U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export

washingtonpost.com
U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export
North Korea Sent Material To Pakistan, Not to Libya

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity. In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.

The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States.

In an effort to repair the damage, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is traveling through East Asia this weekend trying to get the six-nation talks back on track. The impasse was expected to dominate talks today in Seoul and then Beijing, which wields the greatest influence with North Korea.

The new details follow a string of controversies concerning the Bush administration's use of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the White House offered a public case against Iraq that concealed dissent on nearly every element of intelligence and included interpretations unsupported by the evidence.

A presidential commission studying U.S. intelligence is reviewing the case, as well as judgments on Iran and North Korea. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also is reviewing evidence on nuclear, chemical and biological programs suspected in Iran and North Korea.

The United States briefed allies on North Korea in late January and early February. Shortly afterward, administration officials, speaking to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, said North Korea had sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya. The officials said the briefing was arranged to share the information with China, South Korea and Japan ahead of a new round of hoped-for negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program.

But in recent days, two other U.S. officials said the briefings were hastily arranged after China and South Korea indicated they were considering bolting from six-party talks on North Korea. The talks have been seen as largely ineffectual, but the Bush administration, which refuses to meet bilaterally with Pyongyang, insists they are critical to curbing North Korea's nuclear program.

The White House declined to offer an official to comment by name about the new details concerning Pakistan. A prepared response attributed to a senior administration official said that the U.S. government "has provided allies with an accurate account of North Korea's nuclear proliferation activities."

Although the briefings did not mention Pakistan by name, the official said they made it clear that the sale went through the illicit network operated by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdel Qadeer Khan. But the briefings gave no indication that U.S. intelligence believes that the material had been bought by Pakistan and transferred there from North Korea in a container owned by the Pakistani government.

They also gave no indication that the uranium was then shipped via a Pakistani company to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and on to Libya. Those findings match assessments by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating Libya separately. Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program in December 2003.

Since Pakistan became a key U.S. ally in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, the administration has not held President Pervez Musharraf accountable for actions taken by Khan while he was a member of Musharraf's cabinet and in charge of nuclear cooperation for the government.

"The administration is giving Pakistan a free ride when they don't deserve it and hurting U.S. interests at the same time," said Charles L. Pritchard, who was the Bush administration's special envoy for the North Korea talks until August 2003.

"As our allies get the full picture, it doesn't help our credibility with them," he said.

Pritchard, now a Brookings Institution fellow, and others had initially raised questions about the Libya connection when it became public last month. No one in the administration has been willing to discuss the uranium sale publicly.

In testimony to Congress last month, CIA Director Porter J. Goss spoke extensively about North Korea's nuclear arsenal and capabilities. But he gave no indication the intelligence community believed that North Korea had supplied nuclear materials to Libya, that it was capable of producing uranium hexafluoride or that it was a member of the nuclear black market.

Two years ago, U.S. officials told allies that North Korea was trying to assemble an enrichment facility that would turn uranium hexafluoride into bomb-grade material.

But China and South Korea, in particular, have been skeptical of those assertions and are becoming increasingly wary of pressuring North Korea.

The National Security Council briefings in late January and early February, by senior NSC officials Michael J. Green and William Tobey, were intended to do just that by keeping the spotlight solely on North Korea.

Pakistan was mentioned only once in the briefing paper, and in a context that emphasized Pyongyang's guilt. "Pakistani press reports have said the uranium came from North Korea," according to the briefing paper, which was read to The Post.

After initial press reports about the briefing appeared last month, Pyongyang announced that it possessed nuclear weapons and would not return to the six-party talks.

Pritchard said North Korea's reaction was "absolutely linked" to the Green-Tobey trip.

The United States tried to persuade North Korea to return to the talks, but without success. The North Korean leadership responded with a list of conditions, including a demand that Rice apologize for calling it an "outpost of tyranny."

During the first stop on her Asian tour, Rice used noticeably softer language on North Korea, telling a Tokyo audience that the U.S. offer was open to negotiation, and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il should grab the opportunity.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report from Seoul.

originally published Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page A01

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Does Congress seek due process or political gain?

USA TODAY

Does Congress seek due process or political gain?
By Laura Parker, Kevin Johnson and Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — The attempt by Congress — and potentially, President Bush — to step into the middle of the dispute over the fate of Terri Schiavo is an extraordinary legal and political maneuver that touches an emotional issue families across the USA privately face every day: when to let go of a loved one.

But when it comes to the Terri Schiavo case, privacy no longer is much of an issue.

The legal wrangling between her husband and her parents over whether to remove Schiavo's feeding tube and allow the brain-damaged woman to die has been a bitter public battle for years. It's pitted Michael Schiavo, who wants the feeding tube removed, against his in-laws, religious groups such as the Christian Defense Coalition and conservative lawmakers.

Sunday, the question was whether a bill in Congress could reverse a series of state court decisions won by Michael Schiavo — and lead to the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, which was removed Friday under an order by a state court.

Legally speaking, it's a long shot — and may only delay Michael's wishes from being carried out. But the activity in Congress reflects how the Schiavo case has become an emotional cause for anti-abortion conservatives who regard it as part of a broader effort to sustain life.

The bill is written specifically to grant Terri Schiavo's parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, the standing to have a federal court review state court actions in the case.

But the only question for a federal court probably would be whether Terri Schiavo has been deprived of her constitutional right to due process, says Charles Fried, a law professor at Harvard University who was solicitor general during the Reagan administration.

"The bill itself does not create any new substantive rights," Fried says. "What they gain is delay and publicity, and a terrible, disgraceful interference in what is a personal tragedy."

But U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., compared the issue Sunday to state death-penalty cases that typically are reviewed by federal courts: "This is not a political issue. This is an issue about saving a life."

The effort by Michael Schiavo to allow his wife to die has been reviewed by 19 judges in six courts in the 15 years since Terri Schiavo had a heart attack that cut off oxygen to her brain. The first trial, in 2000, was followed by an extensive rehearing of the case after the original decision, in favor of Michael Schiavo, was appealed. The U.S. Supreme Court twice denied appeals without comment.

And that was before the U.S. House Government Reform Committee issued subpoenas Friday for Terri and Michael Schiavo and her doctors to testify at her hospice during a hearing here this week.

When Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George Greer denied a motion by committee lawyers to intervene in the case so that Terri Schiavo could "comply with the subpoenas," the committee appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Late Friday, the high court also turned that down, marking the third time the high court has declined to step into the case.

The degree to which Congress is trying to involve itself surprised and dismayed Fried and other legal analysts.

"There's been plenty of due process," Fried said. "The Supreme Court has indicated its unwillingness to get involved."

George Annas, chairman of the Health Law Department at Boston University, said "the law only works if people operate in good faith and accept what the courts decide. If they don't accept it and take it to the streets, the legal system doesn't work. ... That's what happened here."

Michael Schiavo criticized congressional leaders Sunday for intruding in the fight. "I'm outraged, and I think that every American in this country should also be outraged that this government is trampling all over a personal family matter that has been adjudicated in the courts for seven years," he told CNN. "Congress has more important things to discuss."

But Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., cast the bill as a check to make sure one of America's "most vulnerable citizens" was being protected.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Republicans were racing the clock to aid Terri Schiavo, who was on her third day without nutrition or fluids. "We're here to help a dying woman," he said.

And in a reflection of how bitter the battle over Terri Schiavo has become, several Republican lawmakers leveled personal attacks at Michael Schiavo. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and Rep. Dave Weldon of Florida essentially cast Michael Schiavo as an abusive husband.

Their sentiments were echoed by Bobby Schindler, Terri's brother, who told CNN on Sunday that the family is "extremely grateful for what Congress is doing.

"Terri is alive," he said. "She's not dying. She's a human being."

David Gibbs, the Schindlers' attorney, praised Congress for its actions and promised to restore fluids to his clients' daughter once it passed and was signed by Bush.

"People ask why should the Congress get themselves involved," he said outside the Hospice House Woodside, where Terri Schiavo is a patient. "Whenever there is a gross injustice, the United States Congress has always stepped forward to do what was right and fair."

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland was among the Democrats who accused Republicans of using the Schiavo bill to please religious conservatives, a key GOP constituency.

"Republicans didn't address this until they saw it would be a huge political issue for them," he said. "There's no question it is political."

Schiavo dispute began in 1993

Terri Schiavo, now 41, has not spoken in 15 years. She breathes on her own, but without the feeding tube that provides nourishment, she would die.

The dispute between Schiavo's husband and her parents began in 1993, when the Schindlers, unhappy over Michael's care for her, unsuccessfully sought a court order to remove him as her guardian.

Then, in 1998, Michael Schiavo went to a state court to seek permission to remove the feeding tube. The court concluded, based on trial testimony of doctors who had examined Terri Schiavo, that she was in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovering cognitive abilities.

The Schindlers disagree. They say she is sometimes responsive to them, and that they do not want her to be allowed to die. They say she can recover. They appealed court rulings several times, sometimes using new language to recast failed motions.

The Schindlers already have tried unsuccessfully to persuade Florida courts that their daughter was denied due process.

"The truth is, her interests were well represented by the lawyers for the Schindler family ... and by her husband, who has never been found to be an inappropriate guardian," says Norman Cantor, a law professor at Rutgers University who has followed the case. "The notion that she wasn't getting due process is ludicrous. She's gotten more due process than any patient in medical history."

A 4-year-old videotape plays a central role in the case. The video, shot by her family, runs about four hours. Parts of the tape, showing Terri seemingly responding to her mother's voice, or Terri's eyes following shiny balloons as they pass before her face, have been shown on television and on Web sites.

But after reviewing the full tape in 2002, Greer — who has been denounced by the Schindlers' supporters and now has police protection — ruled that Schiavo had no cognitive function.

Many lawmakers who concluded that Congress must act made their decisions after watching the video. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a physician, says he was convinced by the video that Terri Schiavo's doctors were wrong. He characterized her as a "living person who has a level of consciousness" but who cannot feed herself. He did not examine her.

In recent weeks, Christian conservatives and anti-abortion groups, such as the National Right to Life Committee, have pushed lawmakers in Tallahassee and Washington to act in the Schiavo case, and have paid the Schindlers' legal fees.

The sense of urgency became greater once the tube was removed on Friday. "Hours do matter at this point," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Bush flew back to Washington.

Vigils continue outside hospice

Here in Pinellas Park, activists with the Christian Defense Coalition, the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and other religious and conservative groups are holding a vigil outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is a patient.

Sunday, the talk about Terri Schiavo was laced with discussions of raw politics. Many of the nearly 100 demonstrators said they were dedicated to saving Schiavo, and to changing the political landscape in Florida and Washington.

"People are very serious about this. When the next election comes up, there are going to be some politicians and judges without jobs," said Joanna Scaglione, 63, of Tampa. "That might be too late for Terri. I hope not."

From her wheelchair, Kathy Musick, 53, was manning a booth aimed at recalling Judge Greer. "A lawlessness has been developing in Florida that we have to stop," she said. "We can do it here and we can do it with our vote."

Paul Remis, 83, a retired electrical engineer in Tampa, cried as he discussed Schiavo's case. Remis said there was no one else to turn to "except the politicians who might be able to help us.

"We used to base everything on a respect for life," he said. "The way the world is going now, I don't know where we end up."

Contributing: Parker reported from McLean, Va.; Johnson from Pinellas Park, and Kiely from Washington.

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CONSERVATISM COME UNDONE

andrewsullivan.com
CONSERVATISM COME UNDONE: So it is now the federal government's role to micro-manage baseball and to prevent a single Florida woman who is trapped in a living hell from dying with dignity. We're getting to the point when conservatism has become a political philosophy that believes that government - at the most distant level - has the right to intervene in almost anything to achieve the right solution. Today's conservatism is becoming yesterday's liberalism.

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How the Private Became Political

latimes.com
How the Private Became Political
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas — Frenetic negotiations among congressional leaders, a special weekend session and a hastily arranged trip back to Washington by the president in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case elevated a tragic personal issue into an extraordinary political drama.

But at bottom, the flurry of activity reflected an everyday fact of political life: When a powerful constituency cares passionately about something, all politicians — whether Republicans or Democrats — yearn to respond.

In this instance, the constituency was evangelical Christian conservatives. They played a pivotal role in reelecting President Bush and swelling GOP majorities in both houses of Congress in November, and they have become a voting bloc as essential to the GOP's new dominance as labor unions and minorities once were to the Democratic Party.

And the pressure on Bush and Republican congressional leaders to respond in the Schiavo case was all the greater because, during the first three months of the president's second term, social conservatives had become increasingly unhappy with what they saw as neglect of their concerns, such as banning same-sex marriage, in favor of issues pushed by corporations: changing bankruptcy laws, curbing medical malpractice awards and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

"Our issues aren't on the front burner every day, but when they are on the front burner it's on high," said Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition. "This proves that Terri Schiavo was a front-burner issue."

The very fact that the case of one woman in Florida and the family quarrel over her fate have reached the halls of Congress and captured the attention of the president reflects the power of the evangelical base in setting an agenda, said Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals. The Schiavo case, he said, showed that social conservatives were as consumed with the end of life as they were with life in the womb — and that the politicians were following their lead.

Republicans' desire to respond to the Schiavo case in a highly visible way was underscored Saturday night when the White House unexpectedly announced that Bush, vacationing at his ranch near Crawford, Texas, would fly back to Washington to sign the emergency legislation aiding Schiavo's parents in their effort to keep her alive.

Schiavo — who has had severe neurological damage since 1990 when a chemical imbalance stopped her heart and cut the oxygen supply to her brain — has been at the center of a legal battle between her husband and her parents.

Her husband says Schiavo had told him that she would not wish to be kept alive under dire circumstances.

The case, first taken up by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and anti-abortion activists who viewed it as an issue aligned with their beliefs, has become a cause for evangelical conservatives nationwide because they see assisted suicide and related procedures as moral and religious issues of overriding importance.

Their commitment to the cause has been intensified by rising anger toward Schiavo's husband and toward the Florida courts that sided with his position.

On Friday, the pressure on congressional Republicans escalated sharply when a state judge ordered the feeding tube removed and a federal judge ruled that Schiavo's parents had no legal standing in the federal court system.

The legislation that is expected to win emergency approval over the weekend would give the parents standing in federal court, though it would not compel a federal judge to take up the case.

As a backdrop to the dramatic weekend deliberations were the political implications for several key players who could not afford to ignore the desires of the party base.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is considered a candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 2008. Frist, a physician, pushed his support for action to the point of declaring — on the basis of television footage — that he thought Schiavo might recover.

Gov. Bush, who has said he would not run for president in 2008, is still considered a potential contender and has won accolades from evangelical leaders for his role in the case. He discussed the matter with his brother on Friday, and the president's decision to move aggressively could further solidify the governor's position with the party's religious base.

For House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the case offered an opportunity to placate a key constituency and divert attention from his continuing ethics problems. DeLay had been avoiding attention much of last week but moved to the forefront of televised appearances Friday and Saturday.

He heralded the negotiations that led to a bipartisan agreement to let the special legislation come before the House and Senate on an emergency basis. And he took the opportunity to personally take on Schiavo's husband.

But the overriding reason for the flurry of activity — activity that could have little practical effect unless the federal courts agree to intervene — was the now-established importance of the voters who were demanding action.

Schiavo's case first entered the political arena in 2003, when Gov. Bush, besieged by petitions and e-mails from antiabortion activists, helped push through a state law to prevent doctors from removing Schiavo's feeding tube. The law was overturned.

When other legal options seemed to run out — and the Friday deadline for removing the feeding tube approached — the governor contacted the state's new Republican senator, Mel Martinez, to push the matter with Congress.

Social conservatives began lobbying the issue in Washington, but some exploded in anger late Friday when the House and Senate failed to reach an immediate agreement and seemed prepared to let the matter drop rather than disrupt their plans for the fast-approaching Easter recess. The message, as some conservatives saw it, was that GOP leaders were more interested in their personal political goals than the moral imperative of saving Schiavo's life.

"There are a lot of folks who helped create Republican majorities that were pretty disgusted with what went down, and the inescapable reality was that while they were dithering the tube got pulled," said Kenneth L. Connor, former president of the conservative Family Research Council and the lawyer who represented Gov. Bush in his efforts to keep Schiavo alive.

"That could have been avoided. The people who created this majority are interested in product, not process."

The maneuvering was followed over the weekend by President Bush in Texas.

The president considered addressing the case for the first time on Friday, when, by coincidence, he visited Florida at the same time doctors were removing the feeding tube, said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who spoke briefly about the case with the president aboard Air Force One.

"The answer was not to do it, since the situation was so fluid with the House and the Senate and the legal proceedings," Feeney said.

Feeney, who backs the measure, said the matter carries some political risk for Republicans but that televised images in the coming days of a dehydrated and starving Schiavo might spark "an epiphany for a lot of Americans who are undecided or not paying attention to these issues."

Evangelical leader Cizik predicted that the Schiavo case would be among the first of many to present similar issues.

originally published March 20, 2005

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Bush puts himself in the center of Terri Schiavo controversy

Bush puts himself in the center of Terri Schiavo controversy
Mar 21, 2005
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON President Bush's dash back to the White House to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case put him squarely in the center of a wrenching drama with political, medical and legal overtones.

Schiavo's case has become a rallying cry for religious conservatives, the powerful base of Bush's successful re-election bid.

While Bush isn't facing voters again, fellow Republicans in Congress will - and the involvement of the president and GOP lawmakers in Schiavo's case could help cement the religious right's enthusiastic backing in the 2006 midterm elections.

"Every opportunity to stroke the conservative base (Bush) has been taking," said Allan J. Lichtman, a political historian at American University. "And he knows that the conservative base is going to have to be very strong in the midterm elections if he wants to maintain his margins."

There also could be a familial consideration for the president. Brother Jeb Bush, the Florida governor who has made the Schiavo case an almost personal fight for years, has said he won't run for the White House in 2008. But what if he changes his mind, as many suspect he will? The president's high-profile support for his brother now could pay off later.

Bush raced back from his Texas ranch to be on hand to sign legislation giving a federal district court jurisdiction in the struggle over whether to prolong the life the brain-damaged Schiavo. A feeding tube keeping her alive was removed Friday.

Bush put his name to the measure early Monday, saying in a statement issued by the White House that in matters like the Schiavo case America's society, laws and courts "should have a presumption in favor of life."

Switching the case to a federal court contradicts Bush's oft-stated support for states' rights over federal control.

There is also criticism that even with narrowly tailored legislation, a dangerous precedent is being set on an issue that thousands of families struggle with around the country. "There ought to be a concern," said Alan Wolfe, professor and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "If this one goes through, then why not the next case and so on?"

Lichtman said the case, with all its complexities, is a tough one for politicians to gauge.

"This is one of those emotional issues that can boomerang on you, as well as benefit you," he said. "A lot of conflicting values are at state. A lot of the same conservatives who are so strongly in support of this bill, on the other hand, support family autonomy, the right of families to make decisions free of the interference of government."

But Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor who has supported Jeb Bush, said the case is becoming more of a clear winner for Republicans.

"I think initially people though it was all about politics," she said. "But as the situation came to a head, people began to think it was a little broader than the political strategy of it - it was more about clarifying what is a very murky area of the law."

The White House vehemently denied that politics had anything to do with Bush's return to sign a bill that wasn't guaranteed to pass and in any case could be flown to him for his signature.

Spokesman Scott McClellan said the trip was solely about saving a life. The last thing the president wanted was to have Schiavo die in the gap between congressional passage of a bill and the hours it took to transport a bill to him and back to Washington.

"Hours do matter at this point," McClellan said, despite predictions by medical experts that it could take two weeks for Schiavo to die.

Bush aides also dismissed criticism that the extraordinary federal action on behalf of a single person represented overreaching by Washington, saying the contentious case presented difficulties that are rarely matched.

Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say she could get better after 15 years in a persistent vegetative state. For years, they have battled Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, who thinks she should be permitted to die, as he insists she would have wanted.

"Most people recognize that this case involves some extraordinary circumstances," McClellan said.

He said there would be no public news coverage of any bill signing and that Bush would resume his previous plans Monday for a two-day, three-state Western swing to pitch his Social Security plans.

"The president doesn't want to throw himself into the spotlight," the spokesman said.

Even without cameras trained on Bush's pen, the case is politically charged.

"This is all about politics and nothing else," American University's Lichtman said. "Frankly, there is no other reason for him to come back other than to maximize the public impact of this political issue."

---

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jennifer Loven reports on the White House for The Associated Press. AP writer Deb Riechmann contributed from Crawford, Texas.

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Democrats slam budget cuts for veterans' services

CNN.com

Democrats slam budget cuts for veterans' services
Pa. governor: Bush budget cuts for critical programs 'unconscionable'

(CNN) -- The governor of Pennsylvania on Saturday said the federal government must do a better job helping America's war veterans and criticized proposed budget cuts affecting them.

"During this time of war, it is absolutely the wrong time for our federal government to step back from any of its commitments to our veterans. To do so would be penny wise but pound foolish," said Gov. Ed Rendell in the weekly Democratic radio address.

"In today's parlance, the cost of health care for these vets may be half a billion dollars but their sacrifice for our nation, priceless," he said.

His remarks followed the weekly radio address of President Bush, who defended the Iraqi invasion and operation and marked its second anniversary. Rendell said that Pennsylvania and other states have programs helping veterans and their families.

"While we the governors do all we can for our vets and our returning soldiers, our federal government still has the primary responsibility for meeting the needs of our veterans. And that's why I find the president's budget cuts for critical veteran services to be unconscionable."

He maintained that budget cuts include "a $350 million reduction in veterans home funding, which wipes out at least 5,000 veterans' nursing home beds."

"If the president's proposed budget cuts are enacted, nearly 60 percent of the 1,600 veterans will lose their daily stipend that allows them to stay in our state's nursing homes, literally forcing them out into the cold."

Vet co-payments for prescription drugs were tripled two years ago, Rendell said, and "now the president is proposing to again double those increased co-pays."

"In the midst of a war, when many new men and women will join the legion of veterans, does it really make sense for the president to increase the cost of vets' prescriptions by 100 percent?"

Rendell criticized a proposal calling for a $250 fee "to be paid by every vet wishing to participate in the Veterans Administration health care program. "

"There may well be some veterans who can afford to do so, but can all vets come up with an extra $250 a year to pay for health care? I doubt it."

He urged "every patriotic American" to contact their legislators and protest budget cuts for veteran services.

Also, Rendell praised the thousands of returning troops who "put their lives on the line" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Unlike any war in recent history, citizen-soldiers are fighting this war. Forty percent of all the troops are from National Guard units or reservists,"

Rendell said more than 69 Pennsylvanians have died in the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts and "since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 14,000 Pennsylvania National Guard members have left the comfort of their home to risk their lives for our security."

"The families of the brave service men and women from all 50 states now know for sure that their loved ones did not die in vain. This war has reminded us of the solemn pledge our nation makes to our veterans."

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Congress, President intercede in family affair

1:30am March 21, 2005

President Bush has signed into law a bill passed by Congress to enable a federal court to review whether Terri Schiavo should be kept alive via a feeding tube. State courts have so far ruled in favor of Schiavo's husband, Michael, who says his wife would not want to continue living in her state, and against her parents, who want to keep her alive. Michael Schiavo has moved to have the law declared unconstitutional.

Acording to reports, investigations show that at family funerals and in discussions about others who were in a state requiring some form of life support, Terri Schiavo expressed her desire to friends and relatives not to be connected to any form of life support. So no matter what politicians think, this matter has been addressed in the courts, and that is where it belongs. By interceding in this matter, Congress and the President have set a precedent that will cause millions of other families in similar situations, where there is no written statement of wishes in proper legal format, to have differing opinions on how to proceed, and can now request the United States Congress and the President of the United States to get involved. Having now set precedent, it will be difficult for Congress and the President to refuse, as, sadly, the Schiavo family is not the only family to have such issues.

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Protests Mark Second Anniversary Of Iraq War

ny1.com
Protests Mark Second Anniversary Of Iraq War
MARCH 20TH, 2005

Protests around the city Saturday marked the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

Anti-war demonstrators started out in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem Saturday morning, before marching down to Central Park for a rally.

Local politicians addressed the crowd from a stage set up in Central Park's East Meadow, telling supporters that it's time for the president to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.

"It's one thing to go to war; it's another thing to mislead the American people," Representative Charles Rangel told the crowd.

"If those who made the decision to go to war had been in combat, if they thought their kids were going, or their grandkids were going, there would never have been a war in Iraq," said Rangel, a Korean War veteran.

"We don't want to spend any more money for war," said Brooklyn city councilmember Charles Barron. "We need money for jobs; we need money for housing; we need money for our youth; we need money to pave our streets; we need money to educate our children; and we need to build a new world a world without Bush."

Demonstrators wrapped up the day by marching to Mayor Bloomberg's Upper East Side townhouse for a final protest of the day.

Another anti-war protest was held in Brooklyn, and more than two dozen people were arrested for protesting the war in Times Square.

The group had marched to Times Square from 47th Street and First Avenue carrying flag-draped coffins. Once there they lay down next to the coffins in front of the armed forces recruitment center on Broadway.

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Censure

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The Search for Oil Independence

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Amtrak

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The Loyal Opposition

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Putting NeoCons Everywhere

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Fake News

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Need a fix

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Enron: Patron Saint of Bush's Fake News

The New York Times
March 20, 2005
FRANK RICH
Enron: Patron Saint of Bush's Fake News

JUST when Americans are being told it's safe to hand over their savings to Wall Street again, he's baaaack! Looking not unlike Chucky, the demented doll of perennial B-horror-movie renown, Ken Lay has crawled out of Houston's shadows for a media curtain call.

His trial is still months away, but there he was last Sunday on "60 Minutes," saying he knew nothin' 'bout nothin' that went down at Enron. This week he is heading toward the best-seller list, as an involuntary star of "Conspiracy of Fools," the New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald's epic account of the multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme anointed America's "most innovative company" (six years in a row by Fortune magazine). Coming soon, the feature film: Alex Gibney's "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," a documentary seen at Sundance, goes into national release next month. As long as you're not among those whose 401(k)'s and pensions were wiped out, it's morbidly entertaining. In one surreal high point, Mr. Lay likens investigations of Enron to terrorist attacks on America. For farce, there's the sight of a beaming Alan Greenspan as he accepts the "Enron Award for Distinguished Public Service" only days after Enron has confessed to filing five years of bogus financial reports. Then again, given the implicit quid pro quo in this smarmy tableau, maybe that's the Enron drama's answer to a sex scene.

The Bush administration, eager to sell the country on "personal" Social Security accounts, cannot be all that pleased to see Kenny Boy again. He's the poster boy for how big guys can rip off suckers in the stock market. He also dredges up some inconvenient pre-9/11 memories of Bush family business. Enron was the biggest Bush-Cheney campaign contributor in the 2000 election. Kenny Boy and his lovely wife Linda flew the first President Bush and Barbara Bush to the ensuing Inauguration on the Enron jet. Even as Enron was presiding over rolling blackouts in California, Dick Cheney or his aides had at least six meetings with the company's executives to carve up government energy policy in 2001. Even now what exactly transpired at those meetings remains a secret.

But never mind. The president himself gave his word when the Enron scandal broke that Kenny Boy was really more of a supporter of Ann Richards anyway. Feeling our pain, Mr. Bush told us of his own personal tragedy: his mother-in-law lost $8,000 she had invested in Enron. Soon stuff was happening in Iraq, and the case was closed, or at least forgotten.

Yet the larger shadows linger. Revisiting the Enron story as it re-emerges in 2005 is to be reminded of just how much the Enron culture has continued to shape the Bush administration long after the company itself imploded and the Lays were eighty-sixed from the White House Christmas card list.

The enduring legacy of Enron can be summed up in one word: propaganda. Here was a corporate house of cards whose business few could explain and whose source of profits was an utter mystery - and yet it thrived, unquestioned, for years. How? As the narrator says in "The Smartest Guys in the Room," Enron "was fixated on its public relations campaigns." It churned out slick PR videos as if it were a Hollywood studio. It browbeat the press (until a young Fortune reporter, Bethany McLean, asked one question too many). In a typical ruse in 1998, a gaggle of employees was rushed onto an empty trading floor at the company's Houston headquarters to put on a fictional show of busy trading for visiting Wall Street analysts being escorted by Mr. Lay. "We brought some of our personal stuff, like pictures, to make it look like the area was lived in," a laid-off Enron employee told The Wall Street Journal in 2002. "We had to make believe we were on the phone buying and selling" even though "some of the computers didn't even work."

If this Potemkin village sounds familiar, take a look at the ongoing 60-stop "presidential roadshow" in which Mr. Bush has "conversations on Social Security" with "ordinary citizens" for the consumption of local and national newscasts. As in the president's "town meeting" campaign appearances last year, the audiences are stacked with prescreened fans; any dissenters who somehow get in are quickly hustled away by security goons. But as The Washington Post reported last weekend, the preparations are even more elaborate than the finished product suggests; the seeming reality of the event is tweaked as elaborately as that of a television reality show. Not only are the panelists for these conversations recruited from administration supporters, but they are rehearsed the night before, with a White House official playing Mr. Bush. One participant told The Post, "We ran through it five times before the president got there." Finalists who vary just slightly from the administration's pitch are banished from the cast at the last minute, "American Idol"-style.

Like Enron's stockholders, American taxpayers pay for the production of such propaganda, even if its message, like that of the Enron show put on for visiting analysts, misrepresents and distorts the bottom line of the scheme that is being sold. We paid for last year's phony television news reports in which the faux reporter Karen Ryan "interviewed" administration officials who gave partially deceptive information hyping the Medicare prescription-drug program. We paid Armstrong Williams his $240,000 for delivering faux-journalistic analysis of the No Child Left Behind act.

The administration cycled the Ryan and Williams paychecks through the PR giant Ketchum Communications. Ketchum was also one of the companies hired to flack for Andersen, the now-defunct Enron accounting firm that shredded a ton of documents. We don't know what, if any, role Ketchum is playing in the White House's Social Security propaganda push, though we do know the company has received at least $97 million from the government, according to a Congressional report.

That $97 million may yet prove a mere down payment. The Times reported last weekend that the administration told executive-branch agencies simply to ignore a stern directive by the Congressional Government Accountability Office discouraging the use of "covert propaganda" like the Karen Ryan "news reports." In other words, the brakes are off, and before long, the government could have a larger budget for fake news than actual television news divisions have for real news. At last weekend's Gridiron dinner, Mr. Bush made a joke about how "most" of his good press on Social Security came from Armstrong Williams, and the Washington press corps yukked it up. The joke, however, is on them - and us.

USA Today reported this month that the Department of Homeland Security, having failed miserably to secure American ports and air transportation from potential Al Qaeda attacks, has nonetheless shelled out $100,000-plus to hire "a Hollywood liaison": Bobbie Faye Ferguson, an actress whose credits include the movie "The Bermuda Triangle" and guest shots on television schlock like "Designing Women" and "The Dukes of Hazzard." She will "work with moviemakers and scriptwriters" to give us homeland security infotainment - which is to actual homeland security what the movie "Independence Day" is to an actual terrorist attack.

Another propagandist with a rising profile is Susan Molinari, the onetime CBS News personality who appears regularly on news shows like "Hardball" and "Capitol Report." As she bloviates from the right about Social Security or the fake newsman Jeff Gannon, she is invariably described as "a former Republican Congresswoman" or a "CNBC political analyst." But her actual current jobs remain mysteriously unmentioned: C.E.O. of the Washington Group, Ketchum's lobbying firm, and president of Ketchum Public Affairs. Were the Ketchum link disclosed, perhaps some real NBC reporter might find the nerve to ask her what other Karen Ryans and Armstrong Williamses might be on the Ketchum payroll. Or not.

The Bush propagandists have been successful at many tasks, from fomenting the canard that Iraqis attacked on 9/11 to deflecting moral outrage from Abu Ghraib and toward indecency as defined by its Federal Communications Commission. But Social Security may be a bridge too far even for propaganda machinery of this heft. Polls find that an ever-increasing majority of the country rejects the idea of letting Wall Street get its hands on its retirement savings.

Americans do have short memories, but it's the administration's bad luck that not just Kenny Boy but a whole brigade of bubble plutocrats have lately been yanked back into the spotlight by their legal travails: WorldCom's Bernard J. Ebbers, Tyco's L. Dennis Kozlowski, HealthSouth's Richard M. Scrushy, Global Crossing's Gary Winnick. No one is glad to see them. The public knows that the economy has not fully mended, and that there remain different economic rules for insiders than for the panelists drafted for the presidential Social Security roadshow. The new bankruptcy bill embraced this month by Republicans and Democrats alike throws Americans paying usurious credit-card interest to the wolves even as wealthy debtors remain protected.

You can catch the public mood in the reaction to Martha Stewart's homecoming. Despite the news media's heavy-breathing efforts to hype her emergence from jail as the heartwarming comeback of a born-again humanitarian, the bottom line shows that few in the audience are buying it. The Martha Stewart Omnimedia stock price started tumbling the moment she was back on camera, in line with the cratered circulation and ad sales of her magazine. Handing out hot cocoa to reporters at her Bedford, N.Y., estate did not turn the tide, and her spinoff of "The Apprentice" may be arriving just as the country is getting sick of C.E.O.'s again. Coincidentally or not, ratings for the existing "Apprentice" are off in tandem with the filing for bankruptcy protection by Donald Trump's casino empire, the saturation coverage of his lavish nuptials and the introduction of a Trump fragrance.

It's against this backdrop that the returning Mr. Lay - completely unrepentant, still purporting on "60 Minutes" that he's an innocent victim of others - could be the Democrats' new best friend. A Texas tycoon who helped create the political career of George W. Bush only to be discarded when scandal struck has re-emerged at just the precise moment when he might do his old buddy the most harm.

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Washington's Fiscal Meltdown

The New York Times
March 20, 2005

Washington's Fiscal Meltdown

Before leaving town for a two-week spring break, Congress indulged in its own form of March Madness. The Republican majority in the House and the Senate passed budget blueprints for 2006 that slash domestic spending by upwards of $150 billion over the next five years. Yet they still managed to increase the projected deficit by more than $125 billion over the same period (and by more than $1 trillion through 2015). How is it possible to produce that much red ink while slashing spending? Easy. Just cut revenue by giving huge tax cuts to - surprise, surprise - high earners and wealthy investors. The lawmakers will not make any final decisions until they cobble their separate proposals into one official budget later in the year, but the early signs are all bad - pointing to the least sensible tax cuts for the least needy recipients with no thought to the exploding deficit.

Of all the favors they are determined to dispense, tax cutters in both the House and Senate are most intent on extending the special low tax rates for dividends and capital gains, through 2010. The preferential rates are not scheduled to expire until 2008, but lawmakers want to act now, apparently to spare their constituents worry about the future. And who are those fretful constituents? In 2005 alone, almost half of the tax savings from dividend and capital gains rate cuts will go to investors who make more than $1 million a year, the top 0.2 percent of the income ladder. Nearly three-quarters of the tax benefits will go to those making more than $200,000, about the top 3 percent. The cost to everyone else in the form of forgone revenue will be $23 billion.

Also remarkable for their largess are two high-end tax breaks that would increase the amount well-heeled taxpayers would be allowed to write off for dependents and other expenses. They were enacted in 2001, but have been delayed. Now the budget proposals let them take effect. Once again, almost all of the tax savings would go to that lucky 3 percent of filers with incomes above $200,000. The lost revenue would amount to $95 billion over 10 years. In this particular piece of fiscal insanity, even the usual Republican argument - that letting a temporary tax break expire is the same thing as a tax increase - does not apply. These two changes have not even taken effect yet, so who would miss them if they never materialized? If you're President Bush, however, getting these two provisions is the tax policy equivalent of going all the way to Baghdad. The president's father originally allowed the deduction limitations on wealthy filers as part of the 1991 budget, the one that violated Bush père's "no new taxes" pledge and, in so doing, helped to end his chances for re-election.

The wealthy would also be on the receiving end of two new tax-sheltered savings plans favored by President Bush: the retirement savings account and the lifetime savings account. These were not embraced by name by the Congressional budget leaders. But Congress could easily include them in the final budget, since they will not start losing revenue - about $30 billion a year - until much later, when investors cash them in tax-free. The accounts would allow a couple to shelter $20,000 annually, as well as $5,000 for each of their children, on top of however much they may already be investing in other tax-favored plans. None of this will be any help to the vast majority of average Americans, who do not even take full advantage of current I.R.A.'s.

And then there is the 11th-hour tax cut slipped into the Senate proposal. It would repeal an income tax on Social Security benefits that applies to the wealthiest 20 percent or so of beneficiaries and whose revenue is dedicated to the Medicare hospital trust fund. The repeal would accelerate the fund's projected insolvency by four years, to 2015 from 2019. Now there's a plan! Give the best-off elderly a tax break and put all of the elderly who may have to go into the hospital at greater financial risk.

When you step back and look at it, the collective tax-cutting psyche of Mr. Bush and his partisans appears to border dangerously on the grandiose. How else to explain their relentless profligacy in the face of the unprecedented Bush-era swing from budget surplus to deficit, the unmistakable long-term trend of a rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer income distribution, the ballooning costs of war, the weaker dollar, rising oil prices and record deficits in trade and investment - which now require the United States to borrow $2.1 billion a day from abroad? It's time for the people, the ultimate referees in a democracy, to call a timeout.

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Thousands Protest Iraq War Across Europe

Yahoo! News
AP
Thousands Protest Iraq War Across Europe

By JANELLE STECKLEIN, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters demonstrated across Europe on Saturday to mark the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, with 45,000 marching from London's Hyde Park past the American Embassy.

In Istanbul, Turkey, about 15,000 people protested in the Kadikoy neighborhood against the U.S. presence in Iraq.

But the rallies were nowhere near as big as those in February 2003, just before the war, when millions marched in cities around the world to urge President Bush and his allies not to attack Iraq.

With international forces still facing violent opposition in Iraq, protesters were divided about what to demand from leaders now. While some wanted a full troop withdrawal, others argued that would leave Iraqis in a worse position than before the invasion.

"We got the Iraqis into this mess, we need to help them out of it," said Kit MacLean, 29, waiting near Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner before the London march began.

Police estimated about 45,000 demonstrators marched from the park past the American Embassy and on to Trafalgar Square.

Some worried Bush might be planning another war in the Middle East or elsewhere.

"After Iraq — Iran? Syria? Cuba?" read one placard. "Stop This Man" said another, alongside a picture showing Bush with devil's horns.

One man carried fake bombs with American flags painted on them and a dartboard map of the world showed a U.S. missile sticking out of Iraq.

Security was heavy as the demonstrators moved past the U.S. Embassy. Cement barricades and metal fences blocked the building, as they have since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Two former British soldiers placed a cardboard coffin bearing the words "100,000 dead" outside the embassy.

"George Bush, Uncle Sam, Iraq will be your Vietnam," marchers chanted.

At the demonstration in Istanbul, two marchers dressed like U.S. soldiers pretended to rough up another, who was dressed as a detainee with a sack on his head, in a mimed criticism of prisoner abuse cases.

"Murderer Bush, get out," read one sign.

In the southern city of Adana, home to a Turkish military base used by American forces, protesters laid a black wreath in front of the U.S. Consulate to protest the war, the Anatolia news agency reported.

In Athens, Greece, about 3,000 protesters brought the city center to a standstill for three hours and painted outlines of bodies outside the U.S. Embassy.

Hundreds also turned out in Sweden and Norway.

"I think it's important to show that we still care about this," said Linn Majuri, 15, a member of the environmental organization Green Youth in Stockholm, Sweden. "People have become apathetic about this, it's no longer something they walk around thinking about every day."

With music and banners, marchers in Rome demanded the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq. "Iraq to the Iraqis!" read one banner.

Demonstrations also were planned in nine Spanish cities including Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque seaside resort of San Sebastian.

British elections expected in May added a charge to the London protest. Prime Minister Tony Blair has been Bush's staunchest ally in Iraq, despite strong domestic opposition to the war, especially among members of his Labour Party.

Some at the London protest said they could not support Blair but did not know whom else to vote for. The opposition Conservatives strongly backed the war while the third-largest party, the Liberal Democrats, opposed it. Several smaller parties are fielding anti-war candidates in hopes of loosening Blair's hold on power.

"I think it's outrageous what Blair and Bush think they can get away with," said retiree John Salway, 59. "I'd like to think we can put a dent in their arrogance."

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Factually inaccurate ads from pro-Bush group Progress for America

factcheck.org

Recycled Exaggerations: Local Ads Pressure Congress In Home States

Summary

The pro-Bush group Progress for America released a new TV ad
highlighting Social Security’s long-term fiscal deficit by telling voters that
the system will go bankrupt “sooner than you think.” But the ad fails to
mention that the system isn't projected to go "bankrupt" for another 37
years, when the Trust Fund is exhausted. And even then, neutral experts
agree Social Security could still pay between 70 and 80 percent of
currently scheduled benefits.

The group also takes aim at “National Democrats” for having no plan to
address the system's financial shortfall. It’s quite true that
Congressional Democrats have not endorsed a specific plan, but neither has
President Bush.


See the link below for the full article:

http://www.factcheck.org/article314m.html

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A New Screen Test for Imax: It's the Bible vs. the Volcano

The New York Times
March 19, 2005
A New Screen Test for Imax: It's the Bible vs. the Volcano
By CORNELIA DEAN

The fight over evolution has reached the big, big screen.

Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.

The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say - perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of a few can have a big impact on a film's bottom line - or a producer's decision to make a documentary in the first place.

People who follow trends at commercial and institutional Imax theaters say that in recent years, religious controversy has adversely affected the distribution of a number of films, including "Cosmic Voyage," which depicts the universe in dimensions running from the scale of subatomic particles to clusters of galaxies; "Galápagos," about the islands where Darwin theorized about evolution; and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," an underwater epic about the bizarre creatures that flourish in the hot, sulfurous emanations from vents in the ocean floor.

"Volcanoes," released in 2003 and sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation and Rutgers University, has been turned down at about a dozen science centers, mostly in the South, said Dr. Richard Lutz, the Rutgers oceanographer who was chief scientist for the film. He said theater officials rejected the film because of its brief references to evolution, in particular to the possibility that life on Earth originated at the undersea vents.

Carol Murray, director of marketing for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, said the museum decided not to offer the movie after showing it to a sample audience, a practice often followed by managers of Imax theaters. Ms. Murray said 137 people participated in the survey, and while some thought it was well done, "some people said it was blasphemous."

In their written comments, she explained, they made statements like "I really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact," or "I don't agree with their presentation of human existence."

On other criteria, like narration and music, the film did not score as well as other films, Ms. Murray said, and over all, it did not receive high marks, so she recommended that the museum pass.

"If it's not going to draw a crowd and it is going to create controversy," she said, "from a marketing standpoint I cannot make a recommendation" to show it.

In interviews, officials at other Imax theaters said they had similarly decided against the film for fear of offending some audiences.

"We have definitely a lot more creation public than evolution public," said Lisa Buzzelli, who directs the Charleston Imax Theater in South Carolina, a commercial theater next to the Charleston Aquarium. Her theater had not ruled out ever showing "Volcanoes," Ms. Buzzelli said, "but being in the Bible Belt, the movie does have a lot to do with evolution, and we weigh that carefully."

Pietro Serapiglia, who handles distribution for the producer Stephen Low of Montreal, whose company made the film, said officials at other theaters told him they could not book the movie "for religious reasons," because it had "evolutionary overtones" or "would not go well with the Christian community" or because "the evolution stuff is a problem."

Hyman Field, who as a science foundation official had a role in the financing of "Volcanoes," said he understood that theaters must be responsive to their audiences. But Dr. Field he said he was "furious" that a science museum would decide not to show a scientifically accurate documentary like "Volcanoes" because it mentioned evolution.

"It's very alarming," he said, "all of this pressure being put on a lot of the public institutions by the fundamentalists."

People who follow the issue say it is more likely to arise at science centers and other public institutions than at commercial theaters. The filmmaker James Cameron, who was a producer on "Volcanoes," said the commercial film he made on the same topic, "Aliens of the Deep," had not encountered opposition, except during post-production, when "it was requested from some theaters that we change a line of dialogue" relating to sun worship by ancient Egyptians. The line remained, he said.

Mr. Cameron said he was "surprised and somewhat offended" that people were sensitive to the references to evolution in "Volcanoes."

"It seems to be a new phenomenon," he said, "obviously symptomatic of our shift away from empiricism in science to faith-based science."

Some in the industry say they fear that documentary filmmakers will steer clear of science topics likely to offend religious fundamentalists.

Large-format science documentaries "are generally not big moneymakers," said Joe DeAmicis, vice president for marketing at the California Science Center in Los Angeles and formerly the director of its Imax theater. "It's going to be hard for our filmmakers to continue to make unfettered documentaries when they know going in that 10 percent of the market" will reject them.

Others who follow the issue say many institutions are not able to resist such pressure.

"They have to be extremely careful as to how they present anything relating to evolution," said Bayley Silleck, who wrote and directed "Cosmic Voyage." Mr. Silleck said he confronted religious objections to that film and predicted he would face them again with a project he is working on now, about dinosaurs.

Of course, a number of factors affect a theater manager's decision about a movie. Mr. Silleck said an Imax documentary about oil fires in Kuwait "never reached its distribution potential" because it had shots of the first Persian Gulf war. "The theaters decided their patrons would be upset at seeing the bodies," he said.

"We all have to make films for an audience that is a family audience," he went on, "when you are talking about Imax, because they are in science centers and museums."

He added, however, "there are a number of us who are concerned that there is a kind of tacit overcaution, overprotectedness of the audience on the part of theater operators."

In any event, censoring films like "Volcanoes" is not an option, said Dr. Field, who said Mr. Low, the film's producer, got in touch with him when the evolution issue arose to ask whether the film should be altered.

"I said absolutely not," recalled Dr. Field, who retired from the National Science Foundation last year.

Mr. Low said that arguments over religion and science disturbed him because of his own religious faith. In his view, he said, science is "a celebration of what nature or God has done. So for me, there's no conflict."

Dr. Lutz, the Rutgers oceanographer, recalled a showing of "Volcanoes" he and Mr. Low attended at the New England Aquarium. When the movie ended, a little girl stood in the audience to challenge Mr. Low on the film's suggestion that Earth might have formed billions of years ago in the explosion of a star. "I thought God created the Earth," she said.

He replied, "Maybe that's how God did it."

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