Death Toll Rises for Military Reservists

Death Toll Rises for Military Reservists

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Guard and Reserves are suffering a strikingly higher share of U.S. casualties in Iraq, their portion of total American military deaths nearly doubling since last year.

Reservists have accounted for one-quarter of all U.S. deaths since the Iraq war began, but the proportion has grown over time. It was 10 percent for the five weeks it took to topple Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and 20 percent for 2004 as a whole.

The trend accelerated this year. For the first nine months of 2005 reservists accounted for 36 percent of U.S. deaths, and for August and September it was 56 percent, according to Pentagon figures.

The Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve accounted for more than half of all U.S. deaths in August and in September - the first time that has happened in consecutive months. The only other month in which it even approached 50 percent was June 2004.

Casualties in Iraq have shifted toward citizen soldiers as their combat role has grown to historic levels. National Guard officials say their soldiers have been sent into combat in Iraq in numbers not previously seen in modern times - far more than were sent to Vietnam, where active-duty troops did the vast majority of the fighting.

Charles Krohn, a former Army deputy chief of public affairs, said the reservists are taking up the slack for the highly stressed active-duty Army.

"Decisions made years earlier made going to war in any significant way impossible without Guard and Reserve participation. But I can't imagine anyone postulated the situation we face today: We don't seem very anxious to bring back the draft and we can't get enough volunteers for a war that is not universally popular," Krohn said.


About 45 percent of all Guard and Reserve deaths since the start of the war - 220 of the almost 500 total - occurred in the first nine months of 2005, according to Pentagon figures. The deadliest month was August, when 49 Guard and Reserve members died.

The mounting casualties among reservists in Iraq has been overshadowed by the attention focused on a rising overall U.S. death toll, now approaching 2,000. It complicates recruiting for the National Guard and Reserve, which often attract people who think of the military reservists' role as something other than front-line combat.

Gone are the days when the National Guard and Reserve served mainly as "rear-area" support, far from the front-line fighting.

In Iraq the front line is everywhere - on rural roads where Guard and Reserve soldiers drive supply trucks, at urban checkpoints, in remote villages and at major supply bases. Some units also have been attached to active-duty units with the specific mission of conducting offensive operations.

The casualties have contributed to what has been the most challenging time for the Guard and Reserve since the military became an all-volunteer force in 1973. In addition to fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and helping keep the peace in the Balkans, the Guard in particular was called to action in large numbers for rescue and relief from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

At one point this year more than half of the combat forces in Iraq were National Guard.

"That's a first," said Army Maj. Les Melnyk, historian for the Pentagon office that manages the Army and Air National Guard. "The Guard can't claim that (level of combat) for World War II or World War I - the other major wars we fought in. Never more than 50 percent of the combat forces were Guard."

At present, of the approximately 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about half are reservists: 49,000 Army National Guard, 22,000 Army Reserve and 4,000 Marine Reserve, according to figures provided by those organizations.

The trend is almost certain to be reversed next year, when the active-duty Army is scheduled to make a proportionally larger contribution to the overall force. The number of National Guard brigades in Iraq, for example, is scheduled to drop next year from seven to two.

Since the Vietnam era, the military has given the Guard and Reserve more vital support functions like military police and engineers, so that any major conflict would involve more than just the active-duty force. Thus it was inevitable that a sizable portion of the force in Iraq would be Guard and Reserve; what has made the Iraq experience so different is the large numbers of reservists getting killed and wounded.

At least 300 soldiers of the National Guard, 78 of the Army Reserve and 93 of the Marine Corps Reserve, have died in the Iraq conflict. The Navy Reserve has lost 13, the Air Force Reserve three and the Air National Guard one. Together that is one-quarter of the total U.S death toll, which stood at 1,947 on Monday, by the Pentagon's count.

Lt. Gen. James Lovelace, the Army's deputy chief of staff for operations, said in an interview that the increased reliance on the Guard and Reserve in 2005 was deliberately planned to allow active-duty units like the 3rd Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division to complete a reorganization before they returned to Iraq.

"It bought us the time we needed," Lovelace said.

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I fluffed your pillow

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Oh Great. More Flooding.

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You'll Do A Heck of a job

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Intelligent Design

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Am I For or Against?

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Her Heart's In The Right Place

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Letter shows Cheney aide was prodded in leak probe

Letter shows Cheney aide was prodded in leak probe

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney got a push from a prosecutor before telling New York Times reporter Judith Miller that he wanted her to testify in a probe into the outing of a CIA operative whose diplomat husband was an Iraq-war critic.

The prosecutor's encouragement, in a letter obtained by Reuters, has prompted some lawyers in the case to question whether Cheney's aide was acting completely voluntarily when he gave Miller the confidentiality waiver she had insisted on.

The investigation has spotlighted free-press issues and the Bush administration's aggressive efforts to defend its Iraq policy against critics.

Miller maintains she only agreed to testify -- after spending 85 days in jail -- because she received what she describes as a personal and voluntary waiver of confidentiality from her source. She dismissed an earlier waiver by Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, as coerced.

But Libby offered a new waiver that Miller accepted after he received a September 12 letter in which the prosecutor, investigating a possible White House role in the leak, repeatedly encouraged him to do just that.

"I would welcome such a communication reaffirming Mr. Libby's waiver," prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate.

"It would be viewed as cooperation with the investigation," Fitzgerald said.

Some lawyers in the case called the letter a thinly veiled threat seeking Libby's cooperation, and said it raised questions about whether Libby's waiver was as voluntary as Miller and her lawyers had described.

Others said it was not coercive.

"Is that pressure? Absolutely," said Richard Sauber, a Washington lawyer who represents Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who has also testified to the grand jury. But he added, "It is not unfair and it is not unduly coercive."

Fitzgerald has been investigating Libby, President George W. Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove and other administration officials over the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, and lawyers involved in the case said there were signs Fitzgerald might be preparing to bring charges.

Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, has accused the administration of leaking her name and damaging her ability to work undercover in retaliation for his criticisms of Bush's Iraq policy.

Wilson had investigated for the CIA an administration charge that Iraq was seeking nuclear materials in Niger and concluded it was unsubstantiated, then he publicly accused the administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq.

Fitzgerald said in the September 12 letter that he was not seeking to compel a more-explicit confidentiality waiver.

"Mr. Libby, of course, retains the right not to so reaffirm his waiver ... if he would prefer that the status quo continue and Ms. Miller remain in jail rather than testify about their conversations," Fitzgerald wrote.

A lawyer in the case, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said, "It's coercive to have the prosecutor, at end of his investigation, say: 'Unless you take this additional step, I'm going to draw a negative inference against you.'"

Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, said Fitzgerald's letter sounded reasonable on the surface, but the reference to cooperation could be taken either way.

"If you think you might be a target of an investigation, being cooperative could be viewed as a desirable thing to be," Kirtley said.

Marvin Kalb of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government said, "Libby took the hint."

Three days after Fitzgerald's letter, Libby on September 15 wrote directly to Miller urging her to testify. The New York Times has released copies of Libby's letter, but not Fitzgerald's.

On Sept 30, Miller testified before the grand jury about two conversations with Libby in July 2003.

Fitzgerald has summoned Miller again for a meeting on Tuesday after she found notes from an earlier, previously undisclosed conversation with Libby. The Times reported the conversation was on June 25, 2003.

Those notes could help Fitzgerald establish that Libby and other White House officials took an early interest in the backgrounds of Wilson and Plame, and talked to reporters, as reports of Wilson's investigation were surfacing but before he went public in a July 6, 2003, opinion piece in the Times.

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Bush's pick for Justice Dept. job withdraws name

Reuters

Bush's pick for Justice Dept. job withdraws name

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Timothy Flanigan, who faced more questions from Senate Democrats about his links with indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has withdrawn his nomination for the Justice Department's No. 2 job, according to a letter to President George W. Bush released on Friday.

Flanigan, a senior lawyer for Tyco International Ltd. who had been chosen by Bush in May to be deputy attorney general, cited the continuing uncertainty over when he might be confirmed.

"Uncertainty concerning the timing of my confirmation affects not only the department, but also my family and my employer, who have been very patient in the intervening months," he said in his three-paragraph letter to Bush.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had been considering Flanigan's nomination, had sought a new round of questioning of Flanigan about his contacts with Abramoff.

Democrats also raised concern about his nomination because of Flanigan's role in developing Bush administration policy allowing aggressive interrogation of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq, and his lack of experience as a prosecutor.

Flanigan had initially said that due to attorney-client privilege, he could not speak about details of his relationship with Abramoff, a lobbyist whose firm, Greenberg Traurig, had been hired by Tyco.

But Flanigan later said Tyco had authorized "limited disclosures" regarding the company's relationship with Greenberg Traurig.

Abramoff, who has been under investigation by the Justice Department, pleaded not guilty last month to federal charges in Miami that he defrauded lenders in a casino cruise line deal.

Abramoff is a key figure in ethics probes involving former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas congressman. DeLay faces charges in a separate case brought In Texas, and he stepped down from his House leadership position after he was charged.

Flanigan and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales worked together in the White House counsel's office after Bush was elected in 2000.

Gonzales called Flanigan's withdrawal disappointing. He was unable to say how long it would take to find another nominee. Flanigan had been nominated to replace James Comey, who left the Justice Department in August.

Democrats criticized the nomination because Gonzales, Flanigan and the head of the Justice Department's criminal division have never been prosecutors.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat, said there had been serious doubts about Flanigan's qualifications for the job.

"Mr. Flanigan has no experience as a prosecutor, a characteristic that has become all too common in the leadership of the Justice Department," the Vermont Democrat said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, recommended that Bush nominate a career prosecutor with managerial experience.

"Hopefully the president realizes that this country needs individuals in government who are chosen on the merits, not on ideology or political connections," said Schumer, a Judiciary Committee member.

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House narrowly approves bill to help US refineries

Reuters

House narrowly approves bill to help US refineries

By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a cliffhanger vote held open by Republican leaders until they won, the U.S. House of Representatives passed by two votes on Friday a bill giving U.S. oil refineries incentives to expand.

The legislation, written by Republican Joe Barton of Texas, was barely approved, 212-210, even after Barton dropped a White House-backed provision that would have gutted clean air rules for refineries to expand existing plants.

The bill wants to add 2 million barrels per day of capacity by offering abandoned military bases for refinery construction sites. It also gives federal insurance to refiners whose projects are delayed by lawsuits or regulatory snags, and puts the Energy Department in charge of processing permits.

President George W. Bush commended passage of the bill.

"No refineries have been built in our Nation since 1976, and the recent disruptions in supply from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have demonstrated that additional refining capacity is critically needed," Bush said in a statement.

It was the first major House vote since Texan Tom DeLay was forced to step down as majority leader after being indicted on felony charges. Republicans won in a roll call vote that ran 44 minutes, far beyond the allotted five minutes.

Some 13 Republicans, mostly from Northeast states, ultimately voted with 196 Democrats and 1 independent against the bill. No Democrats voted for it.

Democrats in the chamber chanted "shame, shame, shame" as the final tally was announced.

When over two dozen Republicans initially voted no, DeLay, Barton, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and new Majority Leader Roy Blunt circled the chamber to cajole holdouts.

Republican Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland was the last to switch. With the tally stuck at 211-211, Gilchrest changed his vote, making it 212-210. Barton promptly shook his hand and Republican Mike Simpson, who presided over the vote, gaveled it to an end.

The rapidly shifting vote kept even senior Republicans at sea. "I didn't know what to expect," Hastert said afterward.

Several Democrats protested that the vote was held open. "I am informed that every member of Congress who is in town has voted," Democratic whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said at one point, when the tally was 210 yes, 214 no.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi also complained, saying the proceedings brought "dishonor to the House."

The bill was prompted by hurricanes Rita and Katrina, which plowed through the heart of the U.S. energy producing region and shut offshore drilling rigs and refineries.

Its most controversial item would have deleted part of the Clean Air Act known as "new source review" that requires costly new equipment to cut emissions when refineries and coal-fired power plants expand. Barton dropped it from the bill because of opposition from Democrats and moderate Republicans.

That plan "clearly needed more time for hearings" and could be considered by the House later this year, Blunt said.

The Bush administration said it supported the bill.

No new U.S. refinery has been built since 1976 and dozens of plants have been closed despite rising fuel consumption.

"We haven't built a new refinery in a generation. We need more," said Rep. Fred Upton, Michigan Republican.

Democrats say refiners are loath to build new facilities amid record-high profits, while Republicans say permitting and environmental requirements keep them from expanding.

Democrats were unsuccessful in pushing an alternate bill that would create spare refineries that the federal government could activate during gasoline shortages.

The House also blocked a bipartisan plan by Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Sherwood Boehlert of New York to require an 8-mile-per-gallon rise in vehicle mileage to curb gasoline demand.

Other provisions in the bill include:

* Expanding Northeast Heating Oil Reserve to 5 million barrels, from current 2 million barrels;

* Limiting anti-pollution gasoline blends to six, from the current 17;

* Requiring FTC to prepare a report on the price of gasoline and heating oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange;

* Waives federal, state and local fuel additive requirements after a natural disaster that disrupts supplies;

* Gives Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the power to monitor offshore gas gathering lines to prevent anti-competitive practices.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell) LINKS: *TAKE A LOOK-Energy recovers from hurricanes *FACTBOX-Congress drafts post-hurricane laws *Bush pushes for oil refinery construction

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A Mess of George Bush's Own Making

The Nation

A Mess of George Bush's Own Making
John Nichols

It is fair to say that a good many Americans perceive George W. Bush to be a doltish incompetent who does not know the first thing about fighting terrorism.

But, whatever the president's actual level of competence may be, it is now clear that he has even less respect for the intelligence of the American people than his critics have for his cognitive capabilities.

As the president struggles this week to make a case for the staying the course that leads deeper into the quagmire that is Iraq, he is, remarkably, selling a warmed over version of the misguided take on terrorism that he peddled before this disasterous mission was launched.

Apparently working under the assumption that no one has been paying attention over the past two and a half years, Bush delivered a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy Thursday in which he dismissed calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. "Some observers also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and leaving Iraq now," the president argued, before concluding that, "It's a dangerous illusion refuted with a simple question: Would the United States and other free nations be more safe or less safe with Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq, its people and its resources?" That's a scary scenario. Unfortunately, it is one that the president created. And it is one that the president still fails to fully comprehend.

To hear the president tell it, the U.S. went to Iraq to combat bin Laden's al Qaida network.

The problem, of course, is that going to Iraq to confront al Qaida in 2003 was like going to the Vatican to confront Protestants.

Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party cadres were a lot of things, but they were never comrades, colleagues or hosts to the adherents of what Bush referred to in his speech as "Islamic radicalism," "militant jihadism" or "Islamo-fascism."

If any individuals on the planet feared and hated al Qaida, it was Hussein and his allies. The Iraqi Baathists were thugs, to be sure, but they were secularist thugs. Indeed, many of the most brutal acts of oppression carried out by the Iraqi regime targeted Islamic militants and governments aligned with the fundamentalists. The eight-year war between Iraq and Iran pitted the soldiers of Hussein's secular nationalism against the armies of the Ayatollah Khomeini's radical vision of Islam. That is why, while the United States remained officially neutral in the war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, it became an aggressive behind-the-scenes backer of Hussein. As part of that support, the U.S. State Department in 1982 removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. That step helped to ease the way for loans and other forms of aid -- such as the U.S. Agriculture Department's guaranteed loans to Iraq for purchases of American commodities. It also signaled to other countries and international agencies that the U.S. wanted them to provide aid to Hussein -- and if the signal was missed, the Reagan White House and State Department would make their sentiments clear, as happened when the administration lobbied the Export-Import Bank to improve Iraq's credit rating and provide it with needed financial assistance. If any lingering doubts about U.S. attitude remained, they were eased by the December 20, 1983, visit of Donald Rumsfeld, who was touring the Middle East as President Reagan's special envoy, for visits with Hussein and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.

As it happened, the U.S. was reading Hussein right. In a region where the common catchphrase is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Hussein was not merely someone who was fighting a neighboring country. He was fighting the spread of the radical Islamic fundamentalism that the U.S. so feared because he was a committed secularist. Hussein promoted the education of women and put them in positions of power. Under Hussein, Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims enjoyed a greater measure of religious freedom than they have in most Middle Eastern countries in recent decades. Hussein included non-Muslims among his closest advisors, most notably Aziz, a Christian adherent of the Chaldean Catholic faith that remains rooted in Iraq. There was a paranoid passion to Hussein's secularism. He and his vast secret police network remained ever on the watch for evidence of Islamic militancy, and when it was found the response was swift and brutal. It was an awareness of the fact that Hussein was a bulwark against militant Islam that led key aides to President George H.W. Bush to argue against displacing him after the liberation of Kuwait by a U.S.-led force in 1991.

Nothing about Hussein's Baathist ideology changed during the 1990s. So it came as no surprise to anyone who knew the region that the 9/11 Commission, after aggressively investigating the matter, found no operational relationships existed between al Qaida and Iraq before the 2003 invasion that toppled Hussein.

Now, after having removed the bulwark against militant Islam, Bush describes an Iraq that is rapidly filling up with followers of al Qaida, and warns that the withdrawal of U.S. forces would allow the militants to "use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against nonradical Muslim governments."

What Bush did not say in his speech Thursday was that his own actions had created the dire circumstance he described.

If George Washington's mantra was that he could not tell a lie, George Bush's is that he cannot admit a mistake.

But the president's refusal to face reality has isolated him from those who are serious about fighting the spread of terrorism.

General Peter Cosgrove, the former head of Australia's Defense Forces, rejects the notion that staying the course is the smart response. In fact, the well-regarded former commander of the military of a key U.S. ally, says that withdrawal makes sense because it will "take one of the focal points of terrorist motivation away, and that is foreign troops."

It is Cosgrove who suggested the late 2006 withdrawal date that has been taken up by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, the first member of the Senate to urge the development of an exit-strategy timeline.

For those who do not trusts the assessment of an Australian, consider that Porter Goss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who says, "The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists. Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraq conflict to recruit new, anti-U.S. jihadists."

The president who argued that Iraq needed to be invaded in order to fight terrorism has instead opened up a new country to al Qaida's machinations.

The president who argued that the U.S. must continue to occupy Iraq in order to prevent the spread of terrorism has instead created a quagmire in which even the head of his own CIA says that the U.S. presence is being exploited by terrorists to recruit new, anti-U.S. jihadists.

Now, George Bush argues for staying the course.

Perhaps Osama bin Laden would agree with that strategy.

But the American people are wising up.

The latest Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll tells us that only 32 percent of those approve of Bush's handling of the war. A remarkable 59 percent now say that the invasion a mistake. And an even more remarkable 63 percent say they want to see some or all U.S. troops withdrawn.

John Nichols covered the first Gulf War and has frequently reported from the Middle East over the past two decades. For more of his analysis of the administration's misguided approach, check out his book The Rise and Rise of Dick Cheney, out in paperback November 2 from The New Press.

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Can a Man Become President?

HuffingtonPost.com

Can a Man Become President?
Sherman Yellen

As one looks toward the next Presidential election, assuming that our democracy can survive this presidency, the question we often hear is "Can a woman become President?" This reflects upon the interest in Hillary Clinton and her ability to be elected in a Presidential race. A more pertinent question may be "Can a man become President?" In asking this, one is obliged to define what one means by a man, something far different from the male who currently occupies our White House.

Let's consider the last election. The perception was the George Bush was the more manly candidate. He spoke with a western twang, walked with a swagger, appeared to be decisive, and clearly had no use for the effete Eastern liberals, intellectuals, and the sissy boys who waffled about at the UN. Despite the fact that the twang and the swagger were cultivated by this Eastern prep school boy with Yale and Harvard degrees, Bush was considered the more "authentic" candidate by a great many voters and pundits who found John Kerry "inauthentic" with his educated Bostonian ways, actual war heroism, and his inability to take a stand and stick with it right or wrong for life. As one who would not want to sit down and share a beer with George Bush, or go windsailing with John Kerry, I have my own definition of "man" and I would like to apply it to the qualifications for our next President.

A real man should be capable of flip flopping on any issue at any time. It is an essential element in thinking and living. There is no way to grow as a man without changing one's mind from time to time. The inability to change an opinion when life and events prove your original opinion or decision wrong, is not a manly quality. It is the quality of those who prefer to be deluded by life, rather than taught by it. The best thing that could be said of Kerry, who ran an overly cautious, defensive campaign that lacked the courage he showed in life, was that Kerry flip flopped on the issues. It meant that he was a man capable of growth. Thank God for flip floppers. History shows that Lincoln was a champion flip flopper, changing his views on slavery as he developed in his life, Teddy Roosevelt was a flip flopper, a hunter who protected the environment, an American aristocrat who sought to protect the worker from the very ruling class he was born into, and protect industry from the trusts. FDR's elitist views were tempered by the times he lived in. Harry S. Truman, a small town man with a limited background was capable of making great decisions, based upon his ability to learn on the job, starting the movement towards Civil Rights in the military. George Bush can never flip flop. He cannot change his mind, because it is a lazy mind, incapable of the activity required for flip flopping which can be a wrenching experience. Between the flip and the flop is a lot of mental and moral activity. He is far from stupid, but lacks that curiosity which allows for growth and change. By "sticking to his guns" he thinks he is acting as a man should act, standing by his principles, while in fact all he demonstrates is his inability to tolerate change and the weakness of those principles.

A real man does not always have to "feel your pain" but he must be capable of alleviating it. Real men are healers. They are not towel snapping bullies like our President whose target is the poor, those least able to defend themselves. For all his failing, Jimmy Carter was a real man. His was an unlucky Presidency, but it was one in which the poor and the envivornment were given a chance to survive. His actions for peace and for building decent lives for the poor, following his Presidency, reveal a man who is driven by true religious feelings, not one who uses his religion to beat down the poor because "the poor will always be with us."

A real man values human life so highly that he cannot help but oppose those who make war, destroy gun control laws, and cheapen life by allowing fellow Americans to suffer in life destroying poverty. A real man is not threatened by the way other people live, be they gay, straight, atheist, zen Buddhist - he is content to live and let live - and support laws that broaden human freedom, not limit it.

A real man does not claim to reform Social Security by destroying it. He does not claim to advance our freedoms by limiting them. A real man knows he does not hold a patent on the truth but works towards finding the truth by examining the world, not feeding on his own beliefs. That takes courage, the quality that a real man must have.

Most of all a real man can say "I was wrong" and mean it. He can take responsibility for his actions and know that responsibility isn't just admitting to error, but seeking ways to remedy that error. In this way George W. Bush is not a real man and never will be. He can drink his beer, talk his baseball stats, walk the walk on aircraft carriers, and nothing that he can do will make him a real man unless he can now become a born again humanist, not a very likely prospect.

The question I raise can only be answered by the American people when they reexamine the notion of what real man is in the next election. Perhaps a real woman can be a better real man than those who now swagger across the national stage, actors playing leaders, or perhaps she will assume the posture of the fake men who preceded her, and she too will be compromised by the need to appear tough and never flip flop and call intellectual weakness moral strength. Can a woman become President? Maybe, if she is a real woman.

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All Those Al Qaeda Number Twos: Get Me a Consultant!

HuffingtonPost.com

All Those Al Qaeda Number Twos: Get Me a Consultant!
RJ Eskow

With all these captured or killed Number Twos and Threes we keep hearing about, Al Qaeda must have more Vice Presidents than an ad agency. Bet there are some nasty fights over office (or cave) size. They wouldn’t have name plates on the doors, though, would they? I’ve heard Disney doesn’t, either.

(Hmmm …) While today’s New York scare and all the “Number Two” claims raise the usual questions about government credibility, maybe the explanation is simpler: the terrorists have a management problem.

Al Qaeda seems to be a top-heavy organization, like Enron. So all those local “franchises” we keep hearing about must be getting hit with some heavy corporate overhead. Somebody’s paying the cost for all these Number Twos, and you know the kind of friction that can create. Soon the guys in the field start resenting the Home Office, and the snide, half-whispered comments begin - “I’m from Corporate and I’m here to help,” ha ha. “Why are Corporate guys like pigeons? Because they fly in, crap on everything, and fly out again.” Boy, if the water coolers at the branch office could talk ...

Now Michael Bloomberg – who certainly knows how to run a company – says there’s a terror threat in New York, but officials in Washington disagree. The Feds say the Iraq-based source of the New York threat isn’t well-placed enough to know about this kind of plot – but then, they can’t be sure. That’s the problem: All those billions for intelligence, and there isn’t even a decent org chart we can consult.

Maybe we need a few dozen consultants in starched shirts to go over to Aghanistan or Pakistan to clean up their management structure. We don't even know who's in charge of what over there. So let’s draft some guys and gals from McKinsey and get that outfit straightened out. A little B-school expertise could go a long way to making Al Qaeda a solid, well-run organization we can understand – and then crush.

Where’s that “MBA President” when we need him?

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Democrats Seek Probe Into Agency Spending

Democrats Seek Probe Into Agency Spending

By BEN FELLER
AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic senators on Thursday pressed for a criminal fraud investigation of the Bush administration's hiring of a commentator to promote its agenda.

Congressional auditors concluded last week that the Education Department engaged in illegal "covert propaganda" by hiring Armstrong Williams to endorse the No Child Left Behind Act without requiring him to disclose he was paid.

That review by the Government Accountability Office did not come with any penalty.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said questions of fraud remain for the department and for Williams.

The department paid Williams, a commentator with newspaper, television and radio audiences, to produce ads promoting Bush's law. Work orders show he also was to provide media time to department officials and persuade other blacks in the media to discuss the law.

Yet the department provided the GAO with almost no evidence of the work that Williams cited in his monthly reports. In their own search, GAO auditors either could not find the work Williams listed or could not connect the work they found to his contract.

"Taking taxpayer dollars for work you didn't do is fraud - period," Lautenberg said. "Americans are already upset that Bush administration paid off a columnist to write glowing reviews of the president's education agenda. The notion that he may not have even done the work is even worse."

Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and John Kerry, D-Mass., also signed the letter to Gonzales.

The Education Department had no comment.

Shirley Dave, a spokeswoman for Williams, said he is negotiating with department officials to return part of the public money he was paid. She declined to comment on the request for a criminal review.

The department was to pay $240,000 to Williams, a subcontractor in a $1.3 million contract the agency had with Ketchum, a public relations firm. The department has paid $186,000 to Ketchum for the work Williams was hired to perform, the GAO found.

The deal occurred during the tenure of Education Secretary Rod Paige. His replacement, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, has pledged stricter oversight of agency spending.

After the GAO said the hiring of Williams amounted to propaganda, department spokeswoman Susan Aspey said, "We've said for the past six months that this was stupid, wrong and ill-advised."

The department's inspector general found that the administration's hiring of Williams was not illegal or unethical, but was a poor decision that continued even after concerns were raised to the White House. At the time of the Williams' contract, Gonzales was White House counsel.

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Senators vent frustration over Katrina aid bill

Reuters

Senators vent frustration over Katrina aid bill

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of a Senate committee including its Republican head bluntly accused the Bush administration on Thursday of sabotaging a bill to provide Medicaid health assistance for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"Unfortunately, the White House is working against me behind the scenes, and I resent that, considering how I've delivered so much for the White House over the last five years," Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley said at a hearing on recovery efforts from the U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes.

Grassley, of Iowa, has been a key ally of President George W. Bush's proposal to overhaul the Social Security retirement system at a time when other Republicans have been wary.

He and the committee's top Democrat, Montana Sen. Max Baucus, are pushing a bill that would ease Medicaid eligibility requirements for storm victims for five months and provide states with reimbursement for 100 percent of costs for such patients.

Costs for Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, are normally split between Washington and the states.

The legislation would have cost the federal government as much as $9 billion, but Senate aides said the cost was cut to around $6 billion in negotiations with the White House and Republican leaders.

The administration says the Grassley-Baucus bill is still too expensive, too broad and may open the door for the government to pay costs for people who were not storm victims.

Asked about Grassley's criticism, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said, "The White House is working with the Congress to find the best way to get health care help to those affected by the storms."

'BACK OFF OF OUR BILL'

Grassley and Baucus implored Treasury Secretary John Snow to "forcefully" seek support for the bill from within the administration, including from Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, who oversees the federal side of Medicaid.

"If you're going to see Secretary Leavitt, tell him to get the White House to back off of our bill," Grassley said. "There's people hurting down there and we need to get some help for them."

Baucus said further delays in the bill would prolong human suffering from the August 29 storm.

"It's been six weeks now. Where is the administration? It is slow-walking, it is opposing, it is obfuscating, it is delaying, it is not acting," he said.

Snow said he did not know enough about the issue to speak for the administration, but said he would discuss it with Leavitt.

Grassley and Baucus say the bill offers the same benefits offered in New York after the September 11, 2001, attacks. But Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said the eligibility changes were put in place before the attacks and New York state continued to pay its share of Medicaid costs.

The department favors allowing states to obtain Medicaid waivers to provide coverage for a broader number of patients because it can be done immediately with no legislation.

Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas have already obtained waivers, which would provide up to five months of coverage. But states struggling with reduced revenues would still pay a big share of the extra costs, which they would not pay under the Grassley-Baucus bill.

In Louisiana, Medicaid officials have turned away more than 6,000 people, or 55 percent of hurricane evacuees housed in shelters who sought aid, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported this week.

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Rove to testify again in CIA leak probe

Reuters

Top Bush aide to testify again in CIA leak probe

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a surprise move, President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, plans to give last-minute testimony to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity, lawyers said on Thursday.

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has yet to indicate whether or not he intends to bring indictments, but legal sources close to the investigation said he could signal his intentions within days. Fitzgerald has given no guarantees to Rove he will not be indicted.

Officials declined to disclose when Rove would appear, but the grand jury is expected to meet on Friday and again next week. Rove has appeared before the grand jury at least three previous times.

Legal sources said Fitzgerald may also call New York Times reporter Judith Miller to appear again before the grand jury to answer additional questions about her conversations with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Fitzgerald is expected this month to wrap up his nearly 2-year-old investigation into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and whether any laws were violated in the process.

The outcome could shake up an administration reeling from criticism over its response to Hurricane Katrina and the indictment of House of Representatives Republican leader Tom DeLay of Texas on charges related to campaign financing.

The White House had long maintained Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak, but reporters have since named them as sources.

NO 'TARGET LETTER'

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said his client had not received a "target letter" indicating he was likely to face indictment.

In discussions last week, Luskin said, "Fitzgerald did not indicate that Rove was a target; he did state that he has not made a decision about whether or not to charge."

"Since Karl began cooperating with the investigation, he has never sought any promises or assurances as a precondition for his testimony," Luskin added.

First Amendment attorney Chip Babcock said he was surprised by the decision to bring Rove back before the grand jury so late in the process. The grand jury hearing the case is scheduled to expire on October 28.

"There has been a lot of testimony developed since he last testified, including Judith Miller. It may mean they want to ask him questions in light of what they've uncovered and see whether they can lock him in," said Babcock, a partner at Jackson Walker LLP. "You never know whose inconsistencies they're focused on."

Luskin said Rove offered in July to provide additional testimony after the grand jury heard from Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. Cooper said Rove was the first person to tell him about Plame.

"We offered to make Mr. Rove available at a time and place of Mr. Fitzgerald's choosing should he wish Rove's further cooperation. He indicated to me last week that he wished to take me up on that offer," Luskin said.

But Luskin added: "I am not commenting in any fashion on when or what form that cooperation might take."

Fitzgerald's office declined to comment.

Plame's diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, has accused the administration of leaking her name, which damaged her ability to work undercover, to get back at him for criticizing Bush's Iraq policy.

Miller testified to the grand jury last Friday about the conversations she had with Libby regarding Wilson's wife. Legal sources said Libby did not identify Plame by name.

A legal source close to the matter said Miller had yet to be asked to reappear for further questioning.

"He (Fitzgerald) is evaluating her testimony," the legal source said. "It could happen at some point."

In exchange for Miller's testimony, Fitzgerald agreed to limit the scope of questioning to her conversations with Libby. If Miller is called back, the legal source said, "It would not be about Rove."

After initially promising to fire anyone found to have leaked information in the case, Bush in July offered a more qualified pledge: "If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration."

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Congressional Democrats pledge reform in Washington

Reuters

Congressional Democrats pledge reform in Washington

By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats stepped up attacks on what they called Republicans' "culture of cronyism and corruption" on Thursday, trying to capitalize on a spate of ethics scandals and the Bush administration's heavily criticized response to Hurricane Katrina.

Although congressional elections are still more than a year away, Democratic leaders -- often accused of not being able to articulate a clear party message -- held a series of news events in which they sought to link allegations of corruption and government incompetence.

The fiasco over the response to Hurricane Katrina "sort of pulled up the curtain and exposed the whole mess," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who heads up the Democratic election effort for the Senate.

"We as a party are going to be the broom that sweeps things clean."

While declining to make any specific predictions of gains in the November 2006 elections, Illinois Rep. Raum Emanuel, who heads the House Democrats' campaign committee, said the vote would become a national referendum on "change and reform."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid outlined Democrats' plans to draft legislation to tighten lobbying rules and require people appointed to public safety positions to have relevant credentials and a "superior" track record.

"We're going to reform Washington," Reid said. "After years of Republican scandals and abuses of power, it's a big task. But the American people are demanding change."

Two influential House Democrats, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Rep. George Miller of California, called for a special counsel to probe the scandal surrounding Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff's possible ties to Justice Department officials.

And House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California and her deputy Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland renewed calls for the House ethics committee to investigate Rep. Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican forced to step down as House majority leader after he was indicted on charges related to campaign financing.

Republicans have also been buffeted by an SEC investigation of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee over a stock sale, the multifaceted probe into Abramoff's activities, and the related arrest this week of former White House aide David Safavian.

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Official: World not ready for flu

CNN.com

Official: World not ready for flu

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S.'s top health official says the world is "woefully unprepared" to respond to a pandemic, a problem made more urgent by concerns that the current avian flu virus could spread into a global health crisis.

"The world is woefully unprepared," Mike Leavitt, the U.S. secretary of health and human services, told CNN Thursday.

"You'd think that it would be a matter of constant concern to us. It has not been, anywhere in the world and, consequently, the world is unprepared. And we're now as a civilization rallying to say, 'What can we do to better prepare?'"

Leavitt made his comments as health experts from around the world gathered in Washington to discuss the possibility of a flu pandemic.

The two-day conference is bringing together representatives of more than 80 countries and international organizations about preventing the spread of the avian flu virus.

Leavitt, who is hosting the event along with U.S. Global Affairs Undersecretary Paula Dobriansky, said officials were trying to devise a comprehensive surveillance plan so that the virus could be monitored closely, allowing for a quick response if it was seen to be spreading.

That way, he said, "if it happens in Thailand or Laos or Cambodia, the rest of the world can go there and help them contain it. Containment is our first strategy."

The conference will hold a plenary session Friday, before breaking into sessions on prevention, response and containment and preparedness and planning for a pandemic.

Officials participating in the session said the United States hoped the conference would produce 10 to 15 key policy priorities for countries to implement -- proposals first unveiled last month at the U.N. General Assembly.

The principles include transparency of quick and accurate reporting of outbreaks, donor support for affected countries and a pledge to work with the World Health Organization.

One senior U.S. State Department official said the goal of the conference was to build "political momentum" for countries to coordinate their efforts to quickly identify and respond to cases in animals or people so the disease does not spread.

The United States also wants to help build capacity of affected countries that may not be equipped to deal with an outbreak.

The Bush administration has seized on the avian flu as a potential threat.

A senior official from the U.S. Agency for International Development said Andrew Natsios, the agency's administrator, had made the virus "the top priority" for allocation of funding and personnel.

President George W. Bush has said aggressive action would be needed to prevent a potentially disastrous U.S. outbreak of the disease.

But his call for Congress to give him the power to use the military in law enforcement roles in the event of a bird flu pandemic has been criticized as akin to introducing martial law. (Full story)

The White House has also called on representatives of the pharmaceutical industry to meet Friday about getting involved in the manufacturing of more flu vaccines.

In his interview with CNN, Leavitt also said the United States needed to do more at home.

"We also need to have surveillance domestically, so if it shows up here we know about it very quickly," he said.

Plenty of antiviral drugs and vaccines needed to be available on short notice, he said, and local communities must be well-versed on how to respond "because a pandemic is something that happens all over the country at the same time."

"This is a unique type of problem that we need to be better prepared for," Leavitt said. "A pandemic is essentially nature's terrorist."

The World Health Organization has confirmed at least 116 cases of the current bird flu virus, including 60 deaths -- with a mortality rate of more than 50 percent.

All but a handful of cases were caused by direct contact with sick birds, suggesting the virus, so far, is unable to move easily among humans.

But health officials have warned that with continued exposure to people, the virus could mutate further and develop that ability.

Officials have expressed fears that the virus is currently acting similarly to the 1918 flu virus, a pandemic that killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people.

Researchers announced Wednesday that they had reconstructed the 1918 strain of flu virus, a major advancement that could speed up preparation for -- and potentially thwart -- a pandemic. (Full story)

"This groundbreaking research helps unlock the mystery of the 1918 flu pandemic and is critically important in our efforts to prepare for pandemic influenza," Dr. Julie Gerberding, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday.

It marks the first time an infectious agent behind a historic pandemic has ever been recreated.

Australia is set to host a meeting of the 21 members of APEC at the end of October, where pandemic and disaster management coordinators will discuss the Asia-Pacific region's response to the threat. (Full story)

CNN's Elise Labott, Deirdre Walsh and Bob Franken contributed to this report

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/10/06/birdflu.wrap/index.html

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Koppel to Anchor Last 'Nightline' in Nov.

Yahoo! News
Koppel to Anchor Last 'Nightline' in Nov.

Ted Koppel will anchor his last edition of "Nightline" on Nov. 22, with the first post-Koppel edition of the ABC newscast airing Nov. 28, the network said Thursday.

Koppel, 65, has anchored the show since its official launch in March 1980. The show grew out of a series of special reports about the Iranian hostage crisis that began the previous November.

Koppel and his "Nightline" executive producer, Tom Bettag, are expected to keep working together on news programs after leaving ABC News.

How the late-night news show will evolve following Koppel's departure remains a mystery less than two months before its debut. ABC has appointed James Goldston, who produced a British show similar to "Nightline," as the broadcast's new executive producer, and it has experimented with a multi-topic format on nights Koppel was off.

The longtime Washington-based show is expected to split time between studios there and New York, according to published reports. Several reports have also suggested Koppel will be replaced by multiple anchors; ABC News has declined to talk about its "Nightline" plans until they are complete.

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Congress seeks to cut food aid for poor

Congress seeks to cut food aid for poor

By LIBBY QUAID
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Under orders to cut agriculture spending by $3 billion, Republicans in Congress propose reducing food programs for the poor by $574 million and conservation programs by $1 billion, The Associated Press has learned.

The proposal by Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., also would cut farmers' payments by 2.5 percent across the board.

Under the plan, payments would be reduced by $1.145 billion over five years. But that is considerably less severe than President Bush had proposed. Bush sought a 5 percent reduction in payments, plus a far-reaching plan for capping payments that would slash billions more dollars from subsidies collected by large farm operations.

The AP obtained a summary of the budget-cutting plan, which is scheduled for a Thursday morning vote in Chambliss' committee.

Congress ordered the $3 billion in cuts in a budget outline passed earlier this year. Leading Republicans indicated they would rather target food stamps and conservation programs than simply make the deep cuts that Bush was seeking, and the administration backed off its plan in April amid fierce opposition from farmers. Cotton and rice growers would bear the brunt of payment limits.

It's not fair for nutrition and conservation programs to shoulder more of the burden, said environmental groups, anti-hunger advocates and taxpayer organizations fighting the cuts.

"Subsidies get $20 billion a year; conservation gets less than $4 billion - to expect farmers who want to help the environment to shoulder as heavy a load as fat-cat cotton producers is terrible policy," said Scott Faber, spokesman for the Washington-based advocacy group Environmental Defense.

Government conservation programs pay farmers to stop farming certain land or to change their practices to help the environment.

Congressional Democrats were also hostile to the cuts.

"It is hard to see this budget balanced on the backs of poor people and struggling family farmers when agribusinesses continue to reap millions without payment caps in place," said Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., a member of the Senate Agriculture appropriations subcommittee.

Another subcommittee member, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, are still pushing for Bush's payment limits.

Faber called the budget cuts "a body blow" to global trade talks being held by the World Trade Organization. Developing nations are insisting that the U.S. and other wealthy nations cut subsidies.

"Developing nations won't open their markets to our farm products unless we're willing to reform our farm subsidies. This sends exactly the wrong signal at exactly the wrong time," Faber said.

The $574 million cut in food stamps would come from restricting access to this benefit for certain families that receive other government assistance. The restriction would shut an estimated 300,000 people out of the program.

The $1.05 billion conservation cuts would curb the number of acres that can be enrolled in the biggest of the programs, the Conservation Reserve Program, and limit spending on two others, the Conservation Security Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

The payment cuts would affect all payments and marketing loan gains for producers of corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton and other subsidized crops. Dairy producers, too, would see a 2.5 percent drop in payments from the Milk Income Loss Contract program, which pays to help producers cope with dips in market prices. The MILC program expired Friday, but supporters are trying to get Congress to renew it.

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