Election Fraud: Phone-jamming records point to White House

USA TODAY
Phone-jamming records point to White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 — as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.

The national Republican Party, which paid millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the contacts involved routine election business and that it was "preposterous" to suggest the calls involved phone jamming.

The Justice Department has secured three convictions in the case but hasn't accused any White House or national Republican officials of wrongdoing, nor made any allegations suggesting party officials outside New Hampshire were involved. The phone records of calls to the White House were exhibits in Tobin's trial but prosecutors did not make them part of their case.

Democrats plan to ask a federal judge Tuesday to order GOP and White House officials to answer questions about the phone jamming in a civil lawsuit alleging voter fraud.

Repeated hang-up calls that jammed telephone lines at a Democratic get-out-the-vote center occurred in a Senate race in which Republican John Sununu defeated Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, 51% to 46%, on Nov. 5, 2002.

Besides the conviction of Tobin, the Republicans' New England regional director, prosecutors negotiated two plea bargains: one with a New Hampshire Republican Party official and another with the owner of a telemarketing firm involved in the scheme. The owner of the subcontractor firm whose employees made the hang-up calls is under indictment.

The phone records show that most calls to the White House were from Tobin, who became President Bush's presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004. Other calls from New Hampshire senatorial campaign offices to the White House could have been made by a number of people.

A GOP campaign consultant in 2002, Jayne Millerick, made a 17-minute call to the White House on Election Day, but said in an interview she did not recall the subject. Millerick, who later became the New Hampshire GOP chairwoman, said in an interview she did not learn of the jamming until after the election.

A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at Tobin's criminal trial show he made 115 outgoing calls — mostly to the same number in the White House political affairs office — between Sept. 17 and Nov. 22, 2002. Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting.

There also were other calls between Republican officials during the period that the scheme was hatched and canceled.

Prosecutors did not need the White House calls to convict Tobin and negotiate the two guilty pleas.

Whatever the reason for not using the White House records, prosecutors "tried a very narrow case," said Paul Twomey, who represented the Democratic Party in the criminal and civil cases. The Justice Department did not say why the White House records were not used.

The Democrats said in their civil case motion that they were entitled to know the purpose of the calls to government offices "at the time of the planning and implementation of the phone-jamming conspiracy ... and the timing of the phone calls made by Mr. Tobin on Election Day."

While national Republican officials have said they deplore such operations, the Republican National Committee said it paid for Tobin's defense because he is a longtime supporter and told officials he had committed no crime.

By Nov. 4, 2002, the Monday before the election, an Idaho firm was hired to make the hang-up calls. The Republican state chairman at the time, John Dowd, said in an interview he learned of the scheme that day and tried to stop it.

Dowd, who blamed an aide for devising the scheme without his knowledge, contended that the jamming began on Election Day despite his efforts. A police report confirmed the Manchester Professional Fire Fighters Association reported the hang-up calls began about 7:15 a.m. and continued for about two hours. The association was offering rides to the polls.

Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number, which currently rings inside the political affairs office. In 2002, White House political affairs was led by now-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman. The White House declined to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002.

"As policy, we don't discuss ongoing legal proceedings within the courts," White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.

Robert Kelner, a Washington lawyer representing the Republican National Committee in the civil litigation, said there was no connection between the phone jamming operation and the calls to the White House and party officials.

"On Election Day, as anybody involved in politics knows, there's a tremendous volume of calls between political operatives in the field and political operatives in Washington," Kelner said.

"If all you're pointing out is calls between Republican National Committee regional political officials and the White House political office on Election Day, you're pointing out nothing that hasn't been true on every Election Day," he said.



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Government Authenticates Photos From Abu Ghraib

washingtonpost.com
Government Authenticates Photos From Abu Ghraib
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer

Nearly two years after graphic photographs of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were published worldwide, the U.S. government yesterday for the first time authenticated 74 of the images as being part of the original compact disc that was turned over to Army investigators in January 2004.

Responding to a federal court order as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, Justice Department lawyers wrote in court papers that the previously published images "are identical" to those that investigators have used to look into abuse at the prison. Included among the images are such photos as Pvt. Lynndie R. England holding a leash attached to a naked detainee's neck, a detainee with female underwear placed on his head, detainees shackled to cell doors and beds in painful positions, and others piled in a naked pyramid. The iconic photograph of a detainee standing on a cardboard box, cloaked and hooded with wires coming from his hands, is also among the pictures.

The government, however, did not authenticate numerous photographs of soldiers using dogs to intimidate detainees, though military prosecutors have used such images in open court while pursuing cases against the soldiers.

Many of the photos, or representative samples of them, have been published in The Washington Post and on washingtonpost.com over the past two years. Salon.com, an Internet magazine, recently published the photographs on its Web site after obtaining what appeared to be the Army's compilation of abuse photos used to prosecute low-ranking soldiers. The government also authenticated three short video clips. The original disc was given to Army investigators by a soldier concerned by the abuse that he saw in photos.

Avoiding an actual government release of the images, Justice Department lawyers instead authenticated photographs that were already up on the Salon Web site, using court papers to refer to the images by number. ACLU lawyers were also provided with one additional photograph -- which appears to be two detainees with their arms around each other and their faces edited out of the image -- and the government declined to provide an additional 29 photographs that ACLU lawyers said they are going to fight to see.

None of the photographs the government authenticated indicates any unknown instances of abuse. Hundreds of other photos -- seized from soldiers' computers in Iraq -- appear to show abuse but have not been authenticated by U.S. officials.

"Our aim was to get this information into the public domain, and the government's attempts at withholding this information have proved futile," said Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer pursuing the lawsuit. "This is a victory for us because information to which the public is entitled has been released into the public domain. The government has fought this tooth and nail."

Defense Department officials, including top generals, have opposed releasing the images, arguing that they could set off major unrest in Muslim nations. The images a federal judge in New York ordered the government to release, it turns out, largely were the same images that already have been published.

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Poll Finds Bush Job Rating at New Low - An Election-Year Blow to the GOP

washingtonpost.com
Poll Finds Bush Job Rating at New Low
An Election-Year Blow to the GOP
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers

Political reversals at home and continued bad news from Iraq have dragged President Bush's standing with the public to a new low, at the same time that Republican fortunes on Capitol Hill also are deteriorating, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey found that 38 percent of the public approve of the job Bush is doing, down three percentage points in the past month and his worst showing in Post-ABC polling since he became president. Sixty percent disapprove of his performance.

With less than seven months remaining before the midterm elections, Bush's political troubles already appear to be casting a long shadow over them. Barely a third of registered voters, 35 percent, approve of the way the Republican-led Congress is doing its job -- the lowest level of support in nine years.

The negative judgments about the president and the congressional majority reflect the breadth of the GOP's difficulties and suggest that the problems of each may be mutually reinforcing. Although the numbers do not represent a precipitous decline over recent surveys, the fact that they have stayed at low levels over recent months indicates that the GOP is confronting some fundamental obstacles with public opinion rather than a patch of bad luck.

A majority of registered voters, 55 percent, say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district, while 40 percent support the Republican candidate. That is the largest share of the electorate favoring Democrats in Post-ABC polls since the mid-1980s.

This grim news for the GOP is offset somewhat by the finding that 59 percent of voters still say they approve of their own representative. But even these numbers are weaker than in recent off-year election cycles and identical to support of congressional incumbents in June 1994 -- five months before Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans.

As Bush and the Republicans falter, Democrats have emerged as the party most Americans trust to deal with such issues as Iraq, the economy and health care. By 49 to 42 percent, Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans to do a better job of handling Iraq.

Democrats also hold a six-percentage-point advantage over the GOP (49 percent to 43 percent) as the party most trusted to handle the economy. Their lead swells to double digits on such as issues as immigration (12 points), prescription drug benefits for the elderly (28 points), health care (32 points) and dealing with corruption in Washington (25 points).

The public divides evenly on only one issue: terrorism, with 46 percent expressing more confidence in the Democrats and 45 percent trusting Republicans on a top voting concern that the GOP counts on dominating.

But there is plenty of time left before Election Day for Republicans to take back ground they have lost to Democrats -- or for Democrats to solidify their recent gains. In the past year, public attitudes toward Bush and the Republicans have been driven by the news. Bush's popularity rebounded at the end of last year in response to the democratic elections in Iraq and renewed optimism about the economy at home -- only to stumble as the deadly insurgency continued and scandals in Congress and the White House drove down perceptions of the president and his party.

A total of 1,027 randomly selected adults were interviewed April 6 to 9 for this survey. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for the overall results.

Bush's job approval rating has remained below 50 percent for nearly a year. Perhaps more ominous for the president, 47 percent in the latest poll say they "strongly" disapprove of Bush's handling of the presidency -- more than double the 20 percent who strongly approve. It marked the second straight month that the proportion of Americans intensely critical of the president was larger than his overall job approval rating. In comparison, the percentage who strongly disapproved of President Bill Clinton on that measure never exceeded 33 percent in Post-ABC News polls.

The public is even more critical of Bush's performance in specific areas. On six of seven key issues, fewer than half of the respondents approve of the job Bush is doing, while majorities express dissatisfaction with him on Iraq (62 percent), health care (62 percent) and immigration (61 percent).

Four in 10 -- 40 percent -- say Bush is doing a good job with the economy, down eight percentage points in a month. One reason for the drop may be the recent sharp increase in fuel costs. Fewer than one in four approve of his handling of gasoline prices, virtually the same as last summer when gas prices topped $3 a gallon. Overall, 44 percent said the increases are causing "serious hardship" in their family, up significantly from August.

Half of the public now disapproves of the way Bush is handling the fight against terrorism, an issue on which majorities of Americans had typically given him high marks until last year.

The depth of public dissatisfaction with Bush and the highly partisan nature of the criticism are underscored by public attitudes toward efforts by some in Congress to censure him or impeach him for his actions as president.

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders view both scenarios as remote possibilities. Still, more than four in 10 Americans -- 45 percent -- favor censuring or formally reprimanding Bush for authorizing wiretaps of telephone calls and e-mails of terrorism suspects without court permission. Two-thirds of Democrats and half of all independents, but only one in six Republicans, support censuring Bush, the poll found.

Last month, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) introduced a resolution in the Senate to censure Bush. A majority of Americans, 56 percent, said his move was driven more by politics than by principle.

Calls to impeach Bush are not resonating beyond Democratic partisans. One-third of Americans, including a majority of Democrats (55 percent), favor impeaching Bush and removing him from office. But more than nine in 10 Republicans and two-thirds of independents oppose impeachment.

The ongoing bloodshed and political chaos in Iraq continue to drag down support for the war, the survey found. Barely four in 10 -- 41 percent -- say the war is worth fighting, down five percentage points since December. Although more than half of Americans think troop levels in Iraq should be decreased, only 15 percent are calling for an immediate withdrawal, a figure that has not varied much over the past year.

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Sen. Trent Lott's Lawyer Claims State Farm Is Destroying Documents Regarding Katrina Claims

ABC News
Lott Lawyer: State Farm Destroying Papers
Sen. Trent Lott's Lawyer Claims State Farm Is Destroying Documents Regarding Katrina Claims
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
The Associated Press

BILOXI, Miss. - A lawyer for U.S. Sen. Trent Lott said Monday that State Farm Insurance Co. is destroying documents that could show the insurer has fraudulently denied thousands of claims by Lott and other policyholders whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Zach Scruggs, one of Lott's attorneys, says his client has a "good faith belief" that several State Farm employees in Biloxi are destroying engineering reports that gave conflicting conclusions about whether wind or water was responsible for storm damage.

Like thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners, Lott's claim was denied because State Farm concluded that Katrina's flood water demolished his beach-front Pascagoula home. State Farm says its policies do not cover damage from rising water, including wind-driven water.

But lawyers for the Mississippi Republican claim Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm has routinely pressured its engineers to alter "favorable" reports that initially blamed damage on hurricane's wind, which the company's policies cover.

A State Farm spokesman said Monday he couldn't immediately comment on Scruggs' allegations.

Lott's allegations come on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Kiln, Miss., couple who claimed they had obtained copies of conflicting reports prepared by State Farm's engineers on what damaged their home. They said one report traced the destruction to Katrina's winds while a later report said flooding was the culprit.

In response, State Farm spokesman Phil Supple had said the second report was the only one the engineering firm sent to State Farm's claims office.

In an interview Monday, Scruggs said corporate "whistleblowers" who are cooperating with Lott's attorneys have provided evidence that State Farm employees are destroying or moving those "initial favorable" engineering reports.

"We believe that this is a systematic practice," said Scruggs, who is Lott's nephew by marriage.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood also says he is investigating allegations that State Farm manipulated engineering reports to deny claims after the Aug. 29 hurricane.

A judge ordered State Farm to turn over copies of its Katrina engineering reports to Hood's office. The judge also ordered Hood's office to set up a "Chinese wall" that would keep the documents out of the hands of lawyers with civil cases against State Farm.

Because Hood also has filed a civil case on behalf of the state against State Farm and other insurance companies, State Farm is asking the judge to bar Hood himself from seeing the records.

State Farm denied Lott's claim in December based on a report prepared by Jade Engineering & Construction Inc. that concluded that the house was "probably damaged by storm surge/flooding and not by wind."

Scruggs is asking a federal judge to order State Farm to turn over Lott's entire case file as well as records for other policyholders' claims.

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White House Memo: With One Filing, Prosecutor Puts Bush in Spotlight

The New York Times
White House Memo
With One Filing, Prosecutor Puts Bush in Spotlight
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, April 10 — From the early days of the C.I.A. leak investigation in 2003, the Bush White House has insisted there was no effort to discredit Joseph C. Wilson IV, the man who emerged as the most damaging critic of the administration's case that Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons.

But now White House officials, and specifically President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, have been pitched back into the center of the nearly three-year controversy, this time because of a prosecutor's court filing in the case that asserts there was "a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House," to undermine Mr. Wilson.

The new assertions by the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, have put administration officials on the spot in a way they have not been for months, as attention in the leak case seems to be shifting away from the White House to the pretrial procedural skirmishing in the perjury and obstruction charges against Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr.

Mr. Fitzgerald's filing talks not of an effort to level with Americans but of "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson." It concludes, "It is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish Wilson.' "

With more filings expected from Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor's work has the potential to keep the focus on Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney at a time when the president is struggling with his lowest approval ratings since he took office.

Even on Monday, Mr. Bush found himself in an uncomfortable spot during an appearance at a Johns Hopkins University campus in Washington, when a student asked him to address Mr. Fitzgerald's assertion that the White House was seeking to retaliate against Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Bush stumbled as he began his response before settling on an answer that sidestepped the question. He said he had ordered the formal declassification of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in July 2003 because "it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches" about Iraq's efforts to reconstitute its weapons program.

Mr. Bush said nothing about the earlier, informal authorization that Mr. Fitzgerald's court filing revealed. The prosecutor described testimony from Mr. Libby, who said Mr. Bush had told Mr. Cheney that it was permissible to reveal some information from the intelligence estimate, which described Mr. Hussein's efforts to acquire uranium.

But on Monday, Mr. Bush was not talking about that. "You're just going to have to let Mr. Fitzgerald complete his case, and I hope you understand that," Mr. Bush said. "It's a serious legal matter that we've got to be careful in making public statements about it."

Every prosecutor strives not just to prove a case, but also to tell a compelling story. It is now clear that Mr. Fitzgerald's account of what was happening in the White House in the summer of 2003 is very different from the Bush administration's narrative, which suggested that Mr. Wilson was seen as a minor figure whose criticisms could be answered by disclosing the underlying intelligence upon which Mr. Bush relied.

It turned out that much of the information about Mr. Hussein's search for uranium was questionable at best, and that it became the subject of dispute almost as soon as it was included in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

The answer to the question of whose recounting of events is correct — Mr. Bush's or Mr. Fitzgerald's — may not be known for months or years, if ever. But it seems there will be more clues, including some about the conversations between Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney.

Mr. Fitzgerald said he was preparing to turn over to Mr. Libby 1,400 pages of handwritten notes — some presumably in Mr. Libby's own hand — that could shed light on two very different efforts at getting out the White House story.

One effort — the July 18 declassification of the major conclusions of the intelligence estimate — was taking place in public, while another, Mr. Fitzgerald argues, was happening in secret, with only Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby involved.

Last week's court filing has already led the White House to acknowledge, over the weekend, that Mr. Bush ordered the selective disclosure of parts of the intelligence estimate sometime in late June or early July. But administration officials insist that Mr. Bush played a somewhat passive role and did so without selecting Mr. Libby, or anyone else, to tell the story piecemeal to a small number of reporters.

But in one of those odd twists in the unpredictable world of news leaks, neither of the reporters Mr. Libby met, Bob Woodward of The Washington Post or Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, reported a word of it under their own bylines. In fact, other reporters working on the story were talking to senior officials who were warning that the uranium information in the intelligence estimate was dubious at best.

Mr. Fitzgerald did not identify who took part in the White House effort to argue otherwise, but the evidence he has cited so far shows that Mr. Cheney's office was the epicenter of concern about Mr. Wilson, the former ambassador sent to Niger by the C.I.A. to determine what deal, if any, Mr. Hussein had struck there.

Throughout the spring and early summer of 2003, Mr. Fitzgerald concluded, the former ambassador had become an irritant to the administration, raising doubts about the truthfulness of assertions — made publicly by Mr. Bush in his State of the Union address in January of that year — that Iraq might have sought uranium in Africa to further its nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Wilson's criticisms culminated in a July 6, 2003, Op-Ed article in The Times in which he voiced the same doubts for the first time on the record. He cited as his evidence his 2002 trip to Niger, instigated, he said, because of questions raised by Mr. Cheney's office.

Mr. Wilson's article, Mr. Fitzgerald said in the filing, "was viewed in the Office of the Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president (and the president) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq."

Mr. Fitzgerald suggested that the White House effort was a "plan" to undermine Mr. Wilson.

"Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the vice president had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson's credibility if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism," Mr. Fitzgerald's filing said.

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Employers Push White House to Disclose Medicare Data

The New York Times
Employers Push White House to Disclose Medicare Data
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, April 10 — The White House is clashing with the nation's largest employers over their request for huge amounts of government data on the cost and quality of health care provided by doctors around the country.

President Bush has repeatedly urged private insurers to disclose such data, saying it will help consumers choose doctors and hospitals. But Medicare, the nation's largest insurer, has turned down a request for its data from the Business Roundtable, whose member companies provide coverage to more than 25 million people.

Employers want to use the data to compare and rate doctors and to rein in soaring health costs — the very purpose advocated by the president. The data would show, for example, which doctors performed the most knee operations with the fewest complications. Employers said they could then compare the average cost per case for different doctors. And they could steer patients — workers, and retirees and their dependents — to doctors who achieved the best results and offered the best value.

"The Medicare data would be a gold mine of information," said Maria M. Ghazal, director of public policy at the Business Roundtable. Medicare handles more than a billion claims a year.

Administration officials said they shared the employers' goals, but were constrained by court rulings that limited the disclosure of data showing Medicare payments to individual doctors, identified by name. Employers disagree, saying those court rulings are no longer relevant.

Touring the country in recent weeks, Mr. Bush has said the best way to control health costs is to "empower consumers" with information. "You can't make good health care decisions unless there's transparency in the marketplace," he said on Wednesday in Connecticut.

The White House has said that doctors, hospitals and insurance companies should "make information about prices and quality readily available to all Americans."

That sentiment gets passionate support from the Business Roundtable, which represents chief executives from 160 of the nation's largest companies, including Citigroup, Exxon Mobil and General Electric. Health benefits are a major expense for these companies.

"The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should release 100 percent of the Medicare claims database," said Robert W. Lane, chairman of Deere & Company, the world's largest maker of farm equipment and a member of the Business Roundtable. "This is essential to measuring cost efficiency and compliance with clinical guidelines."

At a recent White House meeting, Mr. Bush asked business executives to support his campaign for the disclosure of data on health costs and quality. In response, they asked why Medicare had not released its data.

Last year, before Mr. Bush started talking about "transparency in the marketplace," the Business Roundtable asked for access to the full Medicare claims database.

Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said the volume of doctor claims was so large that "we cannot produce a single file larger than 5 percent of the total."

Moreover, federal officials said, the data could be released only for bona fide research projects and even then the claim files would not identify doctors by name. So they could not be used to produce profiles of doctors, or report cards.

Geralyn M. Barosso, a technical specialist at Medicare's Research Data Assistance Center, said, "Medicare data has not been released for the purpose of profiling individual physicians."

Federal officials said they were still bound by a 1979 ruling in which a federal district judge blocked the disclosure of information about Medicare payments to individual doctors. Such disclosure was "prohibited by the Privacy Act" because it would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," the court said.

The law protects the privacy interests of doctors as well as patients, the court said.

Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the administration was reviewing that decision.

Peter V. Lee, chief executive of the Pacific Business Group on Health, a coalition of employers, said he had repeatedly urged the Bush administration to make available the full Medicare claims database, stripped of information that could identify patients.

"To measure performance accurately, you need big numbers," Mr. Lee said. "The best source of big numbers is Medicare. One employer may have 12 patients seen by a particular doctor. Medicare may have 100 patients treated by the same doctor. If you combine the information, you get a much better picture of the doctor's performance."

Consumer groups and labor unions also want the Medicare data. "We have a shared interest," said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families. "Medicare and private health plans could save billions of dollars if just one in 10 beneficiaries moved from less efficient to more efficient physicians."

Medicare has Web sites to help consumers compare hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and kidney dialysis centers. But it has no site comparing doctors.

Employers say the 1979 court case is no longer relevant because Medicare has changed the way it pays doctors, and most doctors now practice in professional corporations, which are not protected by the Privacy Act.

"Times have changed," Mr. Lee said. "The administration should take a hard look at that case and its outdated interpretation of the privacy law."

Researchers have found immense variation in the amount and cost of care provided by different doctors to Medicare patients with the same disease and the same severity of illness. Patients who receive more care — more office visits, hospitalizations and operations — do not necessarily fare better.

Dr. John E. Wennberg of Dartmouth Medical School, who has studied such variations for more than 30 years, said the Business Roundtable was making "a splendid effort" to compare health care providers. But Dr. Wennberg said: "I would caution against simplistic efforts to measure efficiency. It's very difficult to get reliable data on cost and quality at the individual physician level."

Conclusions are more likely to be valid when researchers compare groups of 25 or more doctors, Dr. Wennberg said, and it is also essential to know how frequently doctors admit patients to hospitals.

Even among surgeons performing similar procedures on the same kinds of patients at the same hospital, costs often vary widely.

Dr. Bruce L. Hall, assistant professor of surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, suggested one reason: Doctors treating the sickest patients seem to develop "costly practice habits," which show up even when they are caring for healthier patients.

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Bank crisis pushes Hamas gov't to financial brink

Reuters
Bank crisis pushes Hamas gov't to financial brink
By Adam Entous and Wafa Amr

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The reluctance of banks to risk U.S. sanctions and lawsuits by dealing with a Hamas-led government has pushed the Palestinian Authority to the brink of financial collapse sooner than donors had expected, diplomats said.

The rapid onset of a banking crisis -- within days of Hamas's swearing-in on March 29 -- could further depress Palestinian incomes, fuel political unrest and speed the arrival of a humanitarian crisis with which donors are not yet prepared to cope, according to diplomats and Palestinian officials.

Western diplomats and private-sector experts said Hamas's troubles finding a bank has for now eclipsed Western aid cuts as the biggest immediate threat to the new government's viability.

"This is by far the biggest crisis facing the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian economy. It could have profound long-term consequences," said Gidi Grinstein, president of the Reut Institute, an independent Israeli think tank.

Hamas cabinet members and other Palestinian officials have accused the Bush administration of sparking the crisis by pressuring Amman-based Arab Bank to stop managing the Palestinian Authority's main treasury account.

Diplomats and Palestinian officials said the account was effectively shut down, jeopardizing Hamas's ability to carry out basic functions like securing foreign aid and paying vendors.

"Even if you get emergency money together, there's no way to bring it in," without banks to make the transfers and hold the money, said a Western diplomat monitoring the crisis.

Hamas is already more than a week late paying March salaries to 140,000 Palestinian Authority workers and it was unclear when the government will be able to secure the funds to meet payroll.

In addition to pressuring the Arab Bank, "the Americans informed (other) Palestinian banks that if they deal with the Hamas government they could risk legal and political measures against them," a senior Palestinian official said.

But Western diplomats said Washington's role was unclear.

The Arab Bank sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department shortly after Hamas won a January 25 parliamentary election, seeking assurances it would not face U.S. penalties under the Patriot Act and other anti-terrorism laws if it continued to manage the so-called "single treasury account", diplomats said.

The Treasury Department did not formally respond to the Arab Bank's letter, the diplomats said.

But Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said: "We're engaged in conversations with the Arab Bank on these and other issues through our embassy in Jordan."

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Treasury did not tell the Arab Bank to freeze the Palestinian Authority's account. The official did not elaborate on what the embassy told the bank about its legal exposure.

Experts said the banks's legal concerns stemmed from provisions of the Patriot Act and other U.S. laws which give the Bush administration sweeping powers to crack down on individuals and companies that provide any "material support" to Hamas.

The Arab Bank is already under particular scrutiny from U.S. regulators. It was fined $24 million last year over alleged failures to comply with anti-money laundering laws aimed at blocking funding for banned "terrorist organisations".

The Arab Bank could also face new civil lawsuits for handling Palestinian accounts, said Gary Osen, an attorney who has sued the Arab Bank on behalf of Americans killed in suicide bombings, alleging it had a role in helping get funds to Hamas.

"In a day or a year when Hamas blows up a cafe or a commuter bus, the Arab Bank or any other bank that provides financial services to PA would risk substantial liability," said Osen.

The risk of running afoul of the Patriot Act was also a factor for Israel's largest bank, Hapoalim, in severing banking ties to the Palestinians, a bank official said.

Grinstein said: "The irony is that it is driven not by the state of Israel, but by the United States."

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker)

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Bush expects to be "roped into" campaigning for the eventual Republican presidential nominee in 2008

Reuters
Bush to stay neutral in party nomination battle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George W. Bush said on Monday he would spend the rest of his presidency working as hard as he could for the American people and would stay neutral in the battle among fellow Republicans to succeed him.

Answering questions after a speech at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Bush said he assumed he would be "roped into" campaigning for the eventual Republican presidential nominee in 2008.

But until there was a nominee, "I'm just going to let the politics run its course," he said.

Several Republicans who would like to succeed Bush are already laying the groundwork for a campaign. Potential candidates include Arizona Sen. John McCain, Virginia Sen. George Allen, Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

"I'm not through yet, you know... I am going to spend two-and-a-half years charging as hard as I possibly can -- I want to sprint out of office," Bush said.

The Republican contest promises to be hotly-contested because there is no clear successor to Bush. Vice President Dick Cheney, who would be the obvious heir apparent, has often said he would not run.

Bush said he welcomed that decision. "I'm glad my vice president is not running for president. Not that he would(n't) make a great president, but that it certainly changes the dynamics inside the White House," he said.

Bush is suffering from job approval ratings below 40 percent and some Republicans have distanced themselves from him. Still, the president has been actively raising money for his party's candidates in this November's mid-term elections.

Historically, second term incumbents have often lost influence in their final two years in office as Americans look ahead to the next election and the next generation of leaders.

Many political analysts believe Bush, struggling with the Iraq war and various other problems, will become a lame duck sooner rather than later.

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States battle for slice of biotech pie

Reuters
States battle for slice of biotech pie
By Karen Pierog

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. states squared off against each other on Monday in a battle to capture jobs and revenue generated by the burgeoning biotechnology industry.

A report released at the BIO 2006 conference here showed U.S. employment in biosciences reached 1.2 million in 2004. That was slightly more than a 1 percent increase since 2001, with workers earning a lucrative average annual wage of $65,775.

"These are good, well-paying jobs," said Walter Plosila, a vice president at Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, which co-sponsored the report.

The report also found that states are spending billions of dollars to support bioscience research and development. State governments are also using investment funds and tax incentives to attract large industry anchors, instead of solely focusing on launching and growing new bioscience ventures.

Nearly every state sponsored a booth at this week's worldwide biotech industry meeting at Chicago's McCormick Place convention center, according to James Greenwood, president and chief executive officer of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Thirteen governors were expected to attend the conference, up from the nine who came to last year's event, according to a BIO spokeswoman.

The competition for biotech is fierce, according to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, whose two-story, multi-media state exhibit at the conference looked down at those from Michigan, Illinois and Ireland.

The Democratic governor is also keenly aware that competition can get skewed if states begin restricting scientific endeavors, such as stem cell research.

"We have not had restrictive legislation move in Kansas, which I think is good news," Sebelius said.

But a legislative effort in neighboring Missouri to ban and criminalize such research has touched off a petition drive in that state to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to circumvent state or local government restrictions on stem cell research and cures allowed under federal law.

Sebelius said she hoped the petition drive proves successful.

"It would send a message that this area of the country is very interested in bio research," she said.

Donn Rubin, chairman of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which is leading the petition drive, said the group has the backing of Republican Gov. Matt Blunt and more than 46,000 members.

"We want it off the table so we can absolutely claim Missouri is pro-science," he said.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has set himself in the role of gatekeeper, vetoing legislative attempts to curb stem cell research.

"As long as I'm governor, we're going to stop those who want to curtail stem cell research and we're going to aggressively move forward," the Democrat said.

Noting that the state is the birthplace of human embryonic stem cell research, Doyle said his vision is for Wisconsin to capture 10 percent of the business and job growth surrounding stem cell research by 2015.

Plosila said research restrictions were clearly an impediment to any state's efforts in the biotechnology area.

"If you end up doing things out of the mainstream, it won't help you grow, attract or maintain your biosciences base," he said.

Robert Fraley, executive vice president and chief technology officer at St. Louis-based Monsanto Co., said companies involved in research were keeping an eye on developments in states that might lead to restrictions.

"We want to make sure that our universities and companies have full access to the tools and technologies that can lead to innovations in the future," he said.

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Bush says he declassified intelligence

Reuters
Bush says he declassified intelligence
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush acknowledged on Monday he ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq to respond to critics who alleged he manipulated intelligence to justify the war.

Bush offered his first comment on a prosecutor's disclosure last week that he authorized Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to declassify Iraq intelligence.

The disclosure prompted a firestorm of criticism from Democrats who charged Bush was a hypocrite who denounces leaks of information while becoming the "leaker-in-chief." A Republican ally, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, urged Bush on Sunday to "tell the American people exactly what happened."

At issue is the administration's release in July 2003 of parts of an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that alleged Iraq under Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

Bush said he declassified parts of the document to answer questions raised about why the United States invaded Iraq.

"I wanted people to see what some of those statements were based on. I wanted people to see the truth. I thought it made sense for people to see the truth. That's why I declassified the document," he said.

Bush, answering questions from an audience after a speech in Washington, would not comment on the allegation that he authorized Libby to release the information to reporters.

But a senior administration official said Bush did not designate Libby or anyone else to release the information, trying to distance Bush from any tactical decisions made on how to release the information.

The White House release of the parts of the National Intelligence Estimate came in response to charges from former ambassador Joe Wilson that Bush had manipulated intelligence to justify the war.

Wilson later accused the White House of leaking the identity of his wife, who was then a CIA officer, Valerie Plame, to retaliate against him.

Libby is accused of obstruction of justice and perjury in an investigation designed to discover who leaked Plame's name.

White House officials have stressed that Bush was well within his legal authority to declassify the document.

The new controversy erupted as Bush seeks to rebound from weak poll numbers and tries to bolster sagging American support for the Iraq war.

Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday" that Bush owed "a specific explanation to the American people" of what happened.

"The president has the authority to declassify information. So in a technical sense, if he looked at it, he could say this is declassified, and make a disclosure of it," he said.

Wilson, speaking on ABC's "This Week," called on Bush to release transcripts of his and Cheney's testimony to the prosecutor.

"It seems to me it is long past time for the White House to come clean on all of this," he said.

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Louisiana officials say Katrina recovery wasteful

Reuters
Louisiana officials say Katrina recovery wasteful
By Michael Depp

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Multibillion-dollar hurricane recovery efforts on the U.S. Gulf Coast are plagued by bloated costs and waste with too many contractors getting a piece of the action, lawmakers said at a hearing on Monday.

Louisiana legislators frustrated by the slow pace of recovery accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Army Corps of Engineers of spearheading a flawed rebuilding process with little transparency and contractor oversight.

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, held the field hearing as part of efforts to avoid the mistakes made after Hurricane Katrina in future crises.

"There seems to be a great pillow in the middle," Kevin Davis, president of storm-ravaged St. Tammany Parish, said of a disconnect between FEMA management and on-the-ground personnel. "Creativity and flexibility are discouraged."

The August 29 storm killed at least 1,300 people along the Gulf Coast. The region is bracing for the formal start to the 2006 hurricane season on June 1 against a backdrop of often-fractious relations with the federal agencies.

Coburn questioned the Corps' debris removal contracts as an example of mismanagement. He asked why details were not being divulged and questioned FEMA's deferral of key cleanup initiatives to the Corps.

"We believe that they have the requisite experience that we don't have within FEMA," responded Tina Burnette, deputy director of acquisitions for Katrina under the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency.

But Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, said the Corps contracted out its key cleanup operations to large, private firms, which in turn sub-contracted down a lengthy chain of companies before any work was done.

Too much of $100 billion-plus earmarked for Louisiana hurricane relief efforts is tied up in wasteful subcontracting practices, lawmakers said often at the hearing.

Also, local contractors are frequently being shut out of big jobs despite laws guaranteeing their role, Vitter said.

Derrell Cohoon, chief of the Louisiana Association of General Contractors, which represents 700 firms, said local players were getting subcontracts that were too small and piecemeal to be either profitable or meaningful.

Several politicians complained about FEMA travel trailers used for temporary housing, which have cost the agency $50,000-$70,000 each to buy and install. The money would be better put in residents' hands to repair their homes or to find other housing, the said.

The trailers themselves have been troublesome. One local politician testified some of his constituents have had them delivered, only to be locked out because different contractors were in charge of handing out the keys.

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Broken Promises

aarp.org
Broken Promises
By Reed Karaim

With companies cutting back on retiree health benefits, more and more former employees have to go it alone. What lies ahead for today’s workers?

Santos R. Arrona of Visalia, Calif., worked for J.C. Penney for 25 years, mostly in delivery services, before he retired at age 69 in 1990. In addition to a modest pension, Penney provided Arrona with health benefits, including prescription drug coverage. Those benefits were something he thought he could count on from a company founded on its golden rule of fairness, honesty and value.

But last year J.C. Penney announced that, effective Jan. 1, 2006, it would cancel virtually all health benefits for retirees age 65 and over. So Arrona, 84, joined the growing ranks of Americans who have seen their retiree health benefits end or at least deteriorate at an employer's discretion.

Among huge companies that trimmed benefits in recent years are General Motors, Raytheon, Lucent Technologies, United Airlines and Pfizer. The reasons they cite for their retreat include soaring health care costs, cutthroat global competition and even the new Medicare Part D prescription drug plan.

Coupled with countless frozen or terminated pension plans, health benefit cutbacks make plain the growing transfer of economic risk and responsibility from employers and government to workers. To retirees like Arrona, the decisions simply feel like broken promises.

"You're there all those years, you do all the work and everything they ask you to do, and then you retire and they cut you off," he says. "It doesn't seem right."

The number of large companies that provide their retirees with health benefits fell precipitously in 1991, when the federal government imposed stricter accounting requirements for measuring the financial cost of future benefits. The decline has continued, from 46 percent in 1991 to 33 percent in 2005, according to annual surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Hewitt Associates. Smaller firms are even less likely to provide retiree health benefits.

Companies that do maintain benefits have been hiking the share retirees must pay. In the 2005 Kaiser/Hewitt survey, more than two-thirds of the companies reported such increases. More than a third increased copayments, and nearly a fourth increased deductibles.

Millions of retirees are scrambling to adjust. J.C. Penney is helping the 9,500 retirees affected by its 2005 decision move their drug coverage to a Medicare Part D drug plan offered by AARP and provided by United Healthcare. The new coverage, the company says, is better than its old plan.

But when Arrona looked into it, he received contradictory information, and the monthly cost quoted to him by one plan representative—$176 a month for the premium and his three medicines— would badly strain his finances. He is in the process of signing up, but as a veteran, he has in the meantime turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs for his prescription drugs. "I think they're going to be able to help me," he says. "I sure hope so."

At least Arrona qualifies for Medicare. More than 3.5 million retirees don't because they haven't reached age 65, according to the Kaiser Foundation and the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington. That makes their employer coverage especially critical, and rising costs could strap them.

Ed Beltram of Woodland Park, Colo., worked as a manager for Lucent Technologies for 31 years. When the company downsized four years ago, it asked him to take early retirement at age 56. Part of the incentive was generous health benefits, which, he says he was told, wouldn't be available if he delayed his departure.

Out-of-pocket medical costs for Beltram and his wife were $43 a month when he retired. Now, because of changes Lucent has made in its plan, the Beltrams are spending $690 a month. The increase has changed their retirement; he's working part-time at a golf course to bring in a little extra money.

"We're still all right on the basics," he says, "but we're not doing the things we thought we would do, like traveling to see our sons regularly."

It wasn't what Beltram had been led to expect. "In the years [workers] didn't get much of a raise, we were always told, 'Even though your salary isn't going up as much, you're still accruing your benefits for your retirement years.' " Now, he says, "the companies are supporting their corporate financial reports on the backs of retirees by having accountants and lawyers look every way they can—do whatever is legal—to reduce the benefits. It may be legal ... but I really feel it's immoral."

Companies also take advantage of their contributions to health care for employees and retirees to help the bottom line. They've parlayed the payments into the largest tax break in the history of the U.S. tax code—$102.3 billion in 2004. At the same time, corporate underfunding of retiree health plans dwarfs the better-known shortfalls of pension obligations.

Are cutbacks simply economic reality? "Medical costs are just generally out of line, for current and former employees," says Paul Dennett of the Washington-based American Benefits Council, which represents Fortune 500 companies. "Anytime one area of costs goes out of line, it underscores the need for greater discipline into that area of expenses."

At the same time, Dennett says, increased competition, nationally and globally, has put financial pressure on older firms that offered benefits packages more generous than many newer firms offer. "Very few retirement health plans have been established in the past few years," he says. Many companies, he adds, have no economic choice but to cut benefits.

The changing economic landscape hit home with hourly workers at General Motors, whose health benefits were part of their union contract. They voted last fall to support a change that would cut $1 billion in annual health care benefits for more than 750,000 hourly workers, retired hourly workers and their families.

The deal requires federal court approval because it would force retirees, who didn't have a vote in the matter, to begin paying monthly premiums, deductibles and copays. In March GM retirees turned out at a U.S. District Court hearing in Detroit to ask that their health benefits remain unchanged.

The lead plaintiff in a suit challenging the deal, Leroy McKnight of Haslett, Mich., went to work for GM at age 19 and retired at age 56 in 2000. "It's an issue about corporate power versus individual contractual rights," McKnight says. "I sold 30 years of services to GM—for wages, health care while I was working, a pension, and health care while I was retired—and now they're trying to weasel out of their obligation."

Last year 12 percent of larger companies terminated all subsidized retiree health benefits for future retirees, the Kaiser/Hewitt study found. By all indications, the trend will at least continue and probably intensify. "The approaching generation of retirees is far less likely to have the level of financial security from employer-sponsored benefits that many of today's retirees enjoy," says Kaiser's Tricia Neuman, a co-author of the annual study.

Of retiree health benefits, prescription drug coverage is the most sought after. The Medicare Part D benefit was intended to ensure that such coverage would be available to all Medicare beneficiaries. But some analysts worry the new program makes it easier for employers to cancel drug benefits, which on average are more generous than Part D coverage, because employers can point to the federal program as a viable alternative.

As an enticement for companies to maintain their retiree drug benefits, Part D offers a subsidy that amounts to 28 percent of their overall costs on top of their existing tax break. Still, with Part D in place, 9 percent of larger companies plan to eliminate their retiree drug benefit in 2006, according to the 2005 Kaiser/Hewitt survey.

"Clearly some companies are feeling far more comfortable in cutting benefits," says Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a national consumer group. "I have no doubt in the next couple of years employers will see this as a way of abandoning employees and retirees."

The outcome of a long-running legal battle could further clear the way for dumping retiree health benefits. Last September, ruling in a lawsuit brought by AARP, a federal judge in Philadelphia said that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could implement a rule that would allow employers to provide better benefits packages to younger retirees than to Medicare-eligible retirees without violating age discrimination laws.

The judge barred the EEOC from implementing the rule until AARP could appeal the decision. If the EEOC ultimately prevails, employers will be able to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees as soon as they become eligible for Medicare.

Another development echoes the tightening of accounting methods that started the rush to unload retiree health benefits in 1991. A new accounting requirement regarding underfunded retiree health benefits funds takes effect this year and will likely accelerate the trend, but analysts disagree on its effect.

All these factors will conspire to allow far fewer workers to retire with guaranteed medical benefits, and those lucky few are likely to find the benefits far less generous than their predecessors'. The United States, says Alicia Munnell, director of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research, is in the middle of a historic shift in how retirees are provided for. Except for the poorest families, this responsibility has centered on the employer.

"Now, the employer is pulling away from these commitments, and we have put nothing in place of the old system," she says. "The individual is just hanging out there, flapping in the breeze."

With no comprehensive solution in sight, workers and retirees will be fending for themselves.

Reed Karaim is a freelance writer in Tucson, Arizona.

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DeLay Is the New Republican

huffingtonpost.com
DeLay Is the New Republican
Alec Baldwin

Watching DeLay go out again gives you a pretty good idea what kind of heart beats inside of the GOP body these days. DeLay, who decided to force the issue of redistricting outside of the traditional period following a census, pulled a big coup for the Republicans, who didn't care that he stood decades of political protocol on its ear in the process. (One wonders if Democrats will push for the same kind of petty partisan tactics if they take control.)

DeLay is the New Republican. Gut the protocol on redistricting? No problem. Gonzales says that the President can wiretap the communications of US citizens inside the country without a court order? So what. Hastert and Frist sit back and watch while Bush conducts a shamelessly ineffective war and thousands of US soldiers needlessly die? Big deal. (Vietnam fell thirty years ago and that's made a real difference in American life since then, right?)

Many people have commented on these pages that the Democrats will not do any better. I believe in my heart that this is overwhelmingly untrue. If you are talking about weasels like Zell Miller, then you may have something. If you are talking about Lieberman, I agree he is a disappointment, in many ways. There are others, in both houses, who should be ashamed of how they have allowed post-9/11 fear to bottle up their logic and sense of duty. But a Democratic Congress of practically ANY makeup would be better than the swine, cowards and indictable thugs we have in there now. DeLay leaves his office as we knew he would. He has learned nothing. "Liberal media" are still to blame. (Where is that media? I want a subscription.) We currently have a breed in the leadership roles in Congress who are the worst in our history, because they learn nothing.

Talk of impeaching Bush is foolhardy. This crowd on the Hill wouldn't have the balls to impeach Bush if HE were found in a broom closet with Lewinsky. They have no guts, no hearts and no honor. Impeaching Cheney would be incredibly satisfying, because I don't think a Constitution-hating sociopath should serve as Vice President. But that's how bad this situation is. Even a hate-filled maniac who outs a CIA agent in the service of her country just to punish her husband, all because the husband was on to the maniac's scheme to start an illegitimate war, even he gets a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card from this GOP Congress.

These are the same guys who impeached Bill Clinton. Disgraced him and his family. For nothing, really, compared to what we face now. I've said it before, I'll say it again: What is truly great about the United States is that not even eight years of some trust fund puppet and his sociopathic puppeteer can destroy this country.

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Washington Post Praises Bush Leak, Mangles Facts

thinkprogress.org
Washington Post Praises Bush Leak, Mangles Facts
Judd

This morning, the Washington Post published an editorial — entitled “A Good Leak” — vigorously defending President Bush’s decision to authorize a leak of classified information as part of a political effort to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Apparently, it isn’t a very strong case because, in order to make their point, the editors had to mangle the facts –

CLAIM: Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa “Mr. Libby’s motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney.” [Washington Post, 4/9/06]

FACT:

Wilson never said that Cheney sent him, only that the vice president’s office had questions about an intelligence report that referred to the sale of uranium yellowcake to Iraq from Niger. Wilson, in his New York Times article, said CIA officials were informed of Cheney’s questions. [Bloomberg, 7/14/05]

CLAIM: There is no evidence of a White House effort to punish Wilson. “Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative…After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson’s charge.” [Washington Post, 4/9/06]

FACT:

Moreover, given that there is evidence that other White House officials with whom defendant spoke prior to July14, 2003 discussed Wilson’s wife’s employment with the press both prior to, and after, July 14, 2003 – which evidence has been shared with defendant – it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to “punish” Wilson. [Fitzgerald filing, pg. 29-30]

CLAIM: There was nothing unusual about Bush’s conduct. “Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to a favorite New York Times reporter…There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that.” [Washington Post, 4/9/06]

FACT:

Defendant testified that this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President’s authorization that it be declassified.” [Fitzgerald filing, pg. 23]

CLAIM: Wilson’s op-ed has been discredited; his report supported White House claims. “The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.” [Washington Post, 4/9/06]

FACT:

Two-year old assertions by former ambassador Joseph Wilson regarding Iraq and uranium, which lie at the heart of the controversy over who at the White House identified a covert U.S. operative, have held up in the face of attacks by supporters of presidential adviser Karl Rove…[T]he Senate panel conclusions didn’t discredit Wilson. The committee concluded that the Niger intelligence information wasn’t solid enough to be included in the State of the Union speech. It added that Wilson’s report didn’t change the minds of analysts on either side of the issue… [Bloomberg, 7/14/05]

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Bush’s EPA Nominee Has Relaxed Rules For Polluters, Weakened Clean Air Legislation

thinkprogress.org
Bush’s EPA Nominee Has Relaxed Rules For Polluters, Weakened Clean Air Legislation
- Mike Darner

William Wehrum, President Bush’s nominee to head the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), has earned a reputation in Washington as “the behind-the-scenes architect” of some of the Bush administration’s most controversial initiatives. Some lowlights:

- Wehrum was a lead author of Bush’s “Clear Skies” legislation, which would have loosened emissions caps on dangerous airborne toxins.

- In 2002, while serving as OAR’s general counsel, Wehrum shepherded through a rule written by forest products industry lobbyists that relaxed the emission standards for formaldehyde. Wehrum had previously represented those same timber interests as a lobbyist.

- In 2004, Wehrum implemented new industry-friendly mercury guidelines that substantially weakened the Clean Air Act. Again, Wehrum’s former lobbying firm played an instrumental role in drafting the rule.

- Just this week, a draft of a new air pollution rule, drafted under the oversight of Wehrum, came under fire from congressional leaders. The proposal would allow polluters to discharge thousands of pounds of airborne toxins while “virtually avoiding regulation.“

The good news: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) plans to put a hold on Wehrum’s nomination if it moves to the Senate floor.

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Senior Republican to Bush: say "exactly what happened"

Reuters
Senior Republican to Bush: say "exactly what happened"
By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading Republican urged President George W. Bush on Sunday to "tell the American people exactly what happened" in a leak of information aimed at countering criticism of his reasons for taking America to war in Iraq.

The president, whose popularity is slumping, is on the defensive because of a prosecutor's disclosure that Bush authorized a former top official, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to share intelligence data on Iraq in 2003 with a reporter to defend his decision to invade Iraq.

Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Fox News Sunday that "there's been enough of a showing here with what's been filed of record in court that the president of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people.

"The president has the authority to declassify information. So in a technical sense, if he looked at it, he could say this is declassified, and make a disclosure of it," said Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, speaking from Cartagena, Colombia.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan has insisted that Bush had the authority to declassify intelligence and rejected charges from Democrats that he did so selectively for political purposes.

But Specter urged Bush to address the topic himself.

"I think that it is necessary for the president and the vice president to tell the American people exactly what happened," he said.

"There has to be a detailed explanation precisely as to what Vice President (Dick) Cheney did, what the president said to him, and an explanation from the president as to what he said so that it can be evaluated," said Specter.

"The president has justifiably criticized the Congress for leaking and, of course, the White House has leaked."

The case is rooted in an investigation in which Libby, Cheney's former top aide, is accused of obstruction of justice and perjury in an investigation designed to discover who leaked the identity of then-CIA officer Valerie Plame.

According to court papers made public last week, Libby testified to a federal grand jury that Cheney had told him Bush authorized him to give secret information to a New York Times reporter.

Plame's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, said the administration leaked his wife's identity in retaliation for his assertion that the president knowingly gave the American people information about Iraq's alleged nuclear program that U.S. intelligence services knew was untrue.

Wilson, speaking on ABC television's "This Week," called on Bush to release transcripts of Bush and Cheney's testimony to the prosecutor.

"It seems to me it is long past time for the White House to come clean on all of this," he said.

Inspectors who scoured Iraq after the U.S. invasion failed to find any signs of a nuclear program.

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Venezuela's Chavez threatens to expel US ambassador

Reuters
Venezuela's Chavez threatens to expel US ambassador

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to expel the US ambassador to Caracas in a warning that will further strain relations between the two governments.

The threat came two days after Chavez supporters lobbed fruit and eggs at the ambassador's car and the State Department warned Venezuela it could face consequences if it did not protect the envoy.

Chavez, an ally of Cuba who accuses Washington of working to topple his government, accused Ambassador William Brownfield of stirring up the protest and warned he would declare him persona non grata if he insisted on provoking incidents.

"Start packing your bags Mister, if you keep on provoking us, start packing you bags, because I'll kick you out of here," Chavez said on his regular Sunday television program.

"If Washington takes any measure against Venezuela because of your provocations, you will be responsible and you will have to leave here, we'll declare you persona non grata in Venezuela," he said as crowds of supporters cheered.

The threat comes as Chavez and Washington are locked in a fierce dispute over his close ties to Havana and Tehran. Government officials portray the former soldier as a growing threat to regional democracy.

Chavez earlier this year expelled a US naval attache he accused of spying and the US government responded with the tit-for-tat expulsion of a Venezuelan embassy official from Washington.

Despite political tensions, Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, remains a key supplier of crude to the US market. But Chavez says he wants to wean Venezuela off its economic reliance on the United States.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Caracas was not immediately available for comment.

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US Republican leader rejects guest worker plan

Reuters
US Republican leader rejects guest worker plan
By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US House of Representatives Majority Leader John Boehner on Sunday rejected efforts to establish a guest worker program for millions of illegal immigrants, despite calls from President George W. Bush to do so.

Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he supported a bill already passed by the House that focuses on tightening the nation's borders but does not include a temporary worker program.

"You can't begin to talk about a guest worker bill until you secure the borders," he said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Otherwise, he said, "We're going to have an endless parade of illegal immigrants here in our country."

Boehner's position pits him directly against Bush, who on Saturday blamed Senate Democrats for blocking a bipartisan Senate plan that created a guest worker plan and provided a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

Attempts to pass the bipartisan bill foundered on Friday as senators bickered over the number of possible amendments, with Democrats citing worries that Republicans were trying to water down the legislation.

The House bill, passed last December, is much tougher and defines the roughly 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States as felons.

Boehner stopped short of saying congressional efforts to reform immigration had failed, calling on the Senate to pass a bill when lawmakers return from recess in two weeks.

"ENORMOUS PROBLEM"

If senators pass a bill, lawmakers from both sides of Congress would have to work out their differences for a final bill. Boehner said that was possible.

Still, he said, allowing illegal immigrants to stay and work "sounds too much like amnesty for most Americans."

The issue has divided conservatives, some of whom are anxious to court the Hispanic vote and support Bush. Others worry that allowing in undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico, could harm their election efforts.

"Everybody agrees there's an enormous problem, everybody agrees with the border security lines and there's general agreement that we have to craft a compromise," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, told "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace.

But California Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, said that any bill involving an amnesty would not pass the House.

Illinois Democrat Rep. Luis Gutierrez, chairman of the Democratic Caucus Immigration Task Force, said any bill must deal with the illegal immigrants already here because the US economy can't afford to send them home.

Too many do tough agricultural and other essential work, he told NBC's Meet the Press.

"The only sane, sensible, compassionate thing to do is to integrate them fully into the fabric of our society," Gutierrez said.

Rep. Henry Bonilla, a Texas Republican, said most conservatives would eventually accept integration.

"A lot of us want to support a guest-worker plan down the road, but first and foremost, we have to secure the border," he told NBC.

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Republican woes in Congress boost Democratic hopes

Reuters
Republican woes in Congress boost Democratic hopes
By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Collapse of vital budget legislation and a big setback on an immigration overhaul have played into Democrats' election-year plans to paint Republicans as too incompetent to run the U.S. Congress.

They also got fresh ammunition from an unlikely figure -- Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House Republican leader.

"We don't have an agreed agenda," the indicted Texas Republican said last week, shortly after he announced he would resign from the House of Representatives.

DeLay's assessment was in line with that of his political nemesis, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

"Republicans are in disarray," Pelosi said after the $2.8 trillion budget bill was abruptly yanked from the House floor and Republicans traded insults over spending priorities and bursting deficits.

On Thursday, a push by House and Senate Republicans for $70 billion in tax cuts was derailed and a tentative Senate deal on an immigration-reform bill stalled.

Lawmakers then headed out for a two-week recess.

"They (Republicans) are doing poorly," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia.

"What has this session of Congress accomplished? I'm sure they can give me a list of minor technical bills but on the big things they have failed," Sabato said, citing immigration, health care and efforts to extend Bush's tax cuts.

With all 435 House seats and one-third of the 100-member Senate up for re-election in November, Democrats are encouraged by sinking approval polls for the Republican-led Congress and President George W. Bush. The president has been particularly hurt by the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.

BUDGET DRIVES GOVERNMENT POLICY

On the domestic front, Democrats have been chipping away at Republicans' image of fiscal responsibility, never missing a chance to talk about the $3 trillion in new debt Republicans have racked up since Bush took office in 2001.

Lately, some moderate Republicans have joined Democrats in saying recent budgets have begun to hurt the poor.

House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, on the job since February, tried to put a hopeful face on a major setback, saying he'd work for a budget deal when Congress returns.

But lawmakers in the House and Senate were skeptical.

"It'll be extremely hard," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican.

The budget drives all government policy, from foreign wars to space exploration, cancer research and the distribution of health care for the poor and elderly.

"If you want to prove that you can govern, you've got to show that you can budget," said Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, agreed.

"Without a budget to guide the nation's decisions about spending and tax priorities, Congress really forgoes its role of making active decisions at a time when the country faces such important fiscal challenges," she said.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, an Iowa Republican, counters that his party has overseen consecutive years of hearty economic growth, despite the country being buffeted by a whopper hurricane last year, the September 11 attacks, war and a 2001 economic recession.

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I Don't Leak

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Global Warming

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Actual Unscientific Poll

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It's a job that . . .

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Vermont Democrats call for Bush impeachment

Reuters
Vermont Democrats call for Bush impeachment

RANDOLPH, Vermont (Reuters) - Democratic Party leaders in Vermont on Saturday passed a motion asking Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

In an elementary school cafeteria strewn with American flags and copies of the U.S. Constitution, some 100 state party officials agreed to make the request to the U.S. House of Representatives.

"You know in your own hearts and minds that something is terribly wrong in this country," said Margaret Lucenti, a Democrat from Vermont's capital Montpelier.

The measure asks the Republican-controlled House to pass articles of impeachment against Bush for misleading the nation on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and engaging in illegal wiretapping, among other charges.

Democratic state committees in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina have taken similar steps.

With a population of just 621,000 -- only Wyoming has fewer people -- the rural New England state is considered far left of mainstream American politics.

Last month residents of the Puritan-founded town of Newfane passed a resolution calling for the Republican president's impeachment. Since then at least six other Vermont towns have followed suit.

In 1999, more than two dozen towns called for a reduction in nuclear weapons. In 1974, one Vermont town meeting drew national attention when officials voted to seek the impeachment of then-President Richard Nixon.

"This is far bigger than a fringe movement on the left," said Dan DeWalt, a 49-year-old woodworker who drafted the Newfane impeachment resolution. "Vermont has a long tradition of speaking out on issues beyond our borders."

(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle)

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Lobbying Cases Shine Spotlight on Family Ties

The New York Times
Lobbying Cases Shine Spotlight on Family Ties
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, April 8 — On Dec. 3, 2003, Aeneas Enterprises opened for business in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, and judging by its bank records, the small consulting company with no listed telephone number was an instant success. Within a month, its records show, Aeneas had taken in $2.3 million from a single client.

Aeneas is under scrutiny by the Justice Department and Congressional investigators. Its founder, Robert Abramoff, a lawyer and sometime Hollywood movie producer, is the brother of Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist at the center of a Washington influence-peddling scandal involving several members of Congress.

The company's records show that the $2.3 million was received from another consulting firm, GrassRoots Interactive of Silver Spring, Md., which was established by Jack Abramoff and where he directed some of his huge lobbying fees. Billing statements prepared by Aeneas do not show what service Robert Abramoff provided to warrant millions of dollars in payments from his brother's company.

Robert Abramoff did not return phone calls for comment. His apparent entanglement in his brother's business is an example of what investigators say is something remarkable about the criminal inquiry centered on Jack Abramoff and his Washington lobbying network.

To a surprising degree, the spouses and other family members of the investigation's central targets are being caught up in the inquiry, dealing with subpoenas and interviews with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with at least the possibility that some of them could face civil or criminal charges themselves.

Lawyers with detailed knowledge of the Justice Department's investigation, who were granted anonymity because of rules barring public discussion of grand jury evidence, say that so many of the wives of lawmakers and lobbyists have become tied up in the investigation that F.B.I. agents have begun referring to them as "The Wives Club."

The lawyers said the scrutiny of the families would increase the leverage of prosecutors, since the targets might be willing to plead guilty and incriminate others to spare family members from being charged.

At least one of the wives, Julie Doolittle, who is married to Representative John T. Doolittle, Republican of California, has been subpoenaed in the investigation of Mr. Abramoff and questioned by the F.B.I. The June 2004 subpoena sought information about Mrs. Doolittle's marketing and events-planning work for Mr. Abramoff's lobbying firm and for his Washington restaurant, Signatures, which he later sold. Her lawyer, William L. Stauffer, said Mrs. Doolittle was contacted by the Justice Department again last year and asked for additional records.

Mr. Stauffer said that Mrs. Doolittle's consulting firm, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, has "complied fully with the subpoena."

Lisa Rudy, who is married to Tony Rudy, the former deputy chief of staff to Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, received $50,000 in consulting fees as a result of what her husband has acknowledged was a corrupt scheme with Mr. Abramoff to influence the workings of Mr. DeLay's office and promote the concerns of Mr. Abramoff's clients on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Rudy pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges last month. The Justice Department has said that Mrs. Rudy has agreed to cooperate with the investigation and will sign her own agreement with prosecutors. The Rudy family's lawyer, Laura A. Miller, did not return phone calls for comment.

Christine A. DeLay, Mr. DeLay's wife, received $115,000 in consulting fees from 1998 to 2002 from a lobbying firm set up by her husband's former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who is also under scrutiny by the Justice Department because of his lobbying contacts with Mr. DeLay's House office.

Although there is no suggestion of any criminal investigation focused on Mrs. DeLay, lawyers involved in the investigation say prosecutors have asked about the circumstances of her hiring by Mr. Buckham and whether it was an effort to influence Mr. DeLay, the former House majority leader. Mr. DeLay announced this week that he was resigning from Congress, saying he wanted to avoid an "ugly" re-election fight this fall that might focus on ethical issues.

A lawyer for the DeLays, Richard Cullen, said Mrs. DeLay had been employed by Mr. Buckham's firm, the Alexander Strategy Group, to gather information on the favorite charities of members of Congress. "Christine DeLay is a very talented woman with a keen political mind, and the project she was working on was one that had substance and added value to Alexander," he said.

The phone records of the couple's daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro, a political organizer for her father, were formally requested last year by a grand jury in Travis County, Tex., where Mr. DeLay is under indictment, accused of violating his home state's election laws.

Mr. Buckham's wife, Wendy, shared more than $1 million in consulting fees with her husband from the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit group tied to Mr. DeLay. The group has drawn the scrutiny of law enforcement officials because so much of its income was directed to the Buckham family and appears to have come from Russian businessmen eager to court favor from Mr. DeLay. The Buckhams did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Jack Abramoff's wife, Pamela, was tied to at least some of her husband's activities that he has now acknowledged were crimes.

Although there is no suggestion by the Justice Department that Mrs. Abramoff was aware of her husband's criminal acts, she and her husband were the sole directors of a nonprofit group, the Capital Athletic Foundation, which Mr. Abramoff used illegally to channel millions of dollars from his clients to pet projects that had nothing to with the charity's supposed mission: sports programs for needy children.

Most of the charity's money was spent to underwrite a Jewish school in Maryland that was founded by Mr. Abramoff and where the couple educated two of their sons. The foundation also underwrote a 2002 trip to Britain for Representative Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican who is under investigation by the Justice Department for gifts he received from Mr. Abramoff. Mr. Ney has denied wrongdoing, saying he was duped by Mr. Abramoff about the financing of the $150,000 trip, which included rounds of golf at the fabled course at St. Andrews in Scotland.

There are also references to Mrs. Abramoff's activities in the indictment of a former senior White House budget official, David F. Safavian. The Justice Department has accused Mr. Safavian of lying about his ties to Mr. Abramoff, who sought Mr. Safavian's help in trying to buy government land for himself and clients. Mr. Abramoff has acknowledged that he sent his wife to inspect the properties, instructing her not to reveal her real name to government officials to avoid scrutiny.

A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff's defense team, Andrew Blum, had no comment when asked whether Mrs. Abramoff had obtained separate counsel in the investigation. Mr. Blum also would not comment on Mr. Abramoff's involvement with GrassRoots Interactive, the Maryland consulting firm, and the lobbyist's business ties to his brother Robert.

The Abramoff brothers have been doing business together for years. They co-wrote — and Jack Abramoff produced — a poorly reviewed 1989 action-adventure movie called "Red Scorpion."

State business records in California show that Robert Abramoff, who went on to produce other little-known films, is a director or registered agent for almost 100 companies, many of them with colorful names, including FilmSoup, Deliberate Ink, It's Pawfect, Knot-2-Much-2-Ask and Make-Up Your Mind Inc.

He is also the registered agent for Nicole Richie Inc., an umbrella company for the business activities of the young Hollywood celebrity. Ms. Richie's spokesman, Cindy Guagenti, said that Mr. Abramoff had been hired to deal with the logistics of the company's incorporation. She said Ms. Richie "has never met him, never talked to him."

Robert Abramoff appears to have been drawn into his brother's Washington lobbying network through Aeneas Enterprises, which shared its offices and phone number with Robert Abramoff's law office.

Documents gathered from Jack Abramoff's files by government investigators and provided to The New York Times show that Robert Abramoff sent an e-mail message to his brother's accountant on Dec. 19, 2000 — 16 days after Aeneas was incorporated — that provided instructions on wiring money to Aeneas's bank account.

An Aeneas billing statement sent later that month to Grassroots InterActive shows that $1.4 million was received from GrassRoots on Dec. 26. A January statement shows that an additional $900,000 was received by Aeneas on Jan. 2, 2004.

The one-page statements make no reference to what service, if any, was performed by Robert Abramoff's company in exchange for the payments, nor do they indicate how Aeneas disbursed the money.

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New Twist in CIA Leak Probe: Bush and Cheney at the Center of a Leak Campaign

ABC News
New Twist in CIA Leak Probe: Bush and Cheney at the Center of a Leak Campaign
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Now in its third year, the CIA leak investigation took a decidedly unwelcome turn for the White House last week. A court filing by prosecutors depicted President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as setting in motion leaks to the press that ended in the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The court papers say that in the weeks before Plame's identity was revealed, Bush authorized Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, to leak intelligence from a classified document to rebut a war critic, Joe Wilson.

Wilson, Plame's husband, had accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is far from over. Libby's trial on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI is not scheduled to get under way until January.

Some questions and answers about the investigation:

Q: Now that the story is out that Bush and Cheney put Libby in play, are the president or the vice president expected to be called to testify at Libby's trial?

A. The prosecution and the defense have not signaled their intentions.

Q. What did the president and vice president direct Libby to leak?

A. A portion of a classified prewar document in which U.S. intelligence agencies declared Iraq was vigorously trying to procure uranium. The court papers say Libby leaked the information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003. On Saturday, The Washington Post said reporter Bob Woodward met with Libby 11 days before Miller's meeting with Libby. According to the Post, Woodward said his notes reflect Libby using the word "vigorous" to describe an Iraqi effort to acquire uranium. Libby's leaks were the beginning of an emerging White House strategy: Blame the CIA for providing the White House with a faulty premise for going to war.

Q. If Libby was directed by Bush and Cheney to leak information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate, why did he allegedly leak information about Plame's CIA identity as well? Did he do so with or without direction from his superiors?

A. No one in a position to know has offered answers.

Q. Didn't a lot of people know that Plame worked for the CIA? So what was the big deal about identifying her?

A. Those are the points long raised by White House supporters. They say it had been many years since Plame, who was working at CIA headquarters, was stationed overseas. Plame's defenders say disclosing her identity still could jeopardize people she dealt with when she was overseas and that she traveled out of the country on CIA business after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Q. Did Bush do something illegal?

A. Legal experts say it is highly unusual, but legal, for a president to unilaterally declassify intelligence without informing anyone other than his vice president and, in this case, a designated leaker, Libby. Bush renewed his own authority to declassify by signing an executive order in 2003.

Q. If what Bush did was legal, why does this matter?

A. The furor prompted by the latest disclosure that Bush and Cheney were directing a leak campaign against Wilson goes to the practice of declassifying secrets to gain political advantage. That kind of conduct has been deplored, most recently last year by a commission Bush appointed to examine U.S. intelligence failures on Iraq. The White House says there is an important distinction between declassifying information in the public interest and leaking classified information that could compromise national security.

Q. What else did Libby leak?

A. Aside from allegedly revealing Plame's CIA identity, Libby discussed with New York Times report Judith Miller a then-classified CIA report that arguably undercut Wilson's public attacks on the administration. In it, Wilson described how an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger in 1999 and sought to expand commercial relations, which Niger understood to be a desire to obtain uranium. On the one hand, Wilson was saying publicly it was highly doubtful Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. On the other hand, Wilson was leaving out from his public criticism the information he had learned during his CIA-sponsored trip to Niger about Iraq's desire to expand commercial relations.

Q. What is the main focus of Fitzgerald's investigation?

A. The investigation appears to be on hold. He is consumed for now by pretrial battles with defense lawyers demanding thousands of additional documents from the government in an effort to defend their client. White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove still is under investigation. Fitzgerald also is examining the circumstances under which a source revealed Plame's identity to Woodward.

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'Backdoor Draft,' Cont'd

huffingtonpost.com
'Backdoor Draft,' Cont'd
Michelle Pilecki

The followup, unfortunately, is not that anyone in the traditional media is picking up on the story of how the Army plans to turns the Individual Ready Reserve into "a force which resembles a personnel pool for the Active Reserve Component." But I've had a lot of response, especially from service members with links to other sites like The Command TOC (which has a devoted link to IRR info) and Military Injustice, so that more people can learn about the IRR and how it's been disrupting lives.

When the IRR spigot got turned on for the Iraq war, such newspaper stories were more common, like this one in my local newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, about a local steelworker, veteran and father of three, threatened with arrest for "desertion" three years after his honorable discharge if he didn't report for active duty.

The paper trail is fairly straightforward on this one. [Frederick] Pistorius joined the Marine Corps in 1993. When he left the corps, he had a reserve obligation that expired June 25, 2000. The pool into which he would have gone is called the Individual Ready Reserve -- essentially former military available for service in times of emergency. After a few months of knocking around for work, Pistorius decided to go back into the military, get more training in his specialty -- cook -- and complete his reserve obligation with full-time duty. The Marines weren't taking back departed members who'd been out for a year, so, in 1998, he joined the Army, signing a three-year contract.

Pistorius was honorably discharged from the Army in July 20, 2001. His certificate of release attests to his accomplishments.... The upper corner is the spot in which the military lists a departing member's reserve obligation, the amount of time discharged soldiers, sailors and Marines remain subject to recall. For Pistorius, the boxes contain a succession of zeroes.

Because he was discharged well after his prior reserve obligation had passed, the Army laid no further claim to him, until someone in St. Louis ignored those zeroes and went hunting for a fresh body to fill a manpower shortage that grows more painful with every Iraqi sunset.

Fearful of messing up his record, Pistorius left his family and job, and reported for "duty" with other middle-aged vets who also weren't exactly "ready" for military life.

One man arrived with a hospital identification band still on his wrist. He'd just had knee surgery. One 48-year-old from Alabama had a hip replacement and fused vertebrae in his back.

"He showed them the documents, but they still made him come down to be examined by their doctors," Pistorius said. Pistorius spoke of a man called back from upstate New York.

"He had no teeth and he had arthritis in his leg," he said.

It took a while to straighten out the mess. At one point, Pistorius was told "that his big problem was showing up. So many people had either moved or ignored their orders to report that the Army was loath to part with a reasonably healthy one that had." After a few weeks he was sent home for medical reasons, but told he was "still subject to reserve obligation."

The Pistorius family, with its three children, ages 6, 5 and 2, is now trying to figure out what to do without a month's wages. "I just put everything off," [his wife] Wendy Pistorius said. "I paid only the bills I absolutely had to."

The Army took back the family separation allowance he was given when called to Camp McGrady. Frederick Pistorius is working a swing shift at the local tube plant and trying to figure out if the Army still considers him a reservist and if he's going to get another letter from St. Louis.

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As Hurricane Season Nears, Is FEMA Ready? Former Directors Criticize State of Federal Agency

ABC News
As Hurricane Season Nears, Is FEMA Ready?
Former Directors Criticize State of Federal Agency

April 7, 2006 — - Seven months after Katrina, two months before the new hurricane season and one day after R. David Paulison was nominated to be the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, two men who once held that job said they would not have taken it this time.

"If I had been Mr. Paulison, I would have said, 'You can take it and put it somewhere,'" said James Lee Witt, former FEMA director.

Witt is widely credited with rebuilding FEMA in the 1990s. He said Paulison -- who was reportedly offered the job after seven others turned it down -- will have trouble dealing with the next big storm because FEMA is underfunded, understaffed and overwhelmed by bureaucracy. It's now under the sprawling Department of Homeland Security.

"You know what they're making FEMA right now?" Witt said. "They're making them a logistics and check-writing agency."

Is FEMA Ready?

His sentiments were echoed in a panel discussion today at the New School in Manhattan by another former FEMA director, the much-maligned Michael Brown, blamed for failures during Katrina. Brown said unless FEMA is pulled out from under Homeland Security, Paulison will be hobbled.

"The current structure at FEMA is not going to allow him to succeed," Brown said.

According to Witt, we are no better prepared for hurricanes seven months after Katrina. "What's changed?" he said.

Paulison said that a lot has changed at FEMA. It's hiring new people, buying new communications equipment and honing its emergency plans, he said.

"Both of those men are colleagues of mine," Paulison said. "They have their opinion, I have mine. I'm simply gonna focus on what I have to do and not necessarily focus on the people shooting arrows."

He said FEMA is ready for the hurricane season, but most experts who spoke with ABC News said FEMA is probably no better prepared now than it was before Katrina.

ABC News' Dan Harris reported this story for "World News Tonight."

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