A Question Bush Can't Answer

washingtonpost.com
A Question Bush Can't Answer
By Dan Froomkin

There are a lot of questions -- about a lot of things -- that President Bush can't seem to answer.

But Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, of all people, asked Bush one of the most important ones in an interview aired last night.

This one was about torture.

Here's the transcript ; here's the video .

O'Reilly raised the issue of waterboarding, a particularly appalling technique that CIA interrogators reportedly used on terror suspects.

O'Reilly: "Is waterboarding torture?"

Bush: "I don't want to talk about techniques. But I do assure the American people that we were within the law and we don't torture. I have said all along to the American people we won't torture. But we need to be in a position where we can interrogate these people."

Then came the question I've been waiting for someone to ask.

O'Reilly: " But if the public doesn't know what torture is or is not, as defined by the Bush Administration, how can the public make a decision on whether your policy is right or wrong? " [My emphasis.]

Bush's ducking of such an important question, it seems to me, is highly newsworthy. Here's the president's response, in its entirety:

Bush: "Well, one thing is that you can rest assured we are not going to talk about the techniques we use in a public forum, no matter how hard you try, because I don't want the enemy to be able to adjust their tactics if we capture them on the battlefield.

"But what the American people need to know is we have a program in place that is able to get intelligence from these people and we have used it to stop attacks. The intelligence community believes strongly that the information we got from the detainee questioning program yielded information that made America safer, that we stopped attacks.

"Secondly, the courts. Yeah, I believe it is necessary to have military tribunals because I ultimately want these people to be tried. And it took a while to get these tribunals in place. The Supreme Court ruled that the president didn't have the authority to set up these courts on his own, that he needed to work with Congress to do so, and we did.

"What's interesting about these votes that took place in the Congress is the number of Democrats that opposed questioning people we picked up on the battlefield. And I think that's an issue that they will have to explain to the American people."

So apparently that's his answer to O'Reilly's excellent and important question: Democrats are pro-terrorist.

(And let's not even get into the fact that he misrepresented the views of Democrats, all of whom to the best of my knowledge favor questioning suspects -- just not necessarily torturing them.)

O'Reilly unfortunately let the matter drop; and most of the other exchanges were predictably sycophantic. He certainly didn't challenge Bush's straw-man arguments. Here's one typical exchange:

O'Reilly: "Your administration has been accused of being fascist, violating human rights. . . . "

Bush chuckles

O'Reilly: " . . . ignoring the Geneva conventions. And it's been a fierce campaign against this policy. Why has it been so fierce?"

Bush: " . . . Look, after 9/11 I vowed to protect this country. . . . Now maybe there are some in this country who say, well, they are not coming again and therefore, all this is unnecessary. I believe they are coming again and I believe it is the responsibility of the federal government to protect our people."

And O'Reilly even got Bush to use a term the president has recently avoided because it's so inflammatory.

O'Reilly: "I think the bottom line is this crazy insurgency on the Islamofascists, as I call them, is never going to end in our lifetime."

Bush: "That's an interesting question, an interesting point. The question is how do you marginalize them?"

O'Reilly: "Right. How do you control them?"

Bush: "I think this is the big ideological debate of the 21st century, and that is extremists, Islamofascists as you call them, radicals, aiming to topple a modern people. And it is a massive challenge for the free world and for Muslims who want to live in peace. By far the vast majority of people they want to have a peaceful existence."

O'Reilly: "But they are scared. They will kill you and your family and every kid you have."

Bush: "In a minute! In a minute! And that fundamentally asks -- that means what is the U.S. role? Not only will they kill their families. They'll come and kill us. The biggest issue we face, for this country, is how do you protect yourself?"

O'Reilly's interview with Bush was on Monday, but the bombastic talk-show host is stringing it out over three nights. I wrote about the first installment in yesterday's column . And I'm sure looking forward to tonight's, when O'Reilly asks Bush about "the personal attacks" against him, how he sees them and how they affect his job.

Also tonight: The first excerpts from an interview Bush is conducting with ABC News's George Stephanopoulos.
A New Day for America

Richard B. Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes write in the Los Angeles Times: "President Bush signed new legislation Tuesday providing for the detention and prosecution of terrorism suspects, and the Justice Department moved immediately to request the dismissal of dozens of lawsuits filed by detainees challenging their incarceration. . . .

"The signing ceremony was part political rally for a GOP that is struggling to retain control of Congress three weeks before pivotal midterm elections. Republican leaders said the legislation showed that they were a party of strength and assailed Democrats for not supporting the measure.

"'The Democratic plan would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans' lives,' House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said."

David Savage writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The military tribunals bill signed by President Bush on Tuesday marks the first time the right of habeas corpus has been curtailed by law for millions of people in the United States.

"Although debate focused on trials at Guantanamo Bay, the new law also takes away from noncitizens in the U.S. -- including more than 12 million permanent residents -- the right to go to court if they are declared 'unlawful enemy combatants.'

"No one has suggested that the Bush administration plans to use its newly won power to round up large numbers of immigrants.

"But before Tuesday, the principle of habeas corpus meant that anyone thrown into jail in the U.S. had a right to ask a judge for a hearing. They also had a right to go free if the government could not show a legal basis for holding them. The Latin term for 'you have the body,' habeas corpus is considered one of an accused person's most basic rights."

Savage writes: "Many legal scholars predict the law's partial repeal of habeas corpus will be struck down as unconstitutional."

For instance: "The law does not qualify under any of the tests for suspending habeas corpus spelled out there, said John D. Hutson, a former judge advocate general of the Navy and dean of the Franklin Pierce Law School in New Hampshire.

"'This is not a time of rebellion. There has not been an invasion, and there's no evidence the "public safety" requires it,' Hutson said. 'Let's not kid ourselves. This is not about an invasion. It is about the embarrassment of holding people who, if they got to court, could show they should not have been held.'"

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "Leading Republican lawmakers, among them Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who balked at the initial White House version of the bill and forced a much-publicized compromise, were also on hand. But the third leader of that Republican rebellion, Senator John McCain of Arizona, was noticeably absent."

As for that supposed compromise, Tony Snow put an end to any pretense that there was any such thing at his briefing yesterday , a few hours after the bill became law:

"Q Do you think -- this has been described as a compromise. The President basically got everything he wanted, didn't he?

"MR. SNOW: Pretty much, yes."
No Signing Statement

Here's another sign of how pleased the White House was with this legislation.

Signing statements -- in which the president quietly asserts his right to ignore legislative provisions that he believes conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution -- have become a controversial tradition at the Bush White House.

But at Monday's briefing , Snow disclosed that there would be no signing statement issued for this bill.

Reporters were shocked, and asked why.

"Q Tony, was there any agreement with Congress that there would not be a signing statement?

"MR. SNOW: No.

"Q This just seems like the kind of bill where there are a lot of things to be interpreted and take a look at.

"MR. SNOW: They did a really good job this time.

"Q Wow. (Laughter.)"
Maybe No Order, Either

Reporters -- on behalf of the public -- are eagerly awaiting an executive order from the president that, as laid out in the new law, would put on the record precisely how he interprets the Geneva Conventions, and what sorts of conduct would be considered a breach.

But yesterday, Snow told reporters not to hold their breath.

"MR. SNOW: What [the law] says is the President is authorized to do an executive order. I'll read you the language in a moment. The President's senior advisors are going to make recommendations as to the appropriate steps. . . .

"Q So he does have to, then, publish an executive order, isn't that right?

"MR. SNOW: Well, again -- well, we'll see. This says he's authorized to do so."

One reporter asked Snow a variation of the O'Reilly question noted above:

"Q So how will the President convince Americans that the kind of interrogation and the kind of pursuit of terrorists is something they can be proud of?"

"MR. SNOW: Well, the question is -- it's interesting, if you live in an atmosphere where people are automatically going to assume that people who are serving their nation are doing so dishonorably -- and that would have to be the assumption here, the people doing the questioning, in fact, are rogue actors and not people acting scrupulously within the law and proud of what they do -- then there's absolutely no way to persuade somebody."

But the public, of course, is not so much concerned about rogue actors as it is about rogue memos from the White House. So Snow's answer was just as non-responsive as Bush's.
Opinion Watch

Andrew Cohen writes for washingtonpost.com: "Long after both President Bush and Osama Bin Laden are gone from the scene, our successors-in-interest will look at this wretched law in particular, and the events upon which it is based, and wonder why Congress dramatically loosened the Bush Administration's legal leash at this time rather than severely restricting it.

"Reasoned voices will then ask: What did the White House do between 9/11/01 and 9/11/06 to earn the trust and added authority that the Congress now has given it? What did President Bush do along the terror law front since the Twin Towers fell to cause Congress to place so much faith in him and his Administration when it comes to tiptoeing the tightrope between security and freedom?

"The answer to these questions is nothing. So far, some legal experts say, the Bush Administration's track record when it comes to exercising unbridled power has been lame. To put it less mildly, as some legal experts have, it is actionable. Over and over again, they say, the executive branch has deceived Congress and the courts. Over and over again, the Administration has oversold its terror cases. Over and over again it has tried to hide its errors under the veil of 'national security.'"

Legal blogger Jack Balkin writes: "The President has created a new regime in which he is a law unto himself on issues of prisoner interrogations. He decides whether he has violated the laws, and he decides whether to prosecute the people he in turn urges to break the law. And all the while he insists that everything he does is perfectly legal, because, the way the law is designed, there is no one with authority to disagree.

"It is a travesty of law under the forms of law. It is the accumulation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers in a single branch and under a single individual.

"It is the very essence of tyranny."

Via the Crooks and Liars blog, Jonathan Turley tells Keith Olbermann on MSNBC: "The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to Dancing With the Stars. It's otherworldly."
Lame Duck Watch

Peter Baker and Michael A. Fletcher write in The Washington Post: "On desks around the West Wing sit digital clocks counting down the days and hours left in the Bush presidency, reminders to the White House staff to use the time left as effectively as possible. As of 8 a.m. today, those clocks will read 825 days, four hours. But if the elections go the way pollsters and pundits predict, they might as well read 20 days.

"At least that would be the end of George W. Bush's presidency as he has known it. . . .

"Around Washington, key figures in both parties have been trying to figure out what a Democratic victory would mean. Bush has been meeting privately with Cabinet secretaries in recent weeks to map out an agenda for his final two years in office. The White House says it is not making contingency plans for a Democratic win, but Bush advisers are bracing for what they privately recognize is the increasing likelihood. And Democratic leaders have been conferring about what they would do should voters return them to power. . . .

"Most worrisome to the White House is the subpoena power that Democrats would gain with a majority in the House or Senate. For years, Republicans have been mostly deferential in scrutinizing the Bush administration, but Democrats are eager to reexamine an array of issues, such as Vice President Cheney's energy task force, the Jack Abramoff scandal and preparations for the Iraq war."
Cheney and Limbaugh

Cheney called his favorite talk-show host yesterday for a chat. Here's the transcript from Rushlimbaugh.com.

Cheney was shockingly upbeat about Iraq -- even more so than his White House colleagues.

"If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well," he said.

But he was somewhat less cheerful than either Bush or Rove about the mid-term elections: "I really think we're going to do reasonably well, and I think we'll hold the Senate, and I also think we've got a good shot of holding the House," he said.
Iraq Watch

Pretty much everyone else is more pessimistic about Iraq.

AFP reports: "Former US secretary of state James Baker was visibly shocked when he last visited Iraq, and said the country was in a 'helluva mess', the BBC reported.

"Baker is leading a review of the situation in Iraq by a bipartisan US committee of experts, and is expected to recommend a change in US strategy for rebuilding Iraq.

"Citing a unnamed close friend and ally of Baker's, himself a top politician, the BBC said that Baker added that 'there simply weren't any easy solutions'."

James Sterngold writes for the San Franciso Chronicle: "With the violence in Iraq flaring dangerously, a national consensus is growing, even among senior Republicans, that the United States must consider a major change in strategy in the coming months.

"But in a sign of the growing sense of urgency, a member of a high-powered government advisory body that is developing options to prevent Iraq's chaotic collapse warns that the United States could have just weeks, not months, to avoid an all-out civil war.

"'There's a sense among many people now that things in Iraq are slipping fast and there isn't a lot of time to reverse them,' said Larry Diamond, one of a panel of experts advising the Iraq Study Group, which is preparing a range of policy alternatives for President Bush.

"'The civil war is already well along. We have no way of knowing if it's too late until we try a radically different course,' said Diamond, an expert on building democracies who is at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and is a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq."

National security expert Anthony Cordesman recently declared Iraq to be engulfed in a civil war.

Thomas L. Friedman writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required) that "what we're seeing there seems like the jihadist equivalent of the Tet offensive. . . .

"Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq this month have reached at least 53, putting October on a path to be the third deadliest month of the entire war for the U.S. military. Iraqis are being killed at a rate of 100 per day now. The country has descended into such a Hobbesian state that even Saddam called on Iraqis from his prison cell to stop killing each other. . . .

"Bob Woodward quoted President Bush as saying that he will not leave Iraq, even if the only ones still supporting him are his wife, Laura, and his dog Barney. If the jihadist Tet offensive continues gaining momentum, Mr. Bush may be left with just Barney."
About Those Mid-Terms

Joseph Curl writes in the Washington Times: "White House political strategist Karl Rove yesterday confidently predicted that the Republican Party would hold the House and the Senate in next month's elections, dismissing fallout from the sex scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley.

"At a luncheon with editors and reporters at The Washington Times, Mr. Rove -- who is widely credited as the architect of the party's historic 2002 midterm election gains -- said Republicans are beginning to make significant headway in defining their party's differences from congressional Democrats, especially on national security. . . .

"In the hourlong interview, Mr. Rove was upbeat, telling stories from the campaign trail and joking about skewed political coverage that disproportionately shows Democrats poised to take control of Congress."

Howard Fineman writes for Newsweek: "They are calling them 'pre-mortems' -- explanations in advance for what are expected to be Republican losses in the midterm elections next month. I heard a fascinating 'pre-mortem' over dinner the other night from no less a personage than Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

"It went roughly as follows: The Democrats are running against George Bush and the Iraq war. To the extent that they succeed, it will largely be because of the president's low job-approval numbers -- which are at rock bottom mostly because voters can't see that he is leading us in a new and 'different kind of war, an insurgent war' against Islamic fascists."
Space Plan

Marc Kaufman writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone 'hostile to U.S. interests.'

"The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy."

Bush actually signed the new policy on August 31. An unclassified version was released on October 6.

The Henry L. Stimson Center has background.
That's the Ticket

Daniel Yee writes for the Associated Press: "A woman who was ticketed for having an obscene anti-President Bush bumper sticker filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday against DeKalb County and its officials.

"Denise Grier, 47, of Athens, Ga., got a $100 ticket in March after a DeKalb County police officer spotted the bumper sticker, which read 'I'm Tired Of All The BUSHIT.'"
Cheney Shorthand

John Aravosis of Americablog notes this passage from Mark Leibovich 's story on Cheney in the New York Times yesterday:

"He offers his standard homage to tax cuts, a warning about how terrorists are still trying desperately 'to cause mass death here in the United States' and a derisive cataloging of the various 'Dean Democrats,' congressmen including Charles B. Rangel of New York, Henry A. Waxman of California and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, whose influence would grow if the apocalypse came and Democrats took over Congress.

"The crowd boos.

"'Don't hold back,' Mr. Cheney urges."

Aravosis apparently doesn't think Cheney's choice of names was a coincidence. His headline for his blog post: "Dick Cheney: Did I tell you the one about the black guy, the Jew, and the fag?"
Cartoon Watch

Tom Toles on the last throes; Pat Oliphant on Preacher Bush; Jeff Danziger on the comma; Mike Luckovich on blame; Ben Sargent on lunacy.
'Clear Message'

In yesterday's column , I quoted Bush saying that the detainee bill "sends a clear message: This nation is patient and decent and fair, and we will never back down from the threats to our freedom."

I suggested that he might be mistaken about the "clear message" the bill really sends. I suggested a few alternatives, and asked you readers for more.

Here are a few of your responses:

* "My administration will stop at nothing to protect this nation during even-numbered years." (Patrick McGrath)

* "I do not value the advice of the military lawyers." (Jennifer Forsythe)

* "The terrorists have won." (Richard Panek)

* "The law sends a clear Orwellian message: in the name of justice we will deny justice." (Jon Krueger)

* "If you can't get away with it, and it won't go away, legislate it." (Mark Egit)

* "That I should be sending this anonymously." (Damian Walker)

* "To the Constitution: Your services are no longer required." (Craig Ostovitz)

* "Anyone detained by your government is a bad guy. Anyone tortured by your government is a bad guy. Anyone imprisoned secretly for life by your government deserves it because they were bad. The Constitution and its protections are just something bad guys use. If possible, the law should be expanded to cover U.S. citizens too, because the only people hurt by it are bad guys." (Anne L.H. Studholme)

* "Here's the clear message to me as a Canadian: I cannot visit the United States, because if some over-eager border guard thinks I'm a risk to national security, I could be locked up forever." (Kevin Longfield)

* "The clear message this sends to me is that our politicians fear our freedom much more than the terrorists hate it." (Gabriel Carbajal)

* "I think the 'clear message' of the torture-unlawful combatant-no habeas corpus law is its chilling effect on criticism. Since the law allows the president -- any president -- to name anyone he, alone, sees as a threat as an unlawful combatant (or someone who is aiding unlawful combatants), it is not a stretch to see how anyone speaking against the president or his policies could find himself detained without charges, a lawyer or a court date." (Bill Banks)

* "Clear Message to Charlie Savage and other signing statement watchers: 'The Senate did my signing statement for me this time.'" (Jane Savoca Gibson)

* "The Democrats still haven't learned to stand up to the President." (Tom Benthin)

* "L'État, c'est moi." (Louise Mowder)

* "One branch down, one to go." (Jim Magnant)

* "The Golden Rule is inoperative." (Vince Canzoneri)

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Is This The October Surprise?

Reuters
U.S. says threat to NFL stadiums not credible
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security warned officials on Wednesday in seven U.S. cities about a dirty-bomb threat to National Football League stadiums but does not believe the threat is credible, officials said.

The threat, posted on Monday on an Internet site, said bombs containing radioactive material known as "dirty" bombs had been smuggled into the United States and would be used to attack professional football stadiums this Sunday, the department said.

"We are looking at this with strong skepticism. We have judged that there is not a credible threat here. There is no evidence or intelligence that there is a credible threat of such attacks," said Homeland Security spokesman Jarrod Agen.

"But out of an abundance of caution, we thought it necessary to notify federal, state, local and private sector partners," he added.

The seven cities were identified as Miami, New York, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland, California, and Cleveland in a Homeland Security notice sent to federal, state, local and private security officials in those areas.

"They have not been asked to take any security measures," Agen said. "This is to inform them that the information is out there but we don't see it as a credible threat."

The Homeland Security notice said the threat was posted to an English-language Web site at www.thefriendsociety.com and said dirty bombs in trucks would be detonated outside the stadiums during Sunday's NFL games.

"The content of the Web site, which requires registration to post, is sometimes crude and contains none of the hallmarks of jihadist Web sites," Homeland Security advised in the notice. An attempt to connect to the site was unsuccessful.

The National Football League issued a statement saying its stadiums were "very well protected" by measures that include perimeter security, bag searches and personal searches of people entering the facilities.

The FBI said it would include the threat in its regular security discussions with NFL officials this week. "The FBI routinely maintains a working relationship with the National Football League," the bureau said in a statement.

The warning, which was quoted in the government notice, predicted 100,000 dead from the initial blasts and said "countless other fatalities will later occur as result of radioactive fallout."

It said Sunday would mark the final day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Mecca and predicted al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would claim responsibility for the attack in a video message.

"In the aftermath, civil wars will erupt across the world, both in the Middle East and within the United States. Global economies will screech to a halt. General chaos will rule," the Homeland Security notice quoted the threat as saying.

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McCain jokes about committing suicide if Democrats win Senate

Reuters
McCain jokes about suicide if Democrats win Senate

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Arizona Sen. John McCain, a likely Republican presidential contender in 2008, joked on Wednesday he would "commit suicide" if Democrats win the Senate in November.

McCain, on a visit to Iowa to campaign for Republican congressional candidates, was asked his reaction to a potential Democratic takeover of the Senate in the November 7 elections.

"I think I'd just commit suicide," McCain told reporters, to accompanying laughter from Republicans standing with him. "I don't want to face that eventuality because I don't think it's going to happen."

Democrats must pick up six seats in the Senate and 15 seats in the House of Representatives to win control of both chambers.

Polls show Democrats within striking distance of reclaiming the Senate, and in a strong position to claim a majority in the House.

"I think it's going to be tough, but I think we'll do OK," McCain said of Republican prospects.

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Bill Clinton preaches politics of "common good"

Reuters
Bill Clinton preaches politics of "common good"
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton urged Democrats on Wednesday to strive for an inclusive politics of "common good" and fight back against the divisive approach of Republican leaders.

Less than three weeks before November 7 elections to decide control of Congress, Clinton said U.S. political debate had been degraded by "ideological, right-wing" Republicans who demonized opponents and concentrated power in the hands of a privileged few.

Clinton said he longed for a politics that celebrated differences and disagreements without condemnation, and worked toward equal opportunity, shared responsibility and a sense of community.

"Ideological, divisive, demonizing, distracting politics, they may be very good for an election, particularly when people feel unsettled and insecure, but they don't do much to advance the common good," he said at Georgetown University, on the same stage where 15 years ago he called for a "New Covenant" in politics.

"This sort of politics, striving for the common good, for me stands in stark contrast to both the political and governing philosophy of the leadership in Washington today and for the last six years," he said.

Clinton, whose presidency from 1993 to 2001 was marked by pitched battles with Republican congressional leaders, including his impeachment, said there was nothing wrong with a hard-nosed fight over philosophy or issues.

"It's not that we want a bland, mushy meaningless politics. We like our debate," Clinton said. "But we want it to be connected somehow to the real lives of real people."

Clinton has teamed recently with former Republican President George Bush, the current president's father, on relief efforts for victims of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

Clinton's wife, former first lady and New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is a likely contender for the White House in 2008 and is running for re-election to the Senate this year.

Clinton said the growing strength in recent decades of the "ideological, right-wing" elements of the Republican Party had been realized in President George W. Bush's administration and the Republican-led Congress.

"This is the first time when on a consistent basis the most conservative and ideological wing of the Republican Party had both the executive and the legislative branch," Clinton said.

"They believe the country is best served by the maximum concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the right people -- right in both senses," he said.

"They favor unilateralism whenever possible and cooperation when it's unavoidable," he added.

He said the philosophy did not serve the country well.

"If you've got an ideology, you've already got your mind made up. You know all the answers and that makes evidence irrelevant and arguments a waste of time," he said.

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Local protesters take issue with Military Commissions Act

Press Republican
Local protesters take issue with Military Commissions Act
By Kim Smith Dedeam

ELIZABETHTOWN, NJ — Some local residents are offended by the new Military Commissions Act, signed into law by President George Bush Tuesday.

"Magna Carta. We are talking centuries of creating a civilized way of treating people. This just blows it away," said Katharine Preston, a member of the Diogenes Society, a social-rights group based in Essex County.

"We espouse freedom and democracy, and then we shatter it at home. It doesn't make any sense."

In protest, a quiet group filled the courthouse porch and huddled under umbrellas on the lawn.

They read out loud a statement issued by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, which said, in part:

"For the first time in our nation's history, legislation has now been signed into law that effectively permits evidence obtained by torture to be used in a court of law. The military tribunals that are trying some terrorist suspects are now expressly permitted to consider information obtained under coercive interrogation techniques, including degrading and inhumane techniques and torture."

Martha Swan, who organized Diogenes several years ago, was adamant about the threat the new laws make against human rights and freedom.

"George Bush signed a bill into law that, in short, legalizes torture. It's just a morally horrific thing to say this is what we as a people can abide by."

The argument that it happens elsewhere and terrorists use torture against Americans holds no credence with Swan.

We aren't terrorists, she said.

"We uphold ourselves as a beacon, as a nation that abides by a golden rule of 'compassionate conservatism'; it's what Bush ran on in 2000. It was very appealing rhetoric back then."

Swan, and others at the protest, believe the new law is hypocrisy.

"It doesn't solve the terrorist problem," said Monique Weston. "It's only going to make it worse."

Some said the new law poses added threats to military personnel in war zones.

Protestors also claimed the Military Commissions Act grants new, unilateral powers to the president.

"It allows him to decide what are acceptable methods of interrogation," Swan said.

"And, in the interests of this administration, which has nothing else to sell the American people, it sells a steady diet of fear. You can control a population by keeping them fearful."

"Top military brass testified that people under torture will say anything. It doesn't work. So, why then, did lawmakers approve this? Why did John McHugh sign his name to this?"

With that, Ted Cornell emphasized the last few sentences in the protest statement:

"Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed?"

About a dozen people had gathered in the first half-hour of protest; some brought red, white and blue signs that said "Bush Surrenders Our Freedom" and "Stand Up America, Before It's Too Late."

Another protester wore an Uncle Sam top hat festooned with a message: "Vote."

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Big Oil v. Hollywood in California oil tax vote

Reuters
Big Oil v. Hollywood in California oil tax vote
By Bernie Woodall

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood is battling Big Oil over a California ballot initiative to fund alternative energy with a tax on the state's oil production.

The advertising battle over Proposition 87 has drawn a record amount of cash for a ballot question -- more than double that spent on the higher-profile governor's race. Californians vote November 7 on whether to adopt a tax similar to those levied by other oil-producing states.

"It's a staggering amount of money," said John Matsusaka, University of Southern California business and law professor and president of the USC-based and nonpartisan Initiative and Referendum Institute. "We're talking $107 million on a single measure in one state and we're not even done."

Stephen L. Bing, a movie producer and real estate scion, has pitched in more than $40 million in support of the proposal to tax oil output, which has been bolstered by the likes of Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore.

On the other side, California-based Chevron Corp. alone has spent about $22 million to undermine the initiative.

Opponents warn that taxing domestic oil production could raise consumer energy prices, increase dependence on foreign oil, and spawn a wasteful state bureaucracy.

Supporters say the initiative will reduce the need for crude oil imports because tax money would bolster use and development of alternative energy sources.

California imports about 42 percent of its oil from foreign countries, with the rest coming state producers and Alaska, according to government figures.

The vote Yes campaign this week convened cameras to see Oscar-winner Julia Roberts visiting children suffering from asthma to highlight the ravages of air pollution. Former President Bill Clinton last week wagged a bent knuckle at a UCLA audience -- the backdrop for a Vote Yes commercial -- saying the oil tax won't raise gasoline prices at all.

Clinton and his former vice-president Al Gore are the main politicians in the vote Yes corner, with Gore adding environmentalist heft from his movie about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."

If the initiative passes, the California government will get $200 million to $380 million a year in new revenue from a tax of between 1.5 percent to 6 percent on oil production, according to the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst. The sliding scale of tax rate would go up and down with the price of oil.

Oil companies have not fled other states that have an oil extraction tax, and they won't flee California either, Clinton told fans at UCLA.

Among the top oil-producing U.S. states, California is the only one with no tax for extracting oil. Similar taxes include Alaska, at 15 percent, Texas at 4.6 percent and Louisiana at 12.5 percent.

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U.S. frees ex-Nazi guard as deportation bid fails

Reuters
U.S. frees ex-Nazi guard as deportation bid fails

DETROIT (Reuters) - An 81-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was freed this week from a Michigan jail after U.S. officials failed to find a country that would take him in a deportation proceeding.

Johann Leprich, who was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1987, had been held in a county jail in Michigan since investigators found him hiding in a secret chamber in his suburban Detroit house in 2003.

Romania, Hungary and Germany all declined to accept Leprich, an ethnic German who was born in Romania, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

U.S. authorities chose to free Leprich after his lawyer asked a federal judge to order him released, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set a six-month limit on the period the government can hold detainees awaiting a court-ordered deportation.

"He was in custody for about 40 months," Leprich's Cleveland-based lawyer Joseph McGinness said. "They could not detain him and they released him."

Leprich will be issued an electronic monitor to wear on his ankle and be required to report weekly to U.S. authorities as a condition of his release, said Greg Palmore, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Palmore said U.S. officials would continue to try to negotiate an agreement that would allow Leprich to be deported to Europe. "Our work continues," he said.

Leprich had joined the Waffen SS in 1943 and served as a guard at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in 1943 and 1944, according to court records.

An estimated 119,000 prisoners died at Mauthausen, including political prisoners, Jews and prisoners of war.

The federal court that revoked Leprich's citizenship for lying on his application found inmates at Mauthausen had been used as slave laborers and that many had been starved, beaten, tortured and killed at the camp.

Leprich immigrated to the United States in 1952 and became a naturalized citizen in 1958, settling in suburban Detroit.

He said when he applied to become a citizen that he had served in the Hungarian Army during the war. He later said he had been forced to join the Waffen SS but had never killed anyone.

Leprich fled to Canada after his citizenship was revoked. In 2003, an investigator found him hiding in a secret compartment under the basement stairs in his Clinton Township, Michigan home as part of a renewed search.

McGinness said he believed that no nation would accept his client, effectively ending the 20-year-old case against him.

"I think this is the end of this one, but I can be surprised," he said.

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Could an "October surprise" shape the midterm election?

Reuters
Could an "October surprise" shape the midterm election?
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A last-minute "October surprise" -- a dramatic news event that shakes up the U.S. election -- could be a big wild card in the final three weeks of the fight for control of Congress.

With Democrats threatening to sweep Republicans out of power in Congress in the November 7 elections, a late-breaking foreign crisis, terrorist attack or a new scandal could change the debate and shape the ultimate outcome.

The possibilities are numerous, as President George W. Bush juggles multiple foreign threats like North Korea's nuclear tests, Iran's nuclear ambitions and civil war in Iraq, along with mushrooming Republican scandals at home.

"There is a huge potential for some sort of October surprise that changes the dynamic, something that reminds everyone just how unstable the world is," pollster John Zogby said.

The October surprise has a long history in U.S. political campaigns, from the collapse of hostage negotiations with Iran before President Jimmy Carter's 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan to the airing of an Osama bin Laden video before President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004.

The phenomenon is not as prevalent in congressional elections, which involve a collection of individual races and are not as focused on a single event. This year, Democrats must pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives and six Senate seats to win control of Congress.

In the last midterm elections, in 2002, the plane crash death of Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota little more than a week before the vote threw his Senate race into chaos. Republican Norm Coleman beat replacement Democrat Walter Mondale, the former vice president.

But the potential for a campaign-shaping event in the final weeks remains a topic of intense speculation.

"We are wary of their October surprise," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Senate Democratic campaign committee, which he said was keeping campaign money in reserve for late emergencies.

While most late-breaking events are beyond the control of politicians, plenty of conspiracy theorists expect the White House to make a late attempt to halt Democratic momentum.

'NO SURPRISE'

"It should come as no surprise if the Bush administration undertakes a pre-emptive war against Iran sometime before the November election," Gary Hart, a former Democratic senator and presidential candidate, predicted last month on the Huffington Post, an Internet site.

In many scenarios, the man imagined to be pulling the strings on an October surprise is White House political adviser Karl Rove, the architect of Bush's 2004 re-election.

"Karl Rove wouldn't be earning his pay if he didn't try something that would benefit the White House," said Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.

Early speculation about a late surprise to benefit Republicans focused on troop pullouts in Iraq, but that has been off the table for months. Another favorite, a plunge in gasoline prices, already happened to little apparent effect.

One Web site ran a contest to pick the most likely October surprise, with the winner being "Iran totally had it coming." The capture or death of bin Laden is another favorite.

Democrats already benefited from a sex scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican. News of a federal investigation into Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania will make his re-election more difficult.

The October surprise phenomenon surfaced in 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson halted bombing of North Vietnam a week before the 1968 election. It was not enough to help his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, beat Richard Nixon.

In 2000, Bush's 1976 drunken driving arrest became public days before the election. Bush narrowly lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore but won the Electoral College after the U.S. Supreme Court halted a dispute over votes in Florida.

For those running campaigns, though, strategy and voter turnout efforts trump concerns about a late surprise.

"There is nothing you can do. If something happens, then we'll worry about it," said Carl Forti, spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee.

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The human cost

Cape Cod News
The human cost
By K.C. MYERS
STAFF WRITER

EASTHAM - Her son taught nursery school. He was a case worker for mentally retarded adults. And he was a member of Pennsylvania National Guard who hoped the military would help him pay for his education.

Sgt. Sherwood Baker, 30, lost his life on April 26, 2004, when shrapnel from a nearby explosion in Iraq struck him in the back of his head, said his mother, Celeste Zappala of Pennsylvania.

His death is what brought Zappala to Coast Guard Beach in Eastham yesterday, where her son's cross stood among about 2,800 small grave markers plunged into the sand, each representing a U.S. soldier who has died in Iraq. Headstones nearby represented some of the Iraqi children killed in the war.

On a clear day, they stretched as far as the eye could see. The erection of ''Arlington East: The Human Cost of War'' took more than 200 volunteers in excess of six hours. They started at dawn, and would only begin to take down the grave markers after a rendition of Taps was played at 6 p.m., said Diane Turco, of Cape Codders for Peace and Justice.

For three months, her group, Veterans for Peace, and other volunteers found and cut the recycled wood and nailed together crosses. Their display, which has also been done by activists in California and Texas, made a breathtaking impact.

Every cross represents grief for family members, some of whom were there to speak out.

''Seamus was idealistic,'' said his father, Derek Davey, of Lowville, N.Y. ''He believed in his country and he believed he had a responsibility to serve.''

Seamus MacLean Davey, 25, died on Oct. 21, 2005, during combat in Iraq.

''We believe that responsibility goes two ways,'' his father continued. ''The civilian leaders have to use military forces wisely and not for their personal gain.''

The Daveys were opposed to the war from the beginning, but supported their son's decision to join the Marines in 1998 as soon as he graduated from high school.

After his death, they joined the Gold Star Families for Peace so that their son's death wouldn't be a total waste.

''We're pushing for everyone to vote,'' said his mother, Lorene Davey. ''I'm afraid people who are apathetic, who don't have a personal stake, won't come here to see this.''

Aseel Al Banna, an Iraqi who left the country in 1991 after experiencing two wars, knows the toll all too well.

Her parents are among about one million Iraqis who fled the violence to live in Amman, Jordan, where they are not allowed to work and yet must pay high rents in the adopted city, said Al Banna, who came as a member of Code Pink, an organization of women opposed to war.

''I don't know a single family that hasn't been affected directly,'' she said.

From her perspective, the United States has only made things worse. U.S. troops dismantled the government, disarmed the military, and now the country is ''a free for all'' for religious fanatics and violent groups with power and money, she said.

''It's already a civil war,'' she said. ''Yes, it will get worse temporarily if the U.S. pulls out. But then the Iraqis can rebuild it. It's their country. They've done it before.''

Andy Sapp, an Iraq war veteran who returned to his teaching job in Concord a year ago, couldn't agree more.

Sapp was hammering crosses into the sand yesterday.

''I was in the National Guard,'' he said. ''We had no clear vision. It was do your time, stay alive and get out.

''I am here because most veterans and those in active duty cannot speak out,'' he continued. ''There is very real pressure. Everyone who died here is my comrade in arms. This is a very real way to support the troops.''

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What if They "Find" bin Laden Before the Election?

Huffington Post
Thomas de Zengotita
What if They "Find" bin Laden Before the Election?

As some of my previous posts make clear, I don't hold with major 9/11-was-an-inside-job conspiracy theories, but I think the possibility that they will "find" Osama before the election is real. Deceptions of that kind are par for the course for these champions of moral clarity. Plus, even more importantly, it is logistically feasible.

So it could happen.

But here's the thing. Their credibility is now so damaged that it might backfire--especially if Democrats were to be smart about it. Candidates should confine themselves to solemn head shaking and comments like "All I can say is that this is very convenient timing." Bloggers will take care of the rest.

Come to think about it, the possibility of backfire is so real that if, just by chance, just by accident, they were to locate bin Laden in the next couple of weeks they might be well advised to keep him on ice until after the election.

That's how suspect they've become.

That's the kind of looking-glass warp of weirdness you get into when you lie as much and as often as they have.

Fingers crossed. Let the hard rain fall...

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Lieberman endorses Bush appointee for U.N. post

New York Daily News
Lieberman endorses Bush appointee for U.N. post
By Helen Kennedy

NEW YORK - Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman on Monday endorsed controversial Bush appointee John Bolton for a permanent slot at the United Nations - putting him at odds once again with Democrats and his Senate colleague, Chris Dodd.

Dodd, D-Conn., is the leading critic of Bolton, the controversial envoy Bush sent to the U.N. on a temporary ambassadorship after Democrats and some key Republicans balked at nominating him.

"I see no reason not to be for Bolton," Lieberman told a meeting of the New York Daily News editorial board.

"Based on his capabilities - and now based on his performance - I believe Bolton is well-qualified," he said.

"I think he's been a good negotiator and a good spokesman. He deserves to have a vote. I think he deserves to be confirmed."

Bolton's recess appointment expires at the end of the year and he will need Senate approval to remain as U.N. ambassador.

Lieberman had not publicly taken a position on Bolton before.

Lieberman's support for Bush's foreign policies lost him the Democratic primary in Connecticut. He is now running for re-election as an independent and has a comfortable lead in polls.

Dodd, who is campaigning for the Democratic candidate, Ned Lamont, had lead the fight against nominating Bolton and remains his fiercest critic, saying his performance at the U.N. so far merits "a failing grade."

In a blistering Senate speech last month listing what he called Bolton's failures, Dodd said, "My objection isn't that he is a bully, but that he's been a very ineffective bully - he can't win the day when it really counts."

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Echoes of ’88: GOP is employing a fear-mongering ad strategy in the Massachusetts governor’s race

Echoes of ’88
Mark Starr, who covered the Dukakis presidential run for NEWSWEEK, says the GOP is employing a fear-mongering ad strategy in the Massachusetts governor’s race.
By Mark Starr
Newsweek

Oct. 17, 2006 - The 1988 presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis made more than its fair share of missteps. Still, it is not a stretch to say that the Dukakis dream died the day Vice President George H.W. Bush first mentioned the name Willie Horton.

Two years earlier, Horton, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, had assaulted a Maryland couple. He knifed and beat the man and raped his fiancée while on a weekend furlough program from a Massachusetts prison. By the end of the ’88 presidential campaign, Republicans had made good on the pledge of Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, to make Horton a household name. The GOP ad campaigns featuring Horton’s black “thug”-shot became a symbol of soft-on-crime Democrats—and an effective exercise in campaign fear mongering.

Now the GOP is at it again in Massachusetts. Democrat Deval Patrick, the black former chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Clinton, appeared to be coasting to victory in his gubernatorial campaign against Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. After the September primary, Patrick boasted a lead of more than 30 points in some polls. And Healey was making little headway portraying herself as a change agent given that four GOP governors-including incumbent Mitt Romney, who isn't seeking re-election so he can focus on his presidential aspirations—have held the top job on Beacon Hill since 1990.

So in recent weeks, the GOP’s turned to “Willie Hortonizing” Patrick. He’s been linked—through both Healey-endorsed Republican ads and anonymous new leaks—to three convicted criminals, one a family member. The names the GOP wants voters to remember in November are Carl Ray Songer, Benjamin LaGuer and Bernard Sigh. The plan might be working: a recent poll shows Patrick’s lead has shrunk to 13 points. And Healey, who has a Ph.D. in criminology, is married to one of the wealthiest businessmen in the state, providing her with seemingly unlimited resources to keep up the fire. (Asked about their ad campaigns, Stuart Stevens, a Healey campaign consultant, said, “There are legitimate differences on crime and we’re going to talk about them.”)

Who are these three men?

Carl Ray Songer: Songer was convicted of murdering a Florida state trooper in 1973. Patrick handled the 1985 appeal as a lawyer with the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. (He argued that, in the penalty phase of the trial, the jury didn’t hear crucial arguments before it issued a death sentence.) The appeal was successful; Songer is serving a life term. This seems to be a clear-cut case of Patrick doing his job—and doing it well. Still, an ad for Healey confuses. Its tag line is: “While lawyers have a right to defend admitted cop killers, do we really want one as governor?” Grammarians will note the ambiguity of “one,” which makes it unclear whether the lawyer or the cop-killer is running for governor. Moreover, by using Songer, who is white, for its first attack, the GOP should dodge the racist accusations that dogged the Horton ad campaign.

Benjamin LaGuer: LaGuer was a young, black man of Hispanic origin convicted in 1984 of raping a 59-year-old woman for more than eight hours. In calls and letters to prominent civic leaders and journalists, he said he was a victim of mistaken identity. Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel rallied to the cause, as did John Silber, then president of Boston University. Patrick wound up writing letters on LaGuer’s behalf to the Massachusetts Parole Board. And he wrote a check to help secure a DNA test for LaGuer (which confirmed his guilt). But when reporters asked about it, Patrick’s memory became hazy and he recalled writing only a single letter. A TV ad asks: “What kind of person defends a brutal rapist?” Patrick told reporters the attack was a “cheap shot”—but apologized at a campaign appearance “to anyone who feels we didn’t come forward with all the facts” about his efforts on LaGeur’s behalf.

Bernard Sigh: The Boston Herald reported last Friday that in 1993 Patrick’s brother-in-law, Sigh, was convicted of raping his wife, Patrick’s sister, and was now an unregistered sex offender living in Massachusetts. The story is true: Sigh served a short prison sentence, reconciled with his wife and moved to Massachusetts. Patrick told reporters the couple are now deacons in their church and counsel other couples. Most distressingly for the family, Patrick said, their two young children were unaware of their parents’ history. The Healey campaign denies having any hand in the story.

Dukakis said recently that the smears were worse than anything done to him; Sen. Edward Kennedy, appearing with Patrick last week, decried the ad campaigns as “gutter politics.” And at a fundraiser for Patrick in Boston last Monday, Clinton deplored the tactics in a speech. He said, “They don’t do that unless they think they’re going to get a big whuppin’ laid on.” Still, Patrick finds himself on the defensive. It’s a sign of how effective Healey’s latest attacks have been when a man who grew up in the Chicago projects has to compare crime creds with a suburbanite from the state’s affluent town of Prides Crossing.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15310001/site/newsweek/

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Many in Government Helped Cunningham Or Yielded, Panel Finds; Report Indicates Widening Investigation

washingtonpost.com
Many in Government Helped Cunningham Or Yielded, Panel Finds
Report Indicates Widening Investigation
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer

Former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) channeled more than $70 million in Pentagon and intelligence agency contracts to two companies that paid him bribes, and required the "cooperation or at least the non-interference of many people" to pull that off, a congressional investigation has found.

Since Cunningham had no authority to award contracts, he needed the acquiescence of some members of Congress, congressional staff members and Defense Department officials, according to the executive summary of an investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence into his activities as a panel member.

"This was a lot of people to persuade, cajole, deceive, pressure, intimidate, bribe or otherwise influence to do what they wanted," the executive summary says.

Although the congressional inquiry was directed at Cunningham's activities and found no evidence of corruption among panel staff members, the five-page summary written by the panel's special counsel, Michael Stern, indicates how the continuing federal criminal investigation of corruption and bribery has continued to spread since it began almost two years ago.

The summary discloses for the first time that the government is investigating the CIA's award of "several large contracts" that involved Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo when he was No. 3 at the agency under then-Director Porter J. Goss. Foggo was a longtime friend of contractor Brent R. Wilkes, who federal investigators say was one of Cunningham's co-conspirators along with contractor Mitchell J. Wade.

Foggo resigned in May after being linked to the Cunningham inquiry. Days later, federal agents searched his agency office and his rented home in Northern Virginia.

Yesterday, agency officials refused to comment on the newly disclosed information, saying the matter is under investigation. Foggo was originally investigated by both the CIA inspector general and federal prosecutors after it was alleged this year that he had helped Wilkes obtain CIA contracts and had improperly accepted vacation trips from him.

The House report adds that another Foggo friend, Brant Bassett, a former CIA officer who worked as a staff member of the House intelligence panel, has been drawn into the case. Bassett, Foggo, Wilkes and the unnamed person who received the large CIA contracts "apparently had dinner together at the Capital Grille in June 2003," according to the summary. Stern says that meeting warranted further inquiry but was outside his jurisdiction to investigate.

The summary says Cunningham had "dealings . . . with certain foreign nationals" that have apparently triggered inquiry by "law enforcement and national security agencies."

In November 2005, Cunningham pleaded guilty to taking bribes and is serving a prison sentence of up to eight years. Wade pleaded guilty in February to giving $1 million in bribes, and his sentencing has been postponed until March. Wilkes has yet to be charged but was listed as co-conspirator No. 1 in court documents charging Cunningham.

Published reports have indicated that other members of Congress are under investigation, including Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Stern, in his report, says requests to the committee for permission to speak to current and past staff members have not been answered.

House intelligence panel staff members were aware of Cunningham's activities and in some cases saw "red flags" but did not interfere, the report says. It adds that there was "no evidence" uncovered that any past or present committee aides "sought to profit or expect to profit personally from any of the funding requests," Stern wrote.

Release of the executive summary by the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), added fuel to the running partisan battling going on in the committee, and quickly drew criticism from its chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.).

Harman said that she acted because the original investigation was finished in May and the unclassified executive summary in July, and that the release was held up because of a disagreement between her and Hoekstra over subpoenaing Cunningham to testify. Earlier this month, according to Harman, Hoekstra agreed to release a mutually agreed upon version of the summary, which was completed last week.

Hoekstra, in a statement yesterday, described the release as "disturbing and beyond the pale," and called the summary an "incomplete, internal committee document" that other panel members had not reviewed. His statement echoed words Harman used this month when Hoekstra released reports by the committee majority staff on North Korea and Iraq that were done without the approval of Democrats on the panel.

Wade's company, MZM Inc., benefited from several questionable contracts given by the Counterintelligence Field Activity agency (CIFA), the Pentagon's newest intelligence arm, which was created in 2002 to coordinate protecting defense facilities and personnel at home and abroad from terrorist attacks. Its budget is secret, but congressional sources earlier this year said it totaled more than $1 billion over the past three years; its staff consisted of 400 full-time employees and 800 on contract status.

Cunningham, as a member of the intelligence panel, chaired the terrorism subcommittee that had authority over CIFA. The House committee's "ability to conduct appropriate oversight over the counterintelligence project at CIFA, MZM's other contracts with CIFA, and arguably CIFA as a whole appears to have been seriously impeded by the corrupt conspiracy between Cunningham and Wade," the report says.

CIFA's two top officials, director David A. Burtt II and his deputy, Joseph Hefferon, suddenly resigned in August, but other officials at the agency refused to discuss any link to the ongoing investigations. A Pentagon spokesman said their leaving was "a personal decision that they both made together."

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Weldon's Ties to Serbian Businessman Part of Probe

washingtonpost.com
Weldon's Ties to Serbian Businessman Part of Probe
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade were surprised three years ago to be invited to a luncheon in honor of visiting Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), hosted by Bogoljub Karic, a wealthy Serbian businessman who had been barred from visiting or trading with the United States because of his close ties to former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Weldon "was visiting solely because of Karic," whom he was trying to get off the U.S. blacklist, a former senior embassy official familiar with the visit concluded. "It seemed odd" at the time, because Karic had no obvious tie to Weldon's district outside Philadelphia, and Weldon should have known the embassy was shunning contacts with him, the official said.

What the embassy apparently did not know is that the Karic family that year signed a contract with Weldon's daughter, Karen, and a business partner that called for monthly payments of $20,000 for "management, government and public relations," according to a copy of the March 2003 contract. In all, the family paid Karen Weldon's firm $133,858 that year for efforts she undertook to set up a foundation for it.

Curt Weldon's visit and that deal are under investigation by the FBI, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the probe. His efforts to assist clients of his daughter's consulting firm in their dealings with the federal government are the focus of that probe, according to sources familiar with it .

FBI raids of six locations in Pennsylvania and Florida on Monday, including one of Karen Weldon's home and another of her consulting and lobbying firm, were part of the bureau's search for evidence of whether the lawmaker used his influence to benefit himself or his daughter's firm, according to the sources. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

A grand jury has been impaneled as part of the investigation, and it has obtained evidence gathered via wiretaps of Washington area cellphone numbers, the sources said.

Weldon has said he did not take actions to enrich his daughter or himself. His attorney, William J. Winning, said yesterday that "the congressman did nothing wrong, nor did his daughter do anything wrong." Winning added that he was not prepared to justify or discuss Weldon's travels.

Besides looking at Weldon's Karic connection, the FBI is examining the lawmaker's contacts with a Russian-managed oil and gas company, Itera International Energy Corp., the sources said. The company's offices in Jacksonville, Fla., were searched on Monday.

Itera spokesman Steve Koegler declined to answer questions yesterday, but released a statement saying that the government had expressed interest Monday in "any records or information Itera might have with respect to Itera's business relationship with Solutions Worldwide." The name of the firm that Karen Weldon operates with one of her father's close political supporters, Charles Sexton, is Solutions North America Inc.

"Itera and all of its employees have cooperated and will continue to cooperate with the government's request," the statement added.

According to a statement Karen Weldon filed with the Justice Department's foreign agent registration office, Itera agreed in September 2002 to pay her firm a $170,000 startup fee and $300,000 more in monthly retainer fees, in exchange for "such consulting services" as the company might request.

That was the same month that her father attended a lavish dinner for the company at the Library of Congress, at which Itera's director, Igor Makarov, announced the start of a U.S.-Russian student exchange program, based in Weldon's district. Members of Congress were to nominate participants in the program.

That year, Weldon complained to the U.S. Trade and Development Agency about its cancellation of a grant to Itera to explore a gas field in Siberia.

In filings with the Senate clerk, Weldon has reported that Itera paid for a trip he took to New York in September 2002 and a one-day trip to Jacksonville in January 2003. He also reported that a nonprofit group directed by Itera officials financed his two-day visit to Jacksonville in November 2002.

Weldon, who has long advocated closer U.S.-Russian trade ties, listed another client of his daughter's firm, Saratov Aviation, as the financial sponsor of a three-day trip to Moscow in January 2003, the same month as a visit he took to Belgrade.

Weldon's chief of staff went to Belgrade in November 2003, initially listing the Karic family as his financial sponsor in a filing the next month with the Senate clerk. Two months later, after reporters for the Los Angeles Times questioned him about the trip, he amended the filing to state that he had reimbursed the company for his travel expenses.

Some watchdog organizations previously noted Weldon's support for companies that had little to do with his constituents in Delaware County and that paid fees to the firm operated by his daughter and Sexton, or to a close friend of Weldon's, lobbyist Cecilia Grimes.

"There seems to be a pattern of Congressman Weldon's activities overlapping with his private and personal interests," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, which monitored the efforts of Weldon and other lawmakers on behalf of companies that had contracts with their associates. "You can explain away one or two cases, but here you really have to question what's going on here and is it really in the interest of the U.S. taxpayers."

Weldon gave testimonials on behalf of a company, Advanced Ceramics Research, in two separate hearings of the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces, which he chairs. Weldon had invited the Arizona company's CEO to testify in 2004 and 2005 about what he characterized as its "very interesting work in developing state of the art composites that have increased performance while significantly reducing component cost."

The congressman lauded the company's work, noting its ability to produce "modern composites that lead to lighter weight, lower cost and tougher systems."

Advanced Ceramics Research paid Grimes $60,000 as its registered lobbyist in 2003 and 2004. An affiliate of Advanced Ceramics paid her an additional $40,000 during that time, according to her lobbying registration documents.

Efforts to reach Grimes at two phone numbers listed for her on lobbying registration forms were unsuccessful.

Weldon also supported an Italian defense contractor, Oto Melara, in a formal letter and testimony to the Armed Services Committee that recommended the Navy consider using the company's guns on its ships. Oto Melara has paid Grimes's firm $60,000 since she registered to lobby for it in June 2005, according to her lobbying reports .

Research director Lucy Shackelford and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

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NATO Commander Says Coalition in Afghanistan Failed to Follow Through After Ousting Taliban

ABC News
Commander: Mistakes Made in Afghanistan
NATO Commander Says Coalition in Afghanistan Failed to Follow Through After Ousting Taliban
By PAULINE JELINEK
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan failed to follow through as it should have after ousting the Taliban government in 2001, setting the stage for this year's deadly resurgence, the NATO commander in the country said Tuesday.

The mistake consisted of adopting "a peacetime approach" too early, British Gen. David Richards told Pentagon reporters. He said the international community has six months to correct the problem before losing Afghan support, reiterating a warning he issued last week.

"The Taliban were defeated. ... And it looked all pretty hunky-dory," Richard said of the environment at the end of 2001. "We thought it was all done ... and didn't treat it as aggressively as ... with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done."

Progress on security, rebuilding and good government didn't meet Afghan expectations, and this year the "Taliban exploited ... this sense of frustration amongst the people," Richards said in a televised conference from Afghanistan.

While it is unusual for a commander to criticize an ongoing military operation, Richards' comments came days after another British officer offered a much harsher assessment of the other U.S.-led war, in Iraq.

Asked for comment on Richards' remarks, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said Afghanistan was and is one of the world's poorest nations.

"It will take years of hard work by the Afghan people and the international community to reverse the effects of decades of occupation and civil war," he said. "Nonetheless, there has been significant economic growth and donor efforts to improve living conditions across the country," including improved health care, school enrollment, roads and other projects.

Insurgent bombings, ambushes and rocket attacks have surged this year. Since the Taliban was overthrown, many of Afghanistan's former rulers are thought to have found sanctuary across the border in Pakistan.

Five years later, NATO forces, along with Afghan army and police forces, plan a series of operations throughout the country this winter to do road building and other reconstruction projects in more secure areas and bolster security to prepare for reconstruction in less secure regions, Richards said.

Richards said that if there is not measurable improvement in six months, Afghans may choose "the rotten future offered by the Taliban" rather than the hopeful future that the coalition offered but didn't deliver.

"This is not just my view but that of many others," he said.

Bush administration critics have charged the Afghan campaign is lagging because the administration focused troops and other assets away from that country too quickly in order to plan and execute the invasion of Iraq, which they view as a diversion from the war on terror.

Just last week, Gen. Richard Dannatt, Britain's army chief, set off a political storm by calling for troops to be withdrawn "soon" from Iraq in part because their presence made the situation worse.

He later said he meant a phased withdrawal over two or three years.

Richards commands about 31,000 forces in Afghanistan. NATO early this month took command of 12,000 U.S. troops there, extending its security mission to all of Afghanistan.

The transfer of command gave NATO the biggest ground combat operation in its history, putting Richards in charge of the largest number of U.S. troops fighting under a foreign commander since World War II.

In "a tough summer" of fighting, NATO forces beat back the Taliban in southwestern Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold. "I think we have now established the psychological ascendancy over the Taliban" militarily, Richards said.

"We have now with the government and with the international community to exploit the window of opportunity ... that we now have as a result of military success," he said.

Asked why he was sure a new effort can achieve what wasn't done before, Richards said:

"I'm optimistic that we have understood the issue ... learned our lessons, and now can take this forward aggressively to deliver on the promises."

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President Bush's Grave Misconduct

Elizabeth Holtzman
President Bush's Grave Misconduct

Recent events--the Foley scandal, the Woodward book, revelations about White House scorn for evangelical Christians, the Abramoff scandal, not to mention the increasingly dire situation in Iraq--have all converged in a kind of tsunami headed for the Republican majority in the House and Senate. Of course, it could change course.


But, Democratic control would make impeachment a serious reality.

As I have pointed out many times, impeachment is not only constitutionally warranted but necessary, given the serious abuses of power engaged in by President Bush. Impeachment will help restore the rule of law and repair the damage he has done to our democracy. If on the other hand there is no impeachment, President Bush's grave misconduct, including his refusal to obey the law with respect to wiretapping and his driving the country into war on a basis of deception, will become just the starting point for another President who wants to thumb his nose at our constitution.

The passage of the military tribunals' bill provides another important reason for impeachment. That bill contained a pardon buried deep within it of President Bush and his top team for possible violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That Act makes it a federal crime to mistreat detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions, but the military tribunal bill guts the War Crimes Act and makes the changes retroactive to 1997.

In a remarkable example of the "modified limited hangout"--a Watergate term for covering up by exposing a bit of the truth--the Bush Administration admits that the bill will grant immunity to CIA interrogators for violations of the War Crimes Act. But it never so much as hints that immunity would also extend to those who were complicit with those interrogators. Since the War Crimes Act applies to all US nationals, immunity would also extend to anyone who directed, authorized or otherwise aided and abetted those interrogators in their abuse, including the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense and the Director of the CIA.

President Bush has been concerned about criminal liability under the War Crimes Act since at least January 2002, when his then White House counsel urged that the Geneva Conventions protections be withdrawn from Al Qaeda detainees to reduce the possibility of such prosecutions. Accordingly, in February 2002, President Bush directed that Al Qaeda would not qualify for protections under the Geneva Conventions, a direction that the US Supreme Court nullified in the recent Hamden case. This nullification opened to criminal liability all government officials who ordered the abuse of Al Qaeda detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions as well as those who actually abused the detainees. To avoid this, President Bush has called for weakening the War Crimes Act.

Although no full investigation has ever been conducted into the President's role in the abuse of detainees--and so we do not know what he ordered and what he knew--nonetheless there are strong indications that the President at a minimum condoned the mistreatment. He has consistently, including up to the present moment, tried to shield those who abused Al Qaeda detainees from criminal liability. Moreover, he wants the right in the military tribunal's bill to continue the practices that violate the Geneva Conventions and the original War Crimes Act, such as painful stress positions, subjecting detainees to extremes of heat and cold, food deprivation and acts of humiliation such as forcing detainees to remain naked.

No president should be able to violate the criminal law, including the War Crimes Act, and then in a stealth maneuver exonerate himself and his accomplices from liability. That makes a mockery of the rule of law.

If Congress cannot undo this immunization of higher ups and restore criminal liability and accountability on the part of higher ups for the mistreatment of detainees, then the only remedy for any role President Bush may have played in such mistreatment would be through impeachment.

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Torture Day: George Washington Is Pounding His Fist In The Name Of God From Heaven

Huffington Post
Brent Budowsky
Torture Day: George Washington Is Pounding His Fist In The Name Of God From Heaven

The rain pouring down on this cold dark day in Washington is made of the tears of heroes and patriots through the ages of the American Republic looking down on us, with outrage, and asking us, with rage:

What in the name of America have you done?

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad, that while the walls are crumbling around a failed policy of a war that should never have been fought, the great symbol of this policy, acts of torture that have never before been justified in this land of the free and our home of the brave, are sanctioned by smirking President, a supine Congress, and a nation that has lost it way.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad that these acts are done in the name of our commanders, when the indisputable truth in eyes of a just God is that those commanders hate and despise being ordered to do these things, no matter what lies are told from the morally undisclosed locations of secret and corrupt power.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad that while our intelligence community speaks with a unamimous voice that these policies create more terrorists, our leaders sanction the wrongs that created this nightmare that pours blood on our screens, while we eat our dinners and watch the television news.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad that these acts done in the name of fighting for freedom and democracy are an insult to every generation of democratic Americans that has loved this land before us, and a contempt to the decent opinion of believers in freedom and democracy around the world, who hunger for an America that is a beacon, and have such contempt and sadness for an America that resorts to this.

How ironic, how demented, how vile, how sick, how wrong, how evil, how sad, that these policies done by those who proclaim "One Nation, Under God" are despised by believers of every one of the world's great religions, and supported, only, by the spiritual advisors to the murderers, haters and killers we are unable to defeat in the battle of ideas.

In our greatest hour of domestic attack, when the fires burned, and the heroes died, and the mothers and widows cried, our entire nation rallied with the wrath of a just God, standing together as one, while virtually the entire world rallied behind us, with good people lifting their eyes to the sky, with the cry: "today we are all Americans".

In the name of God, in the name of simple justice and common decency, what kind of country do these advocates of torture believe we are, when we are divided each other, when we are town away from the decent opinion of the world, where even the anniversary of this solemn hour is defamed by the lies of a propaganda movie, demeaned by the partisan smears of desperate politicians abusing the occasion to rise two points in the polls, dishonored by the sickening slander that the widows of the heroes are harpies.

Let me clear, this is not the latest in the long list of liberals telling liberals who liberals should hate, or conservatives telling conservatives who conservatives should hate.

Some things are different. This is different.

Some things are more important. This is more important.

Some things are transcendant and timeless, and go to the heart of who are as Americans, whether we honor the legacy of those who came before, and what legacy we leave to those who will follow us.

This is one of those things. This is one of those moments.

This is not about our demon of the hour, to get its 15 minutes of reprobation, until we move to the next demon of the hour, to get its 15 minutes of fame. This is not about the Democrats or the Republicans. This is not about the liberals or the conservatives. This is not about the politics of the hour, the left's favorite grievance, or the right's favorite enemy of the state.

This is different.

This is different.

This is different.

Lt Commander Charles Swift should be given a major promotion and a Presidential Medal of Freedom and not the morally sickening and patriotically revolting violation of the core principles of mlitary justice, and the traditional prohibition against undue command influence.

The coming Congress should get the name of the man on the piece of the paper that did this great injustice not merely to a lawyer who stood proudly in the tradition of Justice Robert Jackson, but did great injustice to the nation that wants more of its young to emulate Lt. Commander Swift, not the avatars of torture or the politics of enemies who want our young to be too fearful, to do their duty to God, country, service and justice for all.

In the name of God, what kind of country do they believe we are, that when all of our commanders share a time honored notion of military honor we disregard them so casually, so brazenly, so wrongly, and so dishonorably, led by those who pin their flags to their lapels, and give speechs at picnics proclaiming their love for our troops?

In the name of God, what kind of country do they believe we are, that they say George Washington was wrong and George Bush is right on the matter of torture, telling us so casually, so brazenly, so wrongly and so dishonorably that we must act like a fearful and timid people, and do what no previous president or congress or court in the whole history of our land of the free and our home of the brave, has ever allowed be done?

In the name of God, in the name of patriotism, in name of decency, in the name of honor, in the name of dignity and truth and common sense and justice what kind of a country do they believe we are, what manner of people do they believe we have become, what kind of beacon do they think we offer this world, what kind of defamation do they do against the generations that have come before us, in this great and blessed land we love, that have never done things like this.

We walk in the footsteps of great generations, who faced far greater dangers than we do, who handed us an Americanism and patriotism and standards of freedom and justice and dignity but we are treated by our leaders as the coward generation, bullied into fear to justify the torture generation when our commanders, our ministers, our priests, our rabbis, and our allies from sea to shining sea, from one end of this earth to the other, are pleading and imploring us, to stop this madness before more damage is done, to ours soul and our security.

This is different.

This is different.

Never before in the history of our Republic have the military, the moral, the common sense and patriotic factors all told us to do one thing: stop this madness that must never be done in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Stop this madness that creates more enemies that want to kill us. Stop this madness that violates the cardinal morals of our great nation. Stop this madness that offends the commanders and clergy, that violates the most basic principles of common decency, the most basic principles of common sense, the most true ideals common to lovers of freedom and democracy everywhere.

This is different.

George Washington was right, and we must wage this fight until we win, whether it takes hours, or days, or months, or years, or decades because sooner or later we will win, because we are a better and nobler country. A better and nobler people. With a better and nobler mission that will outlast the politics, the polls and the partisans who have done so much damage to this land we love.

It is a dark, cold, day in our capital with the rain of tears from heaven pouring onto the Monuments and statues that bear the names of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.

There will never be such monuments in the Mall, within sight of the White House, that will carry the names of Bush, or Cheney, or Rumsfeld.

There will never be Walls or Monuments, within sight of the Oval Office, as we have that honor the heroes of the Great Generation and Vietnam, that will honor our achievements at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

We are not the first generation that faces its challenge.

We will not be the last.

But we will not be treated like the fearful generation by those who believe our legacy should be the torture generation.

We stand with Washington.

We have not yet begun to fight.

We will not stop until we win.

We will not let George Washington down.

We are the people of America, and we will never surrender the Dream, because we pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.

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Federal Judge Wipes away fraud and conspiracy conviction of Enron Corp. founder Ken Lay

washingtonpost.com
Judge Revokes Lay's Conviction
Ruling Rankles Enron Workers, Investors
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer

A federal judge in Houston yesterday wiped away the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron Corp. founder who died of heart disease in July, bowing to decades of legal precedent but frustrating government attempts to seize nearly $44 million from his family.

The ruling worried employees and investors who lost billions of dollars when the Houston energy-trading company filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001. It also came more than a week after Congress recessed for the November elections without acting on a last-ditch Justice Department proposal that would have changed the law to allow prosecutors to seize millions of dollars in investments and other assets that Lay controlled.

With the judge's order, Lay's conviction on 10 criminal charges will be erased from the record. "The indictment against Kenneth L. Lay is dismissed," U.S. District Judge Simeon T. Lake III wrote in a spare, 13-page order.

Legal analysts said Lake's ruling closely hewed to a long-held doctrine called abatement, which allows a conviction to be vacated if defendants die before they are able to exercise their right to appeal. Courts typically rule that defendants' constitutional rights to challenge their convictions outweigh other considerations, and the law hesitates to punish the dead, the analysts said.

Samuel J. Buffone, a Washington-based lawyer for Lay, said the family was pleased with the ruling. "As far as we're concerned, this is the last step," Buffone said. "It's as if the indictment never occurred."

But governance experts said Lay's name forever will be linked with the era's most complex and far-reaching corporate fraud.

"A lot of lives were ruined, both the perpetrators' and the victims,' " University of Tennessee corporate governance expert Joseph V. Carcello said. "This happened on his watch. Even if he's not legally culpable, he's culpable as a manager."

Regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission still may pursue their civil case against Lay's estate, but their task will be more difficult because they can no longer introduce the fact of his conviction and instead must prove again, in a resource-intensive trial, that he broke the law. The SEC case has been stayed pending resolution of the status of Lay's criminal conviction. The agency's five commissioners must decide in the weeks to come whether to proceed against Lay's estate.

The court ruling shifts the spotlight onto former Enron chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling, 52, who is to be sentenced Monday on 19 fraud, conspiracy and false-filings charges. Skilling, Lay's protégé and fellow defendant, handled day-to-day operations at Enron until his resignation in the summer of 2001 and faces more than two decades in prison.

Skilling is the sole survivor from Enron's top management ranks and the one most likely to pay a heavy price for his decision to vigorously fight the charges against him. Earlier this month, Skilling laid out several avenues for appeal, including jury bias, faulty instructions by the judge and what he called overreaching by prosecutors that infringed on his constitutional rights.

Former finance chief Andrew S. Fastow, whom Skilling has painted as the man most responsible for the company's downfall, pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges and gave damaging testimony against his onetime patrons. A separate federal judge in Houston last month sentenced him to six years in prison, a 40 percent reduction from the seemingly iron-clad deal his defense team had struck with the government. The leader of an Enron employees group later called the benefit to Fastow "a slap in the face."

The lead plaintiffs in a separate shareholder lawsuit against former Enron executives and other advisers accused of helping the company conceal its financial problems already have said they intend to focus their attentions not on Lay's family, but on investment banks with deeper pockets.

Days before Lay's death, prosecutors had filed court papers seeking to extract $43.5 million from his financial holdings, including $6 million in a recently matured investment and at least $1.5 million more that Lay used to cover part of the mortgage on a luxury apartment in Houston. The government said it intended to set aside the money in a special fund for Enron investors and employees. Now, federal prosecutors are seeking to hold Skilling responsible for Lay's share, over Skilling's objections.

Separately yesterday, lawyers for the Lay family asked the court to release a $5 million bond that had been secured by the homes of several of Lay's five children. Federal prosecutors at the Enron Task Force declined to comment.

"Today's ruling does not change the fact that Mr. Lay was found guilty after a four-month jury trial and a separate bench trial," Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said. "We will continue to pursue all remedies available for restitution on behalf of the victims of the fraud at Enron."

Lay, 64, collapsed in a rental home near Aspen, Colo., about a month after a Houston jury found him guilty of conspiring to mislead employees and investors about Enron's mounting financial problems. His death unleashed vicious criticism on the Internet and prompted conspiracy theories that were dispelled by a coroner's report and sheriff's deputies.

A man accustomed to flying in private jets and mingling with the Bush family, foreign diplomats and owners of professional sports teams, Lay was brought low by a widening scandal after disclosures that Enron had disguised billions of dollars in debt and manufactured revenue. He told the jury at his trial earlier this year that he was in the hole $250,000 after years of spending lavishly on homes, vacations and his five children.

Federal prosecutors baited Lay into displaying a short temper and a flair for micromanagement on the witness stand, and pounced when Lay could not explain why he sold more than $77 million in Enron shares back to the company in the months before its demise.

In recent weeks, Lay's family paid an undisclosed sum to settle a smaller civil case filed by former Enron employees over their pension and retirement funds.

Ken Horton, a former Enron manager who was laid off alongside thousands of others in December 2001, said he had steeled himself for the conviction to be extinguished after word of Lay's death three months ago. But Horton, who pegged his retirement and savings plan losses in the six-figure range, expressed "great" concern that he and former colleagues would never be made whole financially. Horton said he has received only $4,000 to date.

"If I got 10 cents on the dollar, I would be elated," Horton said.

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Baker says no "magic bullet" for Iraq problems

Reuters
Baker says no "magic bullet" for Iraq problems

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker warned on Tuesday not to expect a special Iraq panel he co-chairs to come up with a "magic bullet" to solve deepening problems in that country.

He said the bipartisan Iraq Study Group appointed by the U.S. Congress to look at alternatives to current policy in Iraq had not decided what to recommend, but he suggested there was no easy way out of the violent conflict.

"I will say one other thing -- there's no magic bullet for the situation in Iraq. It is very, very difficult," Baker said in a speech to the World Affairs Council of Houston.

"So anybody who thinks that somehow we're going to come up with something that is going to totally solve the problem is engaging in wishful thinking," he said.

Baker, who was secretary of state and chief of staff under former President George H.W. Bush and has long ties to the Bush family, suggested last week in media interviews the current Bush administration's insistence on "staying the course" in Iraq was not the only policy alternative.

A Los Angeles Times report said the study group may recommend a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq or discussions with Syria or Iran to help stop the fighting in Iraq.

Baker said the study group had made no decisions.

"We've taken nothing off the table and we've put nothing on the table. The report hasn't even been written," he said.

Baker said the group, which is co-chaired by former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton and includes prominent Republicans and Democrats, would not issue a report until after the November 7 congressional elections.

"We will report after the election in order to try and take our report out of domestic politics," he said.

In the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Baker warned President George W. Bush against attacking the country without the backing of a large international coalition like the one Baker helped assemble for the Gulf War in 1991.

But he said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq would lead to "the biggest civil war you've ever seen."

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Former FDA Chief Illegally Held Stocks

washingtonpost.com
Former FDA Chief Illegally Held Stocks
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer

Lester M. Crawford, who resigned mysteriously last fall just two months after being confirmed as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, will plead guilty today to charges that he hid his ownership of stock in food and drug companies that his agency regulated, his lawyer said.

The Justice Department charged Crawford yesterday with two misdemeanors for withholding the financial information, which included his ownership of shares in food and drink manufacturers Pepsico Inc. and Sysco Corp. and the drug company Embrex Inc.

The complaint, called a criminal "information," accused Crawford, who held numerous senior FDA and Agriculture Department jobs in his many years in government, of conflict of interest and filing false financial disclosure reports.

Barbara Van Gelder, Crawford's lawyer, said he "is going to plead guilty to two misdemeanors tomorrow afternoon, and he is going to admit his financial disclosures had errors and omissions, mostly with his wife's continued ownership of stocks," the Associated Press reported. "At the end of the day, he owned these stocks, and he will admit he owned them while he was at the FDA, and he will take responsibility for that."

Crawford failed to disclose $28,000 he gained from stock options in Embrex, an agriculture biotechnology company, the complaint said. Crawford was a member of Embrex's board of directors from 1992 to 2002.

The Justice Department document said a government ethics official told Crawford in 2002 that he had to sell shares the couple owned in 12 companies considered to be "significantly regulated organizations" -- companies that regularly had business before the FDA.

The prosecutors wrote that the Crawfords sold many of their shares but kept ownership in three companies. When asked in 2004 about two of them, Crawford replied in a December e-mail that "Sysco and Kimberly-Clark have in fact been sold." Actually, the court papers state, Crawford knew that he or his wife still held shares in both companies.

Crawford chaired the FDA's Obesity Working Group, which made recommendations affecting food and soft drink makers, at a time when he and his wife owned stock in Pepsico and Sysco, the court papers said.

The complaint said Crawford made some of his false statements on yearly financial disclosure forms and others on his financial disclosure statement to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- which was considering his nomination to become permanent FDA commissioner.

Crawford's short tenure as commissioner was best known for his August 2005 decision to postpone action on the "morning after" contraceptive Plan B. He had earlier told the Senate that the agency would act on the application, and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) allowed a vote on his nomination as a result.

Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who helped initiate an investigation into Crawford's departure by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that further digging into Crawford's finances should and will continue.

"By blatantly ignoring the law on financial holdings and conflicts of interest, Lester Crawford used his position as the head of the FDA to send all the wrong signals to other FDA employees and the American public," Hinchey said in a statement.

Crawford, trained as a veterinarian and pharmacologist, had previously served as deputy FDA commissioner and acting commissioner. The agency, which regulates almost one-quarter of the U.S. economy, has had a confirmed commissioner for less than two years since the Bush administration came into office.

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Alaska Dems Battle State Over E-voting

ComputerWorld
Alaska Dems Battle State Over E-voting
Marc Songini

An examination of the e-voting database and its audit logs from the November 2004 general election in Alaska found that changes were made to thedatabase in the months after the votes were tallied, according to the state’s Democratic Party.

The party contends that a study of the electronic voting database, which it obtained a copy of last month after a long battle with the state, revealed that the database had been accessed as recently as this July.

“The [state's] Division of Elections has not comprehensively explained and corrected the situation,” said Alaska Democratic Party spokeswoman Kay Brown.

The logs were generated by Diebold Election Systems’ AccuVote-OS optical-scan voting systems, which were used statewide in the election.

The party had sought a copy of the AccuVote voting database last December to reconcile apparent discrepancies in voting results compiled by the state after the November election. The Alaska Division of Elections first rejected the request but relented last month.

Democrats had filed a lawsuit in April to force the state to release the documents. That suit remains open in Alaska’s Superior Court.

Meanwhile, the state last week rejected the Democratic Party’s Oct. 5 request for a copy of the database as it stood just after the election in order to determine what manual modifications were later made. The state contended that there is no unchanged version of the database.

Many Manual Votes

Brown said that experts from Black Box Voting, a Renton, Wash.-based nonprofit voter advocacy group commissioned by the party to review the contents of the database, also found an “incredibly high” number of manual votes added to it shortly after the 2004 elections.

According to the Democratic Party, the study by Black Box revealed that 293 votes were entered manually to the database between the election on Nov. 2 and Dec. 2, 2004.

While some manual entries are expected as a result of mismarked ballots, the study’s total was far more than normal, the party contended. “This calls into question the certified numbers,” said Brown.

Annette Kreitzer, chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Loren Leman for the Division of Elections, contended that the Black Box Voting analysis is flawed. Moreover, she said that the number of manual entries was acceptable for a large rural state like Alaska.

“We don’t have anything to hide,” Kreitzer said.

Brown said the study of the database did not resolve what she called huge discrepancies in the vote totals originally tallied just after the election by the elections agency. She said that two separate election reports — overall statewide results and those of individual voting districts — varied by “orders of magnitude.”

E-voting Questions
The Alaska Democratic party said a study of the state's e-voting database after the November 2004 election found:

• Votes added manually to the database for about a month after the election ended• Audit logs in the voting database have been accessed as recently as July 2006• No copy of the database as it stood just after that election
For example, Brown said a tally of individual district vote counts gave President George W. Bush 292,267 votes. The statewide count, on the other hand, listed 190,889 Bush votes — a difference of 101,378. The statewide total was the official one in Bush’s easy victory in the state.

Brown also said the count showed that 16 districts had a voter turnout of at least 200%.

Kreitzer said the discrepancies were caused by an erroneous counting process used by the state elections program manager. The elections agency contends that the database log proves that the 2004 statewide vote totals are accurate, according to Kreitzer.

She defended the elections agency’s decision to reject early requests by the party for the database. The party’s request first sought the database file structure, which included sensitive information and violated the state’s contract with Diebold, she noted.

The agency declined to release the logs even after Diebold approved the request because it feared such a move might compromise the state’s core IT systems, said Kreitzer.

“The situation in the state does make me worry about the integrity of the system,” said Brown. “I’m a lot more suspicious than I used to be.”

A spokesman for Allen, Texas-based Diebold said the company will do what it can to meet the requests of both the elections agency and Alaska’s Democratic Party.

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