The Shootist

huffingtonpost.com
The Shootist
Stan Goff

Right-wing diehards are trying very hard to "move on" about Dick Cheney shooting his rich hunting buddy. But there are moralists from left of the midline who are making the demand to back off on Cheney's mishap, albeit in a more oblique way.

"He has committed many worse crimes," the grievance goes. "Why should we focus on this?"

I'll tell you why.

This is the age of postmodern politics -- the age of impression management. This is the time when the narrative is used to trump reality. No doubt perfidy has always characterized politics, but the good old days of no-bullshit thuggery and patrician patronage has given way to the construction of puerile caricatures. And many thought that Bush was the mediocre narcissist who liked to dress up in flight suits and caper across the decks of aircraft carriers.

This incident exposes Cheney himself as just another costumed buffoon, and not the Darth Vader figure he and his desperately insecure admirers seemed to relish.

Gender is the elephant in the political living room, of course.

This is an administration who ran election campaigns that would make a Louisiana police chief blush; and they did it by constructing George W. Bush -- a besotted pampered frat boy from a wealthy political dynasty -- as a cowboy.

Dick Cheney has constructed himself as a hunter... consistent with his supposedly intimidating predator image.

These are hegemonic masculinities, but only in the most theatrical sense. The cowboy and the hunter are idealized archetypes from a mythical past.

One need merely note the symbolic exhibitionism of consumer masculinity all around us to see why this has been so politically effective. Gym-rat WWF musculatures that don't exist in nature, SUVs the size of small tanks jacked up on giant wheels, t-shirts that declare "Insurance by Smith and Wesson," and as we scale the class ladder the more subtly stated accoutrements of masculine dominance, from the "corrective" tailoring of the man's suit to the Valexta briefcase. Masculinity itself is more often than not a game of dress-up, a pose, the ultimate life sentence of tough-guy theatricality for men.

In an era when even the American male working class is as commonly found in an office cubicle as a factory, when we spend an average of 7.5 hours a day in our homes with televisions on, drinking in this cognitive data stream of fantasy gender-norms, when we live in places called Fox Run with no foxes, Deer Park with no deer, Sleepy Hollow
that is in fact a bulldozed lot built over with masonite boxes, its little wonder that even the old oppressive masculinities -- at least actually connected with where one lived and what one did for a living -- have given way to costume-consumer masculinity. It is also little wonder that people can successfully run for king of the country in this reverse-drag as one of the mytho-erotic archetypes.

Cowboy. Hunter.

The Bush campaign mounted a billboard in Texas during the Bush-Kerry contest. One one side of the billboard was a pair of cowboy boots. On the other, a pair of shower shoes -- also known as... flip-flops. The designer of this billboard had tapped directly into the American white male psyche, and these two sets of footgear were positively wading in gendered (and racialized) subtexts. The archetypical impressions defeated the comparative military records hands down.

Cowboys and hunters, lest we forget, in the American mythology are white archetypes, too.

The Republican Party snatched the mantle of "party of white supremacy" from the southern Democrats with Nixon's Southern Strategy. But it was also the mantle of white male supremacy. This has been its core organizing principle ever since -- even though it has to code this principle to avoid throwing its constituents into open polarization with the rest of society.

White men with big hats and guns have seldom been a welcome sight to Black men or women.

Dick Cheney loves photo ops with guns, whether accepting a Dan'l Boone muzzle-loader at an NRA Convention or having the cameras chase him around while he shoots farm-raised animals on hunting preserves. Cheney shot 70 confined, semi-domesticated pheasants in one day at the Rolling Rock Club and Game Preserve in Pennsylvania, a place for men who wear those power suits to demonstrate their ability to kill and dress up like "woodsmen."

The fact that this is a country where a large number of men -- many who vote Republican -- actually do have more than passing familiarity with firearms, and actually know the basic safety measures that are required to properly handle them, is now a problem for Dick Cheney. Many of us learned firearms in the military, and since the mid-eighties there have been very sharp penalties in the military for "accidental discharges." The military learned, slower than most, that there are two simple rules that will prevent the accidental discharge of a weapon and the collateral damage that can result.

(1) Never place your finger on the trigger until you have aligned the sights on a target.

(2) Never point the weapon at anything until you have identified it as something you intend to shoot.

However pathological the macho death-cult of guns is in this country, the people who have taken the trouble to learn anything about firearms at all now know that Cheney is what my dad used to call a pig-hunter and a fool that traipsed around after his "one beer" lunch on the quail preserve with his finger on the trigger. He's no more a hunter than Bush is a cowboy.

He's just another stupid, pampered, autocratic narcissist like Bush -- bullshitting his way through high office -- and leaving bodies in his wake with as little concern for them as he does for 70 pheasants. In the age of postmodern politics, when the impression is sovereign, the gendered spell is broken for a moment when the costume slips.

That's why I relish every jibe and joke, and I hope people milk this incident for all its worth. I oppose male power, and white power, and the reign of narcissists. With every grant of legitimacy, we grant power. Ridicule is a potent political weapon. It is a form of resistance.

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Bush Administration's War Spending Nears Half Trillion Dollars

ABC News
Bush Administration's War Spending Nears Half Trillion Dollars
President Asks Taxpayers for Another $65 Billion for Iraq and Afghanistan

Feb. 16, 2006 — - In a single year, it is difficult to measure overall progress in the war on terror. But ABC News has learned today that President Bush will ask Congress for an additional $65.3 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It brings the total funds requested this year to more than $110 billion for those operations.

This is fourth time in three years that the Bush administration has asked for additional funds for Iraq and Afghanistan, and this time the figure is even higher than expected.

The $65 billion requested is $2 billion higher than expected.

Of that amount, $38 billion will be spent for ongoing military operations, with $11 billion going to repair and replenish war-fighting equipment ravaged by wear and tear.

Another $1.9 billion is allocated for protecting against improvised explosive devices.

The blizzard of numbers boils down to nearly $7 billion a month.

"I'm still stunned that there's no downward motion at all in the monthly costs. And clearly in 2006, the administration plans on no end in sight to that," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.

This increase would bring the cost of the war thus far to $400 billion -- a far cry from the administration's original estimates.

Cost Estimates Were Off the Mark

Just before the invasion of Iraq in 2002, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsay estimated the cost would be $100 billion to $200 billion.

That estimate was later dismissed by Mitch Daniels, then director of the Office of Management and Budget, who said costs would be between $50 billion to $60 billion.

Today Democratic lawmakers called for the president to provide more information about spending on the war.

"The president has a responsibility," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "He has to tell us the true costs of the war."

"I am very concerned that we are going to be asked for a boatload of additional funding," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

The money from this supplemental request is expected to keep operations going only for the next eight months. The White House has already said an additional $50 billion for Iraq will likely be requested later this year.

ABC News' Martha Raddatz filed this report for "World News Tonight."

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Judge orders response on eavesdropping records

Reuters
Judge orders response on eavesdropping records

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department must respond within 20 days to requests by a civil liberties group for documents about President George W. Bush's domestic eavesdropping program, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

The ruling was a victory for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which sued the department under the Freedom of Information Act in seeking the release of the documents.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ordered the department to finish processing the group's requests and produce or identify all records within 20 days.

"Given the great public and media attention that the government's warrantless surveillance program has garnered and the recent hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the public interest is particularly well served by the timely release of the requested documents," he said.

Kennedy also ordered the department to give the center a document index and declaration stating its justification for withholding any documents within 30 days.

David Sobel, the group's general counsel, said, "The court's opinion vindicates the public's right to know about an extremely invasive and potentially illegal government program."

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a similar lawsuit, said, "Now the Justice Department must turn over documents showing the extent of the ... warrantless domestic surveillance program."

The Justice Department said its lawyers were reviewing the judges's ruling.

"The Department of Justice has been extremely forthcoming in providing documents and information about the administration's legal authorities for the terrorist surveillance program and the department will continue to meet its obligations under FOIA," spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said.

The Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center sought documents from four Justice Department offices, including the office of the attorney general, after The New York Times first reported the eavesdropping program's existence on December 16.

It argued that the department played a key role in authorizing, implementing and overseeing the program, which involves surveillance by the National Security Agency.

Records sought by the group include an audit of the program, a "checklist" guide used to determine whether an individual's phone or e-mail messages could be monitored, documents showing how information gleaned through eavesdropping had been used, and other legal opinions about the program.

The program, adopted by Bush after the September 11 attacks, allows the monitoring of international communications into and out of the United States of persons linked to al Qaeda or related terrorist groups.

Disclosure of the program has sparked criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, with many lawmakers questioning whether Bush overstepped his authority. Civil liberties groups have filed lawsuits challenging the program's legality.

The Justice Department had told the electronic privacy center it would process its requests for documents quickly, but never gave an anticipated completion date.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Charles and David Morgan)

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Senate Rejects Wiretapping Probe; But Judge Orders Justice Department to Turn Over Documents

washingtonpost.com
Senate Rejects Wiretapping Probe
But Judge Orders Justice Department to Turn Over Documents

By Charles Babington and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers

The Bush administration helped derail a Senate bid to investigate a warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday after signaling it would reject Congress's request to have former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and other officials testify about the program's legality. The actions underscored a dramatic and possibly permanent drop in momentum for a congressional inquiry, which had seemed likely two months ago.

Senate Democrats said the Republican-led Congress was abdicating its obligations to oversee a controversial program in which the National Security Agency has monitored perhaps thousands of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents and foreign parties without obtaining warrants from a secret court that handles such matters.

"It is more than apparent to me that the White House has applied heavy pressure in recent days, in recent weeks, to prevent the committee from doing its job," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the intelligence committee, said after the panel voted along party lines not to consider his motion for an investigation.

There was one setback, however, to the administration's efforts to keep tight wraps on the NSA operation. Yesterday, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to turn over its internal documents and legal opinions about the program within 20 days -- or explain its reasons for refusing.

Before yesterday's closed-door meeting of the intelligence panel began, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the NSA program does not require "congressional authorization" but that the administration is "open to ideas regarding legislation." Committee sources said such comments -- characterized as meaningful by Republicans but empty by Democrats -- apparently persuaded GOP moderates to back away from earlier calls for a congressional investigation into the program.

After the meeting, Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told reporters: "The administration is now committed to legislation and has agreed to brief more intelligence committee members on the nature of the surveillance program. The details of this agreement will take some time to work out."

Democrats said the administration's overture is so vague that it amounts to nothing, calling it a stalling tactic to give Republican lawmakers political cover for rejecting a full inquiry. "For the past three years, the Senate intelligence committee has avoided carrying out its oversight of our nation's intelligence programs whenever the White House becomes uncomfortable with the questions being asked," Rockefeller told reporters. "The very independence of this committee is called into question."

In December, two Republicans on the committee -- Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.) -- called for a congressional investigation of the NSA program. Yesterday, they supported the move that adjourned the meeting without voting on Rockefeller's motion.

Snowe said in a statement: "The administration must demonstrate its commitment to avoiding a constitutional deadlock by engaging in good-faith negotiations."

McClellan and Roberts cited efforts by committee member Mike DeWine (R-Ohio). DeWine, who will face a tough reelection battle this fall, is drafting legislation that would exempt the NSA program from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law provides a mechanism for secret warrants for wiretaps in anti-terrorism investigations. But several key Republicans, including House intelligence committee member Heather A. Wilson (N.M.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.), say the NSA program should fall under FISA guidelines.

In the House, the intelligence committee will ask administration officials to explain the NSA program and its legal justifications in closed hearings over the next few months, said Wilson, one of its subcommittee chairmen.

The committee "has begun a process to thoroughly review this program and the FISA law" through a series of yet-to-be-scheduled briefings and exchanges of letters that will unfold as part of the panel's "regular order," Wilson said in an interview in her office. "This is the way we do oversight," she said, adding that she has discussed the matter with the committee chairman, Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.).

Wilson indicated that the House hearings will not have the sharply investigative tone that Rockefeller sought in his motion, which would have required the administration to detail its reasons and rationale for starting the surveillance program in late 2001.

"Sometimes minority parties call for oversight" of government programs for strictly partisan reasons, said Wilson, who faces a potentially strong Democratic challenger this fall. "The intelligence committees in my view are an exception to that rule. This is not political theater. . . . We ask tough questions, and we expect straight answers."

Meanwhile yesterday on the Senate side, Specter released a day-old letter in which Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella seemed to reject the senator's request for testimony from Ashcroft and former deputy attorney general James B. Comey. Comey had raised questions about the NSA program. Some senators want to know more about Ashcroft's response to Comey's concerns during a 2004 conversation with top administration officials while Ashcroft was hospitalized for pancreatitis.

"We do not believe that Messrs. Ashcroft and Comey would be in a position to provide any new information" to the Judiciary Committee, Moschella said in his letter Wednesday to Specter.

In a victory for three privacy advocacy groups seeking Justice Department records about the program, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ruled yesterday that the department cannot decide on its own what documents it will provide, because news reports in December revealing the program's existence have created a substantial public dialogue about presidential powers and individual privacy rights. Kennedy rejected Justice's argument that, because so much of the surveillance program involves classified information, the agency alone can determine when it is feasible to review and possibly release documents.

"President Bush has invited meaningful debate about the warrantless surveillance program," Kennedy wrote, alluding to comments Bush has made at news conferences and speeches acknowledging public disagreement about domestic spying. "That can only occur if DOJ processes its requests in a timely fashion and releases the information sought."

Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department "has been extremely forthcoming about documents and information about the legal authorities" for the surveillance program.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which had requested the records under the Freedom of Information Act along with the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the National Security Archive Fund, cheered the ruling.

Kennedy agreed with the three groups that the Justice Department's decision to set its own time frame "would give the agency unchecked power to drag its feet and 'pay lip service' " to the law requiring the release of public information.

Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.

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Shot heard round world highlights Cheney's secrecy

Reuters
Shot heard round world highlights Cheney's secrecy
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It was the shot heard around the world, and the chaotic aftermath has shone new light on the secretive nature of President George W. Bush's powerful, independent-minded vice president, Dick Cheney.

Experts say Cheney's reaction to his accidental shooting of fellow hunter Harry Whittington in Texas last Saturday -- wait until the next day to let the news trickle out and reject White House advice to move faster -- was emblematic of Cheney's power and style.

"It is quite revealing of things that had been suspected about which there had been little clear evidence, about his clout inside the White House," said Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist and long-time Bush watcher at the University of Texas.

Most experts agree that Cheney made a bad story worse by letting the owner of the ranch where the hunt was taking place announce the news and by waiting four days to break his own silence on the matter.

The hoopla over the shooting cost Bush valuable time this week in trying to push his agenda. His efforts to promote his prescriptions for improving U.S. health care were drowned out in the media focus on Cheney.

Leon Panetta, who was White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said Cheney's behavior "reinforces the image that the public has of him, that he clearly is secretive, is very independent within the administration and kind of marches to his own drummer."

"What it ultimately does is it undermines the administration. You can't have people who are operating on their own and you can't have Cabinet members who do that and very frankly you can't have a vice president who does that. Ultimately it is the White House and the president who pay a higher price," Panetta said.

Cheney's penchant for secrecy is well-known, going back to when he refused to reveal the names of those he met with as chairman of an energy task force in 2001. A heart attack victim, he refuses to release his medical records.

He grants few interviews and his last formal news conference was three and a half years ago, although he does occasionally take questions from reporters when he does take a press pool with him on trips.

But quite often he travels in secret, and indeed most people did not even know he was in Texas last weekend, a sharp contrast to Bush's closely monitored every move.

Some Republicans do not want to say it publicly but believe Cheney's secrecy and dark persona have damaged Bush politically.

Some party loyalists believe Cheney's influence within the White House has waned, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's dominance on foreign policy and the departure of Cheney backer John Bolton from the State Department to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Will Cheney last throughout Bush's second term?

A former speech writer for Republican President Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan, wrote a speculative column in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday wondering if some White House officials might like to see Bush replace Cheney with someone who could use the vice presidency to run for president in 2008.

Cheney himself harbors no further political ambitions -- a fact some critics say has meant he no longer considers himself accountable to the American people.

"I suspect what they're thinking and not saying is, If Dick Cheney weren't vice president, who'd be a good vice president? They're thinking, at some time down the road we may wind up thinking about a new plan," she wrote.

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House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi Demands Probe of Deficit-Reduction Bill

ABC News
House Democratic Leader Wants Budget Probe
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi Demands Probe of Deficit-Reduction Bill
By DAVID ESPO
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi demanded an ethics investigation Thursday into the passage of deficit-reduction legislation that President Bush recently signed, a new twist in an episode of Capitol intrigue that blends election-year politics and questions of constitutional law.

"Republican leaders chose to ignore House rules, precedent and even the Constitution itself" in sending the politically charged measure to the White House, said Pelosi, D-Calif.

She said the legislation was defective because it had cleared the two houses in different forms, and added that Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., "knew full well this was an invalid bill."

Republicans, citing an 1894 court precedent, say the measure is valid because top House and Senate leaders put their own signatures on the bill before it was sent to the White House.

On a party-line vote, Republicans shelved the call for an investigation, and Hastert's office did not respond directly to Pelosi's charges.

But other Republicans fired back, accusing her of playing politics. "They're not even in favor of deficit reduction," Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa said of the Democrats. He said a Senate clerk involved in the controversy should resign "out of honor to the basic tenets of the Constitution" or be fired.

The political rhetoric aside, the events marked the latest but not likely the last development in a controversy with little if any precedent.

Republicans said and Democrats did not disagree that the legislation Bush signed correctly reflects the congressional majority's intent on issues of rented medical equipment under Medicare, the section where the bill's text inexplicably appears to have been changed twice.

One lawsuit has been filed challenging the bill's constitutionality.

"The version that was signed into law by the president never passed the U.S. House," says the suit filed by Jim Zeigler, a lawyer in Mobile Ala. An eldercare lawyer, Zeigler said in his suit he does not know whether to advise clients to heed the Medicaid nursing home regulations that had been in effect, or the ones contained in the law Bush signed last week.

Zeigler's claim underscores the sheer breadth of the legislation, which called for dozens of changes in Medicare, Medicaid, student loan and other federal benefit programs as part of an effort to save the government $39 billion over five years.

The legislation itself was the subject of political struggle as it made its way through Congress.

After a year-end weekend of harried closed-door negotiations among GOP leaders, it passed the House last December on a vote of 212-206. It cleared the Senate on the strength of Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote, but not until Democrats forced two minor changes that required a revote in the House. The outcome that time was 216-214.

That set the stage for last week's White House signing ceremony.

But not long before Bush was to sign the bill, Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., were conferring, trying to determine whether the measure was valid.

It turned out that a part of the bill concerning Medicare reimbursement for rented medical equipment had been changed by a Senate clerk.

Aides in both parties say the Senate-passed bill said ownership of certain rented medical equipment should transfer to patients after 13 months, as GOP leaders intended when they put together their final compromise.

But for reasons that remain murky, the formal papers that were carried from the Senate to the House said ownership of the equipment would transfer after 36 months.

The House agreed to the measure, lawmakers evidently thinking they were voting on the 13-month provision. After the vote, a Senate clerk replaced the "36" with a "13" before the bill was sent to the White House.

Concerned, Senate Republicans sought and won agreement from Democrats to pass a follow-up measure affirming that Congress' intent had been to set the rental period at 13 months.

House GOP aides made the same request of Pelosi's staff, but were rebuffed.

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Church's Israel policy criticised

BBC NEWS
Church's Israel policy criticised

A Church of England decision to review its investments in firms whose products are used by Israel in the occupied territories has been criticised.

Britain's most senior Jewish leader said the Synod's vote was "ill-judged" and would "hurt Israel without helping the Palestinians".

Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks told the Jewish Chronicle the move could damage Jewish-Christian relations in the UK.

The Church said the decision was only advice to its ethical advisory group.

In his article, Sir Jonathan said: "For years, I have called on religious groups in Britain to send a message of friendship and co-existence to conflict zones throughout the world, instead of importing those conflicts into Britain itself."

The effect of the Synod vote would be the opposite, he added.

"The Church has chosen to take a stand on the politics of the Middle East over which it has no influence, knowing that it will have the most adverse repercussions on a situation over which it has enormous influence, namely Jewish-Christian relations in Britain."

Sir Jonathan's remarks come after last week's vote at the Synod over whether the Church should withdraw its £2.5m investment in the company Caterpillar.

That decision followed a call from the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East for the Church to "disinvest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation, such as Caterpillar Inc".

'No decision'

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams voted in favour of reopening talks after complaints that the company's bulldozers have been used to knock down Palestinian homes.

The Archbishop has already written to the Chief Rabbi telling him that no decision about the church's investment had been taken so far.

Looking into the issue did not "question the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its rights to self-defence", he said in the letter.

This is a continuing process of re-examining ethical investment and seeing whether we're behaving as we should
Reverend Colin Slee

Speaking on BBC Two's Newsnight programme the Chief Rabbi's Israel spokesman Rabbi Barry Marcus said: "There's a deep sense that the timing of this particular decision - just after Hamas has been elected, a terrorist group, and the fact that the president of Iran is calling for genocide - does make us a little uneasy."

Dean of Southwark Reverend Colin Slee said the decision was "not a case of picking on Israel".

"This is a continuing process of re-examining ethical investment and seeing whether we're behaving as we should," he told Newsnight.

A spokesman for Caterpillar said its products were sold to the US government which had then sold them on to Israel.

"We clearly have neither the legal right nor the tangible ability to regulate how customers use their machines," he added.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/4722564.stm

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Japan police make 'export raids'

BBC NEWS
Japan police make 'export raids'

Police in Japan have raided two firms on suspicion of illegally selling equipment to North Korea that could be used to make biological weapons.

The Tokyo companies are suspected of exporting freeze dryers which could cultivate germs used in such weapons.

The two unnamed companies were reported to have sent their exports to North Korea via Taiwan.

On Monday another company was raided on suspicion of exporting equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

The two companies targeted in Friday's raids allegedly shipped the dryers to North Korea in September 2002.

The companies are suspected of infringing the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law, under which exporters need to apply for a government licence before selling such items abroad, the Kyodo news agency reports.

Mitutoyo Corp, the company raided on Monday, is alleged to have sold precision measuring equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons to China and Thailand in 2001 and 2002 without permission.

Similar equipment produced by Mitutoyo was found in Libya, Kyodo news said.

In a third case, Yamaha was accused last month of illegally exporting to China remote-controlled helicopters that could be used for military purposes.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4722620.stm

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Pressure over Guantanamo rises

Reuters
Pressure over Guantanamo rises
By Richard Waddington

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday came under mounting international pressure to close its Guantanamo prison, with U.N. investigators saying detainees there faced treatment amounting to torture.

In a 40-page report, which had already been largely leaked, five United Nations special envoys said the United States was violating a host of human rights, including a ban on torture, arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial.

The White House, calling the Guantanamo detainees "dangerous terrorists," dismissed the report as a reworking of past allegations and said that inmates were humanely treated.

But the findings could fuel anger among Arabs already incensed by images of abuse of Iraqi inmates at Baghdad's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison newly broadcast by Australian television.

"The United States government should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay," the human rights rapporteurs declared.

Until that happened, the U.S. government should "refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," they added.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he did not agree with everything in the report, produced by independent experts for the inter-governmental U.N. Human Rights Commission, but he believed the prison should be closed as soon as possible.

"Sooner or later there will be a need to close Guantanamo and it will be up to the government to decide and hopefully to do it as soon as possible," he told reporters in New York.

He said it was important to balance the interests of effective action against terrorism with the need to protect individual rights, but people should not be detained "in perpetuity" and should be prosecuted or released.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour, who has frequently urged the United States to try the detainees or free them, told the BBC in London that the jail should be shut.

Many of the 500 inmates of the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba have been held for four years without trial. The prisoners were mainly detained in Afghanistan and are held as pat of President George W. Bush's declared war against terrorism.

Adding its voice to the clamor, the European parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday for a resolution urging the prison be closed and inmates given a fair trail.

"FALSE ALLEGATIONS"

Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan said the report appeared to be "a rehash of some of the allegations that have been made by lawyers for some of the detainees and we know that al Qaeda detainees are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations."

He also indicated that the calls to close the jail would fall on deaf ears.

"These are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about that are there and I think we've talked about that issue before and nothing's changed in terms of our views," McClellan added.

Amnesty International backed the call for shutting down Guantanamo, which it said represented "just the tip of the iceberg" of U.S.-run detention facilities worldwide.

"The U.S. can no longer make the case, morally or legally, for keeping it open," the London-based human rights group said.

The report said harsh treatment, such as placing detainees in solitary confinement, stripping them naked, subjecting them to severe temperatures and threatening them with dogs could amount to torture, which is banned in all circumstances.

The five investigators said they were particularly concerned by attempts by the U.S. administration to "redefine" the nature of torture to allow some interrogation techniques.

Washington, which denies any international laws are being broken, accused the U.N. investigators of acting like prosecution lawyers with the report, selecting only those elements that backed their case.

The Bush administration also denies that the force-feeding of inmates on hunger strike, which it says was undertaken to save their lives, amounted to cruel treatment.

The five U.N. investigators, who include Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture, and Leila Zerrougui, chairwoman of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, said the findings were based on interviews with past detainees, lawyers and replies to questions put to the U.S. government.

The five turned down a U.S. offer to visit the detention center late last year because Washington would not allow them to interview individual detainees.

Communist Cuba, which has accused Washington of turning the base on the island's southerastern tip into a "concentration camp," said U.S. rejection of the report came as no surprise.

"The United States only accepts reports that are favorable. It is not surprising it continues to ignore the U.N. whenever convenient," said Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of Cuba's National Assembly.

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A Challenge to Rightwing Bloggers Who Blame the Media for the Cheney Mess

[Editor's note: the original posting at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-daou/a-challenge-to-rightwing-_b_15765.html
has many links that you may wish to follow.]

huffingtonpost.com
A Challenge to Rightwing Bloggers Who Blame the Media for the Cheney Mess
Peter Daou

Prove it. One of the great absurdities of our time is the persistent notion that the traditional media skews left. Reporters buy into it, Democratic strategists and leaders buy into it, and rank and file rightwingers live by it. As I've written previously, the right controls all branches of government, talk radio is dominated by rightwing voices, there's a cable channel devoted to the rightwing perspective (and two others racing to do the same), there's a herd of rightwing pundits spewing anti-left venom across editorial pages, radio, television, the internet, etc., Bush's press conferences are cloying jokefests, and "neutral" journalists echo deep-seated pro-GOP myths.


Despite the glaringly obvious fact that major media narratives favor the right, we get bloggers like this, this, and this attacking the "MSM" for hyping the Cheney hunting scandal. Rather than waste cyber-ink explaining why it's a big deal that the Vice President of the United States shot a man in the face and heart and went to bed without letting the American people know about it, let me share a question I asked of a blogger at Real Clear Politics who questioned my premise about the pro-Bush press:

I know the assertion that [supposedly neutral or liberal] reporters favor rightwing narratives blows your mind; after all, the liberal media fiction is hard-wired into the right's political nervous system. But why should I believe your foregone conclusion that these people are left-leaning? Just because you say it with such conviction? Give me concrete examples of bias, not of negative coverage. (How can there not be negative coverage of the mess in Iraq? Or Katrina? Or the Plame outing? Or the NSA fiasco? Or do you want our media to simply fawn over the government? Is anything less than total pro-Bush propaganda considered media bias?)

This ties in - albeit tangentially - to a recent post by Glenn Greenwald about the Bush-cultism masquerading as conservatism on rightwing blogs. Glenn unmasks the ideological lie at the core of rightwing blogging. Similarly, digging beneath the surface of the anti-media stance of these bloggers reveals a philosophically bankrupt and logically fallacious position. If the definition of media bias is anything critical of the administration, then these bloggers must be advocating for a servile, state-run press. Which, ironically, seems to be where we're heading.

Of course, reporters take some comfort in being attacked from both sides, believing that it somehow justifies their actions and nullifies the complaints.

So here's my challenge to rightwing bloggers who assail the media for liberal bias (and to journalists who think it's all a he-said-she-said pissing match): Back up your claims. With concrete examples of bias. And without the tautological crutch that any story critical of the administration is proof of liberal bias.

I'll back up mine:

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: ABC News covered the Cheney hunting incident by downplaying the significance of the weapon itself. ABC reported that "the vice president accidentally shot prominent Texas lawyer Harry Whittington with a pellet gun while hunting for quail." Cheney used a shotgun, not a pellet gun. ABC later altered the story to read, "a shotgun loaded with birdshot." (Which is why we maintain screenshots of all print stories we reference.) This exemplifies a common tendency of the media, namely, to play defense for Bush and his team, downplaying negative news or polls.

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush strong, Dems weak --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Bruce Morton used the VP's shooting to repeat the tired GOP spin that Republicans are tougher than Democrats, and specifically tougher than war hero John Kerry. Morton commented that Bush and Cheney are avid hunters, and contrasted the observation with 2004 Bush campaign talking points by saying Sen. John Kerry "spent time posing with guns" two years ago, and that "voters probably saw more of him pursuing exotic sports, windsurfing and so on." The truth is Kerry has been hunting since the age of 12. As Media Matters points out, "Morton's jab echoed language Cheney used during the 2004 campaign to attack Kerry as effete and elitist."

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: Jane Hamsher notes that CBS News ran a provocative news item on Monday, explaining that "Texas authorities are complaining that the Secret Service barred them from speaking to Cheney after the incident." For reasons that are still unexplained, CBS has scrubbed the report from its website without explanation.

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: Shortly after the incident first made national news, MSNBC's Chris Matthews repeated White House spin without hesitation: "I can understand that in the urgency of the moment that the Vice President's concern was life and death and not [public relations]." The reality is, Cheney was deeply concerned about public relations and managed the controversy personally, overriding the suggestions of White House staff who urged public disclosure.

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: NBC News quoted ranch owner Katharine Armstrong as saying Cheney's pre-hunt picnic may have included "a beer or two." The MSNBC website has since been scrubbed to remove the quote with no explanation for readers.

++ ISSUE: Abramoff scandal --- NARRATIVE: Dems do bad things too --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press continues to help the Republicans' drive to make the Abramoff scandal bi-partisan with additional reporting that plays up a dubious link between the disgraced GOP lobbyist and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Despite widespread debunking of the original report, the AP ran a follow-up piece that suggests "further confirmation of such a link but, in fact, casts additional doubt on whether such a link exists."

++ ISSUE: Presidential politics/Hillary Clinton --- NARRATIVE: Dems are "angry" --- EXAMPLE: The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller pushed Ken Mehlman's latest meme -- Hillary is "angry" -- during an interview with DNC Chair Howard Dean. Bumiller asked Dean (twice) about Mehlman's charge that Hillary is "too angry and that Americans will not elect an angry candidate." Bumiller used a transparent media tactic to deliver the RNC talking point: the feigned interrogative. In other words, she used a question to get her point across, as though framing it as a question makes the parroting of anti-Hillary narratives any less repugnant.

++ ISSUE: Coretta Scott King funeral --- NARRATIVE: Dems politicize everything --- EXAMPLE: Howie Kurtz suggested the national media "blew this story" by "failing to note the extraordinary nature of these anti-Bush remarks." Kurtz, a predictable GOP meme-pusher, has it backwards. First, the media was all over the controversial eulogies at the King funeral. Second, the "extraordinary anti-Bush remarks" never even mentioned Bush. And third, despite Kurtz's implication, it's not the media's job to push an RNC line of attack.

++ ISSUE: Coretta Scott King funeral --- NARRATIVE: Bush firm, Bush compassionate --- EXAMPLE: Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, generally considered a Bush critic, praised Bush in a strangely sycophantic piece, saying: "President Bush deserves credit for sitting through the awkward moments at Coretta Scott King’s funeral—and for his role in setting up an African-American history museum." Clift follows in the footsteps of other "liberal" pundits whose raison d'etre seems to be to bash liberals and defend Bush.

++ ISSUE: Warrantless domestic spying --- NARRATIVE: Dems politicize everything/Dems are whiners --- EXAMPLE: The Washington Post recently stated that "some Democrats argue that Bush is breaking the law by spying on people in the United States without a warrant and without congressional or judicial oversight." This spin mirrors the GOP effort to paint this as a partisan controversy, but that dog won't hunt. Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have raised serious questions about the program's legality.

++ ISSUE: Abramoff scandal --- NARRATIVE: Dems do bad things too --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press has picked up on the Republicans' drive to make the Abramoff scandal bi-partisan with a major report on alleged ties between the disgraced GOP lobbyist and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. There's only one problem: the AP report is wildly misleading. As MyDD's Scott Shields explained, "For a variety of reasons, some of which I still don't get, the old fashioned media wants very badly for this to be a bipartisan scandal. This is only the latest attempt to make it so. But by leaving out such key information as the fact that Reid never supported the Republicans on the Marianas, the whole story is called into question."

++ ISSUE: Warrantless domestic spying --- NARRATIVE: Bush strong/Dems weak --- EXAMPLE: Fox News and the Washington Times predictably embrace White House terminology -- "terrorist surveillance program" instead of "warrantless wiretapping" being the latest example. Late last week, the AP bought into the narrative and described Bush's warrantless domestic spying as the "anti-terrorist surveillance program."

++ ISSUE: Coretta Scott King funeral --- NARRATIVE: Dems "politicize" everything --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Jeff Greenfield questioned whether some of the eulogies were "appropriate" and asked, "I think for a lot of people the idea is, do you really do this at a funeral?" Greenfield went on to praise Bush for his "gracious speech." The media's immediate willingness to play along with this RNC-driven game is transparent - wouldn't the following question have been equally appropriate: "In light of Katrina, shouldn't George W. Bush have been ashamed to appear at King's funeral?"

++ ISSUE: Warrantless domestic spying --- NARRATIVE: Dems are weak --- EXAMPLE: In its coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the warrantless domestic spying scandal, Reuters framed the hearing exactly the way the administration likes: by making the Dems look weak and ineffectual. The headline says it all: "Democrats frustrated by Gonzales on eavesdropping." A more accurate headline would have been, "Gonzalez Refuses to Answer Questions on Warrantless Spying." (Thanks to reader Dr. Funkenstein for the tip)

++ ISSUE: Majority Leader Boehner --- NARRATIVE: Never allow a criticism of Republicans to go unchallenged --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Jack Cafferty asked viewers if they saw any problem with Majority Leader Boehner renting an apartment from a lobbyist whose clients have business before Boehner. He got over 700 responses, nearly all of which questioned the arrangement. Wolf Blitzer stuck up for Boehner, telling Cafferty, "But you did hear Ed Henry say it is a basement apartment, which is not necessarily all that desirable, and he's paying the fair market value."

++ ISSUE: 2006 elections --- NARRATIVE: Dems have no message --- EXAMPLE: The New York Times ran yet another article (courtesy of Dem-basher Adam Nagourney) that paints congressional Democrats as "heading into this year's elections in a position weaker than they had hoped for." It was, as Josh Marshall put it, "a pretty lazy piece of journalism." What's more, the piece neglected to mention that when asked, Americans say they prefer Dem candidates and the Dem agenda in 2006 by wide margins over the GOP. Kid Oakland elaborates: "I'm sick of articles like this from Adam Nagourney and, to be frank, I'm sick of the New York Times political coverage in general.... Basically, after years of reading this stuff, and hearing similar sentiments echoed on NPR, I think blog critics of mainstream media political coverage are right. There's a persistent media bias that has the genetic code of GOP spin and there's no point in giving it energy or credence. The press is no friend of the Democratic Party and has not been for years."

++ ISSUE: Boehner replaces DeLay --- NARRATIVE: Republicans are tough --- EXAMPLE: A Reuters article on John Boehner titled "New House Republican leader is canny, tough" says the following: "Boehner has shown he can be tough. Last year he approved one of the more controversial provisions of a spending-cut bill: $12.7 billion savings in student-loan programs, raising costs to borrowers, despite student protests." Undermining students is now a measure of toughness?

++ ISSUE: Iraq/Cindy Sheehan --- NARRATIVE: War protesters are unpatriotic --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press, noting Cindy Sheehan's arrest before the State of the Union, reports, "Sheehan's T-shirt made reference to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: '2245 Dead. How many more?' ... Young's shirt had just the opposite message: 'Support the Troops -- Defending Our Freedom.'" Several bloggers took the AP to task for this blatant propaganda, including Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, and Carpetbagger. Greenwald writes, "As we all know (because George Bush said so, followed by his followers, followed by the media), opposition to the war in Iraq is the "opposite message" of supporting the troops and defending our freedoms. That's a totally appropriate premise on which to base a news article. A mini blogosphere firestorm erupted over this, and I have no doubt that the e-mail inbox of the AP reporter (Laurie Kellman) was stuffed with objections. As Jane Hamsher reports, that sentence was thereafter altered to a more neutral formulation."

++ ISSUE: The federal budget --- NARRATIVE: Bush is fiscally responsible, the deficit is someone else's fault --- EXAMPLE: This New York Times report on budget cuts to Medicaid, welfare, child support and student lending, offers a decidedly pro-Bush spin: "The vote helped President Bush deliver on his promise to rein in federal spending." In reality, Bush has boosted federal spending more than any president since LBJ.

++ ISSUE: Free Speech --- NARRATIVE: War protesters are law-breaking extremists --- EXAMPLE: After Cindy Sheehan's arrest, major media outlets got several elements of the story completely wrong, including the notion that Sheehan unfurled an anti-war banner (reported falsely on CNN) and that Sheehan's T-shirt was illegal. Somehow, one knowledgeable blogger managed to do what the major outlets couldn't, namely, get the facts straight.

++ ISSUE: SOTU/Energy policy --- NARRATIVE: Bush has a credible policy agenda --- EXAMPLE: On ABC's Good Morning America, Charles Gibson embraced the administration's spin and said, "[I]f there was anything new in the [State of the Union], it was his call for an end to America's addiction with foreign oil, a calling for a reduction on America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil of 75 percent in 20 years." The truth is, there's nothing new in Bush's proposal except slightly different rhetoric.

++ ISSUE: SOTU --- NARRATIVE: Dems are whiners --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Jeff Greenfield chided Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) on the air for issuing a rebuttal to Bush's SOTU before it was delivered, telling viewers, "There wasn't a chance in the world that this congressperson had seen the speech." He failed to note that the White House made excerpts of the speech available well before it was delivered, which is why Wexler's statement was fully justified.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Bush firm despite "challenges"/Dems are whiners --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press hands us a quintessential example of pro-Bush and anti-Dem narratives. The headline reads, "Bush Confident Despite Mounting Challenges," and the lead paragraph captures the White House talking points practically to the letter: "President Bush, opening the fall campaign season, is painting Democrats as defeatist for criticizing his march to war in Iraq and protectionist for questioning new trade deals and tax-cut extensions. Grumbling Democrats looking for advantage in Bush's weak poll numbers and burgeoning scandals in GOP congressional ranks refused to cede center stage as the president laid out his 2006 priorities Tuesday night in his fifth State of the Union address." [Update: The AP has already changed the headline and portions of the text. We have a screenshot of the original on file.]

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Bush strong, Dems weak, irrational --- EXAMPLE: Immediately following Bush's State of the Union speech, MSNBC's Chris Matthews and his guests delivered the usual Bush-propping and Democrat-bashing themes. Matthews said Bush was "at the top of his game," and that he delivered "a very powerful speech." He added that Democrats are "afraid to take on the president." Matthews' guest, Newsweek's John Meacham, described Bush as "unusually compassionate," and "just as fluid on domestic and foreign issues." Meacham criticized the left for an "irrational hatred of Bush." Matthews also repeated Bush talking points on the warrantless domestic spying scandal.

++ ISSUE: SOTU/Energy policy --- NARRATIVE: Bush has a credible policy agenda --- EXAMPLE: Several major dailies feature headlines that mischaracterize Bush's discussion of energy policy in the SOTU. The New York Times headline said, "Bush, Resetting Agenda, Says U.S. Must Cut Reliance on Oil." The Los Angeles Times headline said, "Bush Calls for Cuts in Oil Reliance." Neither acknowledges just how narrow the Bush plan really is.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Bush is firm --- EXAMPLE: MSNBC started their 11am (eastern) hour with "Bush standing firm," one of the most ubiquitous pro-Bush narratives of the past half-decade. To understand why this is favorable to Bush, imagine what his poll numbers would look like if the word 'stubborn' had replaced 'firm' in all those reports.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Of course we're balanced, who you gonna believe, us or your lying eyes? --- EXAMPLE: CNN's coverage of the SOTU featured one voice from the left (Paul Begala) and three from the right (Bill Bennett, Victoria Clarke, and J.C. Watts). The network later added Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, but the right still outnumbered the left when offering commentary on the president.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Democrats weak on national security, have no message --- EXAMPLE: CNN's coverage of the SOTU also featured Paula Zahn reading from the GOP script, claiming that "a lot of people out there" are saying that "if you vote for a Democrat, that basically you want to be bombed." Zahn also purported to identify a "perception" that Democrats are "reactive, not proactive, that they have no agenda of their own, and ... that basically the only thing they're good at is blasting the president."

++ ISSUE: Warrantless spying --- NARRATIVE: Terrorism helps Bush --- EXAMPLE: Rather than deal with the warrantless domestic spying scandal with the gravity it deserves, MSNBC's Chris Matthews tells his viewers that Bush is "turning the NSA surveillance question into a winner politically."++ ISSUE: Bush approval ratings --- NARRATIVE: Americans trust Bush --- EXAMPLE: Rather than acknowledging the fact that Bush's approval rating is at its lowest level ever in the LA Times poll, the LA Times runs the headline, "Bush's Ratings Sink, but Trust Remains." Similarly, though the latest Washington Post poll shows Dems enjoying big leads over Bush on the direction of the country, the WaPo goes with this headline: "Bush's Midterm Challenge: Rebuilding Public Support May Bolster GOP Candidates."

++ ISSUE: Tim Russert/ MTP --- NARRATIVE: Democrats guilty by association --- EXAMPLE: Last week, Meet the Press's Tim Russert inexplicably asked Sen. Barack Obama (D) to respond to controversial remarks made by Harry Belafonte. Yesterday, just two days after Ann Coulter made headlines by calling for the assassination of Justice John Paul Stevens, Russert neglected to raise the issue in his interview with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R).

++ ISSUE: Abramoff scandal --- NARRATIVE: Everybody does it/Democrats are just as bad as Republicans --- EXAMPLE: A number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to NBC's Katie Couric, have declared that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. Paul Krugman notes today that there's nothing bipartisan about the Abramoff scandal, which is all about the use and abuse of Republican connections. "[T]he reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade."

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Cheney Says He Has the Power to Declassify Sensitive Government Information

ABC News
Cheney Says He Has Power to Declassify Info
Cheney Says He Has the Power to Declassify Sensitive Government Information
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney disclosed Wednesday that he has the power to declassify sensitive government information, authority that could set up a criminal defense for his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Cheney's disclosure comes a week after reports that Libby testified under oath he was authorized by superiors in 2003 to disclose highly sensitive prewar information to reporters. The information, about Iraq and alleged weapons of mass destruction, was used by the Bush administration to bolster its case for invading Iraq.

At the time of Libby's contacts with reporters in June and July 2003, the administration including Cheney, who was among the war's most ardent proponents, faced growing criticism. No weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and Bush supporters were anxious to show that the White House had relied on prewar intelligence projecting a strong threat from such weapons.

When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed Libby's assertions to a grand jury that he had been authorized by his superiors to spread sensitive information, the prosecutor did not specify which superiors.

But in an interview on Fox News Channel, Cheney said there is an executive order that gives the vice president, along with the president, the authority to declassify information.

"I have certainly advocated declassification. I have participated in declassification decisions," Cheney said. Asked for details, he said, "I don't want to get into that. There's an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."

Cheney added a ringing endorsement of Libby.

"Scooter is entitled to the presumption of innocence," said Cheney. "He is a great guy. I worked with him for a long time. I have tremendous regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case, and it is therefore inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the case."

Libby is not charged with leaking classified information, and Libby's lawyers said last week there was no truth to a published report that Libby's lawyers had advised the court or prosecutors that he will raise a defense based on authorization by superiors.

A legal expert said Cheney's TV appearance could nonetheless foreshadow a Libby defense.

Former Whitewater independent counsel Robert Ray said Cheney's ex-chief of staff could point to authorization from his superiors as part of his strategy at trial.

"If it turns out that Cheney was actively involved in decisions related to the disclosure of a CIA officer's identity and if the truth of it is that he was orchestrating the disclosure of information to the media, it seems to me that's a fundamentally different case than one centered around the activities of Libby," said Ray.

On Oct. 28 of last year, Libby was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame and what he told reporters about it.

In July 2003, Plame's CIA identity was published by columnist Robert Novak eight days after Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. Wilson concluded that it was highly doubtful that a purported sale of uranium yellowcake by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990s had ever taken place.

A defense that Libby was authorized by superiors to leak sensitive data about Iraq would not appear to provide any help to the former Cheney aide for making false statements.

But some lawyers point out that setting up defenses before a jury involve more than simply constructing legal arguments.

"You're trying to present a persuasive case that your client should not be found guilty," said Ray, the former Whitewater prosecutor. "You're saying that even if my client did it, this is not a case that warrants conviction."

An authorization defense in the CIA leak case would mean that "much of what Libby was trying to do was aid and protect his boss Cheney," Ray suggested. The downside to employing such an approach is that it "almost comes with a defense that I did it."

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325,000 Names on Terrorism List; Rights Groups Say Database May Include Innocent People

washingtonpost.com
325,000 Names on Terrorism List
Rights Groups Say Database May Include Innocent People

By Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers

The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

The list kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency -- contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials.

U.S. citizens make up "only a very, very small fraction" of that number, said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his agency's policies. "The vast majority are non-U.S. persons and do not live in the U.S.," he added. An NCTC official refused to say how many on the list -- put together from reports supplied by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies -- are U.S. citizens.

The NSA is a key provider of information for the NCTC database, although officials refused to say how many names on the list are linked to the agency's controversial domestic eavesdropping effort. Under the program, the NSA has conducted wiretaps on an unknown number of U.S. citizens without warrants.

The government has been trying to streamline what counterterrorism officials say are more than 26 terrorism-related databases compiled by agencies throughout the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Names from the NCTC list are provided to the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), which in turn provides names for watch lists maintained by the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies.

Civil liberties advocates and privacy experts said they were troubled by the size of the NCTC database, and they said it further heightens their concerns that such government terrorism lists include the names of large numbers of innocent people. Timothy Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the numbers "shocking but, unfortunately, not surprising."

"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits," Sparapani said. "If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list. But I highly doubt that is the case."

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA's domestic intelligence intercept program, the NCTC official said, "Our database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he could not discuss specifics but said: "Information is collected, information is retained and information disseminated in a way to protect the privacy interests of all Americans."

The NCTC name repository began under its predecessor agency in 2003 with 75,000 names, and it continues to grow. The center was created as part of a broad reorganization of U.S. intelligence agencies after the failure to disrupt the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It is the main agency for analyzing and integrating terrorism intelligence and is under direction of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte.

Its central database is the hub of an elaborate network of terrorism-related databases throughout the federal bureaucracy. Terrorism-related names and other data are sent to the NCTC under standards set by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, signed by President Bush in September 2003, according to a senior NCTC official. The directive calls upon agencies to supply data only about people who are "known or appropriately suspected to be . . . engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism."

"We work on the basis that information reported to us has been collected in accordance with those guidelines," Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, the center's director, said in a statement.

Analysts at the NCTC review all incoming names and can reject them if they do not have an apparent link to international terrorists, officials said. "That is not common, but it does happen," an NCTC official said, citing as examples a domestic or foreign drug dealer or a member of a U.S.-based extremist group, when neither has any sign of international terrorist connections.

The NCTC then sends a subset of the repository list to the FBI's screening center, and each entry includes a reference "to how the individual is associated with international terrorism," according to a June 2005 report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. This reference is assigned one of 25 codes such as "Member of a Foreign Terrorist Organization," "Hijacker" or "Has Engaged in Terrorism," according to the report. The report also notes that the codes are split in two categories: "Individuals who are considered armed and dangerous and those who are not."

Fine's office criticized the TSC for including nearly 32,000 records of people in the "armed and dangerous" category but giving them the lowest handling code, which means that no report needs to be sent back to the FBI if they are encountered in the United States by law enforcement officers.

The TSC consolidates NCTC data on individuals associated with foreign terrorism with the FBI's purely domestic terrorism data to create a unified, unclassified terrorist watch list. The TSC, in turn, provides, for official use only, a version giving each person's name, country, date of birth, photos and other data to the Transportation Security Agency for its no-fly list, the State Department for its visa program, the Department of Homeland Security for border crossings, and the National Crime Information Center for distribution to police.

Shannon Moran, a spokeswoman for the FBI screening center, declined to answer detailed questions about the center's work, including how many names are on its list, how many U.S. citizens are included and whether the FBI database includes names linked to the NSA program. Fine's office reported last year that the FBI database contained more than 270,000 names, including a large number of people associated with domestic terrorist movements such as radical environmentalists and neo-Nazi white supremacists.

"If being placed on a list means in practice that you will be denied a visa, barred entry, put on the no-fly list, targeted for pretextual prosecutions, etc., then the sweep of the list and the apparent absence of any way to clear oneself certainly raises problems," said David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies.

The growth of terrorist-related data networks within the U.S. intelligence community has greatly accelerated since Sept. 11, 2001. Before the al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there were databases containing terrorist identities at the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI and State Department. In addition there were 13 independent watch lists, but the lists or databases were not interoperable.

Currently, according to an NCTC official, there are 26 classified data networks carrying terrorism material. In a December 2005 interview on Federal News Radio, Redd said his agency "is really the only place in government and certainly in the intelligence community where all counterterrorism intelligence comes together." He also said that analyses of terrorism issues from all 15 intelligence agencies come into the NCTC, which then puts them on its Web site.

"What that means," Redd said, "is about 5,000 analysts around the counterterrorist intelligence community can pull up that Web site and see . . . what every other agency has as well, assuming they have the clearances."

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the size of the NCTC list and other terrorism-related databases underscores the severity of the "false positive" problem, in which innocent people -- including members of Congress -- have been stopped for questioning or halted from flying because their names are wrongly included or are similar to suspects' names.

"One of the seemingly unsolvable problems is what do you do when someone is wrongly put on this watch list," Rotenberg said. "If there are that many people on the list, a lot of them probably shouldn't be there. But how are they ever going to get off?"

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Pentagon denies data program gave September 11 clues

Reuters
Pentagon denies data program gave September 11 clues

By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Wednesday said it found no evidence that a computer data-mining program it operated before the September 11 attacks uncovered information that could have thwarted the attacks if it had been acted on.

But a defense intelligence officer and two contractors who worked on the secret program told a congressional committee the secret data-mining operation called "Able Danger" revealed intelligence on September 11 mastermind Mohammed Atta and others that should have been a tip-off of the attacks.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who has spearheaded a probe of whether intelligence from Able Danger was wrongly brushed aside, blasted the Pentagon's review as incomplete.

"It's the fact that people are going to have egg on their face" over what should have been done with the intelligence, Weldon said at a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee hearing.

Stephen Cambone, under secretary of defense intelligence, said he had a team conduct a broad review of the program that ended in 2000 and was a pilot for current data mining operations.

Cambone said the review found no charts with information on Atta, no evidence that the Defense Department deliberately withheld Able Danger information from the FBI, and no evidence that Able Danger information was destroyed inappropriately.

Weldon has brought forward people who worked on the program who said it produced charts with Atta's name and photograph, as well as identifying three other hijackers as al Qaeda members.

The subcommittee went into a closed session to hear from additional witnesses on the program.

Weldon said the program identified "hot spots" including Yemen before the bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole at a Yemen port, and New York and Hamburg, Germany, which had al Qaeda cells that were key in the September 11 attacks that killed 3,000 people.

Weldon also blasted the commission that probed the September 11th attacks for failing to pursue questions about the Able Danger program, saying its members "have done everything they can to not have this story be told."

Commissioners have said they have not seen charts or other evidence that Able Danger produced such key intelligence.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a defense intelligence officer who worked on the program, told lawmakers that Phillip Zelikow, the commission's staff director, asked Shaffer to contact him about the program. But Shaffer said he later was told the commission had all the information it required and did not need to speak to him.

Cambone said the Pentagon turned over documents on the program to the commission.

Cambone said data from Able Danger were destroyed because of privacy laws as the program swept up large amounts of information, most of which was not relevant to foreign intelligence or terrorism.

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Fighting the long war

guardian.co.uk
Fighting the long war
The Guardian

No one ever accused Donald Rumsfeld of thinking small - except about the number of US troops needed to secure the peace after the war he helped mastermind in Iraq. So it is perhaps no surprise that the Pentagon's four-yearly defence review seeks no less than to define our era. The man who served as America's youngest defence secretary during the 45-year period we remember as the cold war argues that we are now living through the "Long War", and has set out his programme - a mixture of spin and strategy - for the next two decades.

Little of it is about the usual stuff of such reviews: plenty of ships, planes and other hardware survive intact, delighting defence contractors and Wall Street. US military thinkers are dismayed that one lesson of Iraq has not been learned and that there is no provision for putting more boots on the ground - though there are plans for smaller, agile, special forces units and better covert intelligence-gathering. This is linked to the perceived nature of the new threat: transnational terrorism - the "ism" that replaces the decades-long 20th-century struggles against fascism and communism.

It would be foolish to argue that the world's only superpower does not need to think about security in a coherent and integrated manner. In its more modest way the UK is doing something similar, as Gordon Brown showed this week. But beyond the $513bn annual price tag for US taxpayers, there are questionable assumptions and dangers in this review. America's enemies may be ruthless, but are they really trying to destroy its way of life? Are Osama bin Laden and co. truly on the same level as Hitler or Stalin? Elevating terrorism to the level of an ideology risks exaggerating the importance of a modus operandi - though the fear of an al-Qaida-type nuclear, chemical or biological attack cannot be avoided - and underplaying the need to tackle motivation. Above all is the danger that the concept of endless war will be self-perpetuating, a permanent recruiting sergeant for the jihadist cause. Root causes, it goes without saying, matter more than their symptoms, however menacing.

Many Americans who are angry about 2,200 dead soldiers in Iraq and the collateral damage caused by the "war on terror" to their own cherished liberties are unhappy enough that Mr Rumsfeld is still in charge at the Pentagon. European allies digesting his 92-page text are likely to be concerned by the likelihood of more pre-emptive attacks launched by Predator drones against suspected terrorists, killing innocents along the way. The document refers to the need to work with allies though Nato's post-9/11 experience shows that when the US is in the driving seat, it is very hard to get it to budge. Europeans now expanding their dangerous Afghan mission will need to make bigger efforts to wield the influence they should.

Some lessons have been learned: a global reach requires greater familiarity with far-flung corners of the world. The review sensibly acknowledges that future campaigns will require US personnel to "understand foreign cultures and societies ... to train, mentor and advise foreign security forces". Having more soldiers and spies who can speak Arabic and Farsi is fine, but Americans will have to think harder about Islam and democracy. Hamas is a problem in Palestine. But so was Mr Rumsfeld's recent security and energy-focused visit to an Algeria still scarred by a terrible civil war that erupted when free elections were scrapped.

Like globalisation and the weather, American dominance is just part of life, whether we like or not. Not much can be done about it, even by China, the biggest conventional threat to US hegemony. But Mr Rumsfeld's bleak view of the future begs the question of whether even the longest war against terrorism is winnable in any real sense - and whether our world can really look forward to the day when this 21st century "ism" becomes just another "wasm".

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No Laughing Matter: The Controversial Danish Cartoons Depicting the Prophet Mohammed, and Their Broader Meaning for Europe's Public Square

findlaw.com
No Laughing Matter:
The Controversial Danish Cartoons Depicting the Prophet Mohammed, and Their Broader Meaning for Europe's Public Square
By RUTI TEITEL

On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a now-infamous set of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in derogatory terms, and associating Islam with terrorism. Many people saw the cartoons as highly offensive - and specifically, as exhibiting intolerance toward those whose religion is Islam.

Some Westerners, especially, have been shocked by the fury the cartoons provoked. To understand why so many Muslims were so gravely offended, it is important to see that the cartoons don't stand alone, but rather were published against a backdrop of political and legislative action that, to many Muslims, reflects a repeated pattern of disparagement of Islam in the public sphere.

At present, Europe is struggling with issues of identity--issues that could plainly be seen in the recent debates over the adoption of a European Union Constitution. The crisis arises because of new demographics, at the same time as new regionalism. Many Muslims feel they are being relegated to second-class citizenship in Europe. And they relate the publication of the cartoons - by a newspaper they feel would not consider publishing anti-Christian or anti-Jewish cartoons - to this wrongful sense that they are not full citizens.

The cartoons, thus, raise much larger questions: How will Europe reconcile its varying affiliations: regional, national, local, and individual? And to what extent can it allow--in light of new demographics--a reconception of its public sphere ?

The UN Is Sympathetic To Muslim Complaints, while Many In Europe are Not

In light of recent events, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has initiated an investigation into "racism" and "Islamaphobia." Similarly, while calling for "tolerance," the UN Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, and racial discrimination "strongly deplored the depictions of the Prophet" and the "grave offence they caused to the members of the Muslim community."

But European observers have been less sympathetic. Muslims complained soon after the cartoons were initially published in September, and received little, if any response. Later, the newspaper finally apologized that it had offended them.

Yet, still, the Danish prime minister had refused to meet with the Ambassadors from Muslim countries. And meanwhile, in France, a newspaper - in what it called a free speech protest - added fuel to the fire by reprinting the cartoons.

The Free Speech Angle Is Unduly Americanized: EU Law Is What Counts

The French newspaper is not the only one taking a "free speech" perspective here: Many have taken a similar view - often invoking the American First Amendment. But taking a closer look at European - not American - free speech views, which are obviously more relevant here, leads to a different, and more nuanced analysis.

Of course, Europe is, at present, under a rapidly changing federalist structure, under which individual nations' views on speech may still differ. Nevertheless, under the guidance of the European Court of Human Rights, the region is in the midst of developing a unified approach to speech questions.

American readers may not be aware how sharply European countries' individual approaches - and the evolving approach of Europe itself - differ from America's approach. In two respects, these differences are relevant to the issues the cartoons have raised.

The American Versus the European Approach: Offensiveness Matters

First, whereas in America, free speech doctrine is largely libertarian, free speech doctrine in Europe is far more protective of communitarian values - such as preventing social unrest, and promoting societal inclusiveness and anti-discrimination values.

In the United States, rights are framed in a radically individualist fashion -- with is a commitment to keeping the public sphere to the greatest extent possible, free of regulation. But unlike the United States Constitution, the European Convention and postwar European Constitutions make references to collective - not individual -- goals.

Thus, while it might be obvious, in libertarian America, that the balance should be struck in the cartoonist's and newspaper's favor, that is much less obvious in communitarian Europe - where the point of view of the offended audience would be taken far more seriously.

Just a month ago, a controversy erupted over a public arts project that was to celebrate the new EU presidency. Among a series of 150 different images being flashed to motorists via billboards across Vienna, were posters depicting naked models posing as world leaders Queen Elizabeth II, George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac apparently having sex; and a poster of a woman lying naked on a bed, except for a pair of knickers bearing the EU flag. After protests by Catholic clergy and opposition politicians, the posters were immediately withdrawn on the grounds that they were offensive.

More generally, the European Convention of Human Rights, while protecting the right to "freedom of _expression," art 10(2) recognizes that its exercise and other liberties are limited by justifications "necessary in a democratic society." These justifications might include the need to protect order or security, but might also include concerns for reputation and other values.

Another Contrast: In Europe, Hate Speech Is Often Illegal

Second, "hate speech" - First-Amendment-protected in America, except in rare cases - is often deemed outright illegal in Europe.

Throughout Europe, there is legislation specifically limiting speech, including speech denying the Holocaust. For example, Germany, France, and Austria, all have such legislation.

Denmark, too, has related anti-hate legislation: Its law penalizes expressions that threaten, deride or degrade on the grounds of race, color, national or ethnic origin, belief or sexual orientation. Indeed, in the Jersild case, the Danish government attempted to enforce these laws against a television journalist.

Though the European Court of Human Rights drew the line on criminal prosecution on these grounds, and found there had been an attempt to counterbalance the racist views, the Court recognized the legitimate countervailing values at stake. And what's more, so did the Danish government.

While freedoms of speech and of religion are protected in Europe, there is also always a limit. One might see the arrangements as 'balanced rights." Dating back to the abuses of World War II, all the postwar conventions, such as the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, expressly limit advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

Anti-religious hate speech, is particular, is illegal in Europe. Blasphemy is still prohibited in many countries in Europe - whereas in the U.S., it is plainly First- Amendment-protected.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made clear quite recently that it approves of some regulation of anti-religious speech, based on offensiveness.

In 1994, in Otto Preminger v. Austria, the ECHR upheld Austria's censorship of a satirical film that mocked Christian religious beliefs. Given the high percentage of Catholics in Tyrol, the European Court deferred to the national authorities "to ensure religious peace in that region" so that people shouldn't "feel the object of attacks on their religious beliefs in an unwarranted and offensive manner."

With Anti-Semitic Speech Legally Limited, What About Anti-Islamic Speech?

There are also many instances, in Europe, of cases limiting speech because of anti-Semitism.

In Faurisson v. France, for example, a Holocaust denier challenged his conviction under French law - claiming that it violated his freedom of _expression rights under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, Article 19(2). But the Human Rights Committee concluded that the Covenant had not been violated.

In so doing, the Committee considered the context in which the _expression was made -- noting that the French government saw "the denial of the existence of the Holocaust as the principal vehicle for anti-semitism." And for this reason, the Committee justified the prosecution as "necessary" within the balanced rights scheme of the ICCPR. Article 19(3).

In 1994, the German Constitutional Court reached a similar holding. At a meeting in Munich, "revisionist historian" David Irving sought to question the Holocaust. He argued that, to ban his remarks would be contrary to Article 5(1) of the German Basic Law, which provides for freedom of _expression. But the court held that the ban on the assembly -- and the ensuing restriction on Irving -- were compatible with the German Constitution and, indeed, authorized under certain provisions of the German Criminal Code specifically setting forth the offense of denying the Holocaust.

Are Muslims Implicitly Exempt From European Hate Speech Protections?

In sum, then, the United States allows a whole range of hate speech - from anti-Christian, to anti-Semitic, to anti-Islamic. And Europe purports to constrain a whole range of hate speech - but, it seems, not necessarily when that speech targets Muslims.

A parallel issue can be seen when it comes to religious freedom. The United States would not limit the wearing of religious garb for any faith, for to do so would violate the First Amendment. But in Europe, generally, and in France more particularly, anti-veils law are justified by the ideal of keeping the public sphere secular, so that no one feels overly proselytized - even though they disproportionately impact Muslims.

Ultimately, France ended up banning overt religious symbols including headscarves, skullcaps or outsize crosses from being worn in State primary and secondary schools. But tellingly, the ban's original draft singled out the hijab for exclusion from public life.

Europe Must Avoid Viewpoint-Discrimination Against Muslims

My point is not that Europe can -- or should -- adopt the same approach as the U.S. to questions of religious freedom. It is simply that Europe must apply whatever approach it chooses, in a fair and impartial way.

With the relative postwar homogeneity of many of Europe's constituent countries now changing due to immigration, issues of cultural diversity are coming to the fore. Welcoming Muslims into the public sphere entails extending to them the full benefit of laws that protect other groups - including anti-hate-speech laws, if Europe continues to choose to have them.

Ruti Teitel is Ernst Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at New York Law School, where she also teaches constitutional law and international human rights. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and on the steering committee of Human Rights Watch, Europe, Central Asia. This column, however, reflects her own views, and not necessarily the views of any of these institutions or organizations.

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Lawyers group slams Bush on eavesdropping

Reuters
Lawyers group slams Bush on eavesdropping
By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The American Bar Association told President George W. Bush on Monday to either stop domestic eavesdropping without a warrant or get the law changed to make it legal.

"We hope the President will listen," association president Michael Grecco told reporters after the more than 500 members of its policy-setting body passed a resolution saying that both national security and constitutional freedoms needed to be protected.

"We do not say surveillance should be stopped, only that it comply with the law," said Neal Sonnett, a Miami lawyer who headed the task force formed to look at the issue not long after the spying program came to light in December.

Authorized by Bush in 2001, the program allows the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens to track people with ties to al Qaeda and other militant groups.

The White House has said warrantless eavesdropping is legal under Bush's constitutional powers as commander-in-chief and a congressional authorization for the use of military force adopted days after the September 11 attacks.

The program bypassed secret courts created under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that grant warrants.

"We are not trying to limit the President's ability to go after terrorists," Sonnett told the group's House of Delegates before it passed his task force's resolution with relatively little debate.

"Nobody wants to hamstring the President," he added, "But we cannot allow the U.S. Constitution and our rights to become a victim of terrorism," he added.

Grecco told the group the issue is not whether the President can conduct surveillance but whether he can do it unilaterally.

The association's resolution calls on Bush "to abide by the limitations which the Constitution imposes on a President" to make sure national security is protected in a way that is consistent with constitutional guarantees.

It opposes "any future electronic surveillance inside the United States by any U.S. government agency for foreign intelligence purposes that does not comply with provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

If Bush believes that law is inadequate, then he should ask Congress to change it or enact new legislation, it added.

The resolution also called on the U.S. Congress to affirm that the post September 11 law on the authorization of military force did not give the White House an exemption from the requirements of the 1978 law.

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Ambramoff Associates Say He Claimed Close Ties to White House Through Karl Rove

ABC News
Abramoff Said to Claim Close Ties to Rove
Ambramoff Associates Say He Claimed Close Ties to White House Through Karl Rove
By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Three former associates of Jack Abramoff said Monday that the now-disgraced lobbyist frequently told them during his lobbying work he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove.

The White House said Monday that Rove remembers meeting Abramoff at a 1990s political meeting and considered the lobbyist a "casual acquaintance" since President Bush took office in 2001.

New questions have arisen about Abramoff's ties to the White House since a photo emerged over the weekend showing Abramoff with Bush. Also surfacing were the contents of an e-mail from Abramoff to Washingtonian magazine claiming he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times.

Three former business associates of Abramoff, who worked with the lobbyist in various roles between 2001 and 2004, told The Associated Press that Abramoff routinely mentioned Rove when talking about his influence inside the White House.

One said he was present when Abramoff took a call from Rove's office to confirm a White House meeting had been approved between Malaysia's prime minister and Bush in May 2002. Abramoff was being paid by Malaysia for helping it in Washington, according to evidence the Senate has made public.

All three associates would describe the Abramoff comments only on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation of Abramoff's work and fears that speaking out could affect their current businesses. At least one said he had been interviewed by the FBI.

Abramoff was a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush and lobbying records obtained by the AP show his lobbying team logged nearly 200 meetings with the administration during its first 10 months in office on behalf of one of his clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.

The contacts between Abramoff's team and the administration included meetings with Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the AP reported last year.

Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, went to work for Rove in 2001. Abramoff's legal team declined comment Monday night.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery conspiracy case and is cooperating with prosecutors' investigation into those in Congress and the administration he used to lobby.

Asked about the three former Abramoff associates' account, the White House said Rove shared a common past with Abramoff as leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."

Healy said Rove has "no recollection" of talking to Abramoff about the Malaysian prime minister's meeting in May 2002. She said Bush first met the prime minister at a foreign summit in October 2001 and that the 2002 meeting in the Oval Office was "another opportunity to get together to discuss the war on terror."

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Guantanamo Bay inmates 'tortured'

BBC NEWS
Guantanamo Bay inmates 'tortured'

Treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay constitutes torture in some cases and violates international law, a leaked UN draft report says.

The document, seen by the Los Angeles Times, suggests that investigators will recommend the prison camp is shut down.

It also questions the legal status of the camp and the classification of detainees as enemy combatants.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack criticised the draft report as "hearsay".

'Force-fed'

The Los Angeles Times published the draft report in its paper on Monday and spoke to one of the authors, the UN special raporteur on torture, Manfred Novak.

"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government. There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture," Mr Nowak told the LA Times.

The US government should close Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay
Report extract
The report suggests some of the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay meets the definition of torture under the UN Convention Against Torture.

This includes the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes and the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques such as prolonged solitary confinement and exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light.

The UN team also questions the legal status of the Guantanamo camp.

It says insufficient effort has been made to prove that the inmates really are enemy combatants.

It also recommends the prison camp is shut down.

"The US government should close Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay," the report says. "The US government should either expeditiously bring all Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial ... or release them without further delay."

'Baseless claims'

Mr Nowak was one of five UN envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families during the past 18 months.

The report... is merely heresay and not based on fact
Sean McCormack
US State Department spokesman

Investigators rejected an invitation to tour the base in Cuba because they would not have been allowed to interview the prisoners directly.

The US State Department has criticised the findings.

"Just because they decided not to take up the US government on the offer to go to Guantanamo Bay does not automatically give [them] the right to publish a report that is merely hearsay and not based on fact," spokesman Sean McCormack said.

UN officials will include responses from the US government before the report is officially released at the end of the week.

Mr Nowak says that nothing of substance will be altered when the final report is issued.

The investigation was ordered by the UN Commission on Human Rights.

The camp at Guantanamo Bay was set up in 2002 to hold foreign terror suspects, many of them captured in Afghanistan.

It currently houses around 500 suspects.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4710966.stm

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WTO upholds US export tax ruling

BBC NEWS
WTO upholds US export tax ruling

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has upheld a ruling calling for the US to end certain export tax breaks.

Turning down an appeal from Washington, the WTO has now given the US 60 days to bring its legislation into line.

European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson welcomed the move, but warned the EU could enforce $4bn (£2.3bn) in sanctions if the US failed to act.

Although the US has officially stopped the tax breaks, the WTO found that it had unfairly retained some exemptions.

While the US wound up the so-called Foreign Sales Corporation tax break in 2004, it gave all firms affected a temporary extension to the rule until the end of this year.

The US also decided that such tax breaks would be able to continue for contracts signed before 17 September, 2003.

'US responsibility'

US firms which the EU says unfairly benefit from the scheme include software giant Microsoft and aircraft maker Boeing.

"The responsibility now lies squarely with the US," said Mr Mandelson. "We are seeking nothing more than the re-establishment of a level playing field."

However, US officials warned that imposing sanctions could put trade relations between Washington and the EU under strain.

"Prolonging the dispute would not serve to foster harmonious transatlantic relations," a spokeswoman for the Office of the US Trade Representative said.

"New EU sanctions will reinforce the perception that the EU is primarily acting in response to the US filing of a WTO complaint against Airbus subsidies."

Brussels estimates that the tax breaks are worth up to $180m a year to Boeing alone.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/4709814.stm

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