign in him — this one at the side of Mr. Bush.

In France, Mr. Bush heralded the late president as a "gallant leader in the cause of freedom," and lionized him in an interview with Tom Brokaw. In Washington, Mr. Bush's aides said that it was Ronald Reagan as much as another president named Bush who was the role model for this president, and they talked of a campaign in which Mr. Reagan would be at least an inspirational presence.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Bush's likely Democratic challenger, was no less warm in praising Mr. Reagan, with a speech and a tribute on his Web site. Mr. Kerry's campaign canceled five days of events, in what aides described as both a gesture of respect to Mr. Reagan and a bow to the reality that the world would not be paying much attention to Mr. Kerry this week.

Mr. Bush's advisers said Sunday that the intense focus on Mr. Reagan's career that began upon the news of his death on Saturday would remind Americans of what Mr. Bush's supporters have long described as the similarities between the two men as straight-talking, ideologically driven leaders with swagger and a fixed idea of what they wanted to do with their office.

"Americans are going to be focused on President Reagan for the next week," said Ed Gillespie, the Republican national chairman. "The parallels are there. I don't know how you miss them."

Even some Democrats said they were concerned that the death of Mr. Reagan would provide a welcome, if perhaps temporary, tonic for a president who had been going through tough political times.

"I've been dreading this every election year for three cycles," said Jim Jordan, Mr. Kerry's former campaign manager. "Bush has totally attached himself to Ronald Reagan. He's going to turn Reagan into his own verifier."

What a thoughtless piece of work. Perhaps, for reporters, Reagan=Bush, but for the rest of us the Boy King=Quagmire. Maybe his ratings in the polls will get a bump this week, but in the larger scheme of things, Americans have already forgotten Ronald Reagan.

Truth

Level With Americans
By BOB HERBERT

Published: June 7, 2004

It's not too late for President Bush to go on television and level with the American people about what the war in Iraq is costing the nation in human treasure and cold hard cash. Like members of a family, the citizens of a nation beset by tragedy have a need and a right to know the truth about its dimensions and implications.

Last week the Army had to make the embarrassing disclosure that it did not have enough troops available to replenish the forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. So in addition to extending the deployment of many of the troops already in the war zones, the Army announced that it would prevent soldiers from leaving the service — even if their voluntary enlistments were up — if their units were scheduled to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thousands of soldiers will be affected by these "stop-loss orders," which is the term the Army uses. Others have said that delaying retirements and blocking the departure of soldiers who have completed their enlistments will amount to a backdoor draft.

In any event, the Army is so over-extended, stretched so dangerously thin, that most knowledgeable observers, whatever their take on the war in Iraq, have described the stop-loss policy as inevitable.

"They don't have enough soldiers," said Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island who is a member of the Armed Services Committee. "And when you don't have enough soldiers, you have to keep the ones you have longer. And that's exactly what they did."

The shortage of soldiers was widely recognized by insiders, but the administration never made the problem clear to the public, and never took the steps necessary to deal with it. Senator Reed, a former Army captain, told me in an interview last week that he felt the civilian leadership at the Pentagon "should have recognized very early on that we needed a bigger army and should have moved aggressively" to expand the force.

"Last fall," he said, "I sponsored an amendment along with Senator Schumer on the supplemental appropriations bill to increase the Army by 10,000, just as sort of an opening salvo. And they vociferously opposed it. They lobbied against it and they killed it."

The stop-loss policy is the latest illustration of both the danger and the fundamental unfairness embedded in the president's "what, me worry?" approach to the war in Iraq. Almost the entire burden of the war has been loaded onto the backs of a brave but tiny segment of the population — the men and women, most of them from working-class families, who enlisted in the armed forces for a variety of reasons, from patriotism to a desire to further their education to the need for a job.

They never expected that the failure of their country to pay for an army of sufficient size would result in their being trapped in a war zone with the exit doors locked when their enlistments were up.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have been given a pass. The president has not asked us to share in the sacrifice and we haven't demanded the opportunity to do so. We're not even paying for the war. It's being put on credit cards issued in the names of future generations.

For America's privileged classes, this is the most comfortable war imaginable. There's something utterly surreal about a government cutting taxes and bragging about an economic boom while at the same time refusing to provide the forces necessary to relieve troops who are fighting and dying overseas.

We should stop the madness. A president who is sending troops into the crucible of combat has an obligation to support them fully and treat them fairly.

How many troops, really, are needed in Iraq? And for how long? Five years? Ten years? (Many thoughtful people who initially opposed the war but believe now that it would be wrong to just abandon Iraq think the U.S. will have to keep troops there for a minimum of five years.)

There seems to be widespread agreement now that tens of thousands of additional men and women are needed in the Army. If that's so, how much would such an expansion cost? And who would be called upon to serve?

Mr. Bush has always been quick to characterize himself as a wartime president. But he's never been candid about the true costs of war, about the terrible suffering and extreme sacrifices that wars always demand.

Now is the perfect time to correct that failing. The nation deserves the truth.

Legacy

Juan Cole:

Reagan's officials so hated the Sandinista populists in Nicaragua that they shredded the constitution. Congress cut off money for the rightwing death squads fighting the Sandinistas. Reagan's people therefore needed funds to continue to run the rightwing insurgency. They came up with a complicated plan of stealing Pentagon equipment, shipping it to Khomeini in Iran, illegally taking payment from Iran for the weaponry, and then giving the money to the rightwing guerrillas in Central America. At the same time, they pressured Khomeini to get US hostages in Lebanon, taken by radical Shiites there, released. It was a criminal cartel inside the US government, and Reagan allowed it, either through collusion or inattention. It is not a shining legacy, to have helped Khomeini and then used the money he gave them to support highly unsavory forces in Central America. (Some of those forces were involved after all in killing leftwing nuns).

Reagan's later life was debilitated by Alzheimer's. I suppose he may already have had some symptoms while president, which might explain some of his memory lapses and odd statements, and occasional public lapses into woolly-mindedness. Ironically, Alzheimer's could be cured potentially by stem cell research. In the United States, where superstition reigns over reason, the religious Right that Reagan cultivated has put severe limits on such research. His best legacy may be Nancy Reagan's argument that those limitations should be removed in his memory. There are 4 million Alzheimers sufferers in the US, and 50% of persons living beyond the age of 85 develop it. There are going to be a lot of such persons among the Baby Boomers. By reversing Reaganism, we may be able to avoid his fate.

Stretched Too Thin

Wars Put Strain On National Guard
Fire, Flood Relief Efforts Threatened

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 6, 2004; Page A01

With almost 40,000 troops serving in the unexpectedly violent and difficult occupation of Iraq, the National Guard is beginning to show the strain of duty there, according to interviews and e-mail exchanges with 23 state Guard commanders from California to Maine.

The Iraq mission is placing new stress on the active-duty Army as it leans more heavily than it has in decades on the Guard -- which, with 350,000 troops, rivals the active force in size. That new reliance, in turn, is raising concerns about the Guard's long-term ability to recruit and retain troops, and it is provoking more immediate worries in states that rely on the Guard to deal with fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

Some Guard commanders are beginning to say they simply can't deploy any more troops. "As far as New Hampshire goes, we're tapped," said Maj. Gen. John E. Blair, that state's adjutant general, or Guard commander. Of his 1,700 Army National Guard troops, more than 1,000 are in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or on alert for deployment. And to get units fully manned to head overseas, he said, "we've had to break other units."

Blair, who piloted a medical evacuation helicopter in the Vietnam War, said he informed the Pentagon's National Guard Bureau two weeks ago that "before you call us again, you've got to know that we are at our limit."

Earlier this year, 60 percent of Maine's 2,300 Army Guard troops were deployed. "The current pace isn't sustainable," said the state commander, Brig. Gen. John W. Libby, who said that pace appears to be damaging his efforts to raise manpower. "Our recruiting is down significantly from last year, and our retention rates are down also," he said. The biggest problem, he said, is that parents are discouraging their children from joining. "We've got a level of reluctance with parents this year that we haven't seen in the past."

Some soldiers in West Virginia's 1092nd Engineering Battalion got home in April from 14 months of duty in Iraq -- only to be activated in the past few days for weeks of flood-relief work in Mingo County and other southwestern parts of the state. One soldier told the state commander, Maj. Gen. Allen E. Tackett, that he had been back to his civilian job for exactly one day. "The spouses and the employers are raising hell with me," the general said.

Tackett said he is especially worried that his most seasoned soldiers are getting out. "A lot of my experienced people are coming back from deployments and retiring," he said. "They've paid their dues."

It isn't just the Guard that is feeling the pinch. In Montana, the Guard, facing an alert for deployment, has withdrawn its Black Hawk helicopters from the job of being the first responder to small fires that can flare into forest fires. With that system, "last year, we caught a lot of fires that we wouldn't have otherwise," Montana State Forester Bob Harrington said Friday from his office in Missoula.

Now, with the start of the fire season just a month away, Harrington is scrambling to contract for commercial choppers to fill that quick-reaction job. Their payloads are less than half that of the powerful Black Hawks, which can tote 600 gallons of water.

Pray for a mild Western fire season this year, since the National Weather Service is predicting a busier than usual hurricane season this year.

In Other News....

While the news channels engage in their Reagan orgies, here is the news you are not hearing:

Car Bomb Kills 9 at Iraqi Security Force Base in Taji
Poland Announces That Four Civilian Security Guards Died on Saturday

By Aladdin Saad
Reuters
Sunday, June 6, 2004; 8:43 AM

TAJI, Iraq, June 6 -- Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi-U.S. base just north of Baghdad on Sunday, killing nine people and wounding dozens as attacks intensified ahead of the formal end of the U.S.-led occupation on June 30.

Pressing for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq's future, Washington said it was confident of a breakthrough at a special Security Council session later on Sunday.

With the handover less than four weeks away, Baghdad has seen a surge in deadly attacks in recent days. Hospital sources said at least nine Iraqis were killed and 61 wounded in the blast at Taji.

U.S. Major Andreas Dekunpfy told Reuters in Taji that a car bomb was used, but it was not clear if it was a suicide attack.

Poland announced that four civilian security guards -- two of them Polish and two believed to be American -- were killed in an attack on their convoy in Baghdad on Saturday.

"The charred remains of four people were brought to a Baghdad morgue from the place of attack. We suspect the two others to be American civilian employees of the company," Polish Foreign Ministry official Grzegorz Szczesniak said.

Their convoy was attacked on the airport road, in an ambush that set two vehicles ablaze. The men worked for Blackwater, the U.S.-based company that employed the four American guards killed in Falluja in March and mutilated by a mob, an incident that sparked a bloody siege of the city by U.S. Marines.

The role of private security guards in providing security in Iraq -- and sometimes having shootouts with guerrillas -- is attracting mounting controversy.

Also on Saturday, two soldiers were killed and two wounded when a bomb blew up near their convoy in northeastern Baghdad. The previous day, guerrillas killed five soldiers in the same area.

At Least 16 Die as Violence Continues to Surge in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ

Published: June 6, 2004

BAGHDAD, June 6 — In the continuing surge of violence in Iraq, nine people died today and scores were wounded when a car bomb exploded near the gate of a military base north of here. Elsewhere, rebels attacked two police stations, killing at least seven people, officials said today.

In Najaf and Kufa, meanwhile, the streets remained calm amid a withdrawal by fighters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, as part of a peace deal brokered between American authorities and Shiite clerics. Hopes that the quiet in the streets could last were raised on Saturday when Mr. Sadr met with Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

But around Baghdad, there was speculation today that armed fighters returning from Najaf and Kufa could spark a surge in violence here.

American officials have been anticipating a spike in violence on the approach to June 30, when American occupation authorities plan to hand over sovereignty to the newly appointed interim Iraqi government.

In the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, named after Mr. Sadr's father, insurgents blew up a police station though apparently there was no one in the building at the time.

In Mussayab, south of the capital, approximately ten men in Iraqi police uniforms entered a police station and forced the local police officers into the station's cells. The insurgents wired the station with explosives and apparently set them off as other officials arrived and attempted to free the imprisoned police.

Press Whores

I just heard Paula Zahn doing a "People" segment on CNN, reviewing the Reagan legacy. She repeated the lie that Reagan had the highest approval rating ever. Here is CNN in December of 1998:

Poll: Clinton's approval rating up in wake of impeachment
December 20, 1998
Web posted at: 10:48 p.m. EST (0348 GMT)

At the same time, the number of Americans with an unfavorable view of the Republican Party has jumped 10 points; less than a third of the country now has a favorable view of the GOP.

Those were the days.

Suffer the Little Children

Selling to Poor, Stores Bill U.S. for Top Prices
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, June 5 — Federal and state officials are expressing alarm about the proliferation of food stores that cater to low-income people but charge more than other grocery stores, thus driving up the cost of a major federal nutrition program.

The program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or W.I.C., helps feed 7.7 million people each month by providing vouchers for infant formula, juice, eggs, milk, cheese, cereal and dried beans. Now a growing number of stores are selling only to W.I.C. families, accepting only the government vouchers, not cash, for payment.

About 47 percent of all babies born in the United States each year participate in the program.

"The rise in W.I.C.-only stores is a fairly recent phenomenon," said Eric M. Bost, under secretary of the Agriculture Department, which runs the program. Analysis of food costs in California and Texas shows that "W.I.C.-only stores in these states have higher prices, on average, than other authorized retailers," Mr. Bost said.

The stores have found a niche in the market that Congress did not anticipate. Proprietors said the stores had become popular because they offer convenient locations and superior service.

Healthy Kids, a "one-stop W.I.C. shop" in Virginia Beach, is tucked into a small shopping center, next to a state health clinic that issues W.I.C. vouchers. Every item in the store meets the specification of the program, said the manager, Tracy Wynne. By contrast, Ms. Wynne said, at supermarkets, "it's often a hassle finding the right products and dealing with cashiers."

"I wish they had these stores 10 years ago when I was on W.I.C.," she said.

The W.I.C. families are not particularly sensitive to shelf prices because their vouchers buy a specific food package, regardless of the amount charged to state agencies, which administer the program with federal money.

State officials say the prices at W.I.C. specialty stores are typically 10 percent to 20 percent higher than those at supermarkets and other retail grocers.

What is astonishing here is not that some retailers have figured out how to game the system. What is astonishing is that nearly half of all the children in this country are born into poverty. This is news to me.

Republic of Lies

TIMES EDITORIAL
A Presidency Characterized by Paradox

The mark of Reagan's presidency was paradox. Having campaigned as an implacable foe of government deficit spending, he left office with a federal debt that was nearly triple its level when he was inaugurated. He succumbed, as Bush has, to the fallacious "supply side" economic notion that government revenues rise if taxes are cut. He reviled the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" but ultimately met repeatedly with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and worked out a detente that led in the end to the fall of communism.

A New Deal Democrat in his youth, Reagan was in the vanguard of the Republican conservative revolution that is today the Republican establishment. Although he vowed to shrink government and eliminate Cabinet departments, he wound up adding one, the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Reagan, the first former union president (of the Screen Actors Guild) to win the White House, earned union enmity, although wide public praise, for firing striking air controllers in 1981, ultimately destroying their union. While espousing basic small-town American values, he was a divorced man with estranged children. His rhetoric against nascent Middle Eastern terrorism notwithstanding, his administration undertook to supply arms and spare parts to Iran in an arms-for-hostages deal that seriously undermined his second term. The oldest president ever, he appealed especially to young voters.

Hero though Reagan was to so many Americans, his legacy is marred. Economically, the Reagan years were epitomized by a freewheeling entrepreneurialism and free spending. But the affluent got more affluent and the poor got poorer. The number of families living below the poverty line increased by one-third. The Reagan administration's zeal for deregulation of industry helped create the savings and loan debacle, which left taxpayers holding the bag for billions of dollars in losses. All of this presaged a recurring malaise among American workers, who continue to see jobs lost to corporate downsizing and outsourcing.

His administration's resistance to federal hegemony in social issues led to significant retreats in civil rights. And Reagan's political caution on the AIDS scourge — an attitude driven by the connection to homosexuality — allowed valuable years to pass before the federal government took an assertive role in researching and preventing the disease.

He presided over a cult of personality in which spin replaced fact and created the climate which allowed the election of George W. Bush.

The PR Presidency

Joe Klein:

With Reagan, it was always so rote and mechanical that it was easy to miss the big picture. It was easy to be infuriated by media whiz Michael Deaver's brilliantly insidious manipulation of the media, and lose the simple power of Reagan's message. Deaver, famously, didn't care what the network reporters said about the President as long as Reagan was pictured in upbeat, patriotic settings, preferably surrounded by American flags. The pictures, he knew, were far more powerful than the words. The gauzy, Morning in America mythmaking apparatus was going full tilt from the moment Reagan entered the White House.

Unlike other Presidents—except, perhaps, for Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson—Reagan came to power as the leader of an ideological movement: in his case, a fierce conservatism forged and tempered by decades of disdain from the nation's moderate media and political establishment. In retrospect, the movement provided a necessary corrective for the slowly corroding industrial-age liberalism favored by the Democrats who controlled Congress. Reagan's followers were so eager for success that they were willing to tolerate some flagrant inconsistencies in his governance. His big 1981 tax cut was followed by two years of large, if undramatized, tax increases. He didn't shrink the size of the government (Bill Clinton was the only recent President to do that). Reagan was a champion of the religious right, but rarely attended church and never paid much more than lip service to the right-to-life movement. He was a critic of government waste, but routinely lavished more money on the military than the Pentagon asked for—and he stubbornly insisted on funding an utterly preposterous missile-defense program that his detractors, and eventually his supporters, called Star Wars.

As it happened—as Hollywood would have seen fit to script it—the only people aside from Reagan who really believed in Star Wars were the military leadership of the Soviet Union. The Zap! Pow! Bam! comic-book defense strategy reinforced Moscow's growing despair about the future and hastened the end of the cold war. And that, finally, is what has proved most galling to the Gipper's ideological opponents: his glossy Hollywood optimism proved more supple than the professional pessimism of the intellectual left. Ultimately, Reagan's sloppy and often insensitive domestic governance will have little impact on his place in history. His willingness to break the law and defy Congress by funding the contras in Nicaragua and surreptitiously attempting to trade arms for hostages with Iran—these will be footnotes as well. Reagan will mostly be remembered for his unyielding opposition to the Soviet Union, for his willingness to call a regime that murdered at least 40 million of its citizens "evil."

In fact, I didn't understand how truly monumental, and morally important, Reagan's anticommunist vision was until I visited the Soviet Union in 1987. My first night there, I was escorted to the Bolshoi Ballet by two minders from the U.S.-Canada Institute. The Russians were thrilled that I had figured out the Cyrillic alphabet and was able to read the program. The young woman on my left rewarded me with a smile—a rare public act in that terrifying regime—and a whispered encouragement: reform was coming. Glasnost and perestroika, she assured me, were real. The minder on my left, a chunky young man, then nudged me with his elbow. "Ronald Reagan. Evil empire," he whispered with dramatic intensity, and shot a glance down to his lap where he had hidden two enthusiastic thumbs up. "Yes!"

This is sloppy work by Klein, which is his usual product, but it does point to the ideological purity campaigns that the right began to enforce which were the real Reagan Revolution. Reagan didn't defeat the Soviet Union. It collapsed under the weight of its own idiocy. With Reagan, we saw the emergence of jingoistic patriotism which has become virulant in this day, and a re-occurance of the Know-Nothingism of the early 20th Century once again became a virtue.

Wal-Mart Nation

Green Mountain Shoppers, Unite
By ART WOOLF

Published: June 6, 2004

BURLINGTON, Vt.

For a small state, Vermont gets more than its 15 minutes of fame. First, our own Jim Jeffords upset the Senate balance when he defected from the Republican Party and became an independent in 2001. Then Howard Dean put us on the political map — for a while. Most recently, the National Trust for Historic Preservation put the entire state of Vermont — all 9,250 square miles — on its list of "most endangered" places, an annual list more commonly filled by historic buildings or unusual scenic areas.

This is only the second time an entire state has been put on the National Trust's list. The first time was in 1993 and the threatened state was also Vermont. Back then, Vermont was threatened by an invasion of a non-native species — Wal-Mart. We now have four Wal-Marts and, so far, we've survived. But according to the National Trust, we're again threatened by Wal-Mart, this time from its plans to build — or as the trust puts it, "to saturate" the state with — as many as seven more "behemoth stores" in our towns.

Are Vermonters worried? Some certainly are, including editorial page writers from the state's major dailies and environmental organizations that have changed their mission from protecting the state's water and air to protecting their image of what they think Vermont should look like.

But most Vermonters seem to enjoy shopping at Wal-Mart and other big-box stores that offer them convenience, selection and low prices, at least as evidenced by parking lots full of cars (and yes, pickup trucks and S.U.V.'s — Vermonters also enjoy driving gas guzzlers).

Most of the towns where the new Wal-Marts may be built are towns that used to be home to Ames department stores. Since that regional chain went bankrupt two years ago, many Vermont towns lack any discount store, and residents have to drive long distances to buy inexpensive necessities. Wal-Mart clearly sees an opportunity here.

Tourists and other out-of-staters (known as flatlanders around here) may like hardly ever seeing a big-box store as they travel our rural roads, shop and enjoy our small-town atmosphere. After all, even the biggest city in the state, Burlington, feels like a small town — its population is only 40,000.

But those of us who work and live in Vermont also appreciate the ability to buy clothing, appliances and housewares at reasonable prices. Many of us find it hard to believe the National Trust's concern that our sense of history and community will be forever changed simply by our being able to drive to a local Wal-Mart, instead of driving to the local Kmart.

We recognize that our towns and countrysides are unique, and we appreciate them. We also pay a price for that. Our incomes are lower than those in most Northeastern states, and many of us could earn a lot more by moving somewhere else. We are willing to make that trade-off. But the folks at the National Trust ought to be careful about asking us to pay an even higher price by not giving us the benefits of modern retailing that big-box stores provide.

We are, however, reasonable people. If Wal-Mart saves consumers 10 percent on their average purchase, we would be willing to make a deal with the National Trust. We'll agree not to accept any more Wal-Marts in Vermont. And we'll even toss the existing Wal-Marts out. In exchange, each year the National Trust has to reimburse us for the $36 million extra we'll be spending by not benefiting from Wal-Mart's low prices.

Art Woolf is associate professor of economics at the University of Vermont and editor of The Vermont Economy Newsletter.

Remarkable. An economics professor is in a big rush to welcome the race to the bottom, maybe tenured professors in Vermont make out pretty well. If low wage jobs with no benefits are good for Vermont, I wonder what else is?

Limits of Empire

Wide Gaps Seen in U.S. Inquiries on Prison Abuse
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, June 5 — Disparate inquiries into abuses of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan have so far left crucial questions of policy and operations unexamined, according to lawmakers from both parties and outside military experts, who say that the accountability of senior officers and Pentagon officials may remain unanswered as a result.

No investigation completely independent of the Pentagon exists to determine what led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, and so far there has been no groundswell in Congress or elsewhere to create one.

But on Capitol Hill, even some Republicans have begun to question whether the Pentagon's inquiries are too narrowly structured to establish the causes of the abuses, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have pledged to do, and then to determine if anyone in the chain of command was responsible for them.

Some House Republicans, bucking their leaders who have said the focus on Abu Ghraib is distracting from the larger effort in Iraq, have joined Democrats in urging a more aggressive review of the investigations. In the Senate, members of both parties said there remained major aspects that fell outside the scope of any of the investigations that are under way — including the role of military lawyers in drafting policy on detainees and the involvement of civilian contractors in their interrogations.

Senator Lindsay O. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he was troubled that the only criminal cases brought so far involved seven low-ranking soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company. He said he believed that there was "command failure at many levels that could be criminally culpable."

Representative Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican and former Air Force officer, was unsparing in her assessment of the House's investigative oversight role to date: "We should be doing this directly and bluntly, and in the House we are not. It's been very disappointing to me."

The top military spokesman in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, this week defended the range and scope of the various military investigations. "We're going to go wide, we're going to go deep, we're going to look under every rock and find out just how far this went," he said.

Dozens of criminal investigations into accusations of abuses against prisoners have yet to be resolved, and some may never be, officials concede. Additional criminal cases stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib appear to have been put on hold while a separate investigation is completed into the role military intelligence soldiers may have played there and at other prisons in Iraq — an inquiry whose findings have been delayed at least until July.

In addition to the criminal cases, which have included investigations into the deaths of at least 40 prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has ordered six inquiries or reviews since a soldier came forward in January with evidence of the Abu Ghraib abuses. Two have been completed. The others have narrow focus and limited scope; while in theory they could recommend criminal charges, that is not their focus.

Mr. Rumsfeld, facing criticism over his leadership and calls from some Democrats to resign, last month appointed a four-member panel, led by James R. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, to assess whether the inquiries are sufficient. That has led some to push for broader inquiries under various authorities, possibly a select committee in Congress, a military court of inquiry, or a panel like the one created to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The commission plans to begin interviews on June 14 at the Pentagon and by teleconference with officers in Iraq. It is building a staff of 25, including several military lawyers on loan from the Pentagon.

One of its members, Tillie K. Fowler, a former Republican congresswoman from Florida, said the commission intended to do a wide assessment, and would probably interview senior military officers, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq. But she also made it clear that Mr. Rumsfeld was not a focus.

"The secretary is an honest, decent, honorable man, who'd never condone this type of activity," she said in a telephone interview, referring to the images of naked, hooded and shackled prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib last fall. "This was not a tone set by the secretary."

Statements like Mrs. Fowler's have prompted some lawmakers and outside legal experts to question whether the Pentagon can be entrusted to investigate itself in a scandal that has badly tarnished the military and the United States.

"They have created a patchwork with cracks in it, and a lot will fall through it," said John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy's judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000 and is now the dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire. "There's no umbrella or overarching investigation that has the power to go wherever it leads."

The Fox shouldn't be investigating the henhouse. The questions in my mind are "how bad and how thoroughgoing are the problems and what de we need to do to fix it?" and until I get those answers, the investigation will not be complete.

The New Worst President Ever

Chris Walton over at Philocrites, has a wonderful picture of W and Laura meeting the Pope. It begs for a caption and Chris has a contest. While the press is having a field day canonizing Reagan (one of the worst presidents ever, I'll have an essay on it tomorrow when I can get the links assembled) this might be a more interesting game to play. Go take a look and contribute your creativity, spleen and any other organ that feels ripe for donating.

Blame the System

Beating Specialist Baker
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: June 5, 2004

The prison abuse scandal refuses to die because soothing White House explanations keep colliding with revelations about dead prisoners and further connivance by senior military officers — and newly discovered victims, like Sean Baker.

If Sean Baker doesn't sound like an Iraqi name, it isn't. Specialist Baker, 37, is an American, and he was a proud U.S. soldier. An Air Force veteran and member of the Kentucky National Guard, he served in the first gulf war and more recently was a military policeman in Guantánamo Bay.

Then in January 2003, an officer in Guantánamo asked him to pretend to be a prisoner in a training drill. As instructed, Mr. Baker put on an orange prison jumpsuit over his uniform, and then crawled under a bunk in a cell so an "internal reaction force" could practice extracting an uncooperative inmate. The five U.S. soldiers in the reaction force were told that he was a genuine detainee who had already assaulted a sergeant.

Despite more than a week of coaxing, I haven't been able to get Mr. Baker to give an interview. But he earlier told a Kentucky television station what happened next:

"They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down. Then he — the same individual — reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was `red.' . . . That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air. I muttered out: `I'm a U.S. soldier. I'm a U.S. soldier.' "

Then the soldiers noticed that he was wearing a U.S. battle dress uniform under the jumpsuit. Mr. Baker was taken to a military hospital for treatment of his head injuries, then flown to a Navy hospital in Portsmouth, Va. After a six-day hospitalization there, he was given a two-week discharge to rest.

But Mr. Baker began suffering seizures, so the military sent him to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for treatment of a traumatic brain injury. He stayed at the hospital for 48 days, was transferred to light duty in an honor burial detail at Fort Dix, N.J., and was finally given a medical discharge two months ago.

Meanwhile, a military investigation concluded that there had been no misconduct involved in Mr. Baker's injury. Hmm. The military also says it can't find a videotape that is believed to have been made of the incident.

Most appalling, when Mr. Baker told his story to a Kentucky reporter, the military lied in a disgraceful effort to undermine his credibility. Maj. Laurie Arellano, a spokeswoman for the Southern Command, questioned the extent of Mr. Baker's injuries and told reporters that his medical discharge was unrelated to the injuries he had suffered in the training drill.

In fact, however, the Physical Evaluation Board of the Army stated in a document dated Sept. 29, 2003: "The TBI [traumatic brain injury] was due to soldier playing role of detainee who was non-cooperative and was being extracted from detention cell in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during a training exercise."

Major Arellano acknowledges that she misstated the facts and says she had been misinformed herself by medical personnel. She now says the medical discharge was related in part — but only in part, she says — to the "accident."

Mr. Baker, who is married and has a 14-year-old son, is now unemployed, taking nine prescription medications and still suffering frequent seizures. His lawyer, Bruce Simpson, has been told that Mr. Baker may not begin to get disability payments for up to 18 months. If he is judged 100 percent disabled, he will then get a maximum of $2,100 a month.

If the U.S. military treats one of its own soldiers this way — allowing him to be battered, and lying to cover it up — then imagine what happens to Afghans and Iraqis.

Seems like there is a whole lot more going on here than a "few bad apples."

Behind the BLS

MyDD pollmeister Chris Bowers continues his campaign to expose the REAL unemployment rate. Chris writes:

Unemployment Rate Increases in May to 9.7%

Also, since Bush's first three years in office were nothing but a steady stream of bad news, expectations of economic "success" have been lowered significantly (the exact opposite of Gore's problem in 2000). Go ahead and raise people's expectations GOP, since it is about time people actually expected you to accomplish something while in office. Now that Bush and his cronies are claiming that the economy is great, any new slowdown will make Bush and the Republican Congress look very, very bad.

Democracy Now!

Traditions, Terrorism Threaten Afghan Vote
Women Are Intimidated, Election Workers Attacked

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 4, 2004; Page A01

KHOST, Afghanistan -- At a village mosque, a leaflet printed in neat Pashto script was found last week, instructing "all good Muslim citizens" to stay away from government buildings, foreign troops and official funerals. If anyone disobeyed, the pamphlet warned, "your bodies will join theirs."

At a university compound, a group of armed and masked men recently broke into the home of a teacher active in promoting women's voting rights, threatening to kill her if she resumed her activities. She is now guarded by soldiers at home and en route to work.

"Elections are new and unfamiliar here. People are uneducated, so others can deceive them and make them do destructive things," said Sahira Zadran, 40, the teacher. "We have two problems: culture and terrorism. Culture may take time to change, but it can't kill you. Terrorists can kill you."

As Afghanistan prepares to hold its first elections in September, a flurry of attacks by armed Islamic groups on aid workers, election preparation teams and foreign troops have raised concerns that anti-democratic forces will sabotage the vote, stymie Afghanistan's economic progress and undermine its relations with the West.

On Wednesday, three Europeans and two Afghans working for the French medical aid group Doctors Without Borders were ambushed and assassinated in the western province of Badghis. Doctors Without Borders suspended its operations in the country on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. Spokesmen for the Taliban movement claimed it had carried out the killings, the deadliest attack on foreign aid workers since the Taliban's radical Islamic rulers were ousted in late 2001.

In other violence during the past weeks, four U.S. Special Forces troops were killed in a firefight in Zabol province; a senior Afghan security official was killed by a bomb in his office; two Afghan election workers were wounded by a remote-control bomb in Nangahar province; and two British election workers were ambushed and killed in Nurestan province.

U.N. officials have repeatedly cited the lack of security as the major obstacle to holding successful elections. Despite plans to deploy 10,000 newly trained soldiers and 20,000 police officers across the country, possibly augmented by hundreds of NATO troops, officials are increasingly concerned that they will not be able to protect voters from intimidation, abuse and attacks.

In Khost, officials have an important advantage in clearing the way for elections: The region's ethnic Pashtun tribes are unusually unified and supportive of the democratic process. With army and police forces stretched thinly across the mountainous eastern province, tribal militias are guarding isolated voter registration sites.

But other factors are working against a successful, violence-free election. One is geography: Khost shares a 100-mile border with Pakistan's tribal areas, which Islamic fighters use as a haven. The other is culture: Khost is an especially conservative region, where women are never seen in public and some men oppose allowing them to vote.

"The people are enthusiastic, but our enemies are not asleep," said Pir Syed Shah, a religious leader who heads the provincial election office in the city of Khost. "Our opponents don't want development and democracy, especially for women, but they cannot stop this process."

Quoting an Afghan proverb, he said: "The sound of their lightning is much worse than the strength of their rain."

Khost is a province in mid-storm -- an isolated, deeply traditional area that has undergone a rapid but superficial transformation. Until 2001, it was a stronghold of the Taliban and home to several of the movement's senior commanders. Even today residents regularly visit a cemetery for Arabs and other foreign allies of the Taliban who were killed by U.S. bombs. Hundreds of scarves have been strung over the tombs by Muslims seeking blessings from these people, who are viewed as Islamic martyrs.

Yet Khost city, the provincial capital, is also home to a year-old university full of progressive students and professors who have brought new ideas from Kabul or from their lives as exiles abroad. Provincial officials, named by the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, are more in tune with its reformist agenda than cities in other border regions where regional militia leaders defy central authority.

Up until the arrival of the Taliban and the Soviet war, Afghanistan was one of the most moderate and secular Muslim societies. Women were professionals, at least in the major cities, and fashions from Paris and Milan were seen on the city streets.

We are doing next to nothing to rescue Afghanistan from the grip of the 12th Century warlords and Taliban clerics, and we are doing less than nothing on the "War on Terrorism" in the Hindu Kush. We are wasting money and lives and Baby Bush tells us that we are returning Afghanistan to modernity and democracy. That's absolute crap.

At the End of the World

via Susie Madrack:

what you do when the world stops making sense. Thanks for the reminder, Suze.

Lawyer-Up

The Serious Implications Of President Bush's Hiring A Personal Outside Counsel For The Valerie Plame Investigation
by John W. Dean

It is possible that Bush is consulting Sharp only out of an excess of caution - despite the fact that he knows nothing of the leak, or of any possible coverup of the leak. But that's not likely.

Suffice it to say that whatever the meaning of Bush's decision to talk with private counsel about the Valerie Plame leak, the matter has taken a more ominous turn with Bush's action. It has only become more portentous because now Dick Cheney has also hired a lawyer for himself, suggesting both men may have known more than they let on. Clearly, the investigation is heading toward a culmination of some sort. And it should be interesting.

There are alternative explanations:

RAY MCGOVERN: Yeah, I’m just fresh actually from writing an Op-Ed on the general question of the president seeking private counsel. I think he’s learned from one very large mistake. That is he’s learned by going to a private counsel to get advice on the Valerie Plame case. I think he’s probably by now read the memorandum of 25 January 2002 that Alberto Gonzalez, his chief White House counsel wrote to him. This is the one that says, well you know, Geneva Conventions, that’s kind of a nettle here. We have US law actually, dated 1996 which makes it a crime punishable by death to rescind from or to ignore or to exempt people from the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war. But Ashcroft says it’s okay as far as the Al Qaeda people are concerned, and I think it’s probably okay to exempt the Taliban as well. And the only downside is that exempting people is a slippery slope and people might come up with some ambiguity with respect to which prisoners qualify for such protection and which do not. And so he finished up by saying, there’s a reasonable basis in law Mr. President, that you will not be prosecuted for war crimes under the US code, War Crimes Act of 1996. Now if I’m President Bush and I finally read that thing because Newsweek has it printed, and I say, my goodness, there’s a reasonable basis in law that I won’t be prosecuted? I’m going to have a couple of really second thoughts here. One is that next time I’m in a situation like this I’m certainly going to seek independent counsel. But another is, my God, four more years becomes even more important to me and to Ashcroft and to Rumsfeld. Gonzalez specifically warns that who knows, some future administration or some future group might sue you for violating the Geneva Conventions. And not only the Geneva Conventions but to the degree that they are embedded in this US law of 1996, and so you’re really, we have a strong basis in law but we can’t exclude the possibility. So four more years? Why do I say all this? I say all this because I am more frightened now than at any time over the last three and a half years, that this administration will resort to extra-legal methods to do something to ensure that there are four more years for George Bush. And Ashcroft’s statement last week, gratuitous statement, uncoordinated with the department of, CIA, with the Department of Homeland Security, his warning that there is bound to be a terrorist strike before the US elections. That can be viewed and this can be reasonably viewed as the opening salvo in the justification for doing, taking measures to ensure that whatever happens in November comes out so that four more years can be devoted to maybe changing that war crimes act or protecting at least these vulnerable people for four more years.

Looking for Work?

The Economics Policy Institute's JobWatch has the data (and handy charts) behind the job creation numbers released today:

Labor market experiences third month of healthy job growth
For the third consecutive month, jobs have grown as strongly as the norm for an economic recovery. The 248,000 jobs gained in May bring the total gains for the last three months up to 947,000. It would be a mistake, however, to attribute the healthy gains that started in March 2004 to the tax cut that took effect last July — the recent three-month gain of 0.73% is lower than the three-month rate that typically has occurred soon after a recession ends and usually lasts for about a full year.

Bush Administration's tax cuts not fulfilling job creation promises
The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which was passed in May 2003 and took effect in July 2003, its "Jobs and Growth Plan." The president's economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (see background documents), projected that the plan would result in the creation of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—306,000 new jobs each month, starting in July 2003. The CEA projected that, starting in July 2003, the economy would generate 228,000 jobs a month without a tax cut and 306,000 jobs a month with the tax cut. Thus, it projected that 3,366,000 would be created in the last 11 months. In fact, since the tax cuts took effect, jobs have grown by 1,365,000—two million fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts.

Speaking as a job seeker, I can tell you that there still isn't a hell of a lot out here for me to even apply for.

Sins of The Times

Unfit to Print?
By Michael Massing
1.

Buried deep in Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack, is a revealing anecdote about how the press covered the runup to the war in Iraq. By mid-March 2003, Woodward writes, three separate sources had told him confidentially that the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "was not as conclusive as the CIA and the administration had suggested." This, he notes, "was troubling, particularly on what seemed to be the eve of war." When he mentioned this to Walter Pincus, a colleague at The Washington Post, Pincus told him that he had heard "precisely the same thing" from some of his sources. Woodward then drafted five paragraphs for a possible news story and gave a copy to Pincus and the Post's national security editor. The draft began:

Some of the key US intelligence that is the basis for the conclusion that Iraq has large caches of weapons of mass destruction looks increasingly circumstantial, and even shaky as it is further scrutinized, subjected to outside analysis and on-the-ground verification, according to informed sources.

A senior Bush administration source briefed last month on the intelligence said it was "pretty thin," and might be enough to reach the legal standard of "probable cause" to bring an indictment but not enough for conviction.

Both Pincus and the editor thought the draft "a little strong," and Woodward agreed. "Though the sources were excellent," he wrote, "they were only saying the evidence was skimpy. None were asserting that WMD would not be found in Iraq after a war." Instead the Post on March 16, 2003, ran a much-toned-down version by Pincus on page A17, under the headline, "US Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms."

Looking back, Woodward writes,

I did not feel I had enough information to effectively challenge the official conclusions about Iraq's alleged WMD. In light of subsequent events, I should have pushed for a front page story, even on the eve of war, presenting more forcefully what our sources were saying.

This account reveals something about Woodward's method. Like most of his other books, Plan of Attack contains much information that, if disclosed in "real time," could have had an effect on the course of events. Woodward's books leave the impression that everything his subjects told him was embargoed until the book was ready for publication. In this case, however, Woodward was clearly free to reveal the doubts that some senior officials had expressed to him regarding the White House's claims about Iraq's arsenal. That he ultimately decided not to do so seems further evidence of the reluctance of the Post as well as other news organizations to challenge the administration's case for war.

On May 26, The New York Times published a lengthy editors' note belatedly acknowledging that the paper's pre-war coverage "was not as rigorous as it should have been." According to the note, which appeared at the bottom of page A10, accounts of Iraqi defectors were not analyzed with sufficient skepticism, and "articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display" while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question "were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all." Without explicitly mentioning it, the note incorporated many of the criticisms in my article "Now They Tell Us," appearing in the February 26, 2004, issue of The New York Review.[1]

The Times deserves credit for running a detailed mea culpa. Yet the note seems less than forthright. First, it does not cite the author of any of the articles. Rather, it lays the blame on "editors at several levels" who "should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism" but who "were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper." This is convenient for the Times, since some of those editors were part of Howell Raines's regime and have since departed. Nowhere does the note mention Judith Miller, who wrote or co-wrote four of the six main articles cited by the paper. Michael Gordon, whose byline appeared on two of them, is mentioned, but only as the author of a letter that he sent to The New York Review in response to my article—a letter that, the Times states, "could serve as a primer on the complexities" of intelligence reporting. The note gives no hint that Gordon's own reporting has come in for serious questioning. Such an omission seemed perplexing.

The Times's note closes with a pledge "to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight" on the story of Iraq's weapons. That's welcome. But the note's lack of candor does not inspire confidence. What's more, the paper's recent coverage of the war seems marred by some of the same flaws that were present in its prewar reporting. This is apparent in its initial response to the Abu Ghraib scandal. When 60 Minutes II aired photos of US soldiers committing abuses at the prison in Iraq, the images quickly flashed around the world. On the next day, Thursday, April 29, the Times ran a modest story about the abuses that appeared at the bottom of page A15; none of the photos appeared. By Friday, the photos were receiving heavy play in both the European press and on Arab satellite TV; in the United States, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, and the New York Daily News all ran at least one of the photos. The Times, by contrast, ran no article and published no photos.

A day later, on Saturday, May 1, the scandal made the Times's front page. "Bush Voices 'Disgust' at Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners" ran the headline atop a story about the President's comments, made in the White House Rose Garden. In other words, the Times's initial front-page story on Abu Ghraib concentrated not on the abuses themselves but on the President's response to them. And no photo of the abuses appeared on the front page. One had to jump, along with the story, to page A5 to see two of the photos. The article, which described the furor the photos had caused around the world, contained a note from the Times's executive editor, Bill Keller, explaining why the Times had not run them earlier. The paper's news desk, Keller said, had held off because it "could not, in the time available, ascertain their authenticity."

This seems dubious. Two days earlier, the Times, in its initial article about the scandal, had specifically noted that the photos shown on CBS had been verified by military officials. A survey of the paper's recent coverage of Iraq suggests that something deeper is at work. For months, the Times has seemed slow to recognize important news developments out of Iraq and to give them the attention they deserve. Aside from the Abu Ghraib scandal, which has lately taken over the Times's coverage, the paper has seemed intent on keeping bad news off the front page, especially when it reflects poorly on the Bush administration. Some examples:

• On May 5, the Bush administration announced that it was going to request $25 billion more for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This came six months after Congress had approved $87 billion for such operations on the assurance from the administration that that amount would last through the end of 2004. The new request was yet another sign that the war was proving far more costly than originally forecast, and The Washington Post announced the news in a two-column headline on its front page ("$25 Billion More Sought to Fund Wars; White House Hoped to Delay Request until After Election"). In the Times, though, the news received a one-sentence "reefer" on its front page, directing readers to a ho-hum account on page A22. "Lawmakers," it blandly noted, "said they expected to comply with the request." It was not until May 14, after a contentious hearing at which senators from both parties attacked the administration's request, that the Times felt the story was fit for its front page.

• On May 7, The Wall Street Journal carried an explosive front-page report revealing that the Red Cross in February had sent the Bush administration a report detailing widespread abuses against Iraqi prisoners by US military intelligence personnel. According to the Journal, the twenty-four-page report presented a portrait of prisoner treatment "that is at odds with statements by administration officials that abuse wasn't condoned by military commanders and was limited to a handful of low-ranking soldiers." Normally, such reports are kept confidential; the Journal's disclosure of its contents marked a critical moment in the unfolding of the scandal, and the news made front pages around the world. Not in the Times, however. Not until May 11 did it run a modest story summarizing the report's findings, tucked away on page A11. Readers reliant on the Times would have had a hard time understanding the huge impact the document has had.

• On May 9, The Washington Post ran an eye-catching front-page article by Thomas Ricks on rising dissent among senior US military officers over the Bush administration's conduct of the war. One senior general told Ricks that the United States is already on the road to defeat. Other officers said that "a profound anger is building within the Army" with Donald Rumsfeld, "whom they see as responsible for a series of strategic and tactical blunders over the past year." The Times had nothing at all comparable, on this or any other day. It did, however, find space on that day's front page for a reassuring piece about how US brands like Ford and Coca-Cola were continuing to sell well abroad despite international disapproval of US actions in Iraq.

The Times does show flashes of independent reporting. On April 28, for instance, it ran an incisive front-page piece by Eric Schmitt on how the US siege of Fallujah was a "case study in mistaken assumptions, dashed hopes, rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps, and a tragedy that became a trigger...." And, as the prison scandal unfolded, the Times—mobilizing its staff—produced many revealing accounts, including a May 13 piece on the harsh methods used by the CIA to interrogate top al-Qaeda figures, and several vivid reports by Ian Fisher about former Iraqi prisoners who had been horribly treated at the hands of US guards. As this shows, the Times remains adept at "flooding the zone," in the phrase of former executive editor Howell Raines, offering many dramatic reports about a story once it's been ratified as important. And the paper's editorials on Iraq have been withering about US actions in Iraq. In general, however, the Times has seemed cautious and complacent. With few exceptions, its editors have purged the front page of any signs of blood or death; reports of US casualties are usually relegated to inside pages, and photos seem selected more for their visual appeal than for what they might reveal about the terrible realities of war.

The leisureliness of the Times's coverage is especially apparent when compared to that of its top competitor. In recent months, The Washington Post has stood out among US news organizations for its sharp and insightful reporting, in both Washington and Baghdad. Hardly a day goes by that the Post does not publish some revealing story about conflicts within the Bush administration, debates within the intelligence world, Coalition policies in Iraq, and the relations among that country's ethnic, religious, and tribal groups. During the prison scandal, the Post ran an eye-opening three-part series ("The Road to Abu Ghraib") on the abuses that had occurred not only in Iraq but also in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Qatar—part of a "worldwide constellation" of secret US detention centers.

When it comes to Iraq, the rivalry between the Times and the Post has become "A Tale of Two Papers," the one late and lethargic, the other astute and aggressive.

Even the Post, though, has had its problems. In his May 9 column, Michael Getler, the paper's ombudsman, chided it for being "slow off the mark" on the Abu Ghraib story. As he observed, the US Central Command back on January 16 had disclosed in a news release that an investigation had been opened into reports of detainee abuse at a Coalition detention facility. That same week, CNN reported that there were photos of abuses. It was not until after the story broke on 60 Minutes II, more than three months later, however, that the Post ran with it, Getler wrote.

So, even as the coverage of Iraq has grown sharper, the US press has shied away from showing the full realities on the ground there. This, in turn, reflects some important structural limitations in the approach of American journalists to the war.

That's the hor's d'ouevre. The rest is available behind the link until it disappears behind the for-pay wall.

Fourth Estate

Media Vows to Pry Open Closed Doors in Washington
Aya Kawano

By Joe Strupp

Published: June 03, 2004 12:01 AM EST

NEW YORK Press efforts to thwart government secrecy are moving forward on two fronts as Washington bureau chiefs unite to more aggressively cover federal government attempts to hide information and the head of Associated Press offers plans for a new open government lobbying center in Washington, D.C.

But in a conversation with E&P;, the AP chief stopped short of offering any detailed plans for the center, saying he wanted to bring together various journalism advocacy groups first to discuss the need. Among the center's efforts, however, may be to push for a federal reporters' shield law.

I'll believe it when I see it. Pushing for a federal shield law that protects the likes of Robert Novak doesn't impress me much.

After D-Day

A Pentagon Plan Would Cut Back G.I.'s in Germany
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

Published: June 4, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 3 — The Pentagon has proposed a plan to withdraw its two Army divisions from Germany and undertake an array of other changes in its European-based forces, in the most significant rearrangement of the American military around the world since the beginning of the cold war, according to American and allied officials.

Pentagon policy makers said the aim is to afford maximum flexibility in sending forces to the Middle East, Central Asia and other potential battlegrounds. But some experts and allied officials are concerned that the shift will reduce Washington's influence in NATO and weaken its diplomatic links with its allies, all at a time of rising anti-American sentiment around the world.

The proposal to withdraw the divisions comes at a time when the Army is stretched thin by deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Pentagon officials said the move, which has been under consideration for some time and involves forces in Asia as well as in Europe, is unrelated to the current fighting.

Under the Pentagon plan, the Germany-based First Armored Division and First Infantry Division would be returned to the United States. A brigade equipped with Stryker light armored vehicles would be deployed in Germany. A typical division consists of three brigades and can number 20,000 troops if logistical units are included, though these two divisions have only two brigades each in Germany, with the other brigade in the United States.

In addition, a wing of F-16 fighters may be shifted from their base in Spangdahlem, Germany, to the Incirlik base in Turkey, which would move the aircraft closer to the volatile Middle East; a wing generally consists of 72 aircraft. Under the Pentagon plan, the shift would be carried out only if the Turks gave the United States broad latitude for using them, something that some officials see as unlikely.

The Navy's headquarters in Europe would be transferred from Britain to Italy. Administration officials are also discussing plans to remove some F-15 fighters from Britain and to withdraw the handful of F-15 fighters that are normally deployed in Iceland, though final decisions have not been made.

Administration officials said Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, recently briefed German officials on the plan. The Germans were told that the withdrawal plan had yet to be formally approved by President Bush and that the United States would listen to their concerns, an American official said.

Officials said they expected the major decisions on the rearrangement to be made in a month or two. But the main direction of the Pentagon plan appears to be set.

"Everything is going to move everywhere," Mr. Feith said a year ago, as the Bush administration was beginning to develop the details of its plan. "There is not going to be a place in the world where it's going to be the same as it used to be."

For Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the reasons for the reshuffling seem clear and compelling: that the purpose of military units is to fight and win the nation's wars, and they should be stationed in locations that enable the United States to use them most efficiently and with minimal political restrictions.

This is part of the neocons' plans to restructure the world, another inch of their hubris and therefore I think it won't go well.

Time With My Family

George Tenet Resigns

.....
Tenet's reaons for leaving were the subject of much speculation yesterday. The White House offered up the customary "personal reasons" and said Mr. Bush had not forced him out. Mr. Tenet said in a choked voice that he wanted to spare his family further exposure to the pressures of his job. It's easy to sympathize, considering the months of criticism that he and the intelligence agencies are about to endure — from a highly negative Senate Intelligence Committee report that Mr. Tenet received this week, from the 9/11 commission's report and from an update expected this summer from Mr. Tenet's own investigator in Iraq on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

Whether the resignation was voluntary or forced, the timing was terrible. It's too close to the November election for Mr. Bush to make any credible effort to replace Mr. Tenet. The president named Mr. Tenet's deputy, John McLaughlin, as the acting director starting July 11, and, in theory, he could rush through a new nominee. But it is hard to imagine such a choice being based on more than simply finding someone politically bland enough to pass muster in an already tense election year.

Instead, Mr. Bush could leave Mr. McLaughlin, a veteran of three decades at the C.I.A., as the caretaker, and the White House and Congress could finally get serious about reforming the intelligence community and providing the tools the next director will need to do the job. Mr. Tenet had the responsibility to oversee, but not the power to control, 15 intelligence agencies. The biggest share of the intelligence budget was well out of his reach at the Pentagon, where Mr. Rumsfeld has repeatedly tried to usurp the C.I.A. with his own espionage outfits.

There are credible ideas on the table to start the discussion. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has floated the notion of having his committee control all the secret intelligence budgets scattered around Congress. Representative Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, is shopping around legislation that seems a good start toward putting the intelligence agencies under one responsible and accountable official. Instead of engaging in a partisan confirmation brawl, the White House and Congress could spend the summer on these issues, and present the winner of the election with the chance to name an intelligence director who has the personal stature, political mandate and, ideally, added authority to institute some real reform.

We'll be parsing this for a bit. The timing seems strange to me; hanging on until regime change this winter would have seemed more natural. I sense something is very wrong here.

Open Thread

I will be away the rest of the day attending this. Here is an open thread for you to mix it up.

Oh, and this is huge: George Tenet Resigns from CIA. Use comments to post new news as this story break during the day. This is very strange timing. Speculate away.

Mau-Mauing the Supremes

You Have Rights -- if Bush Says You Do

By Jonathan Turley

This week, the U.S. Justice Department held an extraordinary news conference. After insisting for two years that details of the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen accused of being an "enemy combatant," had to be kept secret even from the federal courts, the Justice Department suddenly released detailed information on his interrogations and their results. What made this press conference particularly notable was its intended audience: the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court is currently reviewing the Padilla case, with a decision expected in the next few weeks, and there is a growing question of whether a majority can be found to support President Bush's claims of absolute authority to hold a U.S. citizen indefinitely without filing charges.

It is, of course, considered highly improper to stage such a news conference while a case is pending. Indeed, such a stunt is likely to outrage some members of the court. But the administration appeared to be playing for the one swing justice: Sandra Day O'Connor, who, during the arguments in April, was openly struggling to find any plausible rationale for giving a president absolute power over citizens. With the record now closed, the only realistic chance of getting such information to O'Connor was her morning newspaper.

Padilla has been held for two years without access to the courts or even a lawyer. The high court is also working on opinions in two other terrorism-related cases, which involve another enemy-combatant suspect, Yaser Esam Hamdi, and the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. These cases have become a game of three-card monte, with Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft barring any public view while occasionally revealing a card in order to keep up the public's interest or faith in the game.

The government disclosures this week were not compelled by any court, statute or deadline. It was purely a political decision that the president would benefit by selectively releasing incriminating statements allegedly made by a citizen held incommunicado.

In alleging that Padilla had planned to target apartment buildings and hotels, Deputy U.S. Atty. Gen. James Comey Jr. said the administration wanted to show that there were benefits to stripping citizens like Padilla of their rights. (This is, of course, a far cry from the charge made at the press conference held by Ashcroft after Padilla's arrest in which the attorney general claimed that he had thwarted a conspiracy to explode a "dirty" radioactive bomb in New York or Washington — a claim later publicly retracted by the White House.)

I've been shocked and awed by how uncritically the traditional media have been covering this story. I've given up trying to prognosticate what the Supremes are going to do, but they are the last body standing between us and the Bush dictatorship. I hope Sandra Day O'Connor gets the message here. Hey, we use the same hairdresser, maybe I can get to her that way.

Bad Analogies

Sidney Blumenthal has a very restless keyboard this morning, but here is one thread of his argument. There are days when his commentary comes close to poetry.

Bush takes refuge in history

Images of the second world war pepper the president's rhetoric - but the one word you won't hear him say is Vietnam

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday June 3, 2004
The Guardian

At home and abroad, Bush is investing his rhetoric about the "clash of ideologies" and "global war" with historical analogies. On his European visits, Bush will compare Iraq to rebuilding Germany and Japan after the second world war. He will raise the spectre of the west against communism in the cold war. He will contrast Nazi atrocities to Islamist terrorism. He has even said that he will instruct Europeans that Iraq is like the United States before its constitutional convention: "I will remind them that the articles of confederation was a rather bumpy period for American democracy". Among the missing, however, are analogous figures to Washington, Franklin and Madison.

Bush's principal analogy conflates al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein into a common threat of "weapons of mass destruction" and a "totalitarian political ideology" that is "not an expression of religion", as he explained in his speech before the Army War College on May 24. This is a world war of "two visions" that first "clashed in Afghanistan" and "have now met in Iraq."

It was in this speech that he proposed tearing down and replacing Abu Ghraib prison, despite having neglected to provide for it in his budget. The grand gesture was widely reported, the grubby absence of funding little noticed. By means of a few words, Abu Ghraib was transformed at least for a moment into a gleaming Potemkin village.

Prophetically, on the eve of Bush's appearance at the Army War College, its strategic studies institute released a report, Vietnam and Iraq: Differences, Similarities and Insights, observing the similarities as failures of strategy, maintaining public support and nation building. It also noted: "Prospects for creating a stable, prosperous, and democratic Iraq are problematic, and observers and decision makers should not be misled by false analogies to American state-building success in Germany and Japan after World War II."

"They haven't known what they've been doing since the statue of Saddam came down," a military strategist at the Army War College told me. "Bush's speech was a vision speech with no connection to facts on the ground. That seems to be the limit of his understanding and ability. Even Vietnam doesn't look so bad in retrospect." But Bush will not make reference to "Vietnam and Iraq" in Europe.

The View from Rome

The Campaign Comes to Rome
By JOHN L. ALLEN Jr.

Published: June 3, 2004

In June 1983, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, then prime minister of Poland, received Pope John Paul II at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw. It was the pope's second trip to his home country, but the first since the general had imposed martial law 18 months earlier, and in a speech before their meeting the general defended his decision. Despite the defiant tone of the speech, many reporters noticed, General Jaruzelski's knees were shaking.

Tomorrow President Bush will call upon Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. After their meeting they will appear before reporters, but the most interesting question may be one that needn't be asked: Will George Bush's knees be knocking when he meets with the pope?

In some ways it's an ungainly comparison, since the pope has never issued a condemnation of American militarism or capitalism as sweeping as his denunciation of Soviet Communism. There is also little evidence that the political price for defying the pope is as steep in the United States today as it was in Poland in the mid-1980's. Yet the Catholic vote is important to the president, and there is no denying that John Paul II is deeply troubled by what Mr. Bush is doing under the guise of the war on terrorism.

In recent months — in papal commentaries, in speeches and interviews with senior Vatican officials, and in commentaries by the Vatican's radio station and newspaper — the Vatican critique of American foreign policy has focused on several points.

The first is the doctrine of pre-emptive force. The Bush administration argues that when it has intelligence about imminent threats to the United States, it has the right to strike first. The Vatican insists that a single nation-state never has this right. Only the United Nations can authorize military action to disarm an aggressor, to ensure that disarmament is the real objective rather than a particular country's political or commercial interests.

The Holy See has repeatedly complained about American unilateralism and called on Mr. Bush to work through the United Nations. But while the Vatican sees the United Nations as a sovereign entity, able to pursue policies and attain goals of its own, Mr. Bush sees it merely as an instrument of sovereign states, each of which retains liberty of action.

Underlying these disagreements is a fundamental difference between the White House and the Vatican regarding the importance of international law. The Bush administration has taken a selective approach to international law, arguing that the new threat posed by terrorism makes some old agreements irrelevant.

The Vatican insists on international law as the only way to ensure "the force of law rather than the law of force," as the Vatican's former foreign minister, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, repeatedly put it during the months before the invasion. It has often criticized the United States for ignoring the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. And the Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, in a May 12 interview with a Roman newspaper, called the Abu Ghraib prison scandal "a worse blow to the United States than Sept. 11."

Apart from these concerns about America's respect for the world, many in the Vatican are also worried that some American values themselves are unhealthy. Ideals like individual autonomy, liberalism and pragmatic morality can be dangerous from the point of view of Roman Catholic anthropology and social ethics. They do not lend themselves to a strong sense of community, either in civil society or in the church. Vatican officials worry about their uncontrolled diffusion with America as the world's lone superpower.

To be sure, there is a higher personal regard in the Vatican for Mr. Bush than for his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Mr. Bush and the pope agree on cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage. None of that, however, can mask their deep differences on international policy.

Hence both George Bush and John Paul II have something at risk at tomorrow's meeting. For Mr. Bush, his image as the "religious" candidate could be tarnished if he's seen as having been chastised by the most authoritative Christian leader in the world. The White House asked for this meeting, even adjusting the president's schedule to make it possible before the pope leaves for Switzerland on Saturday. No doubt the president's advisers believe a photo op with the pope could be useful in battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the Catholic vote could be decisive.

For the pope, however, much more than short-term political advantage is at stake. In 1989, John Paul was the man who brought down Communism. But has his influence been as dramatic since? If the greatest threat today is a "clash of civilizations" pitting the Western world against Islam, then many at the Vatican say American foreign policy is stoking precisely that conflict. The question is, can the pope — now 84 and ailing — do anything about it?

Unfortunately, when John Paul II and George Bush appear before the cameras tomorrow, they will almost certainly be seated. So it will be harder to see whether the president's knees are shaking.

John Allen is the Vatican reporter for the liberal weekly, The National Catholic Reporter. He is as canny a Vaticanologist working today, and a diplomat of remarkable skill. The subtext in the piece above: this Pope has already made a subtle common cause with the American Evangelicals who form Bush's base voters. He is unlikely to even bring up the Roman Church's anti-war posture at this meeting.

To Arms

Sexual Assaults In Army On Rise
Report Blames Poor Oversight And Training

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 3, 2004; Page A01

Allegations of sexual assault in the U.S. Army have climbed steadily over the past five years, and the problem has been abetted by weak prevention efforts, slow investigations, inadequate field reporting and poor managerial oversight, according to internal Army data and a new report from an Army task force.

The May 27 report, sparked by complaints from women's groups and female lawmakers about an apparent increase in reported assaults against U.S. servicewomen in Iraq and Afghanistan, states that the Army lacks "an overarching policy" for dealing with the problem, and that as a result it "does not have a clear picture of the sexual assault issue."

The report also states that the Army lacks a "comprehensive, progressive . . . program to train solders and leaders in the prevention of and response to sexual assault." It said commanders within the region covered by the military's Central Command have not always reported sexual offenses to Army investigators, even when they took action against those involved.

The Army's internal report echoes conclusions drawn in earlier, military-wide assessments. Data released separately by the Army Criminal Investigative Division made it clear that the number of sexual assault cases reported to the division increased each year from 1999 to 2003.

The numbers, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Washington Post, are the first year-to-year servicewide tallies on sexual assault cases provided to the public since 1998. They indicate that Army efforts to ameliorate the problem over the past five years have had little to no impact.

According to the data, the total number of reported cases of sexual assault involving Army personnel increased by 19 percent from 1999 to 2002 -- from 658 to 783, with annual increases ranging from 2 percent to 13 percent. During the same period, the number of reported rapes increased by 25 percent -- from 356 to 445, according to the data. The number of Army personnel on active duty, including reservists, rose during this period by less than 6 percent.

Between 2002 and 2003, according to the data, the number of reported sexual assault cases increased by an additional 5 percent and the number of rapes by 5 percent, but because of the war in Iraq, the number of Army personnel on active duty increased by 20 percent.

The Army acknowledges that these tallies probably understate the magnitude of the problem. Advocacy groups say that sexual assaults are routinely underreported, and that military victims are further inhibited by rules that bar confidentiality. A Defense Department report on the problem in May, based on visits to 21 military locations, provided data indicating rising sexual assaults from 2002 to 2003, which a Defense official said probably represented a fraction of the total in those years.

Army officials noted that the five-year tally included reports of abuse that proved to be "unfounded" after investigation, a number said to have tripled from 48 to 157 between 1999 and 2003. Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Diane Battaglia said she could not explain why the number of cases deemed false had risen so much.

"The Criminal Investigation Division takes all reports of criminal behavior very seriously," she said.

Battaglia also noted that during the period covered by the data, the number of women on active duty in the Army increased. With more women in the Army Reserve than in the regular Army, and with more reservists on active duty, she said, "the raw number of sexual assaults being reported remains extremely low as a percentage."

The task force's report, to be released today at a hearing by a House Armed Services subcommittee looking into military sexual abuse, is the latest in a series of studies to find shortcomings in the military's policies and oversight. In its report last month, the Defense Department acknowledged that victims are inadequately supported and that investigations are often hampered by delays and manpower shortages.

That conclusion came after complaints in 2003 by female cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado that assault allegations had often been ignored and a report by the Defense Department's inspector general that one-fifth of the academy's women had reported experiencing at least an attempted sexual assault.

The Air Force and the Navy said they are still processing an April 8 request by The Post for data on the incidence of assault allegations across those services since 1999.

Although the Pentagon said it has initiated reforms, House Democrats led by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (Calif.) have been pushing for an update of sexual assault provisions in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, enacted by Congress in 1950. Their aim is to bring the code in line with a law adopted at the federal level and by 38 states, which expands the definition of sexual abuse and gives added protection for victims' rights.

This story is a sidenote to the Abu Ghraib scandals. The culture of the military is one of violence and sexual assaults are almost a predictable asterisk. That said, this story tells me several other things, the first of which is that female troops are still not seen as comrades by their male counterparts. The military is a strange and in some ways extremely artificial culture (I'm an Army brat and lived it) but it has had a history of pushing secular society for tolerence and cohesion. If the Armed Forces can learn to truly integrate women, maybe the rest of the world can. The jury is still out, however.

Another Hole in the Boat

Polygraph Testing Starts at Pentagon in Chalabi Inquiry
By DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN

Published: June 3, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 2 — Federal investigators have begun administering polygraph examinations to civilian employees at the Pentagon to determine who may have disclosed highly classified intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi who authorities suspect turned the information over to Iran, government officials said Wednesday.

The polygraph examinations, which are being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are focused initially on a small number of Pentagon employees who had access to the information that was compromised. American intelligence officials have said that Mr. Chalabi informed Iran that the United States had broken the secret codes used by Iranian intelligence to transmit confidential messages to posts around the world.

Mr. Chalabi has denied the charge. On Wednesday, his lawyers made public a letter they said they had sent to Attorney General John Ashcroft and F.B.I. Director Robert S. Mueller III repeating Mr. Chalabi's denials and demanding that the Justice Department investigate the disclosure of the accusations against Mr. Chalabi.

The lawyers, John J. E. Markham II and Collette C. Goodman, said in the letter, "The charges made against Dr. Chalabi — both the general and the specific ones are false."

They also said, "We ask that you undertake an immediate investigation to find and hold accountable those who are responsible for these false leaks."

Officials would not identify who has taken polygraph examinations or even who has been interviewed by F.B.I. counterespionage agents. It could not be determined whether anyone has declined to submit to a polygraph test.

No one has been charged with any wrongdoing or identified as a suspect, but officials familiar with the investigation say that they are working through a list of people and are likely to interview senior Pentagon officials.

The F.B.I. is looking at officials who both knew of the code-breaking operation and had dealings with Mr. Chalabi, either in Washington or Baghdad, the government officials said. Information about code-breaking work is considered among the most confidential material in the government and is handled under tight security and with very limited access.

Click on the link for this one, it is a neat reprise of the timeline as this story broke. The reporters are two of the best on the intelligence beat. As I watch this story unfold, surely one of the strangest in this out of control administration, I'm drawn to Keystone Kops analogies. Or perhaps the exploits of Baron Muenchhausen would be more appropriate for comparison.

This is, however, an interesting story to keep in the front of your mind as Bushco spends the weeking pushing the 60th Anniversary of D-Day and comparisons between the GWOT and the Iraq war with WWII. The two have nothing in common, of course, beyond the bleeding and the dying

Puppet Prince

Brahimi: Bremer the `dictator of Iraq' in shaping Iraqi government

By Tom Lasseter

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Lakhdar Brahimi, wrapping up his U.N. mission to bring an interim government to Iraq, looked a little tired and disheartened Wednesday as he said the compromise he negotiated was the best possible under American control.

When the U.S.-appointed Governing Council announced this week that it had selected a new prime minister, Brahimi seemed to be caught flat-footed. The man tapped for the post, Iyad Allawi, has close ties to the CIA. Almost immediately after being named prime minister, he called for the United States to keep its troops in Iraq, a position unpopular with many Iraqis.

Asked how big a role the American administration had in forming the government and selecting the prime minister and president, Brahimi reminded reporters that American Ambassador L. Paul Bremer runs things in Iraq.

"Bremer is the dictator of Iraq," he said. "He has the money. He has the signature."

He later added: "I will not say who was my first choice, and who was not my first choice ... I will remind you that the Americans are governing this country."

Sadoun al Dulame, the head of a Baghdad research organization and polling center, said he spoke with Brahimi last week and that the diplomat was discouraged.

"He was very disappointed, very frustrated," al Dulame said. "I asked him why he didn't say that publicly (and) he said, `I am the U.N. envoy to Iraq, how can I admit to failure?'"

Brahimi arrived in Iraq in February with orders to evaluate whether elections were feasible in the short term and, if not, to find an alternative.

A vague U.S. caucus plan had fallen through because of opposition from Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al-Sistani, who demanded either elections or U.N. involvement. Tens of thousands of Shiites had marched through Baghdad the month before, many of them threatening violent revolt if there were no elections.
....
Brahimi spent a lot of his time in Iraq listening to Iraqis from all walks of life and pieced together an expansive, nuanced picture of the nation and its needs. He concluded that immediate elections wouldn't work.

He then went to the table with U.S. administrators and the nation's interim Governing Council for weeks of negotiations that involved sharp dissent, political jockeying and leaks to the press.

In the end, a new government formed, announcements were made and even al-Sistani, according to reports from Najaf, accepted the result.

Reflecting on it all, Brahimi said it was "a sometimes extremely difficult negotiation process" and added, "You in the press had a field day."

After he finished speaking, he walked off from the podium, alone. A U.N. banner was tacked on the wall behind him, waiting to be taken down and replaced by the Americans in time for the next news conference.

Stop-Loss and Real Loss

Abuse of Army IRR Raises Ire Nationwide

By Paul Connors

Anger, fear, rage, confusion, doubt, befuddlement and consternation: These are the words that describe the emotions felt by the folks who have written to me and DefenseWatch in response to my article last week on the subject of IRR policy changes made by the Department of the Army (“Army Shift in IRR Victimizes Soldiers,” May 27, 2004).

Hubris and arrogance notwithstanding, the blame for these egregious policy failures needs to be laid at the altar of its origin. Ultimate responsibility for the defense of the republic is the responsibility of the secretary of defense. It has been his continued refusal to seek additional troops for the active Army that has led to these half-baked schemes where recruiters no longer cajole, but threaten.>

I think the "ultimate responsibility" lies a little higher, but SFTT isn't ready to go there yet. Give it another month.

Pinned to the Mat

The patriot
Armed Services chairman John Warner is determined to get to the bottom of the Abu Ghraib scandal -- even if it costs George W. Bush the election.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mary Jacoby

June 2, 2004 | WASHINGTON -- John Warner does not shout. Or pound the table with his fist. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has -- in public, at least -- been patient and polite in his questioning of administration witnesses about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, maintaining the formality and decorum he values in public life. Behind closed doors, however, the Virginian has surprised observers with occasional flashes of anger at Donald Rumsfeld's evasions, according to people who have attended private committee meetings with the defense secretary. "He gets a stern look, and becomes real quiet. He doesn't say anything, but it's obvious when he feels he is getting anything less than candor," one of those present said of Warner.

Speculation that Warner is attempting to shuffle Rumsfeld out the door, however, is probably going too far, his colleagues say. Warner fueled such talk last month when he told reporters that Rumsfeld's resignation is "a subjective decision that only he can make." Yet Warner has expressed no preference to Armed Services Committee members about Rumsfeld's future, and few believe he would try to push out the secretary, in deference to the president's prerogative to choose his own Cabinet. Still, Warner is caught in a bind between loyalty to a Republican president and his duty to the country. He supported Bush on waging the Iraq war. Yet he also believes strongly that Congress has a constitutional obligation to oversee the executive branch, colleagues say. Then there's the issue of his conscience. "I'm sure he was offended to the bone by the pictures of the recent incidents," said retired Marine Corps Col. John E. Greenwood, a former aide to Warner.

I'd been hearing grumbling around town that this scandal was simply going to be allowed to die (it's not like there aren't a bushelbasket of others.) Warner can be like a dog with a bone, and his very proud of his tenure on the Armed Services committee. His seat is fireproof, so there really isn't any constraint on him if he decides to dig in his heels on this one. Go John Warner!

Coming Apart at the Seams

Disintegration
by Dahr Jamail | Posted May 31, 2004 at 08:24 AM Baghdad time

My friend Aziz came by this afternoon... shaken. He told me that there had been an assassination attempt on Ismail Zayer, the editor of the New Sabah, a newspaper Mr. Zayer founded after breaking ranks with the CPA controlled Sabah newspaper. According to the story, a group of men in four cars, one of them an Iraqi Police vehicle, showed up at Zayer’s office and told him the Minister of the Interior had requested that he accompany them to his office.

Iraq has been shattered. And now, today, over a year since the horrible regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown, what is left of the country seems to be unraveling more and more with each passing day.

Orders of Magnitude

Who's Iyad Allawi, and Why Should He Run Iraq?
The country's new interim president and prime minister don't rate highly with Iraqis

By APARISIM GHOSH/BAGHDAD

Tuesday, Jun. 01, 2004
Iraqis have a strong sense of irony — every discussion about politics or economics in this country seems to begin with a sardonic or mordant observation: Isn't it odd that a nation with the world's second-largest oil reserves should also have mile-long queues at gas stations? Isn't it strange that the Americans, who made such a big deal of Saddam Hussein's treatment of prisoners, brutalized their own Iraqi captives in Abu Ghraib? And so on.

So, it was entirely appropriate that discussion over the appointment of Iraq's new interim government was laced with its own special irony: The two men at the top of the list announced Tuesday were just last month ranked bottom of a list of potential leaders — by their own countrymen.

A poll conducted in May by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies (ICRSS) asked Iraqis to rank 17 prominent religious and political leaders. Iyad Allawi, Prime Minister of the interim government that will take over administrative power from the Coalition Provisional Authority on June 30, finished in sixteenth place. Behind him, dead last, came Ghazi al-Yawer, who on Tuesday was named president of the interim government.

The most popular leader in Iraq, according to the ICRSS survey, was the country's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Also high up: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a leader of the Shiite Dawa party named as one of two vice-presidents in the new administration, and Adnan Pachachi, the Sunni elder statesman and preferred presidential candidate of the U.S. who was offered the post but turned it down in the face of objections from some the Iraqi Governing Council.

What's more, the results of the ICRSS May survey suggest that the new president and prime minister had both been slipping in Iraqis' estimation — in a similar poll conducted last September, Allawi had ranked Number 10 out of 25, and al-Yawer Number 18.

Why do Iraqis have such a poor opinion of Allawi? Sadoun al-Dulame, executive director of the ICRSS, pointed to one reason: "Every newspaper that has reported about his appointment has mentioned his CIA connection." Although Allawi has sniped at the U.S.-led Coalition in recent months, it's his ties to Langley that seem to have registered with Iraqis. (His organization, the Iraqi National Accord, is funded by the CIA.) "He's a CIA man, like [Ahmed] Chalabi," said Raed Abu Hassan, a Baghdad University political science post-grad. "In this country, CIA connections are political poison." It doesn't help that the Shiite Allawi is also a former Baathist, and a returning exile. Many Iraqis are scornful of politicians who left the country during the Saddam era.

And al-Yawer? Most Iraqis don't know him all that well — one of the reasons he came in last on the poll. Nearly a third of those polled said they had not heard enough about him to have an opinion. As a leading figure in a northern Iraqi tribe, he kept a low profile until the very end of the behind-the-scenes political power play that led to his nomination. Said al-Dulame: "He's a non-controversial figure. He's never been part of the political system, he was never a figure of the opposition during the Saddam era."

Since Allawi will be the one running the government, his lack of popularity could be especially problematic. The danger, say some commentators, is that his entire administration may be undermined by association. "The selection of Allawi means that the very first step towards June 30 is a misstep," said Sheikh Mohammed Basher al-Faidi, spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, the most powerful grouping of Sunni clergy. "And when the first step is wrong, then the journey is bound to be a difficult one."

Almost perfectly wrong.

Draft, Actually

Army Expanding 'Stop-Loss' Program
Email this Story

Jun 2, 12:10 PM (ET)

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army will prevent soldiers in units set to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan from leaving the service at the end of their terms, a top general said Wednesday.

The announcement, an expansion of an Army program called "stop-loss," means that thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will have to stay on for the duration of their deployment to those combat zones.

The expansion affects units that are 90 days away or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel. Commanders have the ability to make exceptions for soldiers with special circumstances; otherwise, soldiers won't be able to leave the service or transfer from their unit until they return to their home base after the deployment.

The move will allow the Army to keep units together as they deploy, Hagenbeck said. Units with new recruits or recently transferred soldiers would not perform as well because the troops would not have had time to work together.

"The rationale is to have cohesive, trained units going to war together," Hagenbeck said.

Previously, the Army had prevented soldiers from leaving certain units scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. But Wednesday's move is the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, that the stop-loss program has been ordered so widely.

The announcement comes as the Army is struggling to find fresh units to continue the occupation of Iraq. Almost every Army combat unit has faced or will face deployment there or in Afghanistan, and increased violence has forced the deployment of an additional 20,000 troops to the region, straining units even further.

Some criticize the stop-loss program as contrary to the concept of an all-volunteer military force. Soldiers planning to retire and get on with their lives now face months away from their families and homes.

In an opinion piece in Wednesday's New York Times, Andrew Exum, a former Army captain who served under Hagenbeck in the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, called the treatment of soldiers under stop-loss programs "shameful."

"Many, if not most, of the soldiers in this latest Iraq-bound wave are already veterans of several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan," he wrote. "They have honorably completed their active duty obligations. But like draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the additional needs in Iraq."

For Some Soldiers the War Never Ends
By ANDREW EXUM
Published: June 2, 2004

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Many Americans, feeling that we did not have enough troops in Iraq, were pleased when the Defense Department announced last month that 20,000 more soldiers were being sent to put down the insurgency and help rebuild the country. Unfortunately, few realized that many of these soldiers would serve long after their contractual obligations to the active-duty military are complete. In essence, they will no longer be voluntarily serving their country.

These soldiers are falling victim to the military's "stop-loss" policy — and as a former officer who led some of them in battle, I find their treatment shameful. Announced shortly after the 9/11 attacks and authorized by President Bush, the stop-loss policy allows commanders to hold soldiers past the date they are due to leave the service if their unit is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Military officials rightly point out that stop-loss prevents a mass exodus of combat soldiers just before a combat tour.

But nonetheless, the stop-loss policy is wrong; it runs contrary to the concept of the volunteer military set up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Many if not most of the soldiers in this latest Iraq-bound wave are already veterans of several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have honorably completed their active duty obligations. But like draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the additional needs in Iraq.

Among them are many of my former comrades in the Second Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, I led a platoon of light infantry first to Kuwait in 2001 and then in combat in Afghanistan during Operation Anaconda in 2002. My men had all enlisted before the 9/11 attacks. In Kuwait and Afghanistan, they performed flawlessly, with several earning commendations for bravery in combat.

Yet even after two deployments to Afghanistan, and with many nearing the end of their commitments, these soldiers will have to head to Iraq this summer and remain there for at least a year. I remain close with them, and as the unit received its marching orders a few called me to express their frustration. To a man, they felt a sense of hopelessness — they know they have little say over their future until the Army releases them.

War of Choice

Bush the war leader losing key battles

By Robert Kuttner | June 2, 2004

WHETHER YOU supported the US invasion of Iraq or opposed it, you have to be impressed by the Bush administration's sheer incompetence. That issue, and not the wisdom of the Iraq war itself, should be John Kerry's trump in his claim that he would run a more effective foreign policy. Indeed, it would be hard to run a less effective one.

Assume that the issue of whether to topple Saddam Hussein was a close question. The man was a ruthless dictator who engaged in mass murder. He refused to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors even though this was the condition that allowed him to stay in power after he lost the Kuwait war.

Some sensible people, such as former Clinton national security aide Kenneth Pollack, argued for "regime change" on grounds that Saddam was uniquely brutal and likely to acquire, and even use, nuclear weapons. Quite apart from whether this goal made sense, the bungling of its execution by Team Bush is unsurpassed in the history of American foreign policy.

The advocates of overthrowing Saddam inside the administration were an incompatible melange of people hoping that a "forward strategy" of aggressive military engagement would spread democracy, people covetous of Iraq's oil, and those who hoped that a changed Iraq would advance peace in Israel -- that the "road to Jerusalem ran through Baghdad." Yet in the same administration were opponents of "nation building" and advocates of a more flexible military who did not want to become bogged down in long occupations. These worthies never sorted out their differences.

Here is just a partial list of administration bungles.

Wishful thinking. Bush's Iraq hawks relied on a corrupt and self-interested group of exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi for the crucial evidence of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons that provided the rationale for the invasion. The White House, already a laughingstock among US allies, has now, belatedly, turned against Chalabi.

Failure to plan for the postwar. The administration completely misperceived the situation on the ground in Iraq. Instead of removing top leaders and keeping the Iraqi Army intact to maintain civil order, the administration's relentless "de-Ba'athification" (now awkwardly reversed) led to a power vacuum and to anarchy. The average Iraqi, whatever he thought of overthrowing of Saddam, now associates the US invasion with civil disorder, tribal violence, and chaos.

Alienating America's allies. The United States, with more patience, might well have disarmed or dislodged Saddam through diplomacy. Instead, Bush isolated the United States to the point where allies who are now desperately needed to provide UN troops to stabilize Iraq won't go near the place.

Losing hearts and minds. Whether the torture of Iraqi prisoners is a failure of command and control or the logical outcome of America's policy, it is an epic blunder. These sordid images will never be forgotten by ordinary Iraqis.

Setting back democracy. Iraq was to be a shining beacon of Middle East democracy, which in turn would pressure other area regimes to democratize. But the Iraq mess has left the United States with more dependence on, and less influence over, nations like Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Promoting terror. The festering mess in Iraq is a recruiting poster for Al Qaeda. The war itself diverted special forces and material from Afghanistan needed for the far more crucial challenge of tracking down bin Laden and his henchmen.

Privatizing warfare. Far too much of the Iraq warfare is in the hands of soldiers of fortune and profiteering private companies. This undermines accountability and weakens our armed forces.

Bush's policies were built on fantasies and cheap slogans that have now come back to embarrass their authors: The premise that "shock and awe" would stun our adversaries into quick submission; the idea, accepted by no serious intelligence analyst, that radical Islamist Al Qaeda and militantly secular Saddam were part of a common terror network; the claim that a motley assortment of small nations whose troop commitments mostly numbered in the hundreds were a grand "coalition of the willing."

Because of 9/11, I am pretty hawkish about protecting America against terror. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan as well as the intervention in Bosnia. I believe the United States should play a forward role in defending human rights and constraining nuclear proliferation.

But policies built on illusions are doomed to fail because they bump up against reality. So this is not about hawk versus dove. It's about competence versus fantasy. These supposed tough defenders of America in a risky age of terror are actually the gang that can't shoot straight -- or think straight.

I think Kuttner is an idiot when it comes to Iraq. Saddam Hussein was never "uniquely brutal." There are a virtual army of dictators just as vicious, none of whom threaten the US. Saddam was one of them. This war never needed to happen. Kuttner neglects to mention that.

The New Persia

Iraq's New Government Faces Bargaining Over Its Power
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, June 1 — The new caretaker government in Iraq was hailed Tuesday by President Bush as ready to assume "full sovereignty" after June 30. But its first job, according to American officials, will be to negotiate sharp limits on that sovereignty in many vital areas, particularly security matters.

Less than a month before the scheduled transfer of power, it remains unclear exactly how much power will be transferred.

The continued presence of nearly 140,000 American troops, and American diplomats in the ministries of the new government, virtually ensures that significant power will remain in American hands. To some, the limits that are emerging are so constraining that they make a mockery of the process.

"It's a charade," said a diplomat at the United Nations, where a resolution blessing the interim government has been proposed by the United States. "The problem is that you need a charade to get to the reality of an elected government next January. There's no other way to do this."

Questions about Iraq's real sovereignty are bound to deepen, according to many diplomats, now that it has become clear that the United Nations special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, played a secondary role in setting up the new government.

People close to the envoy say the choices, especially that of the prime minister, Iyad Allawi, were essentially negotiated between the United States and the Iraqi Governing Council, which the occupation authorities put together last year. "The visible role of the Iraqi Governing Council in choosing its own successors in Iraq is more than was anticipated," an American official acknowledged in something of an understatement.

A European diplomat said the choices announced Tuesday reflected a "very distressing" set of developments. "It's clear that not only the U.S., but also the U.N., have ambitions for Iraq that are lower and lower by the day," he said.

As for "full sovereignty," American officials have said decision-making authority over security matters will be shared. But according to a second draft of an American and British resolution for the United Nations Security Council on Iraqi sovereignty, circulated among Council members on Tuesday night, the United States security mandate would extend to December 2005, after a constitution had been approved and a permanent government put in place.

Difficult security questions, like whether Iraqi forces can refuse to join in an American military operation, are left for future negotiations.

Confusion over sovereignty extends beyond military matters to questions of legal immunity for Americans, accounting practices, treatment of prisoners and oversight of government ministries.
....
Under current rules, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the Arab Development Bank supervise an "advisory and monitoring board" that is supposed to keep tabs on Iraq's revenues and expenditures. Some Iraqi leaders complain that the board imposes intolerable limits on their autonomy.

American officials say the board is necessary because there are still many legal claims around the world, dating from the Saddam Hussein era, and the board protects them from being seized in a lawsuit.

Another large issue looming for the interim government is the status of the laws decreed under the Iraqi Governing Council, which dissolved itself on Tuesday. Principal among them is the Transitional Administrative Law, which provides for religious freedoms and for certain powers guaranteed to the Kurdish minority.

Administration officials assert that the transitional law, developed under the supervision of L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, remains in force.

"The law doesn't expire with a new government coming in, any more than the laws passed under the Clinton administration expired when the Bush administration came into office," said a State Department official.

Kurdish leaders say they, too, expect that the previously enacted law will remain intact. But some experts say no law enacted under a foreign occupation and its handpicked local leaders will have standing after June 30.

A United Nations official noted, for example, that the transitional law had not been incorporated into Washington's Security Council draft. The official said it had been omitted at the request of Shiite leaders, who dislike its protections for the Kurds and contend that it marginalizes Islamic family law.

"It's not clear how the status of the transitional law will end up," an administration official said. "Stay tuned."

Still another matter to be decided, administration officials acknowledge, is the status of thousands of Iraqis to be detained by American military authorities even though many of them have not been charged with any crimes.

It is not clear that Iraq will have a say in deciding whether they are to be detained, or whether their families will be able to go to Iraqi courts to set them free.

"There are international norms that may apply," said a State Department official. "But this is another matter that legal experts from both sides will have to work out."

What remains to be determined is exactly what kind of satrap we want this government to be. The NYT piece above is Orwellian.

The Other FUBAR

U.S. is lost in Afghanistan

May 31, 2004

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

The handful of valiant American warriors fighting the ''other'' war in Afghanistan is not a happy band of brothers. They are undermanned and feel neglected, lack confidence in their generals and are disgusted by Afghan political leadership. Most important, they are appalled by the immense but fruitless effort to find Osama bin Laden for purposes of U.S. politics.
....
The situation in Afghanistan, as laid out to me, looks nothing like a country alleged to be progressing toward representative democracy under American tutelage. Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-sponsored Afghan president, is regarded by the U.S. troops as hopelessly corrupt and kept in power by U.S. force of arms.

Those arms are not what they seem. The basic U.S. strength in Afghanistan is 17,000 troops of ''straight-legged'' infantry -- conventional forces ill-prepared to handle irregulars. The new unit assigned to Afghanistan is the 25th Infantry Division, which has been stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and has not seen combat since the Vietnam War.

More important than this conventional infantry division are two commando units known as Black SOF (Special Operations Forces) and White SOF. Black SOF, by far the more numerous of the two, is assigned to capture Osama bin Laden. Nothing would do more to boost President Bush's sagging popularity than getting the designer of the 9/11 attacks.

The problem is that nobody I have talked to in the military thinks his capture is likely or may even be possible. The American fighting men think ''UBL'' (as he is called) is hiding in Pakistan, impossible to find. Most exasperating to the men in the field is the manpower and effort expended on what they consider to be a helpless cause.

It is White SOF that is given the task of confronting armed narco-terrorists. There are hardly more than 100 American soldiers assigned to this duty, many of them bearded and dressed as Afghans. They are augmented by British and New Zealand special forces, CIA paramilitaries and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency operatives.

They are also hamstrung by senior officers who may be expert in conventional warfare but are at a loss to understand American troops who are far closer in style to Lawrence of Arabia than George Patton. The special operations soldiers and junior officers have a low opinion of Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, the U.S. military commander. On paper, he looks good: West Pointer, Ranger, veteran of the Grenada and Panama invasions. But they grumble that Barno does not have a clue.

It is a strange war, with the JAGs -- Judge Advocate General military lawyers -- given a hand in military decisions. My sources tell of commanders, despite credible intelligence of enemy forces, calling off air strikes on the advice of JAGs. This is the kind of restraint the U.S. military has experienced starting with the Korean War, when as a noncombat Army officer, I knew our forces had their hands tied behind their backs.

I am told that one discouraged and now discharged Special Forces officer, who always has voted Republican and admires Bush, thought about contacting a former military colleague now advising John Kerry. He decided that would accomplish nothing and would inject him in politics. Being lost in Afghanistan transcends politics and is a long-term American burden.

There is no one more zealous than a convert.

Disciple of Mani

Making Hay Out of Straw Men

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A21

For President Bush, this is the season of the straw man.

It is an ancient debating technique: Caricature your opponent's argument, then knock down the straw man you created. In the 2004 campaign, Bush has been knocking down such phantoms on subjects from Iraq to free trade.

-- President Bush, meeting Iraqi amputees at the White House on May 25.

Actually, what Bush is doing is characterizing all positions by their Manichean extremes, which is probably the way he actually sees them. This is a mind with no tolerance for nuance or subtlety. No wonder the rest of the world trembles.

Troubled Waters

Job cut plans rise
Announcements by major U.S. firms climbs for second straight month, employment firm says.
June 1, 2004: 10:13 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The number of job cuts planned by U.S. employers rose for the second straight month in May as firms announced plans to cut more than 73,000 jobs, an outplacement firm said Tuesday.

On Friday, the BLS is scheduled to report on May unemployment and non-farm payroll growth. Economists, on average, expect the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.6 percent and for about 215,000 new jobs to be created.

May 30, 2004;
Financial Markets Forecast and Analysis
by Robert McHugh

Let me just say from the outset that the Federal Reserve has confirmed our Stock Market Crash forecast by raising the Money Supply (M-3) by crisis proportions, up another 46.8 billion this past week. What awful calamity do they see? Something is up. This is unprecedented, unheard-of pre-catastrophe M-3 expansion. M-3 is up an amount that we've never seen before without a crisis - $155 billion over the past 4 weeks, a $2.0 trillion annualized pace, a 22.2 percent annualized rate of growth!!! There must be a crisis of historic proportions coming, and the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is making sure that there is enough liquidity in place to protect our nation's fragile financial system. The amazing thing is, the Fed's actions mean they know what is about to happen. They are aware of a terrible, horrific imminent event. What could it be?

One can draw no other conclusion except that the Fed is acting irresponsibly in its managing the money supply, in fulfilling its duty to "maintain a stable currency." I reject the notion that the Fed is acting irresponsibly. No, something is up, bigger than we have ever seen in the history of the United States. Let me ramble. Perhaps they simply see the ominous technical landscape we have been warning about in recent issues, and are attempting to pull out all the stops to avert the predicted crash. The recent rally in just about everything is similar to 2003's market behavior when the Fed pumped massive amounts of liquidity into the system during the first half of the year. This time seems different. The amount of liquidity is too large. The Fed is deflating the value of the monetary base by a fifth! Why are they willing to do this? Wisdom says something bad is up - big time.

A reader sent along the link to this earlier today. I've learned a great deal about markets since I started Bump, but I'll let someone with more experience than I tell me whether this is as worry making as it looks. This particularly website features frequent "contrarian" financial analysis, which normally is my own bent. Can anyone shed any light?

Taken together, these two stories point to an economy with some troubling underlying fundamentals.

Culture of Violence

Army Investigates Wider Iraq Offenses
Cases Include Deaths, Assaults Outside Prisons

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A01

Over the past year and a half, the Army has opened investigations into at least 91 cases of possible misconduct by U.S. soldiers against detainees and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, a total not previously reported and one that points to a broader range of wrongful behavior than defense officials have acknowledged.
....
Taken together, the 91 cases indicate misconduct by U.S. troops wider in type and greater in number than suggested by the focus simply on the mistreatment of Iraqis held at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The majority of the cases under investigation occurred in Iraq, although the Army has not provided an exact accounting of all the locations.

President Bush and other senior administration officials have sought to explain the abuses at Abu Ghraib as reflecting the aberrant behavior of a few low-ranking soldiers last fall, graphically exposed in photographs and an internal Army report that emerged a month ago. But the Army's list of investigations appears to bolster the contention of others, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, that misconduct by U.S. forces has been more extensive -- and its consequences more damaging -- than can be blamed on the troubled actions of a small group.

Although the new figures show at least 59 of the 91 investigations are now closed, the Army has reported the disciplining of only several soldiers. According to the senior Army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the assault cases have led to at least 14 courts-martial and seven nonjudicial punishments.

But the official had no information on who was prosecuted, for what or with what results. The Army has been slow to make these details public despite requests from Congress and news organizations for more specifics about all the investigations, whether completed or ongoing.

The lack of detail about many of the cases has made it difficult to assess the full significance of the reported misconduct. But the few specifics that have emerged about some of the death cases point to the involvement of an assortment of Army units and to abusive behavior that stretches over a long period of time, from late 2002 to spring 2004.

Reflecting the concern of senior Pentagon officials that the scope of the misconduct may indeed stem from deeper problems with training, organization and command, the inspectors general of the Army and the Army Reserve are engaged in broad reviews of policies and practices on the handling of detainees. A separate probe of the role played by military intelligence personnel also is being conducted by a senior intelligence officer.

The criminal investigations parallel these administrative inquiries. They have intensified in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, with Army investigators taking a new look at some death cases that were initially attributed to natural causes or that have dragged on unresolved for months.

Reports about the criminal probes have dribbled out in bits and pieces. Army spokesmen said late last week that top officials were trying to put together a comprehensive record of the probes.

Of the 91 investigations, 42 involve alleged abuse inside detention facilities, and 49 deal with allegations of misconduct outside, the senior Army official said.

First to Fight Culture
A Former Marine on the Marine Motto

By CHRIS WHITE

The drill instructors made it clear that the enemy was not simply Iraq, or Osama Bin Laden, but more and more it was taking an anti-Islam tone. It was now "us" and "them". Anyone who wanted to attend the Islamic service on Sunday was either looked at strange or ridiculed. I attended an Islamic service on several occasions out of curiosity and the feeling among the other recruits there was much the same. One recruit, of Palestinian dissent, said that a drill instructor remarked how he'd like to kill "your people". Hearing this and hearing one of my own drill instructors describe how he'd killed a "rag-head" in the gulf war really started my absolute revulsion of this institution I'd signed up for.

Every response was "kill", every chant we had, whether it was in line for the chow hall or PT was somehow involved with killing. And not simply killing the enemy, we had one just standing in line for chow which was "1, 2, 3, attack the chow hall (repeat) Kill the women, Kill the Children, Kill, Kill, Kill 'em All". Constantly using the term "kill" as though it meant nothing was used to desensitize the recruits to the notion of killing and it's implications. On top of that, we watched some awful propaganda film which started out as a 9/11 memorial with music (proud to be an American), and pictures of the World Trade Center, then quickly switching to Afghanistan and combat footage whilst Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" blasted through the speakers. This happened much to the delight of my fellow recruits and was encouraged by the drill instructors.

Facts on the Ground

Forty minutes ago, I heard a caller on The Dianne Rehm Show claim that we were having a stunning success in Iraq. I wonder where anyone could get that idea.

For Iraqis, a Symbol of Unkept Promises
By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD — Past the charred remains of a U.S. military truck, down a pitted road lined with rubble sits Shura Primary School.

Outside, the squat schoolhouse glistens with fresh lime-green paint, courtesy of the renovation spree launched by the U.S.-led coalition. Inside, the floors are buckled, the blackboards are scarred, and the bathrooms are little more than open-air sewage pits. There is one working water fountain for 1,125 students, who must pick their way through a parking lot strewn with mounds of trash to get to the school's front doors.
....
As much as civilian casualties or detainee abuse, the erratic reconstruction of their country has turned Iraqis against the occupation. Many people welcomed last year's invasion, hoping that the world's only superpower could elevate their wretched standard of living.

But a year later, the promised $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction money is only now hitting the streets. Projects have been delayed by insurgent attacks and rampant corruption, committed by Iraqis but blamed on the Americans. Baghdad's boulevards are lined with trash. Geysers of sewage erupt in even the wealthiest neighborhoods of the capital. Unemployment is epidemic nationwide.

Misgivings are particularly sharp in neighborhoods such as the one in northwest Baghdad that surrounds the Shura school — predominantly Shiite Muslim areas that were neglected under the Sunni Muslim-led government of President Saddam Hussein, which have turned against the occupiers.

In an acknowledgment of the problem, the military has begun to step up basic services in northwest Baghdad, from sewer service to garbage pickup.

The complaints of inadequate rebuilding frustrate occupation officials and the dwindling ranks of Iraqis who support them, because progress is not nonexistent. Although schools such as Shura sit in disrepair, numerous others have been renovated. The coalition has dramatically boosted the salaries of teachers and other government workers and sparked a consumer mini-boom.

"Everybody in Iraq wants to eat and have a new salary and a new address as soon as possible. They do not want to say thanks to the Americans for getting rid of that bloody tyrant, Saddam Hussein, which will not be repaid for 10 generations," said Hasanein F. Muallah, who is in charge of school construction for the Education Ministry. "The Iraqis are impatient. They need to have everything right now."

Dan Senor, the main spokesman for the coalition, said citizens overestimated the power of the United States.

"It's perfectly understandable, but sometimes the Iraqi people have unrealistic expectations of what the Americans can do," he said. "They don't understand how a country that could defeat the Iraqi army cannot get the power back on. But the fact is that the nation's infrastructure was in a lot worse shape than we thought."

Another issue is that the occupation has decreased Iraqis' sense of personal security. Many say the roving bands of kidnappers and bandits — not to mention the heavily armed U.S. soldiers — are more terrifying than Hussein's secret police.

To the teachers and students at Shura, a new paint job and higher pay seem like a poor trade.

"The lives of Iraqis are getting worse," teacher Abbood said as her classroom of 11- and 12-year-old girls nodded in agreement. "Now these pupils are frightened that someone will throw a bomb at them, or kidnap them.

"The walls, the paint, yes, they have improved, but the general situation at the school — the curriculum, the books, the food — has not changed for the better."

Shura Primary has long stood out as an eyesore in a neighborhood full of eyesores.

It lies at the edge of Baghdad, in the heart of the Ghazaliya district, a warren of fraying apartment buildings, modest houses and potholed byways.

The school is not hooked up to Baghdad's sewer system, so the septic tanks from the restrooms drain into a reservoir beneath the front courtyard. The sewage seeps up through the ground and into the path of students. The classrooms have no window screens to keep out the swarms of flies and mosquitoes, and no air conditioning.

Cash crunch curbs rebuilding in Iraq
By David J. Lynch, USA TODAY

BAGHDAD — Businessman Louay al-Tahan's biggest problem isn't the postwar chaos that often keeps his employees from their jobs, the daily power outages that idle his machines or even the unexploded artillery shell sitting in the rubbish heap alongside his factory.

Al-Tahan's biggest problem is a lack of cash. Despite Iraq's turmoil, he sees a huge opportunity to expand production of plastic bottles and bottling components to meet surging demand. But to do that, he needs $1.8 million to replace his 1970s-era machinery with modern gear. "To renew our factory, we really need to rip out all our equipment," al-Tahan said. "We don't have the liquid cash."

With bank lending almost non-existent and foreign investment in Iraq about as common as a snowstorm, Iraqi businesses are struggling to secure the credit they need for life after Saddam Hussein. Whether these midsize businesses succeed or fail with their job-creating expansions is critical for stability: Iraq's anti-American insurgency is largely made up of unemployed young men. If the economy generated more jobs, extremists couldn't recruit foot soldiers as easily.

In April, al-Tahan, 40, took what he hopes is the first step toward solving his problem by applying for a loan from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. With little fanfare, the CPA, which is governing Iraq until the June 30 handover of power to an interim government, has begun accepting applications for a new program designed to provide loans of $500,000 to $5 million for midsize companies.

Coalition officials, who say they recognize the need to jump-start the country's private sector, declined to discuss the program because it has not been formally approved. The coalition separately has disbursed about $7.5 million in "microfinance" credits, typically loans averaging $2,500 for small businesses such as bakeries and grocery stores. An additional $17.5 million is in the pipeline for that effort, a coalition official said.

Those amounts are dwarfed by Iraq's needs. Fourteen months after the toppling of Saddam's statue in Firdos Square, the sidewalks along busy Karrada Street are lined with boxes holding new refrigerators, televisions, microwave ovens and air conditioners. After a generation of deprivation, Iraqis are eagerly acquiring consumer goods.

High unemployment

Jobs are another story. In every neighborhood, there are curbside hiring spots where manual workers can be had for 5,000 Iraqi dinars per day — less than $4 at current exchange rates. In the al-Amal district recently, about 40 men milled about on a corner at 10 a.m. Many had been there since dawn.

Despair over the lack of opportunities is breeding anti-U.S. sentiment. "The Americans did nothing. They just removed Saddam and left us suffering twice as much," said a scowling Jassim al-Jabouri, 50, a plasterer.

By providing much bigger loans for larger companies, the CPA program could significantly ease Iraq's unemployment rate of nearly 30%. In the eastern Baghdad industrial park that's home to al-Tahan's plant, only a sliver of the 500 factories are operating. If new life were breathed into them, as many as 10,000 jobless Iraqis could be taken off the street, he says.

The Tally

May is third deadliest month of the Iraq war

By LISA HOFFMAN and THOMAS HARGROVE
Scripps Howard News Service
May 31, 2004

- At least two U.S. troops died in Iraq on Memorial Day, boosting the total death toll there to an estimated 810.

The two latest casualties - soldiers killed in a continuing battle in Kufa with Shiite insurgents - boosted May to the third deadliest month of the war that began in March 2003.

May also ranks as the most perilous month for U.S. National Guard and reserve troops since the war started. At least 22 so-called "weekend warriors" perished, accounting for nearly a third of the fatalities in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In April, part-time troops accounted for fewer than 1 in 5 of the fallen.

The growing toll of Guard and reserve forces was predicted by military officials, stemming from an influx of thousands of reservists as part of a massive rotation of U.S. forces over the past few months. With the replacement operation nearly done, the force of 138,000 in Iraq consists of nearly 40 percent civilian-soldiers.

The overall number of fatalities for May is far fewer than April, the war's bloodiest month, with 134 dead. Even so, May's estimated death count at 79 is just short of the 83 who fell in November 2003, the second worst month. The Pentagon ascribed the November violence to an insurgent offensive timed to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In April, it was pitched battles that raged for days between U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah and south of Baghdad in the Shiite sectors of the country that led to the soaring body count. A recent ceasefire in Fallujah worked out between insurgents and U.S. troops reduced attacks there in May.

May also has brought a rise in non-combat deaths: 20 Americans succumbed to vehicle accidents, drowning and accidental electrocutions. That is about double the non-hostile deaths in April.

The oldest soldier to die so far in the war suffered cardiac arrest after surgery for an intestinal infection. An Army National Guardsman, Staff Sgt. William Chaney, 59, of Schaumburg, Ill., was a Vietnam War vet whose civilian job was as a technician at Midway Airport near Chicago. Chaney was the ninth U.S. fatality among those 50 or older in the 15-month conflict.

The first reservist to die in May was Sgt. Joshua S. Ladd, 20, of Fort Gibson, Miss., a National Guardsman killed May 1 when insurgents in Mosul used rocket-propelled grenades to attack a convoy attempting to re-supply the Army's new brigade of Stryker combat vehicles.

Reservists were significantly more likely to die in combat in May than were regular military forces. About 90 percent of the reservist fatalities were from hostile fire compared to about 60 percent of regular military forces.

Aside from Chaney, only two other reservists died of non-battle causes.

Nearly half of all U.S. combat deaths in May resulted from improvised explosive devices, remote-controlled bombs that since August have been the insurgency's weapon of choice in nearly half of all successful attacks on U.S. troops. But May saw a considerable rise in the use of mortars, which accounted for at least 10 U.S. deaths and have been a growing menace in recent months.

Only three of the dead in May have been officers, while slightly more than 40 percent were sergeants and other non-commissioned officers.

The deceased troops came from 27 states, including 13 from California, eight from Florida, five from Pennsylvania and four each from Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Faking It

Iraqi Governing Council Names New President
Explosion Shakes Green Zone

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 1, 2004; 5:56 AM

BAGHDAD, June 1 -- Ghazi Yawar, a U.S. educated tribal sheik, was chosen Tuesday as the president of the interim government of Iraq. The choices for the remaining top positions -- carefully apportioned among Iraq's different ethnic and religious groups -- will be announced later in the day.

Ominously, an explosion shook the Convention Center within the protected Coalition Provisional Authority Green Zone just after the announcement of the new president was made by U.N. representative Lakhdar Brahimi. Gunfire was heard as well.

American troops flooded the area and fighter jets streaked overhead.

There was no immediate confirmation as to what had happened or any details of casualties, if any. Wire services reported an attack, with fatalities, on the headquarters of a Kurdish party near the entrance to the Green Zone.

Yawar was the choice of the U.S. appointed Iraqi Governing Council, on which he sits. He won the position after Adnan Pachachi, the U.S. favorite, turned down the job for what U.N . representative Lakhdar Brahimi said were "personal" reasons. The presidency is designed to be largely ceremonial, while the prime minister's office exercises governmental authority.

Ayad Allawi was chosen as prime minister last week under similar circumstances, after the council rejected a candidate favored by the U.S.

The occupation authority led by L. Paul Bremer is scheduled to relinquish formal governmental authority on June 30 to the caretaker government. The new government, in turn, is to prepare for elections and the establishment of a permanent government over the next year.

The process so far has featured something of a political rebellion by the governing council, which went against U.S. choices for the top jobs repeatedly and succeeded in getting their own members appointed to many.

American officials had hoped to limit the role of the council, which is composed of numerous former exiles who are said to lack credibility with the general Iraqi public.

Yawar, a 45-year-old engineer with a master's degree from George Washington University, is a Sunni Muslim who lived in exile. He is a leader of one of Iraq's largest tribes, the Shamar, whose members include many Shiites as well as Sunnis. Because of that he has had the strong backing of the council's Shiite majority. He also enjoys the support of the council's Kurdish members.

Allawi, who is the leader of the Iraqi National Accord, which worked in exile with the CIA for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is a Shiite.

A Kurdish politician and another Shiite were expected to get the two vice-presidencies set up under the caretaker government.

The process of establishing an interim government has been rife with conflict.

The Bush administration had said it would allow U.N. envoy Brahimi to select the interim government, a task he has been performing in consultation with a wide range of Iraqi organizations and leaders. But council members insisted that Brahimi's role was subordinated by U.S. officials who want a new government that is closely allied with Washington.

Whether or not any of this means anything at all is pretty much up for grabs. All of these folks are seen as US puppets inside Iraq. As per usual with Bushco, it's all appearances. Methinks the Iraqis won't be fooled.

Erosion

I've been singing this song for a while: the combination of Bush ideological purity and incompentence has fractured the Republican base. How long it will take to repair it is the interesting question.

The beginnings of a conservative crackup under this President Bush flow directly from the perceived failures of his policies in Iraq. Whatever one's view of the war, things are not going as promised, or as hoped for. Bush dominated politics in the months after Sept. 11. Almost everything he said or did then was seen as a sign of strength and fortitude. Now when he does the same things, they are seen as signs of stubbornness and a lack of reflection. The line between the virtues and the flaws is slim, and decisive.

And that means that solidarity -- a characteristic of the conservative movement for the past three decades except for interludes under Richard Nixon and the first George Bush -- is fraying. Lacking unity, conservatism is expressing its variety.

There are, first, the traditionalist conservatives, the most authentic of the breed. They are skeptical of large projects undertaken by government to improve humanity because they don't fully trust either government or humanity. It is our fate to live with imperfection and it is wise to be mistrustful of utopia.

It is this view that has made the columns of George Will, my conservative colleague, so powerful over the past few months. Will in no way sounds like a liberal in criticizing Bush's war in Iraq. "Conservatives are not supposed to be especially nice," he wrote recently. "They are bleak, flinty people given to looking facts in the face; hence, they are prone to pessimism." In this telling, the Iraq venture looks more like exporting the Great Society's community action program to Tikrit than a policy rooted in conservative realism.

But the neoconservatives who deeply believe in the purposes of this war are not happy either. They can't understand how the administration could botch such an essential project. Why, they ask, were more troops not sent to Iraq at the beginning to get the place under control? Why has there been such a reluctance to smash opposition to the American venture in Iraq, to "give victory a chance," as William Kristol wrote recently in the Weekly Standard?

The isolationist conservatives around Pat Buchanan cannot understand why we went to war in the first place -- and they opposed it from the beginning. These conservatives speak explicitly about the "costs of empire," much as the left does. They argue that globalism is really "globaloney" and that being an empire is incompatible with being a republic.

With the splits on Iraq exposed, other splits within conservatism become more obvious. Small-government conservatives feel ever more free to speak out against the large budget deficits over which Bush has presided. Anti-immigration conservatives speak out against the president's immigration policies. Pro-military conservatives criticize Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dominion over the Pentagon, reflecting the views of many in the military brass who never much liked Rumsfeld or his plans.

Yes, Bush's problems have something to do with his declining poll ratings. Trouble in politics breeds more trouble. A bit more stability in Iraq could breed a bit more stability in the conservative movement. Bush has to hope so, because it's hard to win reelection when you have to put out so many fires in your own back yard.

Setting the Agenda

Iraqi Governing Council Is Dissolved as Green Zone Is Attacked
By DEXTER FILKINS and STEVEN R. WEISMAN

Published: June 1, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — The new government of Iraq took shape today as tribal leader Ghazi al-Yawar was named Iraq's first president after another leading candidate favored by the Bush Administration refused the position, and Iraq's prime minister-designate named his cabinet.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy, confirmed Mr. Yawar's appointment in a press conference in Baghdad. Later, Prime Minister-designate Iyad Allawi announced the members of his cabinet, which will include Shiite politician Adel Abdul Mehdi as finance minister and Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, as foreign minister. Hazim al-Shalaan will be defense minister and Falah al-Naqib will run the interior ministry, Mr. Allawi said during a televised news conference.

As preparations were being made today for a ceremony to mark the Mr. Yawar's appointment, an explosion ripped through the headquarters of the Kurdish party, near the Baghdad headquarters of the American-led coalition, killing at least 25 people and wounding many, Reuters said, quoting police officers at the scene.

The blast occurred at the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, close to Iraq's Foreign Ministry and the entrance to the coalition headquarters.

Mr. Yawar is the leader of the Shamar tribe, one of the largest groups in Iraq. He is an engineer who was educated in the United States and spent several years in exile in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Brahimi also announced that Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite from the Dawa party, and Rowsch Shaways, of the Kurdish Democratic party, were to be Mr. Yawar's vice presidents.

In recent televised interviews, Mr. Yawar has criticized the American presence and said that the worsening conditions in Iraq were due to the blunderings of the American military.

Mr. Yawar's appointment happened after the first choice for the largely ceremonial position, Adnan Pachachi, refused the post.

Mr. Pachachi, the former Iraqi foreign minister, had emerged on Monday as the leading candidate to become the new Iraqi president.

A senior Bush Administration official said on Monday that Mr. Pachachi had become a likely choice for Iraqi president but cautioned that it was still possible that the appointment could fall through.

The the possibility of the appointment raised the prospect of a public dispute with the Iraqi Governing Council, which has been holding out for a different candidate.

American officials sent out notices early today "heralding the announcement of the new interim sovereign government" but offered no details.

The emergence of Mr. Pachachi, 81, a favorite of the Bush administration, followed a bruising political battle that pitted the Iraqi Governing Council against L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator here, and Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy.

The deadlock over the presidency, a largely symbolic post, delayed the formation of the interim government, which is to take over here when Iraqi sovereignty is restored, scheduled for June 30.

U.S. Orders Iraqis to Delay Nomination
Bremer and Brahimi insist on their own choice for president, council members say.
By Monte Morin and Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writers

May 31, 2004

BAGHDAD — The top U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq on Sunday ordered the Iraqi Governing Council to delay nominating a president for a caretaker government that will take power at the end of June.

L. Paul Bremer III, who heads the Coalition Provisional Authority, personally intervened when the council was on the verge of holding a vote to ratify its choice, Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a young tribal leader critical of the U.S.-led occupation.

Bremer and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi support former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi for the largely ceremonial post and apparently did not want the council to hand them a potential fait accompli.

"Bremer came in and read them the riot act," a Governing Council aide said.

Ala Hashimi, a member of the Dawa Party who was at Sunday's meeting, said, "Bremer interfered and postponed the vote until tomorrow."

Bremer and Brahimi have been trying to exert control over an unwieldy process in which individuals and parties represented in the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council have been jostling for posts. The process has sparked a constant shuffling of candidates as leaders of various groups try to get the best deal for themselves and their constituents.

Council members asserted themselves Friday by presenting Iyad Allawi, a Shiite Muslim and former Baath Party member with close ties to the CIA, as their unanimous choice for prime minister. However, interviews with a number of players involved suggested the decision was made by the Americans working with a smaller group of council members. Brahimi, who appeared to be less than enthusiastic about the choice, was said to be surprised by the turn of events.

Occupation authorities denied Sunday that they were applying pressure to the Governing Council. "We have not been leaning on anybody to support one president over another," said Dan Senor, a spokesman for the coalition. "Under international law, we have the ultimate authority for what happens in Iraq. We are the occupational power."

Despite the disagreements between Bremer and the council, it appeared possible that a government could be named as early as today.

The council will be dissolved after members of the caretaker government are announced. Although the new government will not take power until June 30, it will be expected to help decide key issues such as the status of U.S. troops in Iraq and plans for renegotiating the nation's debt.

Some members of the Governing Council are expected to be in the new government, and they will move their offices from a secure U.S. compound to ministries elsewhere in Baghdad.

Bremer and Brahimi ordered the council to delay choosing a president because they insisted on Pachachi, according to council members. Many other posts were undecided late Sunday, including the two posts for vice president. It appeared probable that one would go to a Shiite and one to a Kurd. But it was not clear which Shiite party would get the post.

Pachachi's staff has been emphasizing his background as a foreign minister and his ability to negotiate complex issues such as the rescheduling of debt. It is not clear whether Pachachi would take the job if it was offered.

Council members said they would meet today to decide on other nominations, but they said they were frustrated by Bremer's stance.

"The [Coalition Provisional Authority] and Mr. Bremer are pressuring us not to use our hearts," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member. "If they insist on this, it will be very bad for the credibility of the U.S. They have no right to impose these things on Iraqis."

Living in the Middle

Dooh Nibor Economics
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: June 1, 2004

Last week The Washington Post got hold of an Office of Management and Budget memo that directed federal agencies to prepare for post-election cuts in programs that George Bush has been touting on the campaign trail. These include nutrition for women, infants and children; Head Start; and homeland security. The numbers match those on a computer printout leaked earlier this year — one that administration officials claimed did not reflect policy.

Beyond the routine mendacity, the case of the leaked memo points us to a larger truth: whatever they may say in public, administration officials know that sustaining Mr. Bush's tax cuts will require large cuts in popular government programs. And for the vast majority of Americans, the losses from these cuts will outweigh any gains from lower taxes.

It has long been clear that the Bush administration's claim that it can simultaneously pursue war, large tax cuts and a "compassionate" agenda doesn't add up. Now we have direct confirmation that the White House is engaged in bait and switch, that it intends to pursue a not at all compassionate agenda after this year's election.

That agenda is to impose Dooh Nibor economics — Robin Hood in reverse. The end result of current policies will be a large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the very affluent, in which about 80 percent of the population will lose and the bulk of the gains will go to people with incomes of more than $200,000 per year.

I can't back that assertion with official numbers, because under Mr. Bush the Treasury Department has stopped releasing information on the distribution of tax cuts by income level. Estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, which now provides the numbers the administration doesn't want you to know, reveal why. This year, the average tax reduction per family due to Bush-era cuts was $1,448. But this average reflects huge cuts for a few affluent families, with most families receiving much less (which helps explain why most people, according to polls, don't believe their taxes have been cut). In fact, the 257,000 taxpayers with incomes of more than $1 million received a bigger combined tax cut than the 85 million taxpayers who make up the bottom 60 percent of the population.

Still, won't most families gain something? No — because the tax cuts must eventually be offset with spending cuts.

Three years ago George Bush claimed that he was cutting taxes to return a budget surplus to the public. Instead, he presided over a move to huge deficits. As a result, the modest tax cuts received by the great majority of Americans are, in a fundamental sense, fraudulent. It's as if someone expected gratitude for giving you a gift, when he actually bought it using your credit card.

The administration has not, of course, explained how it intends to pay the bill. But unless taxes are increased again, the answer will have to be severe program cuts, which will fall mainly on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — because that's where the bulk of the money is.

For most families, the losses from these cuts will far outweigh any gain from lower taxes. My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that 80 percent of all families will end up worse off; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities will soon come out with a more careful, detailed analysis that arrives at a similar conclusion. And the only really big beneficiaries will be the wealthiest few percent of the population.

Does Mr. Bush understand that the end result of his policies will be to make most Americans worse off, while enriching the already affluent? Who knows? But the ideologues and political operatives behind his agenda know exactly what they're doing.

Of course, voters would never support this agenda if they understood it. That's why dishonesty — as illustrated by the administration's consistent reliance on phony accounting, and now by the business with the budget cut memo — is such a central feature of the White House political strategy.

Right now, it seems that the 2004 election will be a referendum on Mr. Bush's calamitous foreign policy. But something else is at stake: whether he and his party can lock in the unassailable political position they need to proceed with their pro-rich, anti-middle-class economic strategy. And no, I'm not engaging in class warfare. They are.

I'm here to tell the truth, as I can find it. As Izzy Stone liked to say, "The Government lies," but they do it on paper and you can find it. This is the most mendacious, anti middle class administration since the 1890's. President Kerry would at least give us a pause in the process of dismantling the few safeguards built into the society for those who have the least.

A society, a country, is known to history by how it treats those with the least. Right now, we are a country who despises those who don't live in McMansions in the favored suburbs. This is no longer a country which gives the small man a canvas on which to play out his dreams. This is Trump country. If that is who we are and what we want to live with, I say let's vote on it. This is not the way I was raised nor the way I want to live.