When Medicine Clashes With the Law

ABC News
When Medicine Clashes With the Law
Prescription Painkillers Cause Problems for Patients, Doctors and Prosecutors

May. 11, 2005 - The world of chronic pain and its potentially addictive treatments are clashing increasingly with law enforcement, pitting patients and doctors against prosecutors and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. While trafficking is a real problem, some contend those in chronic pain are suffering the most.

Richard Paey went from being an Ivy League law school student to serving 25 years in a Florida prison after a long, strange and painful journey from surgical patient to state prisoner.

A car accident in 1985 led to long hospitalizations, surgeries and treatment, including metal screws in his spine that continue to cause debilitating pain.

Still, he married and raised three children in his native New Jersey. To fight what he describes as chronic pain, a local doctor prescribed Paey such narcotics as Percocet, Lortab and Tylenol 3. But when the family moved to Florida in 1994, Paey had trouble finding physicians to treat his pain.

"One doctor said I was screwed, and he was being nice about it," Paey said. "I think what turns doctors away, the doctors that I went to, the high dosage that I was on."

Paey, now 46, said he didn't always need a high dose of the medications, but the amount required to control his pain has increased over the years. He said he never became addicted and never used the pills recreationally. "Pain patients don't take the medication to get high," he said.


A Different Take

But authorities in Pasco County, Fla., contend otherwise. When he moved there, Paey did not know that the pharmacies where he filled prescriptions were under surveillance by local police and the DEA.

Florida prosecutor Scott Andringa built a case accusing Paey of forging prescriptions using the name of his former doctor in New Jersey. According to a search warrant, Paey had filled more than 200 prescriptions involving 18,000 pills in the space of about a year.

Paey maintains he never sold the drugs. "I think a true pain patient would never sell their medication," he said. "It's too hard to get."

In fact, the prosecutor concedes he had no evidence Paey used the drugs for anything other than his own pain.

"There was no proof that he had sold these substances," Andringa said. "There was an implication, there was a suspicion, there was a belief that he must have been selling these medications based on the number of pills. But there was no proof, and therefore we did not argue that at trial."

Before his first trial date in 2001, Paey declined a deal of pleading guilty to a lesser offense and accepting house arrest and probation -- but no prison time. But Paey said he could not plead guilty to a crime he insists to this day he did not commit.

Patient or Criminal?

In Florida, the illegal possession of certain prescription painkillers -- in amounts more than 28 grams, enough to fill less than two bottles -- is considered drug trafficking. The penalty is equivalent to that meted out to hard-core heroin dealers -- a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. Prosecutors convinced a jury that Paey had forged enough prescriptions to qualify as a drug trafficker. He is barely a year into serving the sentence.

Paey and his supporters consider his case a classic example of law enforcement meddling in medicine and treating chronic pain patients as addicts and criminals. "It's a culture that's creating fear among the patients and the doctors," he said. "It's turning patients against doctors and the doctors against the patients."

But Andringa said Paey illegally manipulated the medical system, forging prescriptions and tricking different doctors into giving him more medicine than he was supposed to get.

"If Mr. Paey is the poster boy for the pain patients of the world, then I suppose Enron is the symbol for corporate responsibility," he said, "And I realize that sounds kind of harsh, but I really believe in my heart that people like Mr. Paey have made the treatment of pain more difficult for patients, for doctors."

Ironically enough, Paey is now getting the treatment for his chronic pain that he had such trouble finding outside of the prison walls. A morphine pump the size of a hockey puck has been sewn into his side, delivering a controlled dose of medication.

Paey is appealing his conviction. But should it stand, he could very well find himself locked up until he is an old man.

A Law Enforcement Scourge

Suspicion is not unique to Paey's story. Across the country, there is a thriving black market in prescription painkillers -- in some places known as "hillbilly heroin" -- that has become a major cause of crime and a focus of law enforcement.

In Kingsport, Tenn., an industrial town nestled in the Appalachian foothills, a sting operation led to the arrest of Dr. William Hurwitz, a Virginia internist who specialized in treating pain. Prosecutors claim hundreds of his prescriptions wound up in the hands of drug dealers who sold painkillers across the mid-Atlantic region. He claims he was scammed by his patients, but a jury convicted Hurwitz of drug trafficking in December. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison but is appealing his conviction.

Supporters of Hurwitz believe he is the scapegoat in a larger federal crackdown on physicians who treat pain. But Karen Tandy, who heads the DEA, said it only targets the most egregious abusers of the law.

"The number of doctors that have been arrested by DEA or the number of cases that DEA's participated in is less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of all the registered doctors," Tandy said. "It was 42 this year. It was 50, a little over 50, last year. So it's a very small number of doctors."

But Dr. Russell Portenoy, a pain specialist at New York's Beth Israel Hospital, said he and his colleagues increasingly are concerned about the criminal prosecution of doctors who prescribe pain medication.

"Physicians, in the last, year have begun to view the DEA as an adversary or have begun to feel increasingly suspicious that the DEA is so focused on prescription drug abuse that they're willing to sacrifice appropriate medical care, at least in certain circumstances, in order to reduce prescription drug abuse," Portenoy said.

Is Fear Hurting Patients?

For Cynthia Hildt, 70, chronic pain began after seven surgeries on her spine. For years, she said, it went largely untreated because doctors were so wary of prescribing all of the painkiller she needed.

"It was all concern about addiction, addiction, addiction," Hildt said. "I got so tired of hearing that word. I constantly said to these people, 'If you felt what I feel in my body right now, you would do anything to fix it.' "

But now, Portenoy is treating her and she is taking daily doses of morphine and methadone that are 20 to 40 times higher than a typical trauma or surgical patient would receive.

"In the chronic pain setting, what often happens is that doses may rise over time, and patients end up taking quite large doses," Portenoy said.

For Hildt, it's made a world of difference. "It's enabled me to do things that I couldn't do before," she said. "It's made me able to be more active."

Unfair Targeting or Pursuing Criminals?

Such high-dose therapy using narcotics -- known as opioids -- now fairly common among physicians who treat chronic pain, has put those specialists on a collision course with federal regulators. The crux of the issue is whether the DEA is now unfairly targeting doctors merely for doing their jobs.

In August, the DEA posted a set of policy guidelines -- in the form of "frequently asked questions" -- that had been ironed out over three years among top specialists and regulators.

It made clear that simply the dosage of narcotic painkillers or the number of patients in a practice who receive them do not, by themselves, indicate a problem.

But the guidelines were removed from the DEA's Web site during Hurwitz's trial in October due to legal "misstatements." For pain specialists, that was an ominous sign that the DEA had issued itself a new hunting license.

It's raised concern, too, even among top law enforcement officials. Oklahoma's Drew Edmondson is one of the 30 state attorneys general who have signed a letter protesting the DEA's approach.

"When a doctor's treating pain, if he thinks OxyContin is the most effective thing he can prescribe, we don't want him prescribing extra-strength Tylenol because he thinks if he prescribes OxyContin, DEA's gonna open a file on him," Edmondson said. "That's not good medicine. And that's not good public policy."

Tandy said, however: "DEA does not dictate the legitimate practice of medicine. We deal in enforcing the laws against criminal conduct. And these examples of cases where doctors are prosecuted, that small number of doctors, there are very extreme facts in those cases. And so I think that there is a misperception here."

But much of the medical community feels strongly that federal agents and prosecutors, so intently focused on drug abuse, are sending the wrong message to the vast majority of physicians whose primary concern is to ease suffering. And, intended or not, the practical result of such an aggressive policy is to sentence many innocent patients to a lifetime of pain.

ABC News' Chris Bury reported this story for "Nightline."

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Congress Adopts Restriction on Treatment of Detainees

The New York Times
May 11, 2005
Congress Adopts Restriction on Treatment of Detainees
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, May 10 - Congress barred the government on Tuesday from using any money in a newly passed emergency spending bill to subject anyone in American custody to torture or "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" that is forbidden by the Constitution.

Proponents said the little-noticed provision, in an $82 billion bill devoted mostly to financing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, amounted to a significant strengthening of current policies and practices in the treatment of prisoners.

Drafted since the disclosure of abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, it lays out a definition of illegal treatment that human rights groups say is broader than the Bush administration's current interpretation, and links the ban directly to military spending.

"This sends a clear message to our own government that certain conduct is simply unacceptable," Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who sponsored the provision, said in an interview. "And it reminds the world that what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison is not American policy and is not tolerated."


The administration, which helped defeat efforts to include antitorture restrictions in legislation last year, said it did not oppose the provision in the new military operations bill. The Senate passed that bill on Tuesday by a vote of 100 to 0, after approval by the House last week, and the administration indicated that President Bush would sign it into law.

"If the Congress wants to use the appropriation process to dictate government action, that's within their power, and the Department of Justice did not oppose it," said Kevin Madden, spokesman for the department.

Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House, declined to address the merits of the antitorture provision but said that the White House was aware of it and that Mr. Bush wanted to sign the bill quickly.

"The president has made clear that this administration does not condone torture," Mr. Duffy said. "That is administration policy, and that still stands."

In opposing antitorture measures last year, the White House said they were unnecessary and would provide expanded legal rights to which foreign prisoners were not entitled. One such measure would have specifically subjected American intelligence officers at the C.I.A. and elsewhere to new restrictions, with implications for the agency's overseas interrogation of senior leaders of Al Qaeda.

The provision approved Tuesday does not include any specific references to intelligence officers. Instead, it says that no money appropriated in the bill can be used "to subject any person in the custody or under the physical control of the United States to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited by the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States."

Human rights advocates said it was unclear whether the prohibition would restrict the ability of the C.I.A. or other government agencies to conduct so-called renditions - that is, to send terrorism suspects to be interrogated in other countries, even those that are known to engage in abusive treatment of prisoners.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who sponsored a version of the provision in the House, said that in his view the measure effectively banned renditions if military financing provided by the bill was involved. Other officials said the issue was not so clear-cut.

Elisa Massimino, the Washington director of Human Rights First, formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said the Congressional ban served to remove an important exemption claimed by the administration in its treatment of foreign prisoners.

At hearings on his confirmation as attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales said the administration, backed by the courts, held that foreign prisoners "enjoy no substantive rights" under the Constitution or the Convention Against Torture, a United Nations agreement.

But the measure approved Tuesday drew no distinction between American citizens and foreign prisoners in forbidding cruel, unusual or inhuman treatment that is prohibited by the 5th, 8th and 14th amendments to the Constitution.

Ms. Massimino said the exemption cited by Mr. Gonzales was "a pretty big loophole, and this measure in Congress is a step toward herding the administration back toward the rule of law."

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the passage of the antitorture provision "clearly shows that there's growing traction on this issue in Congress, when you have even Republicans willing to break ranks and raise concerns" about the treatment of prisoners.

"This," Mr. Romero said, "is a bullet the administration hasn't been able to dodge."

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The DeLay Rankings: how close is your representative to scandal-plagued Tom DeLay?

The DeLay Rankings: how close is your representative to scandal-plagued Tom DeLay?

Tom DeLay is under an ethical cloud. He's being investigated for taking overseas golf trips and other junkets on the dime of front groups and shady lobbyists. To his colleagues in Congress, though, he's a true sugar daddy. Everybody "owes Mr. DeLay for something—a job, a piece of legislation, or a large campaign contribution," says The New York Times. We've created a ranking based on how often they vote the way DeLay does, how much DeLay's PAC contributed to them, how much they've contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund, and so on.



Follow this link for the list:
http://www.pcactionfund.org/delayspocket/

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Where was the WSJ when Republicans were blocking Clinton nominees? On the side of obstruction

Media Matters for America

Where was the WSJ when Republicans were blocking Clinton nominees? On the side of obstruction

Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund claimed that he and the Journal editorial page criticized Republican efforts to block former President Bill Clinton's judicial nominees -- more than 60 of whom Republicans denied even votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee -- and that Fund himself wrote an editorial arguing that one particular Clinton nominee, Richard A. Paez, deserved a vote. But a Media Matters for America search* of Journal editorials revealed no instances of Fund or the editorial board condemning Republican efforts to block Paez. In fact, the newspaper actually criticized then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for allowing Paez's nomination to go to the full Senate. Several other Journal editorials also explicitly defended the Republicans' right to deny Clinton nominees an up-or-down vote.

Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews opposite Fund, former Democratic strategist Bob Shrum asserted that, while Fund and the Journal have criticized Senate Democratic filibusters of a handful of Bush judicial nominees, they never "editorialized against this same process under Bill Clinton." Fund responded by stating: "We did. ... I personally wrote the editorial saying Paez deserved a vote. ... I know others [Journal editorial board members] wrote others."

But in a March 17, 2000, editorial titled "Hatch v. Hatch," the Journal claimed Hatch "forgot" about the Clinton administration's "many legal and ethical evasions" when he "whisked through two liberal judicial nominees [Paez and Marsha L. Berzon]." The editorial declared that Hatch's role as a "Clinton enabler ... helps explain [his] decision to approve Judge Richard Paez to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals." The editorial claimed that Paez's condemnation of Californian anti-immigration Proposition 187 demonstrated his belief that "the 59% of Californians who approved it were bigots. ... Mr. Hatch apparently doesn't mind."

Other Journal editorials defended the Republicans' right to deny Clinton nominees a vote on the floor in even stronger terms:



* A May 16, 2000, editorial titled "A GOP Judicial Debacle?" claimed that Hatch went "into the tank" by failing to "us[e] his Senate power to block" Clinton nominees such as then-District of Columbia Circuit nominee Allen Snyder. The editorial stated that "there are sound reasons for denying him a vote," including that Reagan-appointee Laurence Silberman's retirement "combined with a Snyder confirmation, would mean a 5-5 [Republican/Democrat appointee] split that could haunt the first year of a Bush Presidency." Labeling the Snyder nomination "an example of Beltway legal insiders looking out for their friends instead of for the broader public interest," the editorial even asserted that blocking such nominees is the committee chairman's raison d'être: "The Senate Judiciary chairman is paid to stand up to such pressure."
* In a May 29, 1998, op-ed titled "Supreme Politics: Who'd Replace Justice Stevens?" current Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul A. Gigot also criticized Hatch for allowing Clinton nominees a floor vote. Gigot questioned Hatch's "brisk approval of Clinton lower-court nominees as a way to gain leverage and credibility for the more significant Supreme Court pick," noting that "Mr. Clinton has fooled Republicans before."
* A November 4, 1997, editorial titled "Above the Law?", which defended the Republicans' right to block Clinton Justice Department nominee Bill Lann Lee (who never received Senate confirmation, instead assuming the position of acting assistant attorney general), suggested a series of "starting points for Chairman Hatch and his colleagues before acceding to the Lee nomination," or any judicial nominations for that matter:

No nominations of any sort will be approved until this Administration starts enforcing the Supreme Court's Beck decision [which allowed unionized workers to withhold union dues used for political activities]. No new judges will be approved until the Clinton Administration nominates someone to run the criminal division at Justice, now vacant for two years. Alternatively, no more judicial nominations until Janet Reno appoints an independent counsel to investigate the Clinton fund-raising apparatus, as any normal reading of that statute now so clearly requires.

* A February 15, 1996, editorial titled "The Clinton Judges -- II" noted that the "Senate Judiciary Committee may find itself 'too busy' to schedule hearings" before the November presidential election. The editorial argued that Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE) had honed the "delay tactic" of blocking conservative judicial nominees when he was committee chair, so Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) was "not about to support" the nominations of James A. Beaty Jr. or J. Rich Leonard to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

From the May 9 edition of MSNBC's Hardball:

SHRUM: I wish, by the way, that John Fund and The Wall Street Journal had editorialized against this same process under Bill Clinton.

FUND: We did. I can give you the dates, Bob. We did.

SHRUM: What John is saying would have more credibility.

FUND: We did.

SHRUM: Because the truth is -- who did you -- who? Who was being filibustered that you editorialized against?

FUND: I personally wrote the editorial saying Judge Paez deserved a vote. I personally wrote that.

SHRUM: And what about all the other Clinton judges that were filibustered?

FUND: I gave you the one I wrote. I know others wrote others.

*Based on a search for "Paez" under "all dates" in The Wall Street Journal on the Factiva database and the Journal's editorial page website, OpinionJournal.com.

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Halliburton lands $72 million in bonuses

MSNBC.com

Halliburton lands $72 million in bonuses
Army awards firm for logistics work; no decision on dining services
Reuters

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army said on Tuesday it had awarded $72 million in bonuses to Halliburton Co. for logistics work in Iraq but had not decided whether to give the Texas company bonuses for disputed dining services to troops.

Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Illinois, said in a statement it had given Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown & Root ratings from "excellent" to "very good" for six task orders for work supporting U.S. troops in Iraq.

The Army said its Award Fee Board in Iraq had met in March and had agreed to pay KBR bonuses for work it did in support of U.S. forces there.

But it said dining facility costs questioned by auditors from the Defense Contract Audit Agency had not yet been considered by the military's Award Fee Board.

The Army said it could not immediately provide more details on when the dining fee bonuses would be resolved.


Much of Halliburton's work for the U.S. military, ranging from building bases to delivering mail, is on a cost-plus basis, which means the company can earn up to 2 percent extra depending on its performance.

Bonuses are awarded based on, among other factors, how efficient and responsible the company is to requests from the Army and is an indicator of how the Army views KBR's performance in the field.

KBR's logistics deal with the U.S. military has been in the spotlight from the outset in Iraq, with allegations by auditors that they overcharged for some work, including dining services.

In addition, investigators are looking into whether the Texas-based firm charged too much to supply fuel to Iraqi civilians, a claim the firm says is not justified.

Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney until he joined the 2000 race for the White House, has earned more than $7 billion under its 2001 logistics contract with the U.S. military.

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Homeland Security Information Network Criticized

washingtonpost.com
Homeland Security Information Network Criticized

By Lara Jakes Jordan
Associated Press

A Department of Homeland Security network that shares classified information with intelligence and law enforcement agencies was put together too quickly to ensure it can protect the information, according to the department's acting inspector general.

In response, a department spokesman said yesterday that the Homeland Secure Data Network was still in its fledgling stages but met all security standards before it went online late last month.

In a new report, the acting inspector general, Richard L. Skinner, said the department could not show that the network's security standards and policies were in place. The network, described in one Homeland Security document as "a new DHS backbone," was set up to share secret information with as many as 600 federal, state and local agencies.

Homeland Security "does not have assurance that HSDN will satisfy user needs and adequately protect classified information," the report found.

The review of the network, which cost an estimated $337 million, was performed between August and November 2004. The network was scheduled to be running in December, but was not online until April 22, Homeland Security spokesman Larry Orluskie said.

"It's been through all of its accreditations, and is up at a number of sites," he said. Asked whether the network has ever been improperly accessed or otherwise compromised, he said, "Absolutely not."

So far, only some Homeland Security agencies are hooked up to the network, which could take years to reach state and local authorities, Orluskie said.

The system is supposed to streamline what critics say is a fragmented and ineffective information-sharing process that threatens the nation's safety.


The investigation found that parts of the network had not undergone testing, and that certain security requirements and safeguards were not implemented as of Oct. 31. Orluskie said the requirements have since been put in place.

In an unrelated development yesterday, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Penrose C. Albright resigned. Department officials said Albright, who oversaw plans, programs and budgets, is leaving to spend more time with his family.

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City's disaster plan draws fire

NY Daily News

City's disaster plan draws fire

FDNY chief calls command system 'bad policy'

BY ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

FDNY Chief of Department Peter Hayden testifies at Council Public Safety Committee hearing, calling disaster system 'bad policy.'
Invoking the ghosts of 9/11, the city's highest-ranking firefighter blasted the city's new emergency management system as a disaster that places people at risk.

"It's a bad policy," FDNY Chief of Department Peter Hayden testified yesterday.

"I owe it to the memory of all those people who were lost. I owe it to those who will be responding to the next tragic event," he said. "This policy does not make sense."

Hayden was the only city official to break ranks at a City Council Public Safety Committee hearing - publicly challenging Mayor Bloomberg's decision to give the Police Department command at virtually all emergency scenes.

The policy creates a command hierarchy that governs how andwhen the Police and Fire departments share command of certain disasters, a technique called unified command.

The most controversial directive puts the NYPD in charge of hazardous material incidents where chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear threats may be involved.

If no crime or terrorism has been committed or suspected, the NYPD cedes control and it reverts to a unified command.

Hayden said the lessons of Sept. 11, 2001, should have taught everyone better.

Hayden took command of the north tower just minutes after the World Trade Center was attacked.

Since those grim days, Hayden said, he was bound to fix the problems in command, communication and information- sharing that plagued the city's rescue efforts on Sept. 11 and contributed to the death of so many uniformed officers.

"In a crisis, people's vision narrows to their own responsibilities," Hayden said. So police commanders never told their fire colleagues "about the top 15 floors glowing red and the possibility of collapse."

"The NYPD and the FDNY never crossed groups to consider the welfare of the other," Hayden continued. "We cannot afford this to happen again."

His opposition was more than a turf war or a Battle of the Badges, he said, reasoning that the way the policy is written, no one understood who was really in charge at a scene where hazardous materials were in play.

"You hear testimony this morning extensively from the commissioners. They are very confused. They couldn't even answer questions straight," Hayden said to quiet laughter from the audience.

"If they're confused, and I'm confused and my firefighters are confused and the police officers on the street are going to be confused, there will be a compromise in safety. That's what this is all about," said Hayden, who advocated both departments share command of all scenes.

The mayor's emergency protocol does call for a unified command for many incidents where more than one agency may respond, such as an aviation disaster - meaning that if a plane strikes a city skyscraper, a unified command would be in control.

So it makes little sense to Hayden and rank-and-file firefighters - scores of whom filled the Council gallery - that the NYPD should call the shots at haz-mat incidents.


Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly testified that the NYPD got control because the risk of not investigating possible terror incidents was too high.

"The stakes are so great in the area of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threat - you are talking about the possibility of indeed hundreds of thousands of casualties, hundreds of thousands of lives in a successful attack - that in this particular incidence, we think an investigation is paramount," he said.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said it was foolish to deny that a "rivalry has existed" between the two agencies, but he said progress has been made since 9/11 and he was confident "good faith and common sense will prevail."

That left City Councilman James Oddo (R-S.I.) shaking his head, saying that was "naiveté at its worst."

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Bolton Office E-Mails Spotlight Tensions

washingtonpost.com
Bolton Office E-Mails Spotlight Tensions

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 11, 2005; A06

Opponents of John R. Bolton's nomination to become U.N. ambassador yesterday distributed recently declassified e-mails to focus attention on a 2002 dispute between Bolton's office and the State Department's intelligence bureau over a CIA analysis.

Democrats say the e-mails are part of a pattern of intimidation and twisting of intelligence during Bolton's tenure as undersecretary for arms control. But Republicans say a relatively minor conflict has been blown out of proportion.

The evidence collected by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including numerous interviews with participants in the matter, does not conclusively link Bolton to the incident. Bolton told the committee in a written statement that he was overseas at the time and had "no recollection" of it.

Frederick Fleitz, his chief of staff, told investigators in a contentious interview last Thursday that he did not discuss the matter with Bolton before sending an e-mail saying he was writing "on behalf of U/S Bolton" to express his displeasure with the bureau, according to a transcript.

The debate centered on an important policy issue early in President Bush's first term -- the effectiveness of China's missile export controls.

The CIA analysis in question, written in August 2002, concluded that the export controls were deficient. This supported Bolton's thinking. He was headed overseas and had not read the report, but he asked Fleitz to have it sent to then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, Bolton told the committee.

But Fleitz was furious to later discover that the intelligence bureau attached a cover sheet to the analysis before sending it to Armitage, essentially taking the opposite position -- that the export controls were a step in the right direction. This appeared to support Armitage's view. Randall G. Schriver, Armitage's chief of staff, later called the intelligence bureau to praise its memo, "which he said D [Armitage] agreed with," according to an internal intelligence bureau e-mail recounting the dispute.

Fleitz is a career CIA agent on loan to Bolton's office, and the CIA analysis was produced by his professional home, the CIA's weapons proliferation center. In his interview last week, he suggested this link gave him a personal stake in how the analysis was treated. Democrats have speculated that Bolton, through Fleitz, ordered up an analysis to suit his preferences, though they have found no proof of that.

In his e-mail, to a top official in the intelligence bureau, Fleitz referred to a dispute three months earlier with the intelligence bureau over an alleged Cuban bioweapons program. "Actions of this type cannot help but undermine the bond of trust between" Bolton's office and the intelligence bureau, he wrote, suggesting that Bolton's office might seek to bypass the intelligence bureau in the future.

Fleitz also visited the intelligence bureau "to share his feelings about our memo," according to the bureau e-mail, which had a sarcastic tone. Fleitz, according to the e-mail, said "it was unprofessional . . . to criticize the 'carefully vetted' work of 'experts' in the IC," or intelligence community. The writer of the e-mail, whose name was censored, reported that Fleitz was told that the CIA analysis itself had not been fully blessed by the intelligence community, "and would have come out differently if it had been."

In the blowup over the Cuba intelligence, Bolton summoned Christian Westermann, an intelligence bureau analyst, to his office for what Westermann described as a tongue-lashing. Westermann, in an interview last Wednesday that was released yesterday, told investigators the experience created a "difficult work climate" and left him "approaching issues so that I didn't step on a land mine."

Democrats say the two incidents, combined with Bolton's role in seeking the reassignment of the national intelligence officer for Latin America, point to an unacceptable pattern of trying to twist intelligence to suit policy objectives. But Republicans say it is part of the normal give-and-take during a contentious policy debate.


Fleitz told the committee staff that he viewed the dispute as a "minor matter." After he sent his e-mail, the intelligence bureau "never responded to me, and I never raised it again, and I forgot about it," he said, adding that he does not remember discussing it with Bolton.

State Department officials said Bolton, in contrast to some other undersecretaries, was known for empowering his special assistants to throw their weight around, which caused tensions within the State Department. Fleitz said he wanted the intelligence bureau to know it "should have checked on the analytic assumptions before attaching the rebuttal."

The bureau supervisor -- whose name was not disclosed in her interview last Wednesday -- said that "in the intelligence community, there are lots of disagreements among analysts and agencies about how individual analysts or individual agencies interpret facts," according to a transcript. But she said it was the only case she knew of in her 27 years in the bureau in which analysts were told not to include their views on material they transmit.

But Neil Silver, a director of an office in the bureau, told investigators last Thursday that the analyst who wrote the counter-memo "had a pretty thick skin" and did not have "any second doubts or regrets" about his actions. "It had no effect whatever in how we would decide to do our work," he said.

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Critics Ask Congress to Temper Patriot Act

Critics Ask Congress to Temper Patriot Act

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Critics of the USA Patriot Act on Tuesday called for the Senate to temper the anti-terrorism law's provisions that let police conduct secret searches of people's homes or businesses, but defenders say since no abuses have been documented the law should be renewed.

The Bush administration wants Congress to make permanent all 15 provisions of the law that expire at the end of the year, some of which have aroused civil liberties concerns among liberals and conservatives. The law's national standards for what are sometimes known as "sneak and peek" searches are permanent.

Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told the Senate Judiciary Committee that while they cannot show any specific abuses, the anti-terrorism law is written in a way that could allow abuses.

"Our law cannot be written for the best and the brightest. They must also anticipate enforcement from the worst and the weakest," said Craig, who is pushing a bill with Durbin that would scale back some of the Patriot Act's powers.

Critics of the law want Congress to pass the SAFE Act to limit the Patriot Act in several ways, including requiring government officials to inform suspects about the "sneak and peek" searches within seven days if a judge does not intervene. The current law does not specify when the government has to inform suspects about the secret search.

"We do not want to end the Patriot Act. We want to mend the Patriot Act," Durbin said.


Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., defended the anti-terrorism law, saying that since no one can come up with specific abuses, the expiring provisions should be renewed.

"In this particular area because there has been no problems, it seems to be me that the assumption underlying the sunset provisions ought to move forward, which is, there being no problems, the act ought to be reauthorized," Kyl said.

The Justice Department has said that the courts authorized 155 delayed search warrants under the Patriot Act through January.

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Appeals Court Sides With Cheney in Lawsuit

May 10, 2005

Appeals Court Sides With Cheney in Lawsuit

By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney doesn't have to disclose the advice his energy task force got from the industry, an appeals court ruled Tuesday in what probably was a final blow to a politically charged lawsuit over public access to White House decision making.

The task force met in 2001 and produced pro-industry recommendations for sweeping energy legislation now before Congress. The Bush administration fought hard to keep the panel's workings secret, arguing that public disclosure would make it difficult for any White House to solicit candid advice on important policy issues.

Once seen as a potentially huge political liability for the Bush administration, the task force lawsuit ended up being more Washington political theater, with cameo appearances by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and former Enron Corp. Chairman Ken Lay.

The two private groups that sued failed to establish that the government had a legal duty to produce documents detailing the White House's industry contacts, the court said in an 8-0 decision.

The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch alleged that energy executives and lobbyists effectively became members of the task force, while environmental groups and others were shut out of the meetings. Outside participation made the task force a federal advisory committee with an obligation to disclose its operations, the groups argued, a position the court rejected.

"The outsider might make an important presentation, he might be persuasive, the information he provides might affect the committee's judgment," U.S. Appeals Court Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote. "But having neither a vote nor a veto over the advice the committee renders to the president, he is no more a member of the committee than the aides who accompany congressmen or Cabinet officers to committee meetings."


In a statement, Cheney's office said the court guarded the confidentiality of internal deliberations and that the Constitution protects such deliberations as essential to informed decision making.

David Bookbinder, a senior attorney at the Sierra Club, said the decision "is not going to be helpful in assuring open and accountable government."

The appeals court directed U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the case. Sullivan earlier had ordered the White House to produce some documents.

The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch could ask the appeals court to reconsider or could ask the Supreme Court to take the case, as it did once before. Either option would be considered a long shot.

Cheney's task force issued a report that favored expanding oil and gas drilling on public land, rejuvenating nuclear power and lifting the ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The focus of the lawsuit: several thousand task force e-mails and 12 boxes of documents.

Scalia took a hunting trip with Cheney while the Supreme Court was considering an appeal of the lawsuit. Scalia then issued a forceful defense rejecting calls for him to step aside and let the other eight justices rule.

Democrats hoped the Supreme Court would uphold an earlier ruling by the appeals court and force the administration to reveal potentially embarrassing details about its relationship with energy company executives ahead of the November election. But the high court sent the case back on a 7-2 vote, saying there was a "paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation."

Lay was involved because he met with Cheney - a fact the White House acknowledged to Congress in 2002 only after Enron collapsed in scandal. Lay's contact was among six meetings between Enron executives and Cheney or his task force aides.

The day after meeting with Lay, Cheney said the Bush administration would not support price caps on wholesale energy sales in California.

Even the investigative arm of Congress got into the act, filing a lawsuit seeking the identities of the people with whom the task force met. Under pressure from congressional Republicans, the Government Accountability Office did not pursue the case.

University of North Carolina political science professor Terry Sullivan said the Bush White House's position supporting confidentiality was sound in principle but could be unwise politically.

"There is a balance between the need for confidentiality and how that process works when it is being carried out; it's a Caesar's wife problem," Sullivan said. "For example, it certainly was embarrassing to have the likes of Ken Lay advising them."

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On the Net:

Appeals court ruling:

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200505/02-5354b.pdf

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EPA to sample dust from 150 NYC buildings due to 9/11 attacks

USA TODAY

EPA to sample dust from 150 NYC buildings due to 9/11 attacks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dust samples from 150 New York buildings in lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn are to be gathered by the Environmental Protection Agency to find out how much indoor contamination might remain from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

EPA officials released their near-final plan Tuesday, which they say will be used in deciding what should be cleaned and whether to launch a broader sampling and cleanup effort.

E. Timothy Oppelt, an EPA official in charge of agency research, said that by doing more sampling the agency can find out how far the contaminants extend and "whether or not they are present at levels of concern" that would require cleanups.

"If they are, we will clean those units — entire buildings if necessary — that pose a concern," he said.


The EPA said samples will be analyzed for lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), asbestos and manmade vitreous fibers (MMVF).

Residents and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn sued the agency last year, saying it improperly allowed thousands of people to return to their homes and businesses and made misleading statements about air quality after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Of most concern to those filing suit were "potentially hazardous levels of asbestos and possibly other carcinogens and toxic substances."

EPA defended itself by praising the staff's monitoring and sampling of air, dust and river and drinking water as "remarkable feats." It says it provided thousands of respirators for response workers and cleaned and tested thousands of homes in lower Manhattan.

The agency, at the urging of the White House, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and New York City officials, convened an expert panel chaired by EPA's science adviser to monitor any residual health effects among workers and residents.

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States may disobey new ID rules, fight them in court

USA TODAY

States may disobey new ID rules, fight them in court

WASHINGTON (AP) — States are threatening to challenge in court and even disobey new orders from Congress to start issuing more uniform driver's licenses and verify the citizenship or legal status of people getting them.

There is concern among some states that they'll get stuck with a large tab to pay for implementing the new rules and that getting a driver's license will become a bigger headache for law-abiding residents.

"Governors are looking at all their options. If more than half of the governors agree we're not going down without a fight on this, Congress will have to consider changing this unfunded federal mandate," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, vice chairman of the National Governors Association. A Huckabee aide said the options include court action.

States fear the new rules may force applicants to make more than one trip to motor vehicle departments, once to provide documents such as birth certificates that states must verify and a second time to pick up the license, state officials said.

"What passed is something that will be an enormous amount of work and it's questionable what it's going to yield," said Democrat Matt Dunlap, Maine's secretary of state. "Is it going to yield national security or is it going to be hassle for people already complying with the law?"

The immigration requirements were attached to an $82 billion spending package for military operations and construction in Iraq and Afghanistan that the House passed last week. The Senate is expected to vote this week and send the bill to President Bush.


"We'd like to work with people to implement the needed reform and will be very disappointed if these groups thwart these important rules," said Jeff Lungren, spokesman for Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner, who wrote the new requirements.

Sensenbrenner said last week that waiting a little longer in line is "a small price to pay" to prevent future terrorism.

All but one of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had some form of U.S. identification, some of it fraudulent, the Sept. 11 Commission found. The commission recommended the federal government set standards for birth certificates and other identification documents, including driver's licenses.

Some states already have been increasing their license requirements, but their work may not be enough.

Maine's motor vehicle department is upgrading its computer system. But the upgrade doesn't include computer coding to comply with at least one of the new rules: ensure driver's licenses issued to temporary legal residents expire when the resident's authorized time in the U.S. is up.

"That adds to the cost and throws everything into the woods," Dunlap said.

Virginia's motor vehicle department estimated it would have to spend $237 million to comply with the bill passed by the House if it maintains its current level of customer service. Some changes to the final legislation could alter the estimate, a spokeswoman said.

The bill allows the Homeland Security secretary to offer grants to help states to comply, but doesn't provide money.

States will have three years after the president signs the bill to obey the rules. If they don't, their residents won't be able to board planes or enter federally protected buildings.

States also question how they will verify birth certificates, whose appearance vary widely by state and county. Dunlap said his state has only a portion of birth certificates online.

Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia verify Social Security numbers online with the federal government or by another method, said Mark Lassiter, Social Security Administration spokesman.

In fiscal 2004, which ended Sept. 30, Social Security handled 18 million verification requests, rejecting 2 million numbers, Lassiter said. But the system isn't foolproof.

California found many numbers were rejected for women who failed to change their name with when they married, said Bill Branch, motor vehicle department spokesman.

Another concern for states is preventing identity theft if licenses carry more information, said Michael Balboni, a Republican New York state senator. Balboni and Dunlap represented the National Conference of State Legislatures on a now defunct panel Congress created in December to design new driver's license rules. The conference opposes the new rules.

"What's so ironic about this bill is everybody agrees with the concept, one person, one driver's license," Balboni said. "How you get there is really the tough issue."

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Federal agents seize 1,000 fake badges

USA TODAY

Federal agents seize 1,000 fake badges

NEW YORK (AP) — A man has been charged with possessing an illegal cache of about 1,000 counterfeit law enforcement badges, authorities said Tuesday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Sergio Khorosh on Monday at his Bronx home after he accepted delivery of about 100 fake U.S. Marshals Service shields. The delivery was being monitored by the agents, who had first intercepted the badges last month in a shipment from Taiwan to San Francisco.


During a search of Khorosh's home, agents discovered about 1,000 more badges, some resembling those of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and New York Police Department, court papers said. Also found were six firearms, including semiautomatic pistols.

Authorities were investigating whether Khorosh was supplying police impersonators.

"We think this goes way beyond collectors," said Martin Ficke, special agent in charge for ICE's New York office.

Khorosh faces charges of illegal transport of counterfeit badges and weapons possession. He was ordered held on $50,000 bail.

A call to Khorosh's attorney was not immediately returned.

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Supreme Court urged to protect reporters from jail time

USA TODAY

Supreme Court urged to protect reporters from jail time

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has been asked to throw out contempt orders against two journalists who refused to reveal sources in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

Lawyers for Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller want the justices to clarify protections reporters have in keeping sources confidential. Cooper's appeal was filed Tuesday; Miller's was made Monday.

The Supreme Court will decide next fall whether to consider the cases.

Cooper and Miller face up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury as part of an investigation into who divulged the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Disclosure of an undercover intelligence officer's identity can be a federal crime.

Plame's name was first made public in 2003 by columnist Robert Novak, who cited unidentified senior Bush administration officials for the information.

The column appeared after Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote a newspaper opinion piece criticizing the Bush administration's claim that Iraq sought uranium in Niger.

Cooper reported on Plame, while Miller gathered material for an article about the intelligence officer but never wrote a story. A federal judge held the reporters in contempt last fall, and an appeals court rejected their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources.

Lawyers for Cooper argued in their appeal that without protection for confidential sources, journalists cannot keep people informed.

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Poll: Gulf coast, East still unprepared for hurricanes

USA TODAY

Poll: Gulf coast, East still unprepared for hurricanes

MIAMI (AP) — Many residents along the East and Gulf coasts don't plan to take simple steps to protect themselves and their homes from hurricanes, despite the devastation caused by five hurricanes that struck the United States last year, according to a poll released Monday.

Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said they felt "not too" or "not at all" vulnerable, according to a Mason-Dixon poll. And one in four would do nothing to prepare for a storm, even after a watch or warning was issued.

"We can't afford to wait for a hurricane to get close to prepare," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center.

The poll also found that one in four residents believed they could evacuate flood-prone areas 30 minutes to an hour before a hurricane made landfall.

"That is dangerous folly," Mayfield said. Flood-prone roads will likely become impassable, he said. Gridlock could also prevent a last-minute evacuation.

Last year four hurricanes — Charley, Frances, Jeanne and Ivan — struck Florida within six weeks. They were among the six tropical storms and nine hurricanes that formed during the unprecedented 2004 season. Hurricane Alex also struck North Carolina.

Overall, the hurricanes and tropical storms killed 117 people in Florida and more than 3,000 in Haiti. The storms damaged or destroyed one in five Florida homes, along with 90% of those on the Caribbean island nation of Grenada. Property losses were estimated at $42 billion.

Yet 47% of those surveyed had no disaster plan for the hurricane season that begins June 1 and runs through November, the poll found.


"As we look forward, we have to look back," Florida Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings said. "People need to prepare now and they don't have their plans ready and we know it."

Jennings said the most troubling finding was the misconceptions about the steps to prepare.

A majority of those surveyed — 54% — thought masking tape could help stop windows from shattering, which is a myth. And 96% didn't know that garage doors were the structural element most likely to fail first in a hurricane.

The telephone poll surveyed 1,100 adults from April 20-26 in 12 coastal states from Maine to Texas. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points.

The pollsters asked a 20-question test about hurricane related issues. Eighty-nine percent failed the test, and only 2% got the equivalent of a C or better by answering at least 14 questions correctly.

"We hope this poll sends up a flare," said Salvation Army Maj. Steve Hedgren.

The poll was sponsored in part by The National Hurricane Survival Initiative, a collaboration between the National Hurricane Center, the Salvation Army, the Florida Division of Emergency Management and others.

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Ridge reveals clashes on alerts

USA TODAY

Ridge reveals clashes on alerts
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.

Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.

Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "


Revising or scrapping the color-coded alert system is under review by new Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said "improvements and adjustments" may be announced within the next few months.

The threat level was last raised on a nationwide scale in December 2003, to orange from yellow — or "elevated" risk — where the alert level is now. In most cases, Ridge said Homeland Security officials didn't want to raise the level because they knew local governments and businesses would have to spend money putting temporary security upgrades in place.

"You have to use that tool of communication very sparingly," Ridge said at the forum, which was attended by seven other former department leaders.

The level is raised if a majority on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council favors it and President Bush concurs. Among those on the council with Ridge were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI chief Robert Mueller, CIA director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Ridge and Ashcroft publicly clashed over how to communicate threat information to the public. But Ridge has never before discussed internal dissention over the threat level.

The color-coded system was controversial from the start. Polls showed the public found it confusing.

Contributing: Associated Press

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US investigates Georgia 'grenade'

BBC NEWS
US investigates Georgia 'grenade'

The US says it is investigating reports that a device - described as a possible hand grenade - was thrown towards President Bush as he visited Georgia.

It landed 30m (100 feet) away from where Mr Bush spoke to a huge crowd in Tbilisi, but did not detonate, according to the Georgian authorities.

It is unclear whether the device contained explosives.

The US Secret Service said it was made aware of Tuesday's incident after Mr Bush had left the ex-Soviet republic.


Mr Bush's speech was the centrepiece of his visit to Georgia - the first by a US president.

He praised President Mikhail Saakashvili and told the tens of thousands of people gathered in Freedom Square that Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution had been an inspiration to people everywhere.

"You gathered here armed with nothing but roses and the power of your convictions and you claimed your liberty," the US president said.

In a reference seen as being directed at Russia, Mr Bush said all nations must accept the territorial integrity of Georgia, where separatists in two breakaway regions - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - have aligned themselves with Moscow.

Mr Saakashvili boycotted Monday's World War II commemorations in Moscow in protest at Russia's continued presence.

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Rumsfeld Seeks Leaner Army and Full Term as Defense Secretary

The New York Times
May 11, 2005
Rumsfeld Seeks Leaner Army and Full Term as Defense Secretary
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, May 10 - Ask Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to define his legacy, and he cuts the question short: "Don't. Hold off on it. There will be plenty of time."

With a full list of policy initiatives ahead and travel plans penciled in through the Beijing Olympics of 2008, Mr. Rumsfeld gives every indication of serving out the rest of the Bush administration, confounding those who predicted his departure even after President Bush refused, twice, to accept his resignation over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

"I don't think of myself as a short-timer," said Mr. Rumsfeld, who turns 73 in July.

His goal in this pivotal year is to keep Iraq and Afghanistan at bay so he can turn to closing bases at home and realigning global forces even as combat continues; overhauling personnel policy while dealing with a crisis in recruiting; redefining national security strategy while confronting alarming nuclear developments in North Korea and Iran; and drafting a disciplined military budget - one that does not rely on emergency spending to scrape through year after budget-busting year.

But across the Pentagon, officials acknowledge that the twin tasks of building Iraqi security forces and defeating the insurgency stand in the way of Mr. Rumsfeld's longstanding ambitions to fundamentally transform the nation's military into something leaner, more agile and thoroughly modern. Success in Iraq would allow troop withdrawals to begin, relieving strains on budgets and personnel.

Opening up a new front of controversy, Mr. Rumsfeld is to unveil his list of recommended domestic base closings on Friday. It is sure to provoke opposition from communities that stand to lose the economic benefits of being host to the military.


By midsummer, the Pentagon's senior policy aides and top officers will convene a meeting to overhaul military strategy for the next four years. A final report due early next year, a Quadrennial Defense Review required by Congress, will try to balance strategy better with budgets, weapons and troop strength. Everything is on the table, including aircraft carriers, new fighters and broad strategic goals. Here, too, any change that upsets the status quo will meet some opposition.

In an interview, Mr. Rumsfeld compared the Pentagon he inherited to a factory where there were "conveyor belts going by and they were loaded four, five, six years ago, and they were not connected with each other." He said budgets did not fit weapons, which did not fit strategy.

Mr. Rumsfeld is opening the Bush administration's second term as if he were an ambitious novice, not five years into his second tour in a job he first held 30 years ago, cognizant that this is perhaps his first year not necessarily dominated by the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath.

Even his sharpest critics - generals and admirals who have endured the wire-brush treatment of his relentless questioning, and senior civilians across the executive branch who have fought bitter internal battles with Mr. Rumsfeld and his policy proxies - agree that he got one thing right: Mr. Rumsfeld is forcing the Department of Defense to think about warfare differently and, just as important, to think in new ways about its daily business practices.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview, "There is not a D.O.D. process of any sort that we haven't turned on its ear in the past four years."

Mr. Rumsfeld produced an eight-page list of initiatives and accomplishments on his watch, many of them beneath the radar of public attention but nonetheless substantial changes in how the military prepares for and wages war, and how the Pentagon gets through the day.

The Pentagon's map of the world has been redrawn to divide the globe more rationally among regional combatant commanders, and new responsibilities, financing and personnel were given to the specialized commands, in particular, ones responsible for Special Operations and for strategic planning and targeting.

The United States' nuclear strategy has been rewritten, as have regional war-fighting plans, and efforts are under way to restructure and relocate the forces permanently based overseas. The goal is to reduce the number of large cold-war-era bases, especially in Germany, in favor of access to countries closer to future battlefronts across the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

The military is rebalancing the responsibilities of active-duty personnel and reservists to help ease strains on the Army and Marine Corps, which are experiencing serious recruiting problems.

One set of overwhelming questions remains: whether the American public and Congress are exhausted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether enough money will be available for transformation to a high-tech military while still supporting a conventional force deployed to combat zones.

"He doesn't have the money to do it," said Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

Congressional committees are just starting their detailed review of Mr. Rumsfeld's budget request, work that could take two months or more to complete.

Mr. Rumsfeld says the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have not delayed transformation or even been a distraction, but have energized the effort.

"It has been the global war on terror and the tasks that we've been assigned that has provided added impetus to doing the things that absolutely had to be done in this department," he said.

As Mr. Rumsfeld presses his transformation agenda, he still confronts bruised relations with lawmakers and even some in the administration over Iraq policy and the fallout from the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.

Critics blame Mr. Rumsfeld for invading Iraq with too few troops and embracing overly optimistic assumptions about what would happen once Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

"When it became evident that we were going to face a determined and prolonged insurgency, he was very resistant to increasing troop levels, stepping up production of up-armored Humvees, and modifying the game plan," said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

In the interview, Mr. Rumsfeld exhibited a trademark mix, by turns combative and introspective, as he deflected questions of how history would weigh the troubled aftermath of invading Iraq - particularly the Abu Ghraib scandal - against the changes he is still pressing.

"Anybody who knows anything about history knows that history gets written as a result of a whole series of things being said and aggregated over time, and people with perspective that don't have their nose pressed up against a deadline every five minutes," he said.

He said there was progress in the war on terror, but conceded that Al Qaeda was still able to function, saying, "Goodness knows, it doesn't take a genius to blow up a building."

Mr. Rumsfeld is banking on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan remaining stable enough for him to focus his attention elsewhere. Frequent video-teleconferences with senior commanders in Iraq during the peak of combat operations have dwindled to a few phone calls a week.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers say winning support for his proposed changes has been made more difficult by Mr. Rumsfeld's often rocky relations with Congress. In public hearings and in news conferences, Mr. Rumsfeld, a former congressman from Illinois, can often barely disguise his impatience with lawmakers over the scope and pace of their hearings and legislation.

Aides say Mr. Rumsfeld has worked harder to cultivate good ties with Congress. He sets aside Tuesday and Thursday mornings for breakfast with House and Senate members at the Pentagon.

"It's been up and down," said Representative William M. Thornberry of Texas, a Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. "Some people think he doesn't kowtow to them enough."

Inside the Pentagon, Mr. Rumsfeld is retooling his senior military and civilian leadership team from a war cabinet to corporate-style board of directors.

His new management team is led by Gordon R. England, his new deputy, who fits the traditional model of a No. 2 who oversees daily operations and avoids ideological battles. Mr. England, the Navy secretary, was once executive vice president of General Dynamics.

He will replace Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a lightning rod for critics of the Iraq war, who leaves in June to take over as head of the World Bank. Another senior policy figure criticized during the Iraq war effort, Douglas J. Feith, is also leaving, to be replaced by Eric Edelman, a career Foreign Service officer who previously was a senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Rumsfeld is reshuffling his top military advisers, but with familiar faces. Gen. Peter Pace of the Marines who has worked closely with Mr. Rumsfeld for four years as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, will succeed General Myers as chairman this fall. Nominated as the new vice chairman is Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., who was Mr. Rumsfeld's top military aide until taking over the military's Joint Forces Command in 2002.

Mr. Rumsfeld works hard to leave his imprint on the bureaucracy, spending up to 10 hours a week on senior officer and civilian appointments. He has seeded like-minded protégés throughout the military's senior ranks to ensure that his priorities outlast him. He routinely reaches down to interview one-star and two-star officers for important jobs, a practice that some officers deride as a politically motivated "Rumsfeld sniff test."

In a conference room just a few paces from his office, Mr. Rumsfeld and 15 of his top civilian and military advisers meet at least twice a month to hammer out the most pressing issues, like budgets or base closings.

"They know each other, they know each other's strengths and weaknesses, they're comfortable talking in front of each other, which in many cases they had not been," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The decisions that flow out of that room are all of the big things that take place in this building."

Mr. Rumsfeld's admirers and critics alike say it is too soon to gauge his permanent stamp on the Pentagon or the military operations he set in motion.

"He hasn't finished the job, either in Iraq or with transformation," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who has sparred frequently with the secretary. "So I don't know how you would judge him until the results are in."

Mr. Rumsfeld believes in measurements, whether electrical output from Baghdad or how many military jobs civilians could take over or how often a bespectacled defense secretary appears in editorial cartoons, many of which hang in his office.

Each day, he tries to walk five miles through the Pentagon's polished corridors, keeping track with a pace meter on his belt. "He's an inveterate counter with a purpose," said Larry Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman.

Some evenings, he plays squash with Mr. Di Rita or Vice Adm. James G. Stavridis, Mr. Rumsfeld's senior military assistant. In the fashion of his hometown, Chicago, Mr. Rumsfeld improves his odds against the younger men by putting in the fix: He refuses to allow the livelier, softer rubber ball favored by today's players.

"I play my game," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "I play hardball."

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Knight Ridder Newspapers report on: The Secret Downing Street memo

It has been brought to our attention that Knight Ridder Newspapers reported the Secret Downing Street Memo Story on May 6, 2005, and that it was picked up by Newsday on May 9, 2005, and perhaps other newspapers. However, it still does not appear to be a topic on the evening news on TV, where most people still get their news.



Our coverage of this memo can be found here:

http://political-stuff.blogspot.com/2005/05/secret-downing-street-memo.html

http://political-stuff.blogspot.com/2005/05/impeachment-time-facts-were-fixed.html

http://political-stuff.blogspot.com/2005/05/readers-complain-but-wash-post.html

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Readers complain, but Wash. Post ombudsman mum on lack of coverage of U.K.-Iraq memo

mediamatters.org

Readers complain, but Wash. Post ombudsman mum on lack of coverage of U.K.-Iraq memo

In his weekly column, Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler reported without comment that readers had criticized the newspaper for ignoring a leaked British memo on the Iraq war published in the British Sunday Times.

Getler's failure to offer a judgment about the Post's editorial decision is remarkable, not only because he regularly responds in his column to reader criticisms, but because of the explosive content of the memo. The memo indicates that Britain's intelligence minister reported after a trip to the United States that President Bush had decided to go to war in Iraq in the summer of 2002, and "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around" the decision that had already been made. In contrast to the U.S. media, U.K. news outlets devoted considerable coverage to the memo, and its disclosure reportedly had a significant impact on the Labour Party's loss of seats in the House of Commons.

Yet Getler simply reported that he had received reader complaints and moved on.

The Post referenced the memo only twice prior to Getler's column: in the May 5 edition of Tina Brown's syndicated column -- which appeared in the paper's Style section -- and in a May 6 article recapping Blair's re-election.

By the end of the week, readers had criticized the Post for this glaring lack of coverage. Perhaps Getler decided that because the Post's coverage was in line with much of the U.S. media, which largely ignored the memo, the Post's failure did not merit his comment. Here's Getler's minimalist treatment:

A handful of readers last week also faulted the paper for not following up on a London Sunday Times disclosure of a secret memo by a foreign policy aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair after a Bush-Blair meeting in July 2002, eight months before the invasion of Iraq. It said, in part: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam [Hussein], through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Getler's handling of this issue contrasts with his usual approach. He typically notes readers' objections and then provides his own brief evaluation of the merits of their criticisms. In the same May 8 column, Getler mentioned three other instances in which readers took issue with the Post's reporting during the previous week. In each case, he commented on the merits:


Compared with most weeks, this past one was relatively quiet on the complaint front. There were challenges, as there are almost every week, about how the paper handles the Social Security debate. For example, are reporters allowing President Bush to get away with claiming that the system is "on the path to bankruptcy" by 2041, as he said at his April 28 news conference?

The next day's stories pointed out that critics say that claim is misleading. Readers say it isn't just critics. It's a fact that the Social Security board of trustees say that in 2041, tax income would still cover 74 percent of the costs of the system. Others say the truth depends on the definition of the word "bankrupt." Some companies continue to do business while in bankruptcy, but the White House points out that bankruptcy means "having insufficient assets to cover one's debts," which, they say, applies to the system in 2042. There is not room in every story to explain this dispute in full. But some effort to keep readers aware of it seems necessary every time.

Some readers also complained that the headline above the news conference story, "Bush Social Security Plan Would Cut Future Benefits," was unfair. They pointed out that the president said, "I propose a system where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off." That's true. But one could argue that it is also true, and more relevant to about 70 percent of wage earners, that, as the headline said in blunt terms and accompanying stories made clear in more detail, currently scheduled or promised benefits would be reduced for the great majority of recipients under such a proposal.

There were a handful of e-mails and calls last week about one phrase in a well-reported and documented front-page story last Sunday by Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi about Washington super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a new federal investigation into whether a deal involving a fleet of gambling casino ships involved bank fraud. The phrase came 13 paragraphs into the story. It described Abramoff as, "A smooth-talking political power player who was an Orthodox Jew." There are many other important characters in the story, but Abramoff is the only one whose religion is referred to.

Editors say: "Jack Abramoff has made his religion a prominent part of his public profile, therefore we felt it was important to mention it when we were doing a quick summary of his biographical information. We meant in no way to slight Abramoff's religion or to connect it to any of the current controversies involving him. We noted in introducing this that he is 'a study in contradictions,' then lay out facts commonly presented when his bio is being summed up. We put these facts in contrast to each other, political power player vs. Orthodox Jew, Hollywood producer vs. top lobbyist, to show that he combines many traits that do not usually coexist in one individual. One of Abramoff's points is that he is living evidence that people with his religious beliefs can thrive and find common cause with conservatives in the Republican Party." That may be true, but it is not explained in this particular story. So I'm with the readers in that the relevance test didn't seem to be met.

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Politics Prompt Church Tax Questions

WNYC.org

Politics Prompt Church Tax Questions

By PAUL NOWELL
Associated Press Writer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service should reconsider the tax-exempt status of a Baptist church where nine members say they were expelled in a political dispute with their pastor, an advocacy group said Monday.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, sent a letter to the IRS in response to reports that the Rev. Chan Chandler led an effort to expel members of East Waynesville Baptist Church in western North Carolina because they did not support President Bush.

"The IRS cannot afford to ignore such blatant disregard for our nation's tax laws, as it sends a signal to others religious leaders that they too can engage in partisan politicking from the pulpit without fear of sanction," Lynn wrote.

Lynn's group released the letter one day before a planned church meeting between Chandler and the members who say they were kicked out.

Congregants have said Chandler endorsed Bush from the pulpit during last year's presidential campaign and announced that anyone who planned to vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry needed to "repent or resign."

He continued to preach about politics after Bush won re-election, culminating with a church gathering last week in which the nine members said they were ousted.


Chandler's attorney, John Pavey Jr., said he did not know what would be discussed at Tuesday's meeting, which he said would be open only to members of the congregation.

"I think there was some confusion about last (week's) meeting, as to the validity of the vote. I think they're going to clarify all that," Pavey said.

Pavey declined to comment on Lynn's letter seeking an investigation of the church's IRS status.

On Sunday, Pavey read a statement from Chandler in which the pastor said no members had been ousted for their political views and that the church was open to all "who embrace the authority and application of the Bible regardless of political affiliation."

David Wijewickrama, a lawyer who represents the nine members, said his clients contend that Chandler's statement was "grossly inaccurate." Still, Wijewickrama said the members plans to attend Tuesday's meeting and "are cautiously optimistic they will start taking steps toward resolving this conflict."

About 70 congregants - and about a dozen reporters - attended Sunday's services at the church in the mountain town of Waynesville, about 125 miles northwest of Charlotte.

Chandler, who has been at the church less than three years, called the political flap a "great misunderstanding." But some of those voted out of the congregation said the rift will only be healed if Chandler leaves.

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Matalin peddles misinformation

mediamatters.org

On Meet the Press, Matalin peddled misinformation to discredit opposition to Bush's judicial, ambassadorial nominees

Republican political strategist Mary Matalin distorted the facts to discredit opposition to President Bush's controversial judicial and ambassadorial nominees. Appearing on the May 8 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, Matalin falsely claimed that "[w]e have a docket problem" because of "a legislative filibuster used for the purposes of stopping nominees" and that the "people who're coming out of the woodwork" to criticize John R. Bolton, Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "are avowed, outspoken Bush bashers."

In fact, the number of current judicial vacancies is significantly lower than at the end of the Clinton administration. Moreover, Bush has yet to nominate candidates to fill most of the available positions, while the officials who have "com[e] out of the woodwork" to criticize Bolton include many conservative and politically unaligned Bush administration officials.

The University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Political Fact Check pointed out that most of the current vacant federal judgeships "are vacant because Bush has not yet named anyone to fill them" and that there were "lots more vacant courtrooms when Republicans resisted confirming some of Bill Clinton's nominees":

According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there were 46 vacant federal judgeships as of May 4. But that is fewer than half as many as in February 2001, the month after Bush took office, when there were 97 [vacancies].

And most of the vacancies that remain aren't due to Senate delays. They are vacant because Bush has not yet named anyone to fill them. He's nominated persons to fill barely one-third of the vacancies, including 10 of 16 vacancies in the appeals courts, 6 of 29 vacancies in the federal district courts, and nobody to fill the single vacancy at the US Court of International Trade.

Furthermore, there were lots more vacant courtrooms when Republicans resisted confirming some of Bill Clinton's nominees. In December of 1999, for example, there were 67 vacancies in the federal judiciary - nearly 46 percent more than at present. And Clinton had nominations pending for just over half of them.


Matalin also misrepresented the American Bar Association's (ABA) evaluation of the 10 judicial nominations that Democrats have filibustered, stating: "If they [Democrats] want to debate these judges, the qualifications of these judges, all of whom have received the 'gold standard,' according to the Democrats, the highest regard from the ABA. I'll break down the votes." Only three of Bush's filibustered nominees -- Miguel Estrada, David McKeague, and Priscilla Owen -- received a unanimous "Well Qualified" rating from the ABA (ratings for all nominees are listed during the 108th Congress and 109th Congress).

Matalin referenced the testimony of Melody Townsel, a member of the Dallas chapter of Mothers Opposing Bush (a group that opposed the president's re-election), to assert that all individuals who have raised criticisms of the Bolton nomination are merely "Bush bashers." She also asserted that Bolton "did not try to dismiss people." But statements and testimony from numerous Republican and nonpartisan State Department officials refute Matalin's claims:

* Larry Wilkerson, Powell's former chief of staff, stated that Bolton would be an ''abysmal ambassador'' to the United Nations [New York Times, 4/19/05]. According to Wilkerson's Senate testimony, "Bolton was, like many lawyers, smart in the letter of the law, but very lacking in any real knowledge of the wider world" [Washington Post, 5/7/05].
* Thomas Hubbard, who was appointed by Bush as ambassador to South Korea, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bolton's Senate testimony "misrepresented Hubbard's views" about an antagonistic speech Bolton gave in 2003 calling life in North Korea a "hellish nightmare." According to a memo obtained by Time magazine, Hubbard told the committee that he "strongly disagreed with the tone of the speech, especially at the sensitive time in the negotiating process, and asked Mr. Bolton to tone it down. He did not" [Time, 5/2/05].
* Former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin, another Bush administration official, "told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Mr. Bolton's effort to oust a top Central Intelligence Agency analyst from his position in 2002 breached what should be a barrier between policy makers and intelligence analysts" [New York Times, 5/8/05].
* Former State Department intelligence chief Carl W. Ford Jr., who described himself as a staunch supporter of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, testified that Bolton's behavior "brings real question to my mind about his suitability for high office," and said that "the collateral damage and the personal hurt that he causes is not worth the price that had to be paid" [Washington Post, 4/13/05].
* Jack Pritchard, former special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, criticized Bolton for inflammatory rhetoric and said he undermined U.S. efforts to develop "an effective policy toward North Korea" [Associated Press, 1/7/05].

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell himself has apparently expressed strong reservations with Bolton's nomination: "Alone among living former Republican secretaries of state, Powell has pointedly refused to endorse Bolton and privately told some senators he had concerns about Bolton's judgment" [Washington Post, 5/6/05].

Further, of the 63 former U.S. ambassadors and foreign service officers who signed a letter opposing Bolton's nomination, more than 70 percent served under Republican administrations, including President Reagan's former ambassador to the Soviet Union, Arthur Hartman, and his deputy ambassador to the U.N., Patricia M. Byrne.

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Internet Attack Called Broad and Long Lasting by Investigators

The New York Times
May 10, 2005
Internet Attack Called Broad and Long Lasting by Investigators
By JOHN MARKOFF and LOWELL BERGMAN

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 - The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach of a Cisco Systems network in which an intruder seized programming instructions for many of the computers that control the flow of the Internet.

Now federal officials and computer security investigators have acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was only part of a more extensive operation - involving a single intruder or a small band, apparently based in Europe - in which thousands of computer systems were similarly penetrated.

Investigators in the United States and Europe say they have spent almost a year pursuing the case involving attacks on computer systems serving the American military, NASA and research laboratories.

The break-ins exploited security holes on those systems that the authorities say have now been plugged, and beyond the Cisco theft, it is not clear how much data was taken or destroyed. Still, the case illustrates the ease with which Internet-connected computers - even those of sophisticated corporate and government networks - can be penetrated and also the difficulty in tracing those responsible.

Government investigators and other computer experts sometimes watched helplessly while monitoring the activity, unable to secure some systems as quickly as others were found compromised.

The case remains under investigation. But attention is focused on a 16-year-old in Uppsala, Sweden, who was charged in March with breaking into university computers in his hometown. Investigators in the American break-ins ultimately traced the intrusions back to the Uppsala university network.

The F.B.I. and the Swedish police said they were working together on the case, and one F.B.I. official said efforts in Britain and other countries were aimed at identifying accomplices. "As a result of recent actions" by law enforcement, an F.B.I. statement said, "the criminal activity appears to have stopped."


The Swedish authorities are examining computer equipment confiscated from the teenager, who was released to his parents' care. The matter is being treated as a juvenile case.

Investigators who described the break-ins did so on condition that they not be identified, saying that their continuing efforts could be jeopardized if their names, or in some cases their organizations, were disclosed.

Computer experts said the break-ins did not represent a fundamentally new kind of attack. Rather, they said, the primary intruder was particularly clever in the way he organized a system for automating the theft of computer log-ins and passwords, conducting attacks through a complicated maze of computers connected to the Internet in as many as seven countries.

The intrusions were first publicly reported in April 2004 when several of the nation's supercomputer laboratories acknowledged break-ins into computers connected to the TeraGrid, a high-speed data network serving those labs, which conduct unclassified research into a range of scientific problems.

The theft of the Cisco software was discovered last May when a small team of security specialists at the supercomputer laboratories, trying to investigate the intrusions there, watched electronically as passwords to Cisco's computers were compromised.

After discovering the passwords' theft, the security officials notified Cisco officials of the potential threat. But the company's software was taken almost immediately, before the company could respond.

Shortly after being stolen last May, a portion of the Cisco programming instructions appeared on a Russian Web site. With such information, sophisticated intruders would potentially be able to compromise security on router computers of Cisco customers running the affected programs.

There is no evidence that such use has occurred. "Cisco believes that the improper publication of this information does not create increased risk to customers' networks," the company said last week.

The crucial element in the password thefts that provided access at Cisco and elsewhere was the intruder's use of a corrupted version of a standard software program, SSH. The program is used in many computer research centers for a variety of tasks, ranging from administration of remote computers to data transfer over the Internet.

The intruder probed computers for vulnerabilities that allowed the installation of the corrupted program, known as a Trojan horse, in place of the legitimate program.

In many cases the corrupted program is distributed from a single computer and shared by tens or hundreds of users at a computing site, effectively making it possible for someone unleashing it to reel in large numbers of log-ins and passwords as they are entered.

Once passwords to the remote systems were obtained, an intruder could log in and use a variety of software "tool kits" to upgrade his privileges - known as gaining root access. That makes it possible to steal information and steal more passwords.

The operation took advantage of the vulnerability of Internet-connected computers whose security software had not been brought up to date.

In the Cisco case, the passwords to Cisco computers were sent from a compromised computer by a legitimate user unaware of the Trojan horse. The intruder captured the passwords and then used them to enter Cisco's computers and steal the programming instructions, according to the security investigators.

A security expert involved in the investigation speculated that the Cisco programming instructions were stolen as part of an effort to establish the intruder's credibility in online chat rooms he frequented.

Last May, the security investigators were able to install surveillance software on the University of Minnesota computer network when they discovered that an intruder was using it as a staging base for hundreds of Internet attacks. During a two-day period they watched as the intruder tried to break into more than 100 locations on the Internet and was successful in gaining root access to more than 50.

When possible, they alerted organizations that were victims of attacks, which would then shut out the intruder and patch their systems.

As the attacks were first noted in April 2004, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, found that her own computer had been invaded. The researcher, Wren Montgomery, began to receive taunting e-mail messages from someone going by the name Stakkato - now believed by the authorities to have been the primary intruder - who also boasted of breaking in to computers at military installations.

"Patuxent River totally closed their networks," he wrote in a message sent that month, referring to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland. "They freaked out when I said I stole F-18 blueprints."

A Navy spokesman at Patuxent River, James Darcy, said Monday said that "if there was some sort of attempted breach on those addresses, it was not significant enough of an action to have generated a report."

Monte Marlin, a spokeswoman for the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, whose computers Stakkato also claimed to have breached, confirmed Monday that there had been "unauthorized access" but said, "The only information obtained was weather forecast information."

The messages also claimed an intrusion into seven computers serving NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. A computer security expert investigating the case confirmed that computers at several NASA sites, including the propulsion laboratory, had been breached. A spokesman said the laboratory did not comment on computer breaches.

Ms. Montgomery, a graduate student in geophysics, said that in a fit of anger, Stakkato had erased her computer file directory and had destroyed a year and a half of her e-mail stored on a university computer.

She guessed that she might have provoked him by referring to him as a "quaint hacker" in a communication with system administrators, which he monitored.

"It was inconvenient," she said of the loss of her e-mail, "and it's the thing that seems to happen when you have malicious teenage hackers running around with no sense of ethics."

Walter Gibbs, in Oslo, and Heather Timmons, in London, contributed reporting for this article.

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Marines Recall Combat Vests After Tests

Marines Recall Combat Vests After Tests

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Marine Corps is recalling 5,277 combat vests issued to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti after a newspaper article raised concerns that they failed a test to determine whether they could stop a bullet.

The Marines said in a statement they are recalling the vests to alleviate any doubts caused by a Marine Corps Times article published Monday, but service officials insisted they do not believe the vests are faulty.

The armor in question is called the "Outer Tactical Vest" and it is part of the Interceptor body armor package issued to troops in combat zones. The vest, when combined with protective plates, is designed to stop a rifle round.

Without the plates, the vest should still provide some protection against 9 mm pistol rounds and fragments from an explosion. But several vests manufactured by Point Blank Body Armor of Pompano Beach, Fla., fell short of the Marines' standards during testing in 2004, according to Capt. Jeff Landis, a Marine spokesman.


The Marine statement described an urgent need for the vests as Marines prepared to deploy.

Most Point Blank vests passed the tests, but the Marine liaison to Point Blank recommended the service reject the production lots of those that failed - numbering thousands of vests total, according to memos, dated in mid-2004, obtained by the Marine Corps Times and reproduced on the Internet.

The Marines then tested vests from those lots again at another test range, and they passed, Landis said. Marine officials then issued waivers allowing the vests to go to the troops, but decided to recall the vests from the field when they learned of the imminent article.

Overall, about 181,000 Kevlar vests have been issued to Marines. Each costs $525, Landis said.

In one memo obtained by the Times, James MacKiewicz, a Marine technical adviser, complained of "major performance and quality assurance problems" with Point Blank's products.

However, Landis said the Marines are satisfied with the company's performance and its vests.

"Point Blank stands by its products," said Ish Burks, a spokesman for Point Blank's parent company, DHB Industries. "The vests are performing in the only test that matters - live combat. There have been no reported failures in the field."

Landis said the recall was going out to commanders in the field. Troops will have to check tags on their vests to see if they are from the recalled lots. Then they can exchange their vests for new ones.

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US spy ordered to bring home bin Laden's head on dry ice

Yahoo! News
US spy ordered to bring home bin Laden's head on dry ice

US spy chiefs ordered agents to deliver Osama bin Laden's severed head in a box of dry ice and hoist heads of other Al-Qaeda leaders on pikes, a retired field officer has disclosed.

As America reeled in shock days after the September 11 attacks in 2001, former CIA officer Gary Schroen was sent to Afghanistan to help the opposition Northern Alliance to topple bin Laden's hosts the Taliban.

He told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast on Monday and Tuesday that he stopped by the office of then-CIA counterterrorism director Cofer Black for final instructions.

He said he was told: "'your basic marching orders are to link up with the Northern Alliance and get their cooperation militarily and they will take on the Taliban.

"'When we break the Taliban, your job is to capture bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box full of dry ice.'"

Schroen was also ordered to kill other al-Qaeda leaders suspected in the plot, which saw terrorists slam planes into the New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.

It was the first time in 30 years with the CIA he had been ordered to set out to kill a target rather than try to bring them in alive, Schroen told NPR's Morning Edition program.

He said he told Black, '"Sir, those are the clearest orders I have ever received, I can certainly make pikes out in the field but I don't know what I'll do about dry ice to bring the head back but we will manage something."

A week after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush told reporters he wanted Osama bin Laden and recalled Wild West posters that demanded suspects "dead or alive."



But the suspected terror mastermind was never caught and Schroen told NPR that CIA operatives found it hard to get close enough to strike bin Laden, partly due to his ability to move quickly around the country.

"We could never tell where the man was going to be that night," Schroen, who is promoting a new book and believes bin Laden is now hiding out in tribal areas of Pakistan, told NPR.

Schroen, now 63, and his six-man team were among the first Americans into Afghanistan after September 11, and his book "First In" relates his dangerous mission behind enemy lines.

originally published May 3, 2005

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