Jury fines defense contractor in Iraq $10M

USA TODAY
Jury fines defense contractor in Iraq $10M
By Laura Parker, USA TODAY

A federal jury on Thursday ordered a U.S. defense contractor accused of war profiteering in Iraq to pay more than $10 million in damages and fines.

In the first civil fraud case brought against a military contractor during the Iraq war, the jury in Alexandria, Va., found that Custer Battles LLC committed fraud in 37 instances in connection with a $9 million contract to help distribute new currency in Iraq.

The jury's decision came at the end of a three-week trial in which a string of witnesses testified that Custer Battles, which has offices in Rhode Island and Virginia, inflated its expenses with fake invoices that were run through a series of shell subsidiaries set up in the Cayman Islands.

Witnesses also detailed how the company boosted profits by overbilling the government for shoddy equipment.

The company denied the charges and said it would appeal.

The case was brought by two former Custer Battles employees, Robert Isakson and William "Pete" Baldwin, under a Civil War-era law that allows individuals to file lawsuits in secret on behalf of the government. Under the law, the cases are sealed while the government determines whether to join in.

The Justice Department declined to participate. Charles Miller, a department spokesman, declined to comment.

"The Bush administration has done nothing to recover this money or to penalize the people who committed the fraud," said Alan Grayson, attorney for Isakson and Baldwin. "All of the work was done by the whistle-blowers. They did nothing to help us."

Even so, under the federal False Claims Act, the government is entitled to about 70% of the award, with Isakson and Baldwin entitled to the rest.

The company's founding partners, Scott Custer, 37, and Michael Battles, 35, had denied the accusations. Custer is a former Army Ranger and Battles is a West Point graduate who ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Republican in Rhode Island in 2002. They have called the lawsuit a private dispute brought by disgruntled former employees.

Robert Rhoad, one of Custer Battles' defense attorneys, said that he was disappointed by the verdict and that his clients will appeal. At the trial, defense attorney David Douglass told the jury that "no false claims were submitted, that no one was defrauded, that Custer Battles performed an admirable and impressive task under unbelievably difficult circumstances."

The case involved only $3 million of the currency contract paid to Custer Battles by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led agency that ran Iraq after Saddam Hussein was ousted.

According to a transcript of the trial, retired brigadier general Hugh Tant, who was in charge of the currency distribution, testified how camps that Custer Battles built in Baghdad, Mosul and Basra to house currency distribution workers were poorly constructed. He said that 34 of 36 trucks the company supplied for the job didn't run.

The jury also heard testimony detailing how Custer Battles took forklifts from Baghdad International Airport, painted over the Iraqi Airlines insignia and then billed the U.S. government for them under the currency exchange contract.

Part of the case involving a separate contract that Custer Battles had to provide security at the airport will be tried separately. No trial date has been set, Rhoad said.

Under the law, the jury was allowed to triple the $3 million at issue. The jury also awarded Baldwin $230,000 in back pay because he had been demoted.



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Dubai firm to 'transfer' US ports

BBC NEWS
Dubai firm to 'transfer' US ports

Dubai Ports World (DPW) is to transfer its US ports business to a "US entity" to end a row over its takeover of P&O.

While DPW has not explicitly said it will sell the subsidiaries responsible for the ports, the White House is suggesting this will be the end result.

Arab-owned DPW made the move as members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate warned they would block the takeover over security concerns.

The White House welcomed DPW's offer saying it should defuse the standoff.

"It does provide a way forward and resolve the matter so we can continue working on other important priorities," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The deal will make DPW a top-three global port operator, with 51 terminals in 30 countries across five continents and an interest in more than 20 US ports.

'Preserve links'

News of the transfer of the six ports to a US entity was broken to the Senate by Senator John Warner, who read out a press release from DPW outlining its plans.

"Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the US operation of P&O Operations North America to a United States entity," the statement said.

Details of how the transfer would be carried out were unclear.

DPW's statement added that the decision was "based on an understanding that DP World will have time to affect the transfer in an orderly fashion and that DP World will not suffer economic loss".

Details awaited

The move was given a cautious welcome as a "promising development" by Senator Charles Schumer, one of the main critics of the deal.

"But the devil's in the details," he added. "Those of us who feel strongly about this issue believe that the US part of the British company should have no connection to the United Arab Emirates or DP World."

Fellow critic, Congressman Peter King added that while he welcomed the offer he and others were waiting to see the details of the proposal saying any firm that took over DPW's US interests "would have to be an American company with no links to DPW".

News of the surprise offer came as the White House played down President Bush's threat to veto any law seeking to block the takeover.

Instead, Mr Bush said he was trying to find a compromise to end the outcry over the deal which both Democrat and Republican lawmakers had warned would make the US more vulnerable to terrorism.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/4791512.stm

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Doctors attack US over Guantanamo

BBC NEWS
Doctors attack US over Guantanamo

More than 250 medical experts have signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The doctors said physicians at the military prison had to respect inmates' right to refuse treatment.

The letter, in the medical journal, the Lancet, said doctors who used restraints and force-feeding should be punished by their professional bodies.

Some 500 terror suspects are being held without trial at Guantanamo Bay.

The US has argued that the Geneva Convention does not apply to prisoners at the camp, who, it says, are enemy combatants who continue to pose a threat to national security.

Human rights groups and the UN have urged the US to close down the facility.

Amnesty International said the "troubling" accusations in the doctors' letter underlined the need for the "independent medical examination of the prisoners.

'Nasal tubes'

The open letter in the Lancet was signed by more than 250 top doctors from seven countries - the UK, the US, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands.

"We urge the US government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the letter said.

The doctors said the World Medical Association - a world body representing physicians, including those in the US - specifically prohibited force-feeding.

Detainees at the camp have said hunger-strikers were strapped into chairs and force-fed through tubes inserted in their noses.

More than 80 inmates are said to have gone on hunger strike in December last year - a figure that has now reportedly dropped to four.

Dr David Nicholl, a UK neurologist who initiated the Lancet letter, told the Reuters news agency the allegations of force-feeding represented "a challenge" to the American Medical Association, which is a signatory to the World Medical Association's code of conduct.

"Are they going to obey those declarations [forbidding force-feeding], or are... [they] literally not worth the paper they are written on?" he asked.

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Forbes reports billionaire boom

NOTE: Of course, this report does not address the other side, the fact that the number of poor has also increased, and more dramatically and in much larger numbers.

BBC NEWS
Forbes reports billionaire boom

A worldwide economic boom has yielded a record number of dollar billionaires in the past year, according to Forbes.

Their number rose by 15% to 793 with India taking the lead in Asia and new Russians lining up to fill the gap left by jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Microsoft's Bill Gates tops the list for the 12th year running at a net worth of $50bn (£29bn).

The combined net worth of the 793 is $2.6 trillion and US billionaires account for just under half the amount.


TOP FIVE BILLIONAIRES
Bill Gates (USA, Microsoft) - $ 50bn
Warren Buffett (USA, investor) - $42bn
Carlos Slim (Mexico, industrialist) - $30bn
Ingvar Kamprad (Sweden, Ikea) - $28bn
Lakshmi Mittal (India, steel) $23.5bn

"A billion just isn't what it used to be," said Luisa Kroll, Forbes magazine's associate editor, revealing the 20th annual list in New York.

But she noted the figures were conservative estimates for different reasons.

A very positive spreadsheet could indicate a desire to sell a business, she told reporters, while somebody about to divorce might seek to downplay their worth.

According to the 2006 list:

* the youngest billionaire is a Lebanese woman, 22-year-old Hind Hariri, who inherited $1.4bn from her assassinated father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri

* India's 23 billionaires have a combined net worth of $99bn, surpassing former Asian leader Japan's 27 billionaires with their total worth of $67bn

* Russia's 33 billionaires now have a combined wealth of $172bn, based largely on oil and gas prices, compared to a total of $68bn for oil-rich Saudi Arabia's 11 billionaires.

'Whiff of inflation'

"Russia continues to astound us," said Ms Kroll, as seven new billionaires were recorded from that country.

Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos chief executive convicted of fraud and tax evasion last year, is now in a Siberian prison which allows its inmates to earn less than a dollar a day.

However, Forbes estimates he "still has somewhere below $500m", said Ms Kroll.

While New York has the highest number of resident billionaires with 40, Moscow is second with 25, and London comes third with 23.

Steve Forbes, Forbes' chief executive and editor-in-chief, attributed the global rise in the number of billionaires to an economic boom.

"The global economy has been growing the last two years at rates not seen since World War II, fuelled by a commodities boom with a whiff of inflation," he said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/4791848.stm

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US panel seeks delay of foreign air ownership bid

Reuters
US panel seeks delay of foreign air ownership bid
By John Crawley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A congressional committee wants a four-month review of the Bush administration's proposal to ease restrictions on foreign investment in U.S. airlines, saying the plan raises potential red flags on security.

The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee approved a non-binding resolution late on Wednesday night that was considered amid the firestorm over the proposal by a Dubai-based company to manage key U.S. ports.

That security-driven controversy abated on Thursday when port management giant Dubai Ports World, owned by the United Arab Emirates, said it would divest U.S. assets included in its $6.85 billion purchase of a British rival.

"The committee believes that the U.S. aviation industry is part of our critical infrastructure as are the ports," according to the measure drafted by Rep. John Culberson, a Texas Republican.

"The committee is seriously concerned about the promulgation of any rule which would allow any minority foreign investor to exercise control or decision making authority over any aspect of a U.S. carrier operation," the resolution said.

There currently is very little foreign investment in U.S. carriers.

Transportation planners proposed last year that foreign investors in U.S. airlines be allowed more influence over operations, including decisions on routes, fleet planning and marketing in return for their capital investments.

Proponents say the change -- which could involve foreign airlines taking an interest in a domestic carrier -- would give struggling U.S. airlines new options to raise money and potentially invigorate travel options for consumers.

The initiative does not change congressionally imposed rules that cap investment to 25 percent voting stock and restrict actual control of U.S. airlines to American citizens. But critics of the rule, including unions, say the proposed change could give foreign investors enough power to veto certain elements of airline operations.

However, the proposal's success is directly tied to final European support for a tentative agreement between the United States and the European Union on removing barriers to more competition on transatlantic routes.

There is no timetable for the Bush administration to finalize the proposal -- although the public comment period recently closed and a decision was expected soon. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said this week he did not want to delay the rule.

In a statement on Thursday, the Transportation Department emphasized that U.S. citizens would still control all decisions on security and safety of airline operations.

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17 Million Adult Entertainment Website Users Have Their Personal Info Released On Internet

wirednews.com
17M Adult Entertainment Website Users Have Their Personal Info Released On Internet...
By Quinn Norton

Seventeen million customers of the online payment service iBill have had their personal information released onto the internet, where it's been bought and sold in a black market made up of fraud artists and spammers, security experts say.

The stolen data, examined by Wired News, includes names, phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses and internet IP addresses. Other fields in the compromised databases appear to be logins and passwords, credit card types and purchase amounts, but credit card numbers are not included.

The breach has broad privacy implications for the victims. Until it was brought low by legal and financial difficulties, iBill was a top credit card processor for adult entertainment websites -- providing billing services for such outlets as DominaBDSM and Top-Nude.com.

The transactions documented in the database are dated between 1998 and 2003, spanning a period at the height of iBill's success.

The company didn't respond to repeated e-mail and telephone inquires by Wired News.

Two caches of stolen iBill customer data were discovered separately by two security companies while conducting routine research into malicious software online.


Southern California-based Secure Science Corporation found the first data file containing records on 17 million individuals on a private website set up by scammers. The site was part of a so-called "phishing" scheme, in which a spamming fraudster poses as a bank or online retailer in an attempt to con consumers out of identification and financial information.

Secure Science found that data in February 2005, and reported it to the FBI's Miami field office, the company says. The FBI declined comment.

Last month, Sunbelt Software found an additional list of slightly over 1 million individual entries labeled Ibill_1m.txt on a spamming website. That list also appeared to date from 2003.

IBill has a troubled history. Founded in 1997 by executives of a Florida-based BBS software developer, by 2002 iBill was a big player in internet billing, processing approximately $400 million in credit card transactions per year, according to SEC filings. The company took 15 percent off the top in fees. Todd Dugas, a former inside sales representative for iBill, estimates that pornography made up 85 percent of the business.

But when Atlanta-based InterCept acquired iBill for $120 million in 2002, it immediately encountered problems. New rules from Visa made it more complicated and costly to process adult website transactions, and "accounts dropped like flies," says Dugas. Meanwhile MasterCard levied $5.85 million in fines against iBill for an unusually high volume of "charge backs" -- consumer-disputed charges -- though InterCept managed to recoup most of the fine from iBill's previous owners.

In September 2004, iBill lost the contract with its upstream credit card processor, First Data, which had grown wary of being associated with adult content. Website operators relying on iBill for payments had to wait months for their checks while First Data held the money in escrow. Roger Jacobs, who followed the story of iBill for adult industry publications AVN and XBiz, described low morale and a hemorrhaging of employees during this period..

Lance James of Secure Science and Adam Thomas of Sunbelt Software speculate that the company's troubles may have left them vulnerable to information embezzlement: The breach, they say, has all the markings of an inside job. The files appear to have been generated by exporting an SQL database into a CSV format -- a procedure that would be unusually extravagant for a quick, furtive hack-attack. Moreover, at 4.5 gigabytes in size, the larger file would have been tough to download unnoticed over iBill's internet connection.

Thomas speculates that an employee or other insider may have simply walked out of iBill with the transaction records to sell on the data black market.

What happened with the records from there is anyone's guess. The 1 million addresses found by Sunbelt Software were being used for spamming. Sunbelt found the database by tracing malware-infected computers as they connected to the internet to refresh their list of spam targets. The target list turned out to be the iBill database, hosted on a rogue website.

Secure Science's James says the 17 million database entries he found is prime data for spamming, phishing attacks, pretext phone calls, and even possible hacking of vulnerable computers at the IP addresses listed.

Independently, Wired News found that entries from the smaller cache are listed as mortgage leads on a spammer community site, specialham.com. (The website's homepage offered no contact information and Wired News was unable to reach the registered owner of the domain, one "Juice Wobble.") This suggests that the database was marketed as a lead list for outside businesses. "I can attest to the fact that this goes on with phishing groups," says James. "They break in and steal leads and then sell those leads to (black market) leads companies, who resell them to legitimate companies, and sometimes the same companies they stole them from."

"The fact that a total of 17,781,462 iBill records have been found in the hands of criminal hackers is quite disturbing, be it an inside job or the successful work of criminal hackers," says Thomas.

Contacted by Wired News, one of the victims of the breach expressed dismay that his information was in the hands of criminals. The 41-year-old San Diego man says he allowed a "business partner" to use his credit card on an adult website dedicated to finding resources in Tijuana's red light district, with discussion groups and locations of prostitutes.

"Life is difficult enough," says the victim. "It makes the net that much less secure in my eyes... I plan to not use any credit card information on any site."

The man says that neither iBill nor the FBI notified him of the breach.

Because the information didn't include Social Security, credit card or driver's license numbers, no U.S. laws require iBill or the companies for which they provided billing to warn victims. A year after the FBI first learned of the larger leak, they have also failed to issue any public warnings.

In January of last year, iBill was purchased by Interactive Brand Development for $23.5 million. On Monday, IBC's stock closed at 8 cents a share in over-the-counter trading.

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If You Lose Music Row, You Lose the South

huffingtonpost.com
Eric Boehlert:
If You Lose Music Row, You Lose the South

News that two of country music's biggest stars undressed president Bush Wednesday for being an incompetent leader and for the government's "humiliating" and "embarrassing" lack of progress in cleaning up the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is a big deal in terms of cultural and political barometers. The outburst doubles as another marker in Bush's slow, public tumble.

Multi-platinum stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw unloaded on Bush when the topic of Katrina came up during a press conference to announce the duo's upcoming tour. "When you have people dying because they're poor and black or poor and white, or because of whatever they are...That erases everything that's great about our country," said McGraw. "There's no reason why someone can't go down there who's supposed to be the leader of the free world and say, 'I'm giving you a job to do and I'm not leaving here until it's done. And you're held accountable, and you're held accountable, and your held accountable."

Hill, reportedly close to tears as she discussed the Katrina mess, labeled the fiasco "Bullshit" and announced "I fear for our country."

The husband-and-wife team (she's from Mississippi, he's from Louisiana) with their movie-star good looks, double as the unofficial king and queen of Nashville, and usually steer clear of politics. (Although there have been rumblings McGraw may run for office in Tennessee as a Democrat one day.)

Unlike the Dixie Chicks who spoke their minds on the eve of the Iraq war about being embarrassed to be from the same state as Bush and were essentially banned from country radio stations drunk on patriotism, my hunch is neither Hill nor McGraw will pay any kind of price for criticizing the president and letting an expletive fly. Defending incompetence does not usually arouse deep passion among radio jocks or music fans.

Worse for Bush, the McGraw-Hill public flogging comes just days after a Elon University poll revealed a clear majority of voters in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida disapprove or strongly disapprove of Bush's performance in office. Two days later came the stunning poll results published in the Indianapolis Star that showed Hoosiers statewide giving Bush just a 37 job approval rating, down 18 points in one year. In 2004, Bush won Indiana, a longtime Republican bastion akin to the Deep South, by 21 points over John Kerry.


Is this what it looks like when the base begins to crumble?

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Gonzales: NSA program doesn't need a law

USA TODAY
Gonzales: NSA program doesn't need a law

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made clear Wednesday that the White House is not seeking congressional action to inscribe the National Security Agency's monitoring into U.S. law, even as members of Congress negotiate with the Bush administration about legislation.

Gonzales maintained the program is legal the way it is.

"There's a general consensus — quite frankly — that this is a needed program" designed to listen to al-Qaeda's communications, Gonzales told the National Association of Attorneys General Wednesday. "The concern I think that people have, which is a natural concern, is that, is this a limited program?"

Gonzales said administration officials have gone a long way in reassuring lawmakers about the NSA's operations. Over four years, he said, the administration has met "with select congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle about the scope of this program — everything that we're doing related to this program."

California Rep. Jane Harman, the House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said Gonzales has personally given her similar assurances. But generally she has "become increasingly skeptical over time about a lot of things I have been hearing." Harman declined to elaborate.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, the former top Democrat on the intelligence panel, has publicly questioned what the congressional leaders don't know. Her spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said Republicans have been unwilling to perform oversight of the administration.

"Since the members were not all briefed at the same time or place, it's not possible to know whether the same information was given to each," Crider said.

Aides to West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, noted that he visited the NSA all day Friday — with 450 questions he wanted answered. He's complained about the briefings he received before that session, saying they consisted of intelligence officials rushing through flip-charts.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., remains the most skeptical Republican in Congress. He's said he intends to call Gonzales up to his committee for a second appearance to testify about other classified intelligence programs that the attorney general hinted at in a recent letter.

Specter also had been pressing for a hearing with former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his deputy, but has abandoned that request.

Among other issues, lawmakers wanted to know about a 2004 dustup over the surveillance between the White House and Justice officials, including Deputy Attorney General James Comey. It reportedly got so serious that White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and then-White House counsel Gonzales visited Ashcroft in the hospital to discuss the concerns of his deputies.

Specter hinted that the administration opposed the testimony of Ashcroft and Comey.

"I've talked to both of those individuals and understandably they would require administration consent. I do not believe that we would be successful, were they to testify, to find what happened in the reported conversations in the hospital," Specter said.

Specter was also critical of a terrorist surveillance bill — soon to be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and other moderate lawmakers — that would allow the government to monitor the international calls of U.S. residents for 45 days without a warrant. The White House has called that approach a "generally sound measure."

Specter is planning to offer his own proposal that would require a federal intelligence court to vouch for the program's constitutionality every 45 days.

Democrats are calling for more oversight and may not embrace either approach.

"So little is known about this illegal program that it's akin to legislating in the dark," said Tracy Schmaler, Democratic spokeswoman for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Also Wednesday, in response to a judge's order, the Bush administration released a fraction of the documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the National Security Archive. The administration asked for four additional months to process additional classified materials.

The release included e-mail exchanges between Justice officials about the program's legal justification. One official said the department's arguments had "a slightly after-the-fact quality or feeling to them," according to the privacy center.

In a statement, the center's general counsel, David Sobel, said the administration's actions show a continuing resistance to public scrutiny on the NSA program.


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Bush Orders DHS to Create Center for Faith-Based Aid

washingtonpost.com
Bush Orders DHS to Create Center for Faith-Based Aid
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security yesterday to create a center for faith-based and community initiatives within 45 days to eliminate regulatory, contracting and programmatic barriers to providing federal funds to religious groups to deliver social services, the White House announced last night.

Pressed both by churches that have not received privately raised Hurricane Katrina relief funds as promised and by the outpouring of help of religious groups to Gulf Coast storm victims, Bush also called on the department by September "to identify all existing barriers . . . that unlawfully discriminate against, or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation" of such groups in federal programs.

In signing an executive order, Bush asked the department to develop pilot programs, conduct outreach and provide technical assistance to the groups in concert with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

The departments of Justice, Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services have similar centers.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the move complements a recent White House "lessons learned" report about integrating such groups in disaster response and "also notes the extraordinary support by the faith-based community" after Katrina.

Federal funding is controversial among such groups. Some organizations, such as Catholic Charities, accept such funds, while others, such as the Rev. Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing, have said in the past that they would not accept it.

Along the Gulf Coast, particularly in Mississippi, religious groups have provided extraordinary help, local officials say, but also contributed to waste and duplication of effort when they failed to coordinate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and local and county governments.

Congress has appropriated $67.9 billion for emergency supplemental hurricane relief, among other assistance, a portion of which is reserved for FEMA. Generally, the agency is restricted by law from engaging with religious organizations for disaster operations.

FEMA has announced, however, that it will reimburse religious organizations for feeding and sheltering storm victims. It has also contracted with the United Methodist Committee on Relief, an arm of the United Methodist Church, for $60 million to provide case management for the neediest storm victims.

Last week, a coalition of clergy members enlisted to help distribute $20 million raised by the relief fund set up by Bush's father, former president George H.W. Bush, and former president Bill Clinton, complained that churches had seen none of the money yet.

Staff writers Jacqueline L. Salmon in Washington and Michael A. Fletcher in Crawford, Tex., contributed to this report.

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Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff, Joked With Him About About Weightlifting

ABC News
Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff, Joked With Him About About Weightlifting
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well enough to joke with him about weightlifting. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him. The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff.

Abramoff said he finds it hard to believe Bush doesn't remember the 10 or so photos he and members of his family had snapped with the president and first lady.

"He (Bush) has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, according to Vanity Fair's April issue being released this week. "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows?"

Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and a former partner, Adam Kidan, concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into a multimillion-dollar purchase of SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in 2000. Abramoff also has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a probe into his ties with members of Congress and the Bush administration.

"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Bush said of Abramoff on Jan. 26. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people."

"I frankly don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy," Bush added. "I don't know him."

A few days later, Abramoff wrote to Washingtonian magazine that he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family.

Abramoff told Vanity Fair that he once was invited to Bush's Texas ranch where he would have joined with other big Bush fundraisers. Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, said he didn't go because the event fell on the Sabbath.

The lobbyist said that when Bush made a speech to fundraisers in 2003, he sat just a few feet from the president. Abramoff, the only lobbyist on the dais, was seated between Republican Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Three former associates of Abramoff have told The Associated Press the lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through its deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove.

Asked about the former Abramoff associates' accounts, the White House said Rove and Abramoff were leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

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

According to Vanity Fair, Rove's relationship with Abramoff was deeper.

After Bush took office, Susan Ralston, Abramoff's administration assistant, assumed the same post with Rove at the White House, where Abramoff met with Rove at least once, the magazine said.

Rove dined several times at Abramoff's former restaurant in Washington, Signatures, and was Abramoff's guest in the owner's box of the NCAA basketball playoffs a few years ago, sitting for much of the game at Abramoff's side, Vanity Fair reported.

The White House has not released any photos that Bush took with Abramoff, but acknowledged the authenticity of one that has been made public. In the 2001 photo, Bush is seen shaking hands with the leader of an Indian tribe that was an Abramoff client. The lobbyist is in the background.

Abramoff said he thought about, but decided against, selling his photos with the Bushes for money. Publications were making Abramoff offers that rose to the low seven figures, Vanity Fair reports.

He blames the Bush administration for the media attention.

"My so-called relationship with Bush, Rove and everyone else at the White House has only become important because instead of just releasing details about the very few times I was there, they created a feeding frenzy by their deafening silence," Abramoff told the magazine.

"The Democrats, on the other hand, are going overboard, virtually insisting I was there to plan the invasion of Iraq."

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Carter Blasts Iraq an 'Unnecessary War' as Anniversary Nears, Urges Troop Withdrawal

ABC News
Carter Urges Troop Withdrawal From Iraq
Carter Blasts Iraq an 'Unnecessary War' as Anniversary Nears, Urges Troop Withdrawal
By GENE JOHNSON
The Associated Press

SEATTLE - Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the war in Iraq on Wednesday, urging a troop drawdown as the United States enters its fourth year of conflict in Iraq.

"It was a completely unnecessary war. It was an unjust war," said Carter, the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner. "It was initiated on the basis of false pretenses. All of those are true, but we can't just pre-emptively withdraw."

He urged the Bush administration to bring home as many troops as possible within the next 12 months.

"The violence is increasing monthly," Carter said. "My prayer is we'll see some kind of democracy eventually evolve."

His comments came at a news conference before a building dedication at the University of Washington.

Carter was the keynote speaker at the dedication of the university's new Genome Sciences and Bioengineering Building in honor of William H. Foege. Foege directed the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during Carter's presidency and later headed The Carter Center, which promotes peace and health programs around the world.

Carter credited Foege with saving the lives of millions of people through his efforts to eradicate smallpox, Guinea worm and river blindness, and by encouraging childhood immunization.

Foege works with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which contributed $50 million for the building.

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Abramoff Says Top Republicans Were Allies

The New York Times
Abramoff Says Top Republicans Were Allies
By REUTERS

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) — Jack Abramoff says in the latest issue of the magazine Vanity Fair that he worked closely with many top Republicans, despite their claims to the contrary.

"Any important Republican who comes out and says they didn't know me is almost certainly lying," Mr. Abramoff said in an article in the magazine's April edition, which was released to reporters on Wednesday.

Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January and is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption inquiry.

In the article, Mr. Abramoff complained that many of those who used to work closely with him now claim that they never knew him.

"You're really no one in this town until you haven't met me," he said.

E-mail messages and other subpoenaed records will eventually prove that he worked closely with them, he said.

The magazine features photographs of Mr. Abramoff with Representative Tom DeLay, former Representative Newt Gingrich and President Ronald Reagan.

Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, dined at Mr. Abramoff's house and forced a Democratic appointee out of the State Department for him, the article said.

Tracey Schmitt, a committee spokeswoman, said, "Jack Abramoff is someone that the chairman has known in various capacities during his time in Washington."

Mr. Abramoff said that he did not spend much time lobbying Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, because he knew that the congressman would support his issues, but that they talked about other subjects.

"We would sit and talk about the Bible," he said. "We would sit and talk about opera."

Mr. Abramoffalso said Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, was especially cooperative, adding, "Every appropriation we wanted, we got. "

Spokesmen for Mr. Burns and Mr. DeLay were not immediately available for comment.

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Justice Dept. Report Cites F.B.I. Violations

The New York Times
Justice Dept. Report Cites F.B.I. Violations
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, March 8 — The Federal Bureau of Investigation found apparent violations of its own wiretapping and other intelligence-gathering procedures more than 100 times in the last two years, and problems appear to have grown more frequent in some crucial respects, a Justice Department report released Wednesday said.

While some of these instances were considered technical glitches, the report, from the department's inspector general, characterized others as "significant," including wiretaps that were much broader in scope than approved by a court and others that were allowed to continue for weeks or sometimes months longer than was authorized.

In one instance, the F.B.I. received the full content of 181 telephone calls as part of an intelligence investigation, instead of merely the billing and toll records as authorized, the report found. In a handful of cases, it said, the bureau conducted physical searches that had not been properly authorized.

The inspector general's findings come at a time of fierce Congressional debate over the program of wiretapping without warrants that the National Security Agency has conducted. That program, approved by President Bush, is separate from the F.B.I. wiretaps reviewed in the report, and the inspector general's office concluded that it did not have the jurisdiction to review the legality or operations of the N.S.A. effort.

But, the report disclosed, the Justice Department has opened reviews into two other controversial counterterrorism tactics that the department has widely employed since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In one, the inspector general has begun looking into the F.B.I.'s use of administrative subpoenas, known as national security letters, to demand records and documents without warrants in terror investigations. Some critics maintain that the bureau has abused its subpoena powers to demand records in thousands of cases.

In the other, the Office of Professional Responsibility, a Justice Department unit that reviews ethics charges against department lawyers, has opened inquiries related to the detention of 21 people held as material witnesses in terror investigations.

As with the F.B.I.'s use of administrative subpoenas, civil rights advocates assert that the Justice Department has abused the material witness statute by holding suspects whom it may not have enough evidence to charge. The new ethics inquiries are reviewing accusations that department officials did not take some material witnesses to court within the required time, failed to tell them the basis for the arrest or held them without any attempt to obtain their testimony as supposed witnesses in terror investigations, the inspector general said Wednesday.

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, characterized the report as "yet another vindication for those of us who have raised concerns about the administration's policies in the war on terror."

Mr. Conyers said that "despite the Bush administration's attempt to demonize critics of its antiterrorism policies as advancing phantom or trivial concerns, the report demonstrates that the independent Office of Inspector General has found that many of these policies indeed warrant full investigations."

For its part, the F.B.I. said in a statement that it had been quick to correct errors in intelligence-gathering procedures when they were discovered and that "there have been no examples by the F.B.I. of willful disregard for the law or of court orders."

The inspector general's review grew out of documents, dealing with intelligence violations, that were released last year under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a private group in Washington. The inspector general then obtained more documents on violations and included an 11-page analysis of the problem as part of a broader report Wednesday on counterterrorism measures.

The inspector general reviewed 108 instances in which the F.B.I. reported violations to an oversight board in the 2004 and 2005 fiscal years.

"We're always looking to bring the number of violations down," John Miller, chief spokesman for the bureau, said in an interview, "but given the scope and complexity of national security investigations, that's a relatively small number."

The inspector general's review found that reported violations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs some federal wiretaps, accounted for a growing share of the total, having risen to 69 percent last year from 48 percent in 2004.

The duration of the violations also grew in some crucial areas, the review found. Two of those areas were the "overcollection" of intelligence — going beyond the scope approved by the court in authorizing a wiretap — and "overruns," in which a wiretap or other intelligence-gathering method was allowed to continue beyond the approved time period without an extension.

The review found that the average amount of time that overcollections and overruns were allowed before they were discovered and corrected rose to 32 days last year from 22 in 2004. In most cases, the F.B.I. was found to be at fault, while about a quarter of the time a "third party," usually a telecommunications company, was to blame, the data showed.

In taking issue with some of the findings, F.B.I. officials said the data were skewed by a number of exceptionally long violations; one wiretap lasted 373 days.

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Vermont towns endorse move to impeach Bush

Vermont towns endorse move to impeach Bush
DAVID GRAM
Associated Press

NEWFANE, Vt. - In five Vermont communities, a centuries-old tradition of residents gathering in town halls to conduct local business became a vehicle to send a message to Washington: Impeach the president.

An impeachment article, approved by a paper ballot 121-29 in Newfane Tuesday, calls on Vermont's lone member of the U.S. House, independent Rep. Bernie Sanders, to file articles of impeachment against President Bush, alleging he misled the nation into the Iraq war and engaged in illegal domestic spying.

"It absolutely affects us locally," said Newfane select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.

At least four other Vermont towns, spurred by publicity about Newfane's resolution, endorsed similar resolutions during Tuesday's meetings: Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney.

In Newfane, the impeachment item came at the end of a roughly four-hour meeting that was devoted mostly to the local affairs of the town of 1,600 located in southeastern Vermont. Among the other items discussed was whether the town should fix some of its 100-year-old sidewalks.

The impeachment discussion took up more than half an hour, reflecting the intense interest in the topic and something of a division over whether the town meeting was the appropriate place to debate it.

"As a teacher I can't say to my kids that what happens on the national level doesn't affect us at the local level," Ann Landenberger told the Newfane meeting. "Would that we could all be in a cocoon, but that is not the case."

Greg Record, a local justice of the peace, criticized the amount of time and attention such advisory votes get.

"We spend more time on these things than on a million dollar budget item," said Record, who said the town is made up of people from the "far left."

Lenore Salzbrun defended Bush, saying she had close friends who died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"I am so grateful that our president didn't just put his head in the sand ... and did go out and fight," she said.

"How many attacks have we had on the U.S. since September 11?" asked another resident, Carlton Brown. "Maybe some of the terrorists around the world are sitting up and taking notice that we're not going to be patsies."

The Bush vote is not the first time Newfane has used its town meeting forum to take a state or national stand. Last year, for example, the town went on record against the Iraq war.

Sanders issued a statement after the Newfane vote saying that although the Bush administration "has been a disaster for our country, and a number of actions that he has taken may very well not have been legal," given the reality that the Republicans control the House and the Senate, "it would be impractical to talk about impeachment."

Jim Barnett, chairman of the Vermont Republican Party, said Sanders should reject the resolution: "We should not be impeaching presidents just because we disagree with them."

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Zogby poll: Majority supports impeaching Bush for wiretapping

Zogby poll: Majority supports impeaching Bush for wiretapping

WASHINGTON, D.C. — By a margin of 52 to 43 percent, citizens want Congress to impeach President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of Pres. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International.

The poll found that 52 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: "If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

Of those contacted, 43 percent disagreed, and 6 percent said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percent.

"The American people are not buying Bush's outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Americans believe terrorism can be fought without turning our own government into Big Brother," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik in a statement.

Responses to the Zogby poll varied by political party affiliation: 76 percent of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 50 percent of independents and 29 percent of Republicans.

Responses also varied by age, sex, race, and religion. 70 percent of those 18-29 favored impeachment, 51 percent of those 31-49, 50 percent of those 50-64, and 42 percent of those older than 65. Among women, 56 percent favored impeachment, compared to 49 percent of men. Among African Americans, 90 percent favored impeachment, compared to 67 percent of Hispanics, and 46 percent of whites.

The new Zogby poll shows a major shift in support for Bush's impeachment since June 2005. In a Zogby poll conducted June 27-29, 2005 of 905 likely voters, 42 percent agreed and 50 percent disagreed with the identical statement asked about in this recent polling.

(1/16/2006)
- Vermont Guardian

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Bird flu could hit Americas within a year

Reuters
Bird flu could hit Americas within a year: UN
By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Bird flu, already spreading across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is expected to jump across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas within a year, a senior U.N. official said on Wednesday.

"It is certainly within the next six to 12 months. And who knows, we've been wrong on other things, it could be earlier," said Dr. David Nabarro, coordinator of the U.N. drive to contain the pandemic in birds and prepare for its possible jump to humans.

He predicted the leap across the Atlantic Ocean would take place in two stages, carried in the next few months by wild birds flying from West Africa to the Arctic region, and then brought southward to North and South America six months later.

"I just think that every country in the world now needs to have its veterinary services on high alert for H5N1, to try to make sure that they don't get caught unawares and find that it gets into their poultry populations without knowing," Nabarro told a news conference at U.N. headquarters.

"And I will bet you that many countries in the Western Hemisphere are doing just that," he added.

The H5N1 bird flu virus has led to the deaths of millions of birds in more than 30 countries. It has spread to over a dozen new countries in the past month and infected 175 people since 2003, killing 96 of them.

Although it remains an avian disease, and rarely affects humans, health officials fear it will mutate into a form that can easily jump from human to human, triggering a pandemic in which millions of people might die.

For the immediate future, the spread of the disease among birds in Africa is the main focus of the U.N. team -- which includes the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health, Nabarro said.

The disease has been confirmed in Niger and Nigeria but there have been bird die-offs in other African nations and confirmation of its further spread is expected soon, he said.

To spur preparedness, representatives of more than 40 sub-Saharan African countries will be meeting in the Gabonese capital Libreville later this month, he said.

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US records serious rights abuses in Iraq

Reuters
US records serious rights abuses in Iraq
By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three years after U.S. forces invaded Iraq in part to stop human rights violations a U.S. report said on Wednesday that the country was again racked by abuses from arbitrary killings and arrests to torture.

In its annual report detailing human rights abuses worldwide, the State Department said in 2005 reports increased of killings by the Iraqi government or its agents and members of sectarian militias dominated many police units.

The report did not list any abuses committed by the United States, which has come under strong international criticism for its treatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and at a U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"A climate of extreme violence in which people were killed for political and other reasons continued (in Iraq)," the report said. "Police abuses included threats, intimidation, beatings, and suspension by the arms or legs, as well as the reported use of electric drills and cords and the application of electric shocks."

In Iraq on Wednesday, the bodies of 18 men -- bound, blindfolded and strangled -- were found in a Sunni Arab district of Baghdad, apparent victims of the sectarian turmoil gripping Iraq.

The global report also listed abuses among both allies and traditional foes, from close friends Saudi Arabia and Egypt to adversaries Iran, Syria and Zimbabwe.

Governments targeted in the report frequently point to abuses by the United States and lambaste the report as hypocritical, a criticism Washington brushes aside.

"We are not saying we ourselves are perfect. When we find something wrong in our own rights record, we try to fix it. But usually those who charge us with hypocrisy are putting up a smokescreen and trying to ignore the facts in the report," said a State Department official, who asked not to be named.

ABUSE IN IRAQ

In Iraq, where more than 130,000 U.S. forces are trying to quell sectarian violence, the report said the worst abuse was carried out by police but the military was also a violator.

President George W. Bush cites abuses by ousted President Saddam Hussein and a desire to establish democracy to justify the 2003 invasion, ordered originally to confront a threat from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.

On July 12 last year, nine Sunni men suffocated after police locked them up for several hours in a vehicle with no air conditioning. No one was punished for the incident and officials denied intentional wrongdoing.

Some detainees in Iraqi military custody alleged abuse that included hanging inmates upside down until they lost consciousness, beating with wooden and plastic sticks, weapons and electric cords, and use of electric shocks and stun guns.

The report said "unsettled conditions" in Iraq and insurgent and terrorist attacks hampered the government's human rights performance.

The world's "most systematic" human rights violators included North Korea and Burma where the report said the promise of democratic reform served as a "facade for brutality and repression".

Iran, which the United States accuses of building a nuclear weapon, was also accused of serious abuses such as summary executions and the use of torture.

In Africa, Zimbabwe maintained a "steady assault on human dignity" and basic freedoms and the government there displaced or destroyed the livelihoods of more than 700,000 people last year.

China's human rights record was also poor with anyone who publicly challenged the government facing harassment, detention or imprisonment, the report said.

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Criminal Records, Bogus Licenses Among Truckers at Key U.S. Port; Thousands of Port Truckers Go Unscreened, Yet Many Have Criminal Records

ABC News
Criminal Records, Bogus Licenses Among Truckers at Key U.S. Port
Thousands of Port Truckers Go Unscreened, Yet Many Have Criminal Records
By PIERRE THOMAS

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2006 — - In Washington today, House Republicans vowed to defy President Bush's effort to have a Dubai company take over six major U.S. ports. But ABC News has learned about a port threat from within -- a major security breach at the ports of New York and New Jersey.

The two ports handle millions of tons of cargo, with scores of cruise ships passing through each year. Truckers who transport much of the cargo are issued ID cards, which give them access to all areas of the port.

ABC News has learned that the cards, given to thousands of truckers by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were issued with virtually no background checks. The Department of Homeland Security recently investigated the New York and New Jersey ports, and found stunning gaps in security.

The new DHS report, obtained by ABC News, shows that of the 9,000 truckers checked, nearly half had evidence of criminal records. More than 500 held bogus driver's licenses, leaving officials unsure of their real identities.

"We have no idea who's in the ports. And many of the folks who come in to service the ports, that drive the trucks back and forth, are people who don't have very distinguished backgrounds. May have criminal backgrounds," said Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank.

The intelligence report found truck drivers had been convicted of homicide, assault, weapons charges, sex offenses, arson, drug dealing, identity theft and cargo theft.

According to the report, a review of incident logs involving truck drivers at the Newark Seaport in late 2005 revealed one who was identified as an MS-13 gang member. MS-13 has been described as one of the most dangerous gangs in the United States. The logs also highlighted an incident involving "four cabs without containers [which] exited the terminal without stopping at the red light and ignored verbal commands to stop."

Truckers Involved in Drugs and Money Laundering

The report also says 33 ID cardholders were identified in narcotics-related offenses, including people arrested for the possession of cocaine and heroin. Others were involved in drug smuggling. In one incident, according to the report, authorities found 13 pounds of cocaine concealed under a truck's sleeper cab.

Money laundering and counterfeiting pose other security problems, the report points out. Authorities once seized almost half a million dollars, which was concealed inside a truck's rocker panels.

The report concludes port "security gaps" expose "vulnerabilities that could be capitalized by terrorist organizations." It also found similar problems at other major U.S. ports.

"It has to be a wake-up call," said Rep. Peter King, R- NY. "I strongly believe that, from any number of levels, the ports are our greatest vulnerability."

Security analysts say terrorists working with truck drivers could plant a bomb aboard a cruise ship and detonate it once it's at sea, or they could pack a 40-foot cargo container full of explosives and blow up part of a port.

"If a bomb went off in a sea port," said Flynn, "we would likely see a closing of the sea ports, bringing the global trade system to a halt and potentially putting our economy into a recession."

Homeland security officials tell ABC News they are trying to improve port security and have recently tested a national program that will vet truckers before they are issued identification cards.

ABC News' Pierre Thomas filed this report for "World News Tonight."

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Congress hears of cruise ship disappearances

Reuters
Congress hears of cruise ship disappearances

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Twenty-four people disappeared from cruise ships between 2003 and 2005 and 178 passengers reported being sexually assaulted, a congressional panel heard on Tuesday.

Among those who disappeared were an elderly Vietnamese-American couple who fled their native land as "boat people" in 1975.

Hue Pham, 71 and his wife, Hue Tran, 67, fled Vietnam 30 years ago with five other family members, spending two weeks floating in the Pacific with little food or water, their son, Son Michael Pham told a House of Representatives subcommittee.

They eventually reached the United States and built a successful life. Last May, they disappeared during a Caribbean cruise. Pham said the crew waited over four hours after being alerted to the disappearances before notifying the U.S. Coast Guard and it took several more hours to mount a search, which found no trace of the couple.

"Two American citizens with no personal or financial problems, no serious health problems, living the happiest time of their lives, both vanished without a trace or witness," Pham told the subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations.

Of the disappearances, 12 were deemed suicides, one an accidental fall overboard and the others were deemed "missing for unknown reasons," said Lawrence Kaye, a lawyer representing major cruise lines.

Almost half of the 178 reported sexual assaults were allegedly committed by other passengers, according to figures released by the International Council of Cruise Lines.

With over 31 million people taking cruises in the three years under review, only four robberies were reported, the council said. However Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich said he suspected the figures understated the true situation and that not all crimes were being reported.

Several other witnesses told the subcommittee of tragedies on cruises. Lynsey O'Brien, a 15 year-old girl, was served at least 10 alcoholic drinks at a cruise ship bar and fell overboard while leaning over a balcony to vomit.

Janet Kelly, a 49-year-old married woman, said she was drugged by a bartender and raped.

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Groups counterattack strict S.Dakota abortion law

Reuters
Groups counterattack strict S.Dakota abortion law

PIERRE, South Dakota (Reuters) - Abortion rights supporters on Tuesday responded to South Dakota's strict new abortion law by organizing protests, raising money and debating whether to use legal action or a statewide vote to try to strike down the law.

The actions came a day after South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds signed what is considered the most restrictive abortion law in the nation. Backers of the measure, which outlaws abortions in virtually any circumstance, say it was designed as a vehicle to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a woman's right to an abortion.

Rounds said he expects the law to be mired in litigation for years. A Planned Parenthood official confirmed litigation was an option but said abortion rights supporters might try to kill the law quickly through a statewide referendum this fall.

"We haven't decided yet. We're trying to sort out our strategy," said Sarah Stoesz, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood operations in South Dakota, Minnesota and North Dakota. "Clearly the people are very unhappy about this law."

Stoesz said a statewide referendum would require "millions and millions of dollars" but she was optimistic the law would be rejected if put to a vote.

"All signs are certainly that we would win this," she said. "If the anti-choicers believed that they would win this they would have put this on the ballot as a constitutional amendment."

Abortion rights supporters are planning a "day of solidarity" on Thursday with supporters encouraged to rally at federal courtrooms across the nation, Stoesz said. An Internet fund-raising campaign also is under way.

Rounds held a press conference on Tuesday to reiterate his support of the law and his desire that it help lead to a ban on abortions across the United States.

"It is appropriate to do everything we can to save life, particularly the life of an unborn child," Rounds said.

The South Dakota law bans virtually all abortions at all stages of a pregnancy, even if it is the result of rape or incest. The law creates a narrow exemption in cases in which a physician's effort to save a pregnant woman's life results in the accidental death or injury of her fetus but says a physician must make "reasonable medical effort" to save the life of the fetus as well as the woman.

In anticipation of legal challenges, which are a necessity if the law is to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, the state has set up a fund to help defend the measure. Several donations already have been received, although in limited amounts, Rounds said. An anonymous donor has reportedly pledged $1 million toward the defense effort.

Abortion rights supporters said they were far short of the kind of funding they would need to overturn the law but hoped to change that.

In a separate action spurred at least in part by the South Dakota law, the NARAL Pro-Choice America abortion rights group has launched an ad campaign calling for federal and state lawmakers to work to prevent unwanted pregnancies instead of focusing on curtailing women's' rights.

NARAL is seeking support for improved access to birth control, sex education initiatives and increased support for family planning services.

Other states also are moving to pass sweeping anti-abortion laws including Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama, Indiana, and Ohio.

The moves come amid a shifting makeup in the Supreme Court. President George W. Bush, an avowed abortion opponent, is expected to get to name at least one more justice during his term, and abortion opponents hope that when combined with his other recent appointments, a new justice would swing the court majority to favor conservative views.

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