A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA after Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé stated

The New York Times
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

Officials at NASA headquarters declined to discuss the reason for the resignation.

"Under NASA policy, it is inappropriate to discuss personnel matters," said Dean Acosta, the deputy assistant administrator for public affairs and Mr. Deutsch's boss.

The resignation came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming.

"As we have stated in the past, NASA is in the process of revising our public affairs policies across the agency to ensure our commitment to open and full communications," the statement from Mr. Acosta said.

The statement said the resignation of Mr. Deutsch was "a separate matter."

Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA's public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his résumé. No one has disputed those parts of the document.

According to his résumé, Mr. Deutsch received a "Bachelor of Arts in journalism, Class of 2003."

Yesterday, officials at Texas A&M said that was not the case.

"George Carlton Deutsch III did attend Texas A&M University but has not completed the requirements for a degree," said an e-mail message from Rita Presley, assistant to the registrar at the university, responding to a query from The Times.

Repeated calls and e-mail messages to Mr. Deutsch on Tuesday were not answered.

Mr. Deutsch's educational record was first challenged on Monday by Nick Anthis, who graduated from Texas A&M last year with a biochemistry degree and has been writing a Web log on science policy, scientificactivist.blogspot.com.

After Mr. Anthis read about the problems at NASA, he said in an interview: "It seemed like political figures had really overstepped the line. I was just going to write some commentary on this when somebody tipped me off that George Deutsch might not have graduated."

He posted a blog entry asserting this after he checked with the university's association of former students. He reported that the association said Mr. Deutsch received no degree.

A copy of Mr. Deutsch's résumé was provided to The Times by someone working in NASA headquarters who, along with many other NASA employees, said Mr. Deutsch played a small but significant role in an intensifying effort at the agency to exert political control over the flow of information to the public.

Such complaints came to the fore starting in late January, when James E. Hansen, the climate scientist, and several midlevel public affairs officers told The Times that political appointees, including Mr. Deutsch, were pressing to limit Dr. Hansen's speaking and interviews on the threats posed by global warming.

Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch's credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.

"He's only a bit player," Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. " The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That's what I'm really concerned about."

"On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed," he said. "The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That's the big issue here."

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Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry

The New York Times
Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program.

The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

The congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over the program's legal basis and political liabilities. Many Republicans have strongly backed President Bush's power to use every tool at his disposal to fight terrorism, but 4 of the 10 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced concerns about the program at a hearing where Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified on Monday.

A growing number of Republicans have called in recent days for Congress to consider amending federal wiretap law to address the constitutional issues raised by the N.S.A. operation.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for one, said he considered some of the administration's legal justifications for the program "dangerous" in their implications, and he told Mr. Gonzales that he wanted to work on new legislation that would help those tracking terrorism "know what they can and can't do."

But the administration has said repeatedly since the program was disclosed in December that it considers further legislation unnecessary, believing that the president already has the legal authority to authorize the operation.

Vice President Dick Cheney reasserted that position Tuesday in an interview on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

Members of Congress "have the right and the responsibility to suggest whatever they want to suggest" about changing wiretap law, Mr. Cheney said. But "we have all the legal authority we need" already, he said, and a public debate over changes in the law could alert Al Qaeda to tactics used by American intelligence officials.

"It's important for us, if we're going to proceed legislatively, to keep in mind there's a price to be paid for that, and it might well in fact do irreparable damage to our capacity to collect information," Mr. Cheney said.

The administration, backed by Republican leaders in both houses, has also resisted calls for inquiries by either Congress or an independent investigator.

As for the politics, some Republicans say they are concerned that prolonged public scrutiny of the surveillance program could prove a distraction in this year's midterm Congressional elections, and the administration has worked to contain any damage by aggressively defending the legality of the operation. It has also limited its Congressional briefings on the program's operational details to the so-called Gang of Eight — each party's leaders in the Senate and the House and on the two intelligence committees — and has agreed to full committee briefings only on the legal justifications for the operation, without discussing in detail how the N.S.A. conducts it.

Ms. Wilson said in the interview Tuesday that she considered the limited Congressional briefings to be "increasingly untenable" because they left most lawmakers knowing little about the program. She said the House Intelligence Committee needed to conduct a "painstaking" review, including not only classified briefings but also access to internal documents and staff interviews with N.S.A. aides and intelligence officials.

Ms. Wilson, a former Air Force officer who is the only female veteran currently in Congress, has butted up against the administration previously over controversial policy issues, including Medicare and troop strength in Iraq. She said she realized that publicizing her concerns over the surveillance program could harm her relations with the administration. "The president has his duty to do, but I have mine too, and I feel strongly about that," she said.

Asked whether the White House was concerned about support for the program among Republicans, Dana Perino, a presidential spokeswoman, said: "The terrorist surveillance program is critical to the safety and protection of all Americans, and we will continue to work with Congress. The attorney general testified at length yesterday, and he will return to Capitol Hill twice more before the week ends."

Aides to Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who as chairman of the full House Intelligence Committee is one of the eight lawmakers briefed on the operations of the program, said he could not be reached for comment on whether he would be open to a full inquiry.

Mr. Hoekstra has been a strong defender of the program and has expressed no intention thus far to initiate a full review. In two recent letters to the Congressional Research Service, he criticized reports by the agency that raised questions about the legal foundations of the N.S.A. program and the limited briefings given to Congress. He said in one letter that it was "unwise at best and reckless at worst" for the agency to prepare a report on classified matters that it knew little about.

But two leading Democratic members of the intelligence committees, Representative Jane Harman and Senator Dianne Feinstein, both of California, wrote a letter of their own Tuesday defending the nonpartisan research service's reports on the surveillance program and other issues, saying its work had been "very helpful" in view of what they deemed the minimal information provided by the administration.

Scott Shane contributed reporting for this article.

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Four presidents and a raucous funeral for a King

Reuters
Four presidents and a raucous funeral for a King

By Karen Jacobs and Tabassum Zakaria

LITHONIA, Georgia (Reuters) - Speakers seized on the presence of President Bush to attack his policies on Tuesday at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the first lady of the U.S. civil rights movement.

Jimmy Carter, one of four presidents to speak, took a jab at Bush's domestic eavesdropping program during six hours of sermons, speeches and song for the late widow of Nobel peace laureate Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated in 1968.

The 10,000 mourners also heard the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil-rights leader, cite Mrs. King's legacy as a champion of racial equality while launching barbs at Bush administration policies on Iraq and health care.

Mrs. King, 78, died on January 30 of complications from ovarian cancer. Her funeral at a Baptist church in Lithonia, Georgia, drew a "who's who" of the political and entertainment worlds and the U.S. civil rights community.

She was due to be buried alongside her husband at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change she founded in nearby Atlanta.

With Washington debating the legality of Bush's domestic eavesdropping on Americans suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Carter drew spirited applause with comments on federal efforts to spy on the Kings decades ago.

"It was difficult for them personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance," Carter said.

Former President Bill Clinton, a favorite among mainstream civil rights leaders, offered a teasing hint of the possible presidential candidacy of his wife, New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who stood smiling at his side.

"I'm honored to be here with my president and my former presidents and ...," he trailed off, motioning in his wife's direction to loud and sustained applause.

Speaking first, ahead of his critics, Bush said: "I've come today to offer the sympathy of our entire nation at the passing of a woman who worked to make our nation whole.

"Having loved a leader she became a leader. And when she spoke Americans listened closely, because her voice carried the wisdom and goodness of a life well-lived," he said.

POETRY

Lowery, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Martin Luther King helped found in 1957, gave a playful reading of a poem in eulogy of Mrs. King and made a none-too-veiled reference to the Iraq war launched by Bush.

"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there / But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here / Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor," Lowery said.

The mourners responded with a standing ovation.

Bush's immediate reaction could not be seen on television, but after Lowery finished speaking, the president -- who sat behind the speakers -- shook his hand and laughed.

Bush's father George Bush, the fourth president at the funeral, broke any tension by recalling his own meetings as president with Lowery and gave a score: "Lowery 21, Bush 3, it wasn't a fair fight."

The service, billed as a celebration of Mrs. King's life, featured performances by Stevie Wonder and Michael Bolton. Mourners joined a choir in singing some of King's favorite gospel songs, among them "Amazing Grace."

Mrs. King's daughter Bernice, a minister, gave the eulogy, saying of her mother: "She was not just a national figure, she was a global leader."

Born April 27, 1927, near Marion, Alabama, Coretta Scott King played a back-up role in the civil rights movement until her husband, a Baptist minister, was gunned down in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

As she recalled in her autobiography "My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.," she felt she had to step fully into the civil rights movement. She last appeared in public on the weekend of the annual holiday last month that honors his legacy.

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Cheney: "we have all the legal authority we need"

Reuters
Cheney resists changing spy program

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday resisted bipartisan appeals for changes in a hotly disputed warrantless eavesdropping program, saying he believed "we have all the legal authority we need."

Democrats and some Republicans have urged the Bush administration to work with Congress to revise a law already on the books in order to end questions about whether the spy program, initiated after the September 11, 2001 attacks, was constitutional.

In an interview on PBS' "Newshour," Cheney was asked whether President Bush was willing to work with Congress to settle some of the legal questions about the spy program.

"We believe ... that we have all the legal authority we need," Cheney said.

He said Bush had indicated he was willing to listen to ideas from Congress and that members of Congress certainly have the right to suggest changes.

"We'd have to make a decision, as the administration, whether or not we think it would help and would enhance our capabilities," he said.

A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency, which conducted the eavesdropping, broke ranks with the White House and called for a full congressional inquiry into the program, The New York Times reported.

Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of a House Intelligence subcommittee, said in an interview with the paper that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program.

By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

Wilson is the first Republican on either the House or Senate intelligence committees to call for a full congressional investigation into the program.

The NSA program was exposed in December by The New York Times. It monitors telephone calls and e-mail exchanges between people in the United States and abroad when one party is suspected of links to al Qaeda.

A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without the approval of a special security court.

Some senators have suggested changes in the law to bring it up to date with today's fast-paced world of high-speed communications like cell phones and e-mail.

WHITE HOUSE CHALLENGED

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday Democrats and some Republicans challenged the assertion that Bush had the authority to act under both the Constitution and a congressional resolution that authorized the use of U.S. force against al Qaeda three days after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Cheney said he was concerned that additional legislation on the issue would disclose the program in a way that would possibly damage it.

"I think it's important for us if we're going to proceed legislatively to keep in mind that there's a price to be paid for that and it might well in fact do irreparable damage to our capacity to collect this information," he said.

Cheney also said some congressional critics were changing their tune on the program now that it was public. When they were briefed privately on the classified program, they had been supportive, he said.

"I presided over most of those briefings, there was no great concern expressed that somehow we needed to come get additional legislative authority," he said.

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CIA counter-terrorism chief steps down

Reuters
CIA counter-terrorism chief steps down

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the CIA's counter-terrorism center has been forced to step down as part of efforts by the spy agency to bolster its pursuit of al Qaeda, current and former intelligence officials said on Tuesday.

Robert Grenier, 51, told colleagues in an e-mail on Monday that he had been asked to move on from the helm of the unit that plans and executes CIA counter-terrorism operations and provides analysis on terrorism issues.

It was not clear whether Grenier planned to leave the spy agency and there was no immediate word on who would succeed him in the counter-terrorism post.

The CIA has been criticized for failing to track down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, who are believed to be somewhere along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

A failed CIA attempt to eliminate Zawahri with a missile strike last month in Pakistan was condemned in Islamabad and set off anti-American protests across the country after 18 civilians including women and children died in the attack.

The CIA's counter-terrorism center has recently lost stature as the result of intelligence reforms that created the National Counter-terrorism Center to oversee strategic planning and serve as a clearinghouse for intelligence and analysis for the entire intelligence community in that area.

An intelligence source, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the departure, said Grenier was asked to step aside by the CIA clandestine service chief, whose identity is secret.

"There is a sense that he was not necessarily aggressive enough or forward leaning enough, that this is a good officer but there might be a better choice for this post at this time," the source said.

Grenier, who has been director of the counter-terrorism center for less than a year, had spent much of his career undercover in overseas assignments, often in the Middle East. He was CIA station chief in Islamabad at the time of the September 11 attacks.

Former CIA Director George Tenet named him chief of the CIA's Iraq Operations Group in mid-2002 as the Bush administration moved toward war with Saddam Hussein.

Grenier was not available for comment.

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States slow to improve voting systems

Reuters
States slow to improve voting systems -report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many states have fallen behind in efforts to upgrade voting equipment and improve voter registration and identification ahead of November's congressional elections, a report issued on Tuesday said.

The report said nearly half of the states missed last month's federal deadline to implement changes required by the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which Congress passed to help restore confidence in the integrity of a process shaken by the drawn-out 2000 recount saga in Florida.

The report, by the non-partisan Electionline.org project, said reforms have stalled across the country for a variety of reasons, including growing concerns about the reliability of electronic voting machines and about the legality of voter ID requirements.

"The lack of progress in nearly half of the states throws into doubt whether HAVA's goals can be achieved in time for the November 2006 vote," said Doug Chapin, director of Electionline.org, which analyzes election reform efforts around the country.

The report said concern about electronic voting machines and their susceptibility to tampering has steadily grown since passage of the law, and 25 states now require either the use of paper audit trails or that a ballot be cast only on paper.

In California, the report said, concerns about the new e-voting machines have left some counties with warehouses of machines considered unusable for elections.

The creation of statewide databases of registered voters was the most costly and complex of the new law's requirements, the report said, and more than 20 states have not complied.

The number of states requiring all voters to show identification before voting has risen from 11 in 2000 to 22 in 2006, the report said, but political and legal battles over the issue have slowed its spread.

Georgia and Indiana passed the most stringent rules, requiring all voters to show a state or federal photo ID before voting, the report said. Lawsuits have been filed to block both laws and Georgia's law was struck down by a federal judge. An appeal is pending.

The report said more than one-third of states still do not have a machine available at each polling place for people with disabilities, as required by the law.

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Senators rap White House on Iraq's economy

Reuters
Senators rap White House on Iraq's economy

By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday it will take decades to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure as senators charged the Bush administration had fumbled reconstruction efforts, slowing a U.S. military withdrawal.

Rumsfeld was defending the Pentagon's $439 billion budget request for next year before senators on the Armed Services Committee.

Contrary to forecasts of administration officials before the March 2003 invasion, Rumsfeld said, "It's going to take decades" for Iraq "to get the infrastructure back to where a modern country would have it."

The senators also questioned Pentagon officials on progress in training Iraqi forces, which the administration says is key for withdrawing U.S. troops.

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there still is just one battalion able to operate independently, and 60 capable of taking the lead in operations, with support of U.S. forces.

Senators generally backed the plan to boost the Pentagon's budget by nearly 7 percent to $439 billion. In addition, the White House said it will seek another $70 billion this year for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and $50 billion early next year. That would bring the wars' cost to $440 billion, with costs expected near $500 billion by next year's end.

In unusually harsh criticism, Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, the committee chairman, said the White House has "failed to bring together all of the resources necessary" to improve Iraq's economy and stem the joblessness that he said is fueling the rampant violence and corruption.

Warner said former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz "opined at one time" that Iraq's oil production would pay for most of its rebuilding costs, but instead Warner noted that Iraq's "oil production is slipping."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, said he was "troubled by the suggestions" that the White House would not seek new rebuilding money for Iraq on top of the $20 billion so far. "You can cut and run economically as well as you can militarily," he said.

Warner said living conditions must improve through a better infrastructure to stabilize the country, or "it's going to obscure the gains that have been made."

But Rumsfeld said it was up to Iraqis to rebuild their own country to avoid "creating a dependency."

Pace said the U.S. government should make various nonmilitary agencies work together more efficiently and deploy personnel overseas to help in rebuilding.

"General, those are nice words. We've been at this thing over two years now," Warner replied.

After the hearing, Warner told reporters he was considering legislation to force cooperation among federal agencies, similar to legislation that integrated the workings of the military branches.

Rumsfeld also fended off senators' complaints about his plans to restructure the Army National Guard, which some lawmakers said would amount to a cutback.

"The Army is not cutting the National Guard or Reserves. That rumor is false," Rumsfeld said.

The Pentagon plan had called for reducing the Army National Guard's authorized troop level from the 350,000 to 335,000, which is the actual current force.

Facing a wall of congressional opposition, the Pentagon proposed keeping in escrow money to pay for a 350,000 force-level to be used if the Guard can recruit to that level.

(additional reporting by Charles Aldinger)

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Karl Rove threatens to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president

insightmag.com
Rove counting heads on the Senate Judiciary Committee

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said.

The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Rove has been calling in virtually every Republican on the Senate committee as well as the leadership in Congress. The sources said Mr. Rove's message has been that a vote against Mr. Bush would destroy GOP prospects in congressional elections.

"He's [Rove] lining them up one by one," another congressional source said.

Mr. Rove is leading the White House campaign to help the GOP in November’s congressional elections. The sources said the White House has offered to help loyalists with money and free publicity, such as appearances and photo-ops with the president.

Those deemed disloyal to Mr. Rove would appear on his blacklist. The sources said dozens of GOP members in the House and Senate are on that list.

So far, only a handful of GOP senators have questioned Mr. Rove's tactics.

Some have raised doubts about Mr. Rove's strategy of painting the Democrats, who have opposed unwarranted surveillance, as being dismissive of the threat posed by al Qaeda terrorists.

"Well, I didn't like what Mr. Rove said, because it frames terrorism and the issue of terrorism and everything that goes with it, whether it's the renewal of the Patriot Act or the NSA wiretapping, in a political context," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican.

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Treasury says extending tax cuts would cost billions

Reuters
Treasury says extending tax cuts would cost billions

By Mark Felsenthal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key White House tax proposals would cost the U.S. government tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue, the Treasury Department said on Monday, although the administration says they will help boost revenues in the long run.

Making permanent expiring tax breaks for dividends and capital gains, which expire at the end of 2008, would cost the government $7.74 billion in 2008 and $37.02 billion in 2009, Treasury said in its "Blue Book" description of revenue proposals in President Bush's fiscal 2007 budget.

Making dividend and capital gains tax breaks permanent is a central Bush administration goal in 2006, but critics say the administration will be hard-pressed to both keep the tax breaks and achieve its other priority, cutting the federal budget deficit starting in fiscal 2007.

The White House projects the deficit will widen in the current fiscal year.

Extending lower marginal tax rates for individuals, which are set to expire at the end of 2010, would push foregone tax revenues to $119.39 billion in 2011, Treasury said.

Although Treasury shows the tax cut extensions as losing revenue, administration officials say increased investment from extending the breaks will lead to greater investment and economic growth, and in the end, more returns to government coffers.

Lower tax rates on profits from investment have "been integral to generating economic growth," Treasury spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters at a briefing.

Separate White House economic forecasts issued with the budget proposal project revenues climbing to $2.42 trillion in fiscal 2007 from $2.29 trillion in the current fiscal year that ends September 30. Revenues would continue to rise, to $2.6 trillion in fiscal 2008, and $2.71 trillion in fiscal 2009.

So even though spending is also projected to rise in the next budget year to $2.77 trillion from $2.71 trillion, the White House says the budget deficit would drop to $354 billion in fiscal 2007 from $423 billion in the current fiscal year because of higher revenues.

Similarly, the deficit is projected to fall to $223 billion in fiscal 2008 and $208 billion in fiscal 2009.

Another administration tax initiative is extending for a single year provisions shielding taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax, a levy originally aimed at making sure high-income filers with many deductions pay some taxes, but that now applies to increasing numbers of middle-income taxpayers.

The AMT fix would forego $13.66 billion in revenues in the current fiscal year and $20.5 billion in income to the government in fiscal 2007, Treasury said.

The administration does not want the AMT protection to be any longer than a year, officials said, because changes to the program should ultimately be part of any broad tax overhaul.

That is because other changes to the tax code proposed last year by a presidential panel could actually raise taxes for some taxpayers, so providing relief from the AMT would be an essential balancing element.

The administration is not expected to announce its tax overhaul plan this year.

"We'll continue to work on that. We're not going to set a timetable," Fratto said.

The president's proposals to expand health savings accounts, which allow people set aside pretax earnings to pay for medical expenses, would total $5.48 billion in lost revenue in 2007 and $10.24 billion in lost revenue in 2008, Treasury said.

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Louisiana governor vows 'hardball' with Washington

Reuters
Louisiana governor vows 'hardball' with Washington

By Stuart Grudgings

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned state lawmakers on Monday that corruption could no longer be tolerated as the area rebuilds from the Hurricane Katrina disaster and vowed to "play hardball" with Washington over oil and gas revenues.

Opening a special legislative session in the New Orleans Convention Center, where thousands of residents took refuge in the days after Katrina flooded the city, Blanco said the disaster that killed 1,300 people had become "yesterday's problem" for many in Washington.

"We had all better put Louisiana politics aside and worry about Washington politics or our people and our state will lose," she said.

Five months after Katrina, much of the city remains in ruins and two-thirds of its population has not returned. Local and federal officials have blamed each other for the lack of a clear recovery plan and the White House has come out against a proposed bill that would have bailed out uninsured homeowners with billions of federal dollars.

Blanco, a Democrat, has threatened to block planned August sales of offshore oil and gas leases unless Washington agrees to give the state 50 percent of the royalties.

Louisiana currently gets no royalties from leases more than 6 miles off its coast and says it needs the billions of dollars it would receive to help repair coastal wetlands that oil industry development has left vulnerable to hurricanes.

U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton could override the governor on the lease sale but that could trigger a lengthy legal battle.

"Industry leaders understand our predicament," Blanco said. "It's time to play hardball as I believe that's the only game Washington understands."

Blanco pledged to use the 12-day legislative session to push bills to unify the area's various levee management boards, which are widely seen as corrupt; to reorganize New Orleans' government to make it more accountable; and to create a housing trust to help families move back to their homes.

"Louisiana can no longer tolerate the perception that you must pay to play if you expect to do business in this state," she said. "We must put the sins of the past behind us and use our recovery as an opportunity to earn the trust and confidence of the nation."

Blanco chose to hold the session in the convention center, marking the first time in 125 years the legislature has met outside the state capital Baton Rouge, to draw attention to New Orleans' struggles.

Some analysts have attributed the Bush administration's reluctance to pour money into recovery efforts to the perception that local politics is rife with corruption.

Washington has made some relief funds contingent on reforms, such as the unification of the state's levee boards.

"The legislature is going to be analyzed in Washington to see if these people are serious about spending the money wisely or not," said Susan Howell, a political science professor at New Orleans University.

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Clinton Fires Back After Being Labeled 'Angry' and 'Left-Wing'

ABC News
Clinton Fires Back After Being Labeled 'Angry' and 'Left-Wing'
Senator Responds to GOP Leader's Comments on 'This Week'
By TEDDY DAVIS

Feb. 6, 2006 — - Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., returned fire today against a GOP leader's charge that she hails from the "angry," left-wing of her party.

While speaking to reporters by telephone about President Bush's new budget, Clinton laughed off Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman's recent remarks about her made on ABC News' "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."

The former first lady said Republicans in Washington would be better off focusing on issues like Medicare and Head Start and "adopting different policies instead of talking about matters that have no impact on the lives of the people I represent."

She made similar comments earlier in the day while visiting a Head Start classroom in Manhattan.

While appearing on "This Week," Mehlman departed from Bush's recent characterization of Clinton as a "formidable" presidential candidate and suggested that she would not be successful because voters dislike "angry candidates."

"Hillary Clinton seems to have a lot of anger," Mehlman told Stephanopoulos. "I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates."

He also slammed what he called her "very left-wing" record.

Clinton, who is seeking re-election to the Senate in November, is widely considered to be laying the groundwork for a presidential run in 2008.

She currently leads potential 2008 presidential candidates with $17.1 million in total cash on-hand for a potential White House run, according to Federal Election Commission reports compiled by The Hotline.

The potential 2008 presidential candidates closest to Clinton are Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., with $15.6 million, and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., with $10.8 million. The leading Republican fundraiser at this point is Sen. George Allen, R-Va., with $6.4 million.

Clinton laughed off Mehlman's remarks while attacking the president's 2007 budget as suffering from misplaced priorities.

"The clear message of this budget is, 'You're on your own,'" she said.

RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt responded to Clinton's comments by saying, "We are going to let Ken's statement stand."

ABC News' Dan Nechita and Mike Westling contributed to this report.

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New Voting Machines Await 4 in 5 Voters

1010WINS.com
Study: New Machines Await 4 in 5 Voters

By ROBERT TANNER
AP National Writer

Fewer voters will cast their ballots by punching a card or pulling a lever in this November's elections as the country continues to turn to newer, electronic machines, according to a study released Monday.

While the study says old systems that were prone to error are on their way out, experts also note that means many Americans will be voting on unfamiliar equipment this fall.

At least four out of five registered voters will use the newer generation of machines - either ATM-style touchscreen machines or ones that ask voters to fill in the blanks, a vast change from the contested 2000 presidential election that spurred states and Congress to push for improved equipment.

Back in 2000, just over half the voters had access to the latest technology.

By this fall, however, only one out of 33 voters will be asked to use the system that raised the most objections in Florida - punch cards - and just one in 10 will use a lever machine, according to a survey by Election Data Services, a political consulting firm that tracks election equipment. Six years ago, one in six voters used punch cards and one in five used levers.

The changes are bound to create their own glitches as voters and administrators learn how to use equipment they haven't voted on before, said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data. Just over 30 million voters will be casting ballots on unfamiliar equipment, he said.

"You throw that many people in on something new, you're always bound to see something go wrong," he said.

The changes have created new controversies, especially with accusations that touchscreen-style machines are vulnerable to manipulation. In response, 25 states have passed laws requiring election administrators to use machines that allow voters to verify their vote has been accurately counted, and that create paper receipts for a recount.

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Those paper trails - called voter-verified paper audit trails - are creating their own challenges, as manufacturers try to respond to lawmakers' demands for the equipment, Brace said.

Some of the survey results may change by the time the fall election arrives, the study said, because some states are still trying to change over from older equipment as encouraged by the federal Help America Vote Act, which was passed after the contested 2000 election.

The widespread push to modernize means that, in the six years between November 2000 and this fall's elections, nearly 82 million people in a nation of 170 million registered voters will have cast ballots on new equipment, the study concludes.

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Dutch state to return Nazi loot

BBC NEWS
Dutch state to return Nazi loot

The Dutch state is to return 202 famous paintings worth millions of euros to the family of a Jewish art collector who died while fleeing the Nazis.

Jacques Goudstikker's collection was seized by the Nazi German authorities after their troops occupied the Netherlands in 1940.

The collection includes works by 17th-Century Dutch and Italian masters.

A Dutch junior minister said no compensation would be paid to the museums currently housing them.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Medy van der Laan, acknowledged that "it is a big loss for the museums". Some are displayed at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.

After the war, the Allies handed the Goudstikker collection over to the Dutch state.

The collection includes works by Dutch masters Van Ruysdael, Van Goyen and Van Dyck.

After years of wrangling, an official restitution commission recommended that the 202 works should be returned to Goudstikker's daughter-in-law Marei von Saher.

She had appealed to the Dutch government for the works in 1998.

A further 40 artworks will stay in the Netherlands, as their ownership is in doubt, and another 21 were deemed to have been surrendered under an agreement the Goudstikkers made with the Dutch government in 1952.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4686966.stm

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Q and A about Bush's $2.77 trillion budget

Reuters
Q and A about Bush's $2.77 trillion budget

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Following are questions and answers on U.S. President George W. Bush's $2.77 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2007 unveiled on Monday.

HOW BIG ARE THE DEFICITS EXPECTED TO BE?

-- The blueprint forecasts a record $423 billion deficit this year. But the White House sees it shrinking to $354 billion in 2007, $223 billion in 2008 and $205 billion by 2011.

-- The plan expects the deficit to narrow to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, 1.5 percent in 2008 and 1.2 percent by 2011, from a 3.2 percent share of GDP this year.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE DEBT?

-- The total federal debt would swell to $11.5 trillion in 2011 from $8.6 trillion this year.

HOW IS MEDICARE AFFECTED?

-- Bush would wring $36 billion in savings from the Medicare health program for the elderly and disabled over five years, slowing annual spending growth to 7.5 percent from 7.8 percent.

-- Proposed savings mostly come from curbing payments to hospitals and other providers. Medicare faces growing financial pressures as the baby boom generation ages.

WHAT DOES BUSH SEEK FOR DEFENSE, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN?

-- Bush proposed a record $439.3 billion defense budget, up 4.8 percent.

-- On top of that, the White House will seek a new infusion this year of $70 billion in emergency funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Total war spending for 2006 is $120 billion, the single biggest discretionary item in the budget. The $70 billion in emergency funds is in addition to $50 billion that Congress already approved.

WILL AGRICULTURE BE CUT?

-- For the second year in a row, Bush proposed an across-the-board cut in farm payments and a $250,000 a year limit on payments per farmer.

-- The cuts would save $10 billion over 10 years. Congress rejected a nearly identical package of USDA cuts last year.

WHAT IS PROPOSED FOR FOREIGN AID?

-- U.S. foreign assistance, excluding food aid, would rise 14 percent.

-- Programs funding everything from child health care to foreign military sales and debt relief would rise to $23.7 billion in fiscal 2007, up from an estimated $20.9 billion.

-- Bush would spend $4 billion to fight AIDS and HIV globally, a $740 million increase.

WHAT IS PLANNED FOR ENERGY PROGRAMS?

-- Bush did not seek money to boost capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Congress is requiring the Bush administration to add almost 300 million barrels to the emergency oil stockpile.

-- The budget proposed $250 million in research funds to restart a controversial program that would reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

-- Bush sought to allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and assumed a windfall from money that would be collected in leasing fees from energy companies.

WHAT ABOUT EDUCATION?

-- The overall education budget would take a 3.8 percent cut.

-- Bush wants fresh money for what he calls his competitive initiative, including boosting math and science teaching in public schools and high-tech training.

-- But some programs deemed not essential would be cut, including a vocational training program and a college preparatory program for low-income families.

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Senate to vote Tuesday on asbestos debate

Reuters
Senate to vote Tuesday on asbestos debate

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate set a vote for Tuesday on whether to consider a bill to halt asbestos lawsuits as senators hurled verbal brickbats over the legislation and the intense lobbying it has engendered.

"I can't stand this legislation," fumed Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who opposed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's attempt to bring the bill up for debate on Monday.

Asbestos fibers are linked to lung-scarring diseases, including cancer. Hundreds of thousands of injury claims have clogged courtroom dockets and helped push into bankruptcy proceedings more than 70 U.S. companies, including W.R. Grace & Co. and USG Corp..

Reid called the plan to create a $140 billion fund to compensate victims of asbestos-related diseases a "terrible" proposal. He said the bill was on the Senate floor only because lobbyists representing some companies that would benefit had spent over $144 million "lobbying to get it here."

His comments incensed the legislation's Republican sponsor, Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter.

"To accuse us to have been pawns in the hands of lobbyists is beyond slander, beyond insult, beyond outrage," Specter said.

The bill, sponsored by Specter and Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy, would pay victims from a $140 billion fund financed by asbestos defendant companies and their insurers.

Frist wants the Senate to consider the bill this week, but under Senate rules, if a senator objects to a bill coming up, there must be a procedural vote. At least 60 votes will be needed to go ahead with the debate. The vote was set for Tuesday at 6 p.m. (2300 GMT), Frist said.

Reid said the legislation did not do enough to provide for victims of asbestos-related diseases, while limiting the asbestos liabilities of a number of large corporations.

He said he did not know if he had enough votes to stop the bill, but that five Republicans had told him they would side with him. There are 55 Republicans in the 100-seat Senate.

Specter countered that a fund would help asbestos victims who were unable to collect from bankrupt companies or forced to wait months to have cases heard in court.

Specter did not say whether he thought he could muster 60 votes to keep the bill on the floor. But his Democratic co-sponsor, Leahy, urged colleagues to support the bill.

"What we have achieved is a significant and needed step toward a more efficient and more equitable method to compensate asbestos victims," Leahy said.

After speaking, Leahy left the Senate to visit a new grandchild, but an aide said he would be back for the vote on Tuesday evening.

The measure passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in May with three Democratic votes among its backers, but it has divided lawmakers from both parties, split industry groups and struggled to gain momentum.

Stocks of companies with asbestos liabilities closed lower on Monday afternoon. W.R. Grace shares were down 5.41 percent to $12.77 each. USG was down 5.36 percent to $91.20.

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The Pusher Plagiarizes "Addiction to Oil"

HuffingtonPost.com
The Pusher Plagiarizes "Addiction to Oil"
Lawrence Bender

I'm one of those people who don't blog much because I'm not a facile writer and it's just hard for me to slow down at the computer in this multi tasking world to organize my thoughts. But I have not been able to stop fuming after the state of the union address last week. To watch the number one PUSHER, George Bush, talk about our "addiction to oil" just made me blow a proverbial gasket. First of all, this problem is no joke. We consume world wide about 80 million barrels of oil a day and 25% is consumed in this country and yet for the last 5 years, this administration has only helped push that consumption rate higher.

Let me back up and just say it was only a few years ago that along with Arianna Huffington, Laurie David, Arie Emmanuel, and Scott Burns, we shot a series of TV spots that said exactly that: America is addicted to oil and we had better kick that addiction quick. Why....for our National Security, for the problem of global warming, to help create millions of new jobs with renewable energy technologies, and for our health. We were willing to pay for the airtime, but we were banned from airing these spots by all the local affiliates. Because of the ban, the spots were picked up as news and we found ourselves in debate -- of course -- with the right wing shows such as Neal Cavutto, Tony Snow and others.....They were calling us unpatriotic.

How dare we ask people to buy smaller cars??? Everyone has the right to buy an SUV!!!! Well, the bottom line is unless we get ourselves off of this addiction, we will always be at the whim of places like Iran, and the level of CO2 in our atmosphere will create a planetary emergency that makes Katrina seem mild.

So now the President plagiarizes our language....(something I wish the Democrats would start doing). A brilliant move to confuse everyone into thinking he really "means it". The problem is, this is the biggest issue facing not only us but the world right now. Our consumption of oil and its effect on National Security and global warming. Let's hope everyone really recognizes it and doesn't just pay it lip service.

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King George or President Bush? Shout It From the Ramparts

HuffingtonPost.com
King George or President Bush? Shout It From the Ramparts
Miles Mogulescu

The Senate Democrats got things spectacularly wrong in their handling of the Alito nomination. Take a look at the February 2nd Washington Post article entitled "REPUBLICANS WERE MASTERS IN THE RACE TO PAINT ALITO: Democrat's Portrayal Failed to Sway the Public". Let's hope they can do better in the hearings about Bush's warrantless domestic wiretaps which start on Monday, February 6.

The Democrats let the Bush Administration frame the Alito confirmation debate from the moment Bush nominated him: The role of a judge is to interpret the law, not make the law. It's a question of competency. If a nominee is intelligent, shines his shoes, loves his family, and shows a passing knowledge of constitutional history, then how dare you question him on judicial philosophy--You're asking a judge to promise how he'll vote and we'll damn well hear none of that. Besides, you're making his wife cry.

Within minutes of the Alito nomination, the Republicans and their Christian right supporters went into high gear repeating this simple message over and over through the Republican noise machine and into the mainstream media. Within days, the mainstream media adopted this frame and proclaimed Alito's confirmation as an inevitability. The wind was taken out of the Democrats' sails before they even had a chance to get started. They were never able to frame a coherent alternate story. By the time the hearings were over, half the Democrats refused to filibuster and the other half did so with little heart. It was a massacre by a President with 40% approval ratings and left the Democrats looking weak, divided and helpless. As a result of the Democrats' failure, we now face a 4th hard right Justice who likely will participate in reducing the rights of American citizens for the next 30 years. Even if the Democrats regain control of Congress and the Presidency, a right wing Supreme Court may block many of their initiatives for years to come.

The Judiciary Committee hearings on President Bush's warrantless wiretapping give Congressional Democrats a chance to redeem themselves. But they, and their allies among progressive organizations, media and the blogosphere, will have to frame the issue for the public and the mainstream media quickly, before the Bush Administration's frame is set in concrete.

In his State of the Union address, Bush stated "If there are people inside our country who are talking with Al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again." Expect to hear this simple refrain over and over again from Bush surrogates, conservative pundits and then the mainstream media. Bush is for aggressively preventing another terrorist attack. Those who question warrantless wiretaps on Constitutional grounds are weak on national security and use legal technicalities to try and prevent the President from defending America. Karl Rove has already said he wants to use the "us strong, you weak" mantra yet again to prevent Democratic gains in the '06 congressional elections.

Bush wants the public to see this as an issue of security versus weakness. The Democrats must get the public to see it as an issue of law versus lawlessness.

Let's get one Republican canard off the table right away. Of course everyone wants to know what Al Qaeda and its allies are talking to each other about. The simple response is that this can be done legally and efficiently with a FISA warrant which can be quickly and easily obtained, even 72 hours after the wiretapping begins.

The real question is do we want a President to obey the law or break the law? Do we want a Constitutional republic or a Presidential dictatorship? Is it King George or President Bush?

So, repeat these few simple phrases after me: King George or President Bush? Constitutional democracy or Presidential dictatorship? Law vs. lawlessness. Let's shout it from the ramparts, repeat it over and over on talk shows, in newspaper columns, in letters to the editor and in the blogosphere. Mobilize the grassroots. The United States is a democracy, not a monarchy, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that it stays that way. This is our sacred duty as a free people.

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Key Republican Senator Specter Questions Attorney General's Justification for Domestic Spying Program

ABC News
Specter Criticizes Rationale for Spying
Key Republican Senator Questions Attorney General's Justification for Domestic Spying Program
By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not adequately justified why the Bush administration failed to seek court approval for domestic surveillance, said the senator in charge of a hearing Monday on the program.

Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday he believes that President Bush violated a 1978 law specifically calling for a secret court to consider and approve such monitoring. The Pennsylvania Republican branded Gonzales' explanations to date as "strained and unrealistic."

The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, predicted that the committee would have to subpoena the administration to obtain internal documents that lay out the legal basis for the program. Justice Department officials have declined, citing in part the confidential nature of legal communications.

Specter said he would have his committee consider such a step if the attorney general does not go beyond his prior statements and prepared testimony that the spying is legal, necessary and narrowly defined to fight terrorists.

"This issue of the foreign intelligence surveillance court is really big, big, big because the president, the administration, could take this entire program and lay it on the line to that court," Specter told NBC's "Meet the Press."

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 established legal procedures for conducting intelligence-related searches and surveillance inside the United States.

Specter said the FISA court "has really an outstanding record of not leaking, and of being experts. And they would be pre-eminently well-qualified to evaluate this program and either say it's OK or it's not OK."

Leahy charged that Bush misled the public when he said during the presidential campaign in April 2004 that his administration was following the law by getting warrants for wiretapping.

"I think ultimately we're going to have to subpoena them," Leahy said on CBS' "Face the Nation," expressing doubt that lawmakers would get the material otherwise.

Under the National Security Agency program put in place after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government has eavesdropped, without seeking warrants, on international phone calls and e-mails of people within the United States who are deemed to be a terrorism risk.

In testimony prepared for Monday's hearing, Gonzales argues that Bush had authority under a 2001 congressional resolution authorizing force in the fight against terrorism and that heeding the 1978 law would be too cumbersome.

"The terrorist surveillance program operated by the NSA requires the maximum in speed and agility, since even a very short delay may make the difference between success and failure in preventing the next attack," Gonzales said in statements obtained by The Associated Press.

Specter was not so sure.

"I believe that contention is very strained and unrealistic," Specter said. If the FISA law was inadequate, he said, Bush should have asked Congress to change it rather than ignore it. "The authorization for the use of force doesn't say anything about electronic surveillance."

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., was expected to press Gonzales on why, during Gonzales' confirmation hearings last year to be attorney general, he dismissed as "hypothetical" a situation in which the government conducted warrantless eavesdropping. The NSA program was long in place by then, and Gonzales was White House counsel.

Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, in a letter Friday to Feingold, said Gonzales was referring to as "hypothetical" the idea that Bush would allow warrantless monitoring that was illegal.

That statement is accurate, Moschella wrote in a letter obtained by the AP, because the administration's position is that Bush had legal authority under the 2001 congressional resolution.

Gonzales has acknowledged disagreement with former Justice Department officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft and Deputy Attorney General James Comey, about the legality of the program.

In responses to written questions from Specter, Gonzales challenged media portrayals about the scope of the spy program, saying it is not "a dragnet that sucks in all conversations and uses computer searches to pick out calls of interest."

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported Sunday that the program involves computers sifting through hundreds of thousands of communications to select for human review. The program has resulted in thousands of conversations in which someone in the U.S. has been at least briefly monitored, the Post said.

The Post report said that nearly all of them were quickly dismissed as insignificant and that perhaps no more than 10 solid leads a year have been pursued with further domestic surveillance, usually with a court warrant.

But Gen. Michael Hayden, the No. 2 intelligence official in the government, said it was "not true" that "we somehow grab the content of communications and then use the content of the communications to determine which of the communications we really want to listen to."

"When NSA goes after the content of a communication under this authorization from the president, the NSA has already established its reasons for being interested in that specific communication," Hayden said on "Fox News Sunday."

In addition to possibly pursuing documents about the program's legal basis, Specter said he might seek testimony from Ashcroft and Comey.

"If we come to it and we need it, I'll be open about it," Specter said, referring to subpoenas. "If the necessity arises, I won't be timid."

Specter also said the administration should tread carefully when it came to using subpoenas against journalists to investigate leaks of classified information. The New York Times in December disclosed the existence of the NSA program, which is classified.

"I think if you move into the area of really serious national security issues, that there may be a justification for it," he said.

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US triples spending to stop Iraq bomb attacks

Reuters
US triples spending to stop Iraq bomb attacks-NYT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is tripling its spending to about $3.5 billion, on a newly expanded effort to combat the rising number of increasingly powerful homemade bombs that are the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in Iraq, The New York Times reported on its Web site on Sunday.

The move is a tacit acknowledgment that despite years of rising death tolls from the devices, the response has not been sufficiently focused or coordinated at the highest levels, the Times said.

Last year, 407 of the 846 Americans killed in Iraq were killed by the bombs, which are called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the report said. The number of IEDs against allied and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians nearly doubled last year from 2004 to 10,593.

The intensified effort to combat the makeshift bombs, which at one time was led by a one-star general, was recently put under a retired four-star Army general, Montgomery Meigs, the Times said, citing interviews with a dozen military officials.

In the next few months, the Defense Department plans to double the number of technical, forensic and intelligence specialists assigned to the problem, to about 360 military service members and contractors in the United States and Iraq, the paper said.

Hundreds of other experts are being called in and new technology and training techniques are also quickly being pushed into service, The Times reported.

Some of the most deadly bombs use shaped charges, which penetrate armor by focusing explosive power in a single direction and by firing a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed.

U.S. intelligence officials say the most potent of these new weapons have been designed in Iran and shipped to Iraq, the paper said.

In 2005, the budget for the Pentagon's IED task force was $1.2 billion, double the previous year's. The details of this year's budget are still being refined, at about $3.5 billion, but senior officials say they essentially have a blank check, The Times said.

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Isn't He Our Dealer?

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It's Official: He Sees His Shadow

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Authorized Study

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Tectonic Plates Shifting

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Misplaced outrage

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Time to drain the cesspool

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Teens Putting Themselves at Risk Online; U.S. Authorities Say Many Teens Are Putting Themselves at Risk on Social Web Sites

ABC News
Teens Putting Themselves at Risk Online
U.S. Authorities Say Many Teens Are Putting Themselves at Risk on Social Web Sites
By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut - On Web sites such as MySpace.com, teenagers can find people around the world who share their love of sports, their passion for photography or their crush on the latest Hollywood star. But authorities say teens are increasingly finding trouble in an online environment where millions of people can, in seconds, find out where they go to school, learn their interests, download their pictures and instantly send them messages.

Police in the central Connecticut city of Middletown suspect that as many as seven girls were recently assaulted by men they met on MySpace. The FBI says it regularly receives calls from police trying to figure out how to stay ahead of popular technology that puts children a mouse click away from millions of strangers.

MySpace, one of several popular social networking sites, is a free service that allows people to create Web sites that can be personalized with information, pictures and movies. Searching for someone is as easy as typing the name of a high school and the photographic results are instantaneous.

"They're licking their lips and arching their back for the camera because they can, and they have no idea of the consequences," said Parry Aftab, an attorney and child advocate who runs WiredSafety.org, a site that helps inform parents and site managers about online predators.

MySpace said in a statement that it includes safety tips and prohibits children under 14 from using the site. Aftab said MySpace, a subsidiary of News Corp., has a great reputation for trying to keep the site safe.

Some teens keep their personal profiles scant, aimed only at their friends. Others describe their likes and dislikes, from the mundane to the profane, and encourage people to send them messages.

"That is a perpetrator's dream come true," said Middletown Police Sgt. Bill McKenna.

McKenna said several Middletown girls, between 12 and 16, told police they met men on the MySpace who claimed to be teenagers. When they met in person, he said, the girls were fondled or had consensual sex with men who turned out to be older than they claimed.

In at least one case, McKenna believes the assault happened at the girl's home while her parents were there.

Last month, 14-year-old Judy Cajuste was found strangled and naked in a Newark, New Jersey, garbage bin and 15-year-old Kayla Reed was found dead in a canal not far from her Livermore, California, home.

Both deaths remain unsolved and the use of MySpace.com has surfaced in both investigations.

As recently as a few years ago, Aftab said the profile of an online victim was a young woman who felt alone, didn't have many friends and craved attention.

Then, in 2002, 13-year-old Christina Long of Danbury was strangled in a Danbury mall parking lot by a 26-year-old man she met on the Internet. Long was a popular cheerleader, a good student and an altar girl. The profile went out the window.

Now, Aftab said, it's no surprise that a wealthy state such as Connecticut is seeing a spate of problems.

"This is a rich and upper-middle-class problem," Aftab said. "They have too much time, too much technology and their parents aren't around to keep an eye on them."

Connecticut's FBI office was the first in New England to launch an online, undercover program to catch sexual predators. Timothy Egan, the squad's supervisor, said parents often don't know their children are using these Web sites or what information is being released. The FBI hopes to train more local officers about these sites in coming months.

Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano, who has strictly limited the information his 10- and 12-year-old children put on the Internet, said he was surprised to learn that they had been contacted by strangers they believed were pedophiles. His kids ignored it, Morano said, but parents need to closely monitor Internet activity.

"You wouldn't leave your kid on the side of the highway without supervision," Morano said. "You shouldn't put them on the Internet highway without the same type of supervision."

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On Capitol Hill, Playing WikiPolitics; Partisanship Tests Web Site's Policies

washingtonpost.com
On Capitol Hill, Playing WikiPolitics
Partisanship Tests Web Site's Policies

By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer

This is what passes for an extreme makeover in Washington: A summer intern for seven-term Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) altered the congressman's profile on the Wikipedia Web site to remove an old promise that he would limit his service to four terms.

Someone doctored Sen. Robert C. Byrd's (D-W.Va.) profile on the site to list his age as 180. (He is 88.) An erroneous entry for Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) claimed that he "was voted the most annoying senator by his peers in Congress."

Last week, Wikipedia temporarily blocked certain Capitol Hill Web addresses from altering any entries in the otherwise wide-open forum. Wikipedia is a vast, growing information database written and maintained solely by volunteers. In December, the database received 4.7 million edits from viewers, of which a relatively small number -- "a couple of thousand," according to founder Jimmy Wales -- constituted vandalism.

As the site becomes one of the most heavily visited spots on the Internet, it's testing the limits of collective smarts and integrity. But when it comes to Washington, where intrigue and passions run high, keeping such a public record is a particular challenge. Not only is there the obvious temptation to tinker with an opponent's bio, there's the whole subjective nature of political truth itself.

When the Wikipedia entry for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) noted that he had criticized the president, for example, someone modified it to say that Reid had "rightfully" criticized the president. Someone also recast the state legislative record of Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), changing a passage reading, "one of her final, failed bills would have made it much more difficult for same-sex parents to see their children in the hospital during an emergency" to the less inflammatory, "Musgrave spent much of her time on social issues, particularly authoring bills to protect children and the traditional definition of marriage, as well as gun owner's rights."

A popular change in recent weeks has been deleting mentions of former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) from politicians' profiles. Politically motivated edits aren't just coming from Capitol Hill; some comments are being traced back to other parts of political Washington, including the Justice Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Navy and Marines.

It seems like the kind of thing that must happen all the time on a site where absolutely anybody can weigh in on any topic. But such online behavior is actually the exception at Wikipedia, Wales said.

Wales started the project five years ago and, on the whole, said the experience has strengthened his faith in humanity. With some notable exceptions. "When somebody writes that Senator so-and-so is a [bad word], we figure that's not a legitimate edit," he said.

"The goal is to give people a free encyclopedia to every person in the world, in their own language," Wales said. "Not just in a 'free beer' kind of way, but also in the free speech kind of way."

Other open-source ventures on the Internet have proven productive; software developers have successfully designed and improved hundreds of online programs like Linux, which is made available for free to the public. Online marketplaces such as eBay Inc. rely on customer-satisfaction ratings to help buyers self-police their communities.

But, human nature being what it is, the experiment doesn't always work. Both the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, for example, have aborted projects that invited open critiques of their editorial content after being deluged with crude comments.

Washington has posed a special problem for Wikipedia, which is monitored by 800 to 1,000 active editor-volunteers. In the recent flare-up, a community of Wikipedia editors read a story in the Lowell Sun newspaper in which staffers for Meehan acknowledged replacing an entry on him with more flattering verbiage. That prompted last week's Capitol Hill Wikipedia blackout; all computers connected to servers at the House of Representatives, identified by a numerical Web address, were denied access.

In Meehan's case, the edits were carried out by an intern who was updating the congressman's profile on his own Web site and altered the existing Wikipedia entry to mirror that, said Sandra Salstrom, a spokeswoman for Meehan. Among other things, the intern deleted an earlier campaign promise by Meehan to retire after four terms.

Wikipedia considers this "whitewashing," a benign edit compared with, say, "bad faith" and "vandal" edits.

Generally, clear violations are taken down within minutes, as was the case with recent commentary on President Bush. (Because of the frequency of attempted vandalism on Bush's site, it is no longer open to editing by new or anonymous Wikipedia users.) In one case, however, an erroneous entry suggesting that John Siegenthaler Sr., a former special assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, had a role in the Kennedy assassinations went unnoticed for four months.

Kat Walsh of Herndon, a bassoonist and Wikipedia editor, said the site dissuades people from editing terms or profiles they feel personally invested in. But it happens, occasionally, and not just in politics: Some companies have tried to beautify their entries by entering press releases, she said.

Even Wales, the Wikipedia founder, has admitted repeatedly editing his own entry, a move he said he did openly but now regrets.

Standard operating procedure is to replace offensive alterations with the original text, and send a warning letter to the user of the Internet address that made the problematic change.

"You have not been blocked because you appear to have refrained from continued vandalism," a sample warning to Senate staffers reads. "We welcome contributions from all possible editors, including staff of the United States Congress. However, please comply with our policies, especially those pertaining to personal attacks and neutrality."

Neutrality can be a tricky or nuanced thing with political terms, which is why disputes are sometimes vetted by mediators and arbitration committees, also made up of volunteers, Wales said.

"Especially with politics, it gets more and more borderline on what's in bad faith or good faith," he said. "Reasonable people can find a way to work together. Unreasonable people get blocked, of course."

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Rove and Bush and Their Non-9/11 Worldview

The Huffington Post
Rove and Bush and Their Non-9/11 Worldview
Gary Hart

For Karl Rove to say, as he did last week, that "Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview" is the greatest irony. Given his position, presumably Rove participated in the decision of the new president Bush to ignore the warnings of the bi-partisan U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century. We warned that terrorists would attack the United States and that "Americans will die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." They ignored our first (of 50) specific recommendations to create a consolidated federal capability to protect our shores in the form of a Department of Homeland Security.

President Bush had this recommendation and warning a full eight months before 9/11 and only acted on it nine months after 9/11. Then, by appointing the infamous "Brownie," he made a hash of it.

The historical record is now clear: the Bush administration neocons were obsessed by Saddam Hussein as they entered office; this obsession did not permit them to take terrorist warnings seriously; they concocted false reasons for invading Iraq; and they have totally mismanaged our unanticipated occupation. They now, finally, call it "the long war." What if they had said that in March, 2003?

So it is totally outrageous for Karl Rove to condemn Democrats (too many of whom voted to invade Iraq.) It is Mr. Rove and president Bush who had a non-9/11

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Why Are the Democrats Helping to Derail the Abramoff Investigation?

The Huffington Post

Why Are the Democrats Helping to Derail the Abramoff Investigation?
Martin Garbus

Seven days ago, after I wrote that Bush was trying to interfere with the Abramoff scandal, we learned the Democratic Senators are now exercised by the possibility that Bush will appoint his own man to take over the investigation.

As you may remember, Noel Hillman, the federal prosecutor was offered a New Jersey Federal Judgeship by Bush.

The Democrat Senators in New Jersey wanted Susan Wingenton to have a New Jersey federal judgeship. Bush said no, I will appoint her only if Hillman is removed as the Abramoff prosecutor.

I propose a deal says Bush, if you agree to remove Hillman, I will appoint Ms. Wingenton to the federal bench along with Mr. Hillman.

The two New Jersey Democratic Senators say yes and the deal is sealed.

Hillman works for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who has the right to appoint his successor.

The Democrats, seemingly only recently came in grips with the fact that they have no control over Hillman's successor.

They are crying for a special prosecutor which may or may not happen.

The Republicans oppose it, there will be a war. The Democrats did not make, as a condition of the deal, that they have any say in deciding on Hillman's successor.

Why did the Democrats put themselves in this position? Was it foolishness or something else?

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Tax Talk Goes Orwellian

The New York Times

Tax Talk Goes Orwellian

President Bush had it exactly backwards in his speech Tuesday night when he exhorted lawmakers to keep cutting taxes. He noted that when the going gets tough, leaders are tempted to take stands that are crowd pleasing yet counterproductive, like championing protectionism in the face of global competition. Fair enough.

But then he warned that in today's uncertain times, lawmakers might even be tempted to do something as weak-kneed as "increasing taxes."

If Mr. Bush is trying to say that tax cutting is politically courageous, that ignores reality. Politicians cut taxes to please the crowd, and they are always and understandably reluctant to vote against a cut or — gasp — vote for a tax increase because that could make them unpopular. Mr. Bush knows that. He was basically warning the assembled lawmakers, actually the Republicans, that they would never make the cheerleading squad if they didn't extend his temporary tax cuts.

We hope Congress will realize that extending the tax cuts would be an act of political cowardice, not courage. The country is already deep in debt, and the tax cuts are largely to blame. In the next two weeks, the administration expects to hit the nation's legal debt limit — $8,184,000,000,000 — and has told Congress it needs to vote to raise the debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion, a 51 percent increase since 2001, when Mr. Bush took office. Congress must raise the limit or the government will default. But Congressional leaders are looking for ways to downplay the vote, precisely because it's a disgrace.

Casting the tax cuts in stone now would be particularly craven because they don't expire for another three to five years. But Mr. Bush and his supporters in Congress are hot to act now. That is because the cuts they want to extend the most — special low tax rates for investment income — overwhelmingly enrich the rich and will be even harder to justify in the years to come, when, by all reasonable estimates, the country's financial outlook will have deteriorated further. The tax cutters are not being brave. They are afraid they won't get their way if they wait.

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Democratic governor calls on Bush to aid manufacturing

USA TODAY

Democratic governor calls on Bush to aid manufacturing

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — President Bush's policies have abandoned workers dependent on manufacturing jobs, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Saturday in the Democrats' weekly radio address.

Granholm called for changes in trade agreements, health care policy and other reforms she said would help businesses, especially automakers crucial to her state.

She said Bush did not offer much help to them in his State of the Union address Tuesday. Then, directing her comments to him, she said:

"So, on behalf of citizens in Michigan and around the country — citizens who may or may not share your views of the state of our union — I ask you, with due respect, to fight for them. Fight for fair trade. Fight for our manufacturers. Fight for our automakers. Fight for our American workers."

Granholm said U.S. businesses need the federal government to enforce international trade agreements, help curb the rising cost of health care and protect pensions.

And she noted that Americans are being squeezed by the high price of gasoline and home heating fuel.

Michigan has been hard hit by a sluggish economy, in part of because of the auto industry's woes. The state's December unemployment rate, 6.7%, was one of the highest in the nation.

Bush unveiled a $5.9 billion "American Competitiveness Initiative" in his State of the Union address.

The plan proposes to bolster basic research at government laboratories, improve math and science instruction in public schools and stimulate corporate technological innovations.

The proposals seek to position America against fast-growing economies like China and India, which place high emphasis on math and science education.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-04-dems-radio-address_x.htm?csp=34

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Feminist pioneer Betty Friedan dies

Reuters
Feminist pioneer Betty Friedan dies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique" helped inspire the modern feminist movement and who co-founded the National Organization for Women, died on Saturday on her 85th birthday, a relative said.

Friedan died at her home in Washington of congestive heart failure, just before 3 p.m.(2000 GMT), her cousin Emily Bazelon told Reuters.

"For Betty, feminism was an aspect of humanism. And one of her sons said this morning that she demonstrated that sheer intelligence could trump lack of intelligence," Bazelon said.

Friedan was born Bettye Naomi Goldstein in Peoria, Illinois, and attended Smith College, a leading women's college in Massachusetts, where she edited a campus paper and graduated with honors in 1942. She attended the University of California, Berkeley for a year before working as a journalist. In 1947, she married Carl Friedan, a marriage that lasted 20 years and produced three children.

"The Feminine Mystique" emerged from an article about a survey she conducted of fellow graduates at Smith and focused on the restrictions on women of the role of full-time homemaker. It became a best-seller and helped invigorate the women's movement and U.S. feminism.

Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women, with Pauli Murray, the first African-American female Episcopal priest and served as its first president from 1966 to 1970.

She also helped found NARAL, originally the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws.

Her other books included "The Second Stage, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement," and "The Fountain of Age."

She is survived by two sons and a daughter, nine grandchildren, a brother and a sister. Her funeral is planned for 11 a.m. on Monday at Riverside Funeral Chapel in New York.

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Bush to propose Medicare cuts

Reuters
Bush to propose Medicare savings measures: NY Times

NEW YORK, Feb 4 (Reuters ) - President Bush will propose substantial savings in Medicare in his budget next week as part of his efforts to rein in the increasing costs of social insurance programs, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Citing administration officials and health care lobbyists, the Times said Bush's plan aimed to reduce projected Medicare payments to hospitals and other health care providers by billions over the next five years, and that it will seek further increases in Medicare premiums for high-income people beyond those scheduled to take effect next year.

According to the newspaper, administration officials, Congressional aides and lobbyists said the president was contemplating a package of proposals that would cut the projected growth in Medicare spending by $30 billion to $35 billion in the next five years, or less than 1.5 percent of total Medicare spending in that time frame.

Many of the Medicare proposals in the budget, which Bush plans to send to Congress on Monday, follow recommendations from an independent federal panel called the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the Times said.

The panel said in January that hospitals need not be fully compensated for the increased costs of the goods and services they use, but instead could manage with a smaller increase if they became more efficient.

The Times quoted Jack Ashby, a research director at the commission, as saying, "We expect the recommendation to have no effect on hospitals' ability to furnish care to Medicare beneficiaries." But Richard J. Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association, said the cutback could damage the quality of hospital care, it said.

Bush's 2007 budget also calls for a freeze in Medicare payments to nursing homes and home health agencies, in line with the commission's recommendations, the Times said, and also proposes a cut in payments for oxygen equipment provided to Medicare beneficiaries.

The budget does not seek changes in Medicare payments for doctors, which were frozen this year, the Times said. Under current law they will be cut more than 4 percent next year.

Regarding high income beneficiaries, under current law anyone with more than $80,000 of annual income will have to pay higher premiums in 2007 and later years, and people with incomes of $100,000 to $150,000 would see their premiums more than double.

A spokesman for the National Association for Home Care said a freeze in Medicare payments to home care agencies in 2007, coming on top of a freeze this year, would reduce access to services for patients in some parts of the country.

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New Details Revealed on C.I.A. Leak Case

The New York Times
New Details Revealed on C.I.A. Leak Case
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff told prosecutors that Mr. Cheney had informed him "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June 2003 about the identity of the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak case, according to a formerly secret legal opinion, parts of which were made public on Friday.

The newly released pages were part of a legal opinion written in February 2005 by Judge David S. Tatel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. His opinion disclosed that the former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., acknowledged to prosecutors that he had heard directly from Mr. Cheney about the Central Intelligence Agency officer, Valerie Wilson, more than a month before her identity was first publicly disclosed on July 14, 2003, by a newspaper columnist.

"Nevertheless," Judge Tatel wrote, "Libby maintains that he was learning about Wilson's wife's identity for the first time when he spoke with NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert on July 10 or 11." Mr. Russert denied Mr. Libby's account. Ms. Wilson is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who has criticized the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

Over all, the new material amplified and provided new details on charges outlined in the October 2005 indictment against Mr. Libby. The indictment accused Mr. Libby of falsely telling investigators that he had first learned about Ms. Wilson from reporters, when he had, according to the charging document, learned of it from other government officials like Mr. Cheney.

Mr. Libby appeared in federal court in Washington on Friday for the first time in several months. A federal trial judge, Reggie B. Walton, set a calendar that means Mr. Libby's trial will not begin for at least 11 months, with jury selection to begin on Jan. 8, 2007.

Judge Walton had hoped to start the trial in the fall of 2006 but Mr. Libby's chief lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., said he would be involved in another trial at that time.

Judge Tatel's comments in the formerly secret legal opinion were largely drawn from affidavits supplied by the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, that were written nearly two years ago, in August 2004. At that time, Mr. Fitzgerald was seeking to compel grand jury testimony from two reporters, Judith Miller, then a reporter for The New York Times, and Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine.

By that point, the newly disclosed pages showed, Mr. Fitzgerald had centered his inquiry on possible perjury charges against Mr. Libby, although that was not publicly known at the time. Mr. Fitzgerald had abandoned a prosecution based on a federal law that makes it a crime to disclose the identity of a covert officer at the C.I.A. Such charges, Judge Tatel wrote, were "currently off the table for lack of evidence."

Judge Tatel wrote his opinion as part of a unanimous decision by the three-judge panel which ruled on Feb. 15, 2005, that Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper had potentially vital evidentiary information and could not refuse to testify to the grand jury in the leak case on First Amendment grounds.

In a separate affidavit filed by Mr. Fitzgerald and disclosed Friday, the prosecutor wrote that Mr. Libby had testified that he had forgotten the conversation with Mr. Cheney when he talked to Mr. Russert. "Further according to Mr. Libby, he did not recall his conversation with the Vice President even when Russert allegedly told him about Wilson's wife's employment."

About eight pages of Judge Tatel's concurring opinion were deleted from the opinion released in 2005. After Mr. Libby's indictment, lawyers for The Wall Street Journal went to court and succeeded in obtaining the material released Friday by order of the same three-judge panel.

Not all of the previously withheld material was released. Several pages, which apparently contained information about Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation of Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, remained under seal. Mr. Rove has not been charged, but remains under investigation although his lawyer has expressed confidence that Mr. Rove will be cleared.

The release of new material represented an important First Amendment ruling for the right of public access to court records, said Theodore J. Boutros Jr., a lawyer for The Journal. "We're pleased that the court recognized that grand jury secrecy is not absolute and that there's an important public interest in the public being able to scrutinize the basis for a judicial decision."

The newly disclosed information provides new details about other events, like a previously reported lunch on July 7, 2003, in which Mr. Libby told Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, about Ms. Wilson.

In his opinion, Judge Tatel said that Mr. Fleischer said that Mr. Libby had told him that Ms. Wilson sent had her husband on a trip to Africa to examine intelligence reports indicating that Iraq had sought to buy uranium ore from Niger.

Judge Tatel wrote that Mr. Fleischer had described the lunch to prosecutors as having been "kind of weird" and had noted that Mr. Libby typically "operated in a very closed-lip fashion." Judge Tatel added: "Fleischer recalled that Libby 'added something along the lines of, you know, this is hush hush, nobody knows about this. This is on the q.t.' "

Neil A. Lewis contributed reporting for this article.

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Halliburton Subsidiary Gets Contract to Add Temporary Immigration Detention Centers

The New York Times
Halliburton Subsidiary Gets Contract to Add Temporary Immigration Detention Centers
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq.

KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said. KBR, which announced the contract last month, had a similar contract with immigration agencies from 2000 to last year.

The contract with the Corps of Engineers runs one year, with four optional one-year extensions. Officials of the corps said that they had solicited bids and that KBR was the lone responder.

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jamie Zuieback, said KBR would build the centers only in an emergency like the one when thousands of Cubans floated on rafts to the United States. She emphasized that the centers might never be built if such an emergency did not arise.

"It's the type of contract that could be used in some kind of mass migration," Ms. Zuieback said.

A spokesman for the corps, Clayton Church, said that the centers could be at unused military sites or temporary structures and that each one would hold up to 5,000 people.

"When there's a large influx of people into the United States, how are we going to feed, house and protect them?" Mr. Church asked. "That's why these kinds of contracts are there."

Mr. Church said that KBR did not end up creating immigration centers under its previous contract, but that it did build temporary shelters for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

Federal auditors rebuked the company for unsubstantiated billing in its Iraq reconstruction contracts, and it has been criticized because of accusations that Halliburton, led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, was aided by connections in obtaining contracts. Halliburton executives denied that they charged excessively for the work in Iraq.

Mr. Church said concerns about the Iraq contracts did not affect the awarding of the new contract.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who has monitored the company, called the contract worrisome.

"With Halliburton's ever expanding track record of overcharging, it's hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars," Mr. Waxman said. "With each new contract, the need for real oversight grows."

In recent months, the Homeland Security Department has promised to increase bed space in its detention centers to hold thousands of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. In the first quarter of the 2006 fiscal year, nearly 60 percent of the illegal immigrants apprehended from countries other than Mexico were released on their own recognizance.

Domestic security officials have promised to end the releases by increasing the number of detention beds. Last week, domestic security officials announced that they would expand detaining and swiftly deporting illegal immigrants to include those seized near the Canadian border.

Advocates for immigrants said they feared that the new contract was another indication that the government planned to expand the detention of illegal immigrants, including those seeking asylum.

"It's pretty obvious that the intent of the government is to detain more and more people and to expedite their removal," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.

Ms. Zuieback said the KBR contract was not intended for that.

"It's not part of any day-to-day enforcement," she said.

She added that she could not provide additional information about the company's statement that the contract was also meant to support the rapid development of new programs.

Halliburton executives, who announced the contract last week, said they were pleased.

"We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract," an executive vice president, Bruce Stanski, said in a statement, "because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency management support."

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