Voices: Small-Govt. Conservative Rues Bush Years

ABC News
Voices: Small-Govt. Conservative Rues Bush Years
Grover Norquist Says His Drive to Cut the Size of Government Was Going Well -- Until Bush and the GOP Took Over

June 11, 2006 — - ABC News' George Will goes one-on-one with Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, on the Republican party's stance on spending and taxes.

George Will: Your aim was to cut in half the size of government relative to the size of the economy. That's not going so well.

Grover Norquist: We were doing very well from 1994 up until 2000.

Will: Until Republicans took the White House back?

Norquist: Yes, actually. And I think there are a couple of challenges. One, when you have a Republican House, Senate and president, they think that the other guys are keeping an eye on things. At least when Clinton was in the White House, the Republicans would not let Clinton have his spending, Clinton would not let the Republicans have their favorite spending, and you had a Mexican standoff where people kept an eye on each other. They are not policing spending as they need to in D.C.

Will: Under this administration, the last six years, the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has doubled. Why have lobbyists sprouted like dandelions under a conservative regime in Washington?

Norquist: Because spending has gone up too much. If you put a cake, a birthday cake under the sink, you will get cockroaches. Okay? And there's no point in saying, "Well, we'll build walls against the cockroaches," or, "We'll make the cockroaches fill out paperwork and tell us what they're doing." Okay? Remove the cake from under the sink.

Will: You're not calling lobbyists cockroaches.

Norquist: No. I'm drawing an analogy here.

Will: You have called the conservative movement the "leave us alone coalition" of people who want the government to go away. But there's this enormous social conservative group that wants to change the laws on marriage, and on abortion, and prayer in schools, and display of religious symbols. That doesn't sound like leaving people alone. Is this a fundamental incompatibility in the movement?

Norquist: No. But people do look at the traditional values wing of the party, or part of the party, and say, "They must be wanting to impose their values on the rest of society. They must be like the environmentalists that want to make everybody separate the green glass from the brown glass on Thursdays, or make your toilets too small to flush, or make your cars too small to have people in." Actually, if you look at the voting patterns of the traditional values conservatives Republicans, what they want -- it's a parents-rights movement -- they want to practice their faith, they want to raise their kids. If you ask them, do they think other people should do X, Y or Z, they do. Do they vote on that issue when they vote for candidates? Actually, they don't.

Will: Looking ahead to 2008, [it's] probably fair to say the frontrunner for the Republican nomination is John McCain, who you have accused of Caesarism in his approach to leadership, and [you] have called him "completely unstable."

Norquist: What McCain has done is flip-flopped on the gun issue, on the tax issue. He used to be a Reagan Republican on taxes. He's voted against every one of President Bush's tax cuts. He voted for the first one before he voted against it, but he's voted against all of them.

He's flip-flopped back and forth not because of where the American people are, but because of where the cameras are. And the challenge there, as an elected official who is -- the phototropism of going to the cameras is very damaging, from a conservative perspective, because that's unlikely to lead to conservative governance.

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The Deaths at Gitmo

The New York Times
The Deaths at Gitmo

The news that three inmates at Guantánamo Bay hanged themselves should not have surprised anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the twisted history of the camp that President Bush built for selected prisoners from Afghanistan and antiterrorist operations. It was the inevitable result of creating a netherworld of despair beyond the laws of civilized nations, where men were to be held without any hope of decent treatment, impartial justice or, in so many cases, even eventual release.

It is a place where secret tribunals sat in judgment of men whose identities they barely knew and who were not permitted to see the evidence against them. Inmates were abused, humiliated, tormented and sometimes tortured. Some surely are very dangerous men, committed to a life of terrorism and deserving of harsh justice. But only 10 of the roughly 465 men at the camp have been charged with crimes. The others, according to senior officers who served there, were foot soldiers of the Taliban or men who just happened to live in a country invaded by the United States after the 9/11 attacks.

Inmates at Guantánamo Bay have tried seeking help from the American courts, and one case has reached the Supreme Court. But most of these appeals were thwarted by claims of national security. Any new appeals will fall under a shocking new law that deprives the inmates of the centuries-old right to challenge their imprisonment. Government lawyers have even tried to use that law retroactively, to dismiss all pending appeals.

Guantánamo Bay and other American detention centers have sparked outrage around the world — deeply harming America's image as the defender of humanity against just these sorts of abuses. Last month a United Nations panel called for the prisons to be shut down. But the administration's response to all of this has been defiance.

When dozens of inmates went on hunger strikes last year, the authorities strapped them into metal "restraint chairs" and ordered doctors to force-feed them. Military officials said they did this only to inmates on the brink of death, but The Times has reported that the restraint chair was used on all hunger strikers, regardless of their condition.

Medical groups were overwhelmingly appalled by this practice, but the Pentagon issued new rules this month reaffirming that military doctors can be ordered to force-feed prisoners. The only role for psychiatrists at Gitmo seems to be to help prepare prisoners for interrogation.

So it was not surprising in the least when inmates attempted suicide. Twenty-three tried to kill themselves over eight days in August 2003, but the military covered it up for 18 months. Now, three inmates have succeeded. Camp officials say one was a mid- or high-level Qaeda operative. One was captured in Afghanistan (doing what, we're not sure), and the other was from something the camp commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., called a splinter group.

Admiral Harris's response was as appalling as the suicides. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us," he said. The inmates, he said, "have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own."

These comments reveal a profound disassociation from humanity. They say more about why Guantánamo Bay should be closed than any United Nations report ever could.

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A Time and a Place

The New York Times
A Time and a Place
By KAREN SPEARS ZACHARIAS
Hermiston, Ore.

THE woman sitting across from me at a Chili's restaurant in Jacksonville, Fla., did not look old enough to be a widow. Twenty-seven years old, she had the just-cut bangs of a schoolgirl, a tattoo on her forearm and a trendy round purse at her side. How, she asked, would she tell her daughter, still a toddler, that her father had died in Iraq?

For the last few months, she told me, she has been replaying the moments of her husband's life, and his death. Antiwar protesters turned out at the funeral, the woman said. They lined the streets across from the service. Some carried signs and others shouted as her husband's flag-draped coffin was carried past.

The strange thing is that her husband, like many servicemen and women answering their country's call, did not support the Iraq war. That soldiers serve, and too often die, on the battlefield is a testament to their professionalism and character — virtues apparently lacking in the hundreds of antiwar protesters who appear at military hospitals and funerals, and at services like the one I attended at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington on Memorial Day.

During that ceremony, I looked up from my folding chair and saw a man on the sidewalk above the memorial wall's Panel 9 East, on which my father's name is etched. The man carried a sign calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and he was engaged in a debate with a couple of Vietnam veterans. Their bickering distracted me from the ceremony I had traveled 2,800 miles to attend. So I walked up to where they stood.

To the sign-holder, I said, I respect your right to protest; I even applaud your position on this war. But this is not the place. Not one of the people named on the wall voted to go to war.

The man lifted his sign higher and said he was a veteran who had lost many friends to the war. You're not respecting my feelings, he argued.

I turned and asked the other veterans present not to debate him. They nodded, expressed sympathy for my family's loss and walked away. The protester lowered his sign but stood his ground throughout the ceremony.

Earlier that day, spurred by noisy demonstrations by a group that claims the deaths in Iraq are God's punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality, President Bush signed into law a ban on protests near national cemeteries during funerals. Violators face a fine of up to a $100,000 and as much as a year in prison.

But this law and others like it passed by states do not solve the whole problem; they do not keep protestors away from military hospitals or sites like the Vietnam memorial.

As a daughter of the fallen and a friend to families of today's casualties, I implore antiwar protesters to show some respect. March to the steps of Congress and the White House. Shout your protests at the president who drummed up this war. But grant some peace to the men and women trying to heal in our military hospitals, and the families grieving at funerals and memorials. Haven't we earned a moment of silence?

Karen Spears Zacharias is the author of "After the Flag Has Been Folded," a memoir.

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Let Them Go Green

The New York Times
Let Them Go Green

Just last month, Goldman Sachs invested $27 million in Iogen, the Canadian ethanol producer. The little-noticed move was the latest piece of a larger strategy of enlarging the company's profile in environmentally conscious investments. Goldman has now risked over $1 billion on renewable energy projects, including solar and wind-energy projects and alternatives to gasoline like cellulosic ethanol.

Goldman is only one of a growing number of investment and manufacturing enterprises chasing emerging technologies that could help provide the alternative energy sources that politicians from President Bush on down say they want and that the country will certainly need in years to come. Meanwhile, more and more companies — including heavyweights like DuPont, Johnson & Johnson and United Technologies — have been busily cleaning up their own acts, using less energy by making themselves more efficient.

Over time, these efforts could place the United States in the forefront of an emerging global market for cleaner technologies. They are also essential to the effort to tackle the two big energy-related issues of the age, global warming and the world's dependence on precarious supplies of foreign oil.

If Washington is smart, it will throw its weight behind these efforts by providing the necessary incentives, whether as loans, direct grants or targeted tax breaks. But Washington is dawdling; several excellent bills designed to advance the development and wider use of various alternative fuels, cleaner cars and carbon-free power plants are languishing in the election-shortened legislative year.

It is no less important to preserve good programs already on the books. For example, a tax credit to encourage wind power is set to expire next year, at a time when high energy prices are raising interest in that clean technology.

There are plenty of interesting technologies out there, but the trick now is to catapult them from the laboratory to the marketplace. General Electric, for example, is already a producer of large wind turbines. And it is heartening to see investment houses, venture capital firms, hedge funds and pension plans — like Calpers, the big California pension fund — funneling money into environmentally sound investments.

Investing is about the next big thing, not the last one. Companies are looking for the sort of opportunity Detroit automakers missed when Toyota was ready with the Prius as gas prices began to skyrocket. No one wants to be left behind again.

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Perhaps Not All Affirmative Action Is Created Equal

The New York Times
Perhaps Not All Affirmative Action Is Created Equal
By JEFFREY ROSEN
Washington

NOW that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases challenging racial balancing in public schools, some conservatives hope the end of affirmative action is near.

After all, they say, why would the Supreme Court suddenly agree to hear cases about racial balancing in Seattle and Louisville when the court — with Sandra Day O'Connor still serving — refused last December to hear a similar case from Massachusetts? It must be, the thinking goes, that the court, with two new and more conservative justices, John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr., wants to overturn affirmative action.

That optimism may be premature, and not because there is a hidden liberal streak on the court. Instead, there is a vigorous debate among prominent Republican judges and legal scholars about whether racial balancing in public schools is an acceptable form of affirmative action. Some conservatives believe that racial balancing plans, while not colorblind, are still constitutional.

The unexpected fissures among conservatives about how colorblind the Constitution should be suggest that certain forms of affirmative action might be more acceptable to conservatives than liberals had feared.

The Seattle and Louisville cases, which the Supreme Court will hear next fall, involve challenges to plans known as "managed choice" or "open choice." In Seattle, parents can apply to send their children to any public high school in the district.

If a school is oversubscribed, students are chosen based on a number of "tie-breakers," including racial targets designed to ensure that each school's racial makeup doesn't differ by more than 15 percent from the racial composition of the Seattle public schools as a whole.

Last October, no one was surprised when the famously liberal United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the Seattle plan. It cited a 2003 Supreme Court opinion, by Justice O'Connor, which held that classroom diversity was a compelling governmental interest for law schools and universities.

But it was eye-opening that Judge Alex Kozinski, a conservative libertarian on the Ninth Circuit, wrote an unexpected concurring opinion. "That a student is denied the school of his choice may be disappointing, but it carries no racial stigma and says nothing at all about that individual's aptitude or ability," he wrote.

And Judge Kozinski quoted the opinion of Chief Judge Michael Boudin of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, another Republican judge, who upheld the use of racial balancing in a Massachusetts school choice plan. Unlike "modern affirmative action," Judge Boudin had written, these plans do not "seek to give one racial group an edge over another."

Some conservative scholars suggest that there may be significant differences between racial balancing for public elementary and high schools and racial preferences for competitive public universities.

"When you're talking about public schools, everybody's got to go somewhere, and it's not as if some schools are necessarily better than others," said Charles Fried, a conservative law professor at Harvard. "At some point, the government has to have some basis for breaking the tie."

Professor Fried said he had not made up his mind on the issue. "I think Roberts and Alito are both men who are open to arguments, and I would trust them to think long and hard about this," he said.

Conservatives have also long emphasized the importance of deferring to local school officials, a reaction in part to judicially imposed busing programs.

In the Seattle and Louisville cases, the plans were designed by local politicians.

"This is not the result of some liberal master plan; it was adopted from the ground up, " said Samuel Issacharoff, a liberal legal scholar at Columbia Law School. Judicial deference is as deeply held a conservative principle as the importance of a colorblind society, and conservative judges and activists are conducting a vigorous internal debate about how these principles should be reconciled.

Last year, for example, the Supreme Court, in another opinion by Justice O'Connor, struck down California's policy of racially segregating new prisoners to prevent gang violence. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia, ordinarily fierce champions of colorblind policies, argued that an exception should be made in this case because of the importance of deferring to the expertise of local prison officials.

Opponents of affirmative action don't buy conservative arguments that racial balancing is acceptable. Parents don't view all public schools as equal, they argue, so racial tie-breakers force some parents to send their children to worse schools farther from home because of their race.

"In some ways, the damage may be greater than in the university context, since this may limit the ability of black families to escape inferior schools by transferring to schools where the authorities deem there to be too many blacks," says Peter H. Schuck of Yale Law School, author of "Diversity in America," a prominent critique of affirmative action.

In the Seattle case, the conservative dissenting judges wrote that the educational benefits of diversity for university students were less obvious for lower-school students. The dissenters quoted David J. Armor, a George Mason professor who has reported finding little connection between racial integration and student achievement.

"Where we have had very substantial long-term desegregation, we did not find the achievement gap changing significantly," Mr. Armor said in an interview. "I did find a modest association for math but not reading in terms of racial composition and achievement, but there's a big state variation."

Professor Armor estimated that "at least dozens or maybe hundreds of school districts still use race in some way" and said he hoped that the Supreme Court would put an end to all race-conscious assignment plans. "We have racially imbalanced neighborhoods and cities based on where people choose to live. What's wrong with racially imbalanced schools?"

IF the court agrees with him, it might require districts to consider "race-neutral alternatives," like a lottery, to decide which students gain admission to popular schools. But given segregated housing patterns, that might mean the end of integration.

Chief Justice Roberts, in his first term, has shown a skill in persuading his colleagues to join unanimous opinions decided on narrow grounds. The race cases may test his leadership abilities more than any he has confronted so far. And the fact that conservatives disagree so vigorously about how to apply the principle of colorblindness in different contexts makes the outcome especially hard to predict.

Jeffrey Rosen's latestbook is "The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America."

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Warrants? We Don't Need No Steenking Warrants!

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There's No Egg. We Got Nothing But A Nest.

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Battling Terrorism: The Front Line

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Coulter - It's OK - I'm Insane!

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Where Are My 72 Virgins

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Persistence is critical to survival

The Times-Picayune
Persistence is critical to survival
Lolis Elie

It seemed like a big story. It was, for a day.

The Army Corps of Engineers Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force acknowledged that the flood control system that was supposed to protect our city was "a system in name only."

The report on which that finding was based took eight months, cost $20 million and has profound implications for every section of this country that relies on an Army Corps of Engineers structure to protect it.

"We say this was a system failure in that the system designed to protect New Orleans failed on many levels, but it also shows how the system -- the business model -- we use to build these things is so flawed," said Ed Link, the University of Maryland professor who headed the task force. "The way we determine need, assess risk and go about funding and approving these things is based on a model that might have been appropriate for the way we lived 50 years ago, but is sorely outdated today."

Often, when such a major report is issued, it discussed and dissected for days afterward. But, as with so much of the news from New Orleans, this story died a premature death.

American hearts and minds

The report was released on June 1, the first day of hurricane season. It was big news the next day. But by Sunday, four days later, the day when newspapers and broadcast networks tend to review the important stories of the week, the report wasn't among them.

On ABC's "This Week," it was news that the prolific author John Updike had released another book and Hillary Clinton, D-NY, was going to run for re-election to her U.S. Senate seat.

On CBS's Sunday morning offering, "Face the Nation," Bob Schieffer hosted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a discussion of the latest news from Iraq and Iran.

American troops have been accused of massacring Iraqi civilians in Haditha. On NBC's "Meet the Press," Tim Russert asked, "How will allegations that U.S. Marines killed innocent Iraqis in the town of Haditha affect the American effort to win over Iraqis' 'hearts and minds?' "

I figure that the news that failures by the United States Army Corps Engineers to protect American citizens in America is big news. We have hearts and minds too, but the talk shows don't seem to be interested in winning them.

Looking for progress

So much of our future depends on the willingness of our nation to live up to its responsibilities at home.

We can't build our own levees or reverse the erosion of our coast. And unless there's evidence of real progress on these two fronts, many New Orleans will lack the confidence that their hometown is a safe place to move back to.

Their hearts and minds may be remain with us, but their bodies may be forever dislocated.

. . . . . . .

Lolis Eric Elie can be reached at lelie@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3330.

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Reid Calls for More Intelligence Oversight

ABC News
Reid Calls for More Intelligence Oversight
Democratic Leader Rallies Bloggers, Plans to Ask Congress for Stiffer Intelligence Oversight
By KEN RITTER
The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS - Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid made a pitch Saturday to enlist bloggers as a Democratic force in upcoming elections, and said he'll ask Congress for stiffer reporting requirements for the president and the intelligence community.

"I know fighters when I see them. You're fighters," Reid said as he began a warmly received keynote speech to the YearlyKos Convention of Internet bloggers at a Las Vegas Strip resort.

Reid, D-Nev., said he intends to introduce legislation in coming days to hold senior Bush administration officials accountable for statements on Iran similar to the Democratic fight to hold them accountable for their statements about the Iraq war.

"The White House cherry-picked and politicized intelligence to sell the war," Reid said. "All of us as Americans need to know if we were intentionally misled, I think we were, to go to war in Iraq, so we can make sure it never, never happens again."

The audience of about 1,000 at the Riviera hotel-casino ballroom included members of a liberal blogosphere who became involved in politics during Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean's bid for president in 2004.

They cheered a video produced by a 15-year-old conference attendee that cast first-ever conventioneers as patriots, motivators and over images of headlines reporting President Bush's low approval ratings representatives of a national majority.

"This is a paradigm shift taking place," said Ann Reinhart, 45, a writer from Los Angeles who said she contributed money recently to campaigns in Montana and Connecticut. "People are finding their voice. People are doing it themselves."

Many waved placards that were provided reading "Give 'Em Hell, Harry," and applauded Reid's declaration that "Iran cannot and will not be another Iraq."

"Because of you, no attack will go unanswered," Reid told the audience. "Because of you, no lie will avoid the truth."

Reid's proposed bill, called the Iran Intelligence Oversight Act, would require an updated national intelligence estimate on Iran, with an unclassified summary made public.

It also would require the president to report to Congress his objectives and strategies for Iran.

The administration's national intelligence director would have to show Congress that he has a process in place for reviewing administration officials' statements and ensuring they are consistent with the work of professional intelligence analysts.

"I have no doubt the White House won't like this requirement," Reid said, "but after Iraq, the American people deserve nothing less."

Responding to Reid's remarks, the White House declined to address the senator's proposals directly.

"We are pursuing a diplomatic solution to the current situation with Iran," said Christie Parell, a White House spokeswoman. She pointed to the most recent European proposal calling for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing before entering talks aimed at defusing tensions over nuclear development.

"We look forward to a response from the Iranian regime," Parell said. "And we look forward to continuing to keep Congress informed as we pursue a diplomatic solution."

Reid, who lives about an hour south of Las Vegas, was the top Democrat among several at the convention. Others included Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., former presidential candidate and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Dean.

"Democrats may be a minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans," Reid said. "I believe that. Don't you?"

Republican party spokesman Tucker Bounds characterized the convention as proof that "the squeaky wheels, no matter how wobbly, get all the Democrats' oil."

Convention executive Gina Cooper dubbed the four-day gathering, "people-powered politics in action." Some attendees who spent four days putting faces to words posted by Internet Web log, or blog, authors and readers, saw strength in their numbers.

"I think what we've learned is, we've got a community," said P.Z. Myers, 49, a University of Minnesota biology professor from Morris, Minn. "It's more than people just sitting and chatting over the wires."

On the Net:

YearlyKos: http://www.yearlykos.org

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Blind Man's Bluff

The New York Times
Blind Man's Bluff

For more than six months, a few senators have been fumbling around in the dark, trying to write laws covering a domestic wiretapping operation that remains a mystery to most of them. Their ideas are far from radical; some just want to bring the White House back under the rule of law by making the spying retroactively legal. But Vice President Dick Cheney, who is in charge of both overseeing the spying and covering it up, has now made it crystal clear that the White House does not intend to let anything happen. It's time for the Senate to stop rolling over and start focusing on uncovering the extent of the spying and enforcing the law.

A good place to start is by compelling the executives of the major telecommunications companies to testify about reports that they have turned over data on the phone calls of millions of Americans without a court order. Those reports were a reminder that this is not a debate about whether the government should spy on terrorists by tapping their phone calls. President Bush wants Americans to believe that critics of the program oppose that, but nobody does. The real issue is that Mr. Bush does not want to bother with legal niceties like getting a warrant or to acknowledge Congress's power by accounting for his actions.

There are four bills on this matter before the Senate Judiciary Committee. One, from Mike DeWine of Ohio, deals with the evident illegality of the program by making it legal — a cynical notion that should be killed quickly. Senator Charles Schumer's bill would grant legal standing for people to sue the government over the wiretapping. At least that is aimed at allowing the courts to enforce a law passed three decades ago to cover precisely this sort of situation.

Senator Dianne Feinstein is proposing changes to that law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was intended to make it easy for the government to get quick court approval on wiretaps of suspected terrorists or spies. Ms. Feinstein wants to make it even easier for the administration to wiretap first and get permission later. But her bill leaves a gaping loophole for Mr. Bush to go on ignoring FISA, this time with the blessing of Congress. It's also absurdly early to amend the law, since 80 percent of the Senate still doesn't know much more about the spying operation than the average American. The administration has offered no evidence that existing warrant requirements are too restrictive. Mr. Bush is not even asking for changes. He simply thinks he's above this law.

Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the committee, has been working on a convoluted bill that he thinks will re-establish legal control over the spying. It has been improved but still leaves too much room to evade court scrutiny and may actually widen the range of eavesdropping that can be done with a warrant.

We're baffled by Mr. Specter's continuing efforts to appease the White House. Last week, Mr. Cheney organized a coup in the Judiciary Committee to kill Mr. Specter's plan to subpoena telecommunications executives and ask them about the USA Today report that their companies are turning over phone records without a court order. Mr. Cheney told the panel's Republicans to oppose subpoenas and said the executives had been ordered not to testify because they could expose "extremely sensitive classified information." That's odd, given that the phone companies keep denying the report.

Mr. Specter — who last week was bemoaning the fact that Mr. Cheney watched him pass by twice at a Senate buffet lunch without mentioning that he had just stabbed him in the back — still thinks it's a good sign that the vice president's office offered to review his legislation and suggest changes. Mr. Cheney and his underlings are the problem, not the solution, and Mr. Specter should realize that by now. Mr. Specter has the votes to subpoena the executives. All he has to do is drop his idea of meeting behind closed doors, and side with the panel's Democrats, who want to have the hearing in full view of the Americans whose rights are being violated.

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Saudi lawyer blames US for Guantanamo suicides

Reuters
Saudi lawyer blames US for Guantanamo suicides
By Souhail Karam

RIYADH (Reuters) - A lawyer for Saudi nationals imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay said on Sunday he held U.S. authorities responsible for the deaths of two Saudi prisoners who hanged themselves at the U.S. naval base.

Saudi Arabia, a staunch U.S. ally, said it was stepping up efforts to repatriate all nationals held at the base in Cuba.

An Interior Ministry statement identified the two Saudis as Manei al-Otaibi and Yasser al-Zahrani but gave no further details about them. A Yemeni man also committed suicide.

"We are doing all we can to bring the bodies of the two victims home," a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters, but declined to say if Riyadh would ask for an investigation into the deaths.

The three men, who hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets, were the first prisoners to die at the base in Cuba since the United States began holding "terrorism" suspects there in 2002.

"Our priority now is to repatriate the bodies of the victims and to step up our efforts to bring back all Saudis detained there," the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

"Each Saudi has to be brought home where he can face up to charges he is accused of based on our laws and regulations."

He said there were up to 103 Saudis detained at the naval base, which holds about 460 foreigners captured mainly in Afghanistan where the United States has fought the Taliban and al Qaeda.

MISTREATMENT

The detainees' deaths renewed criticism of the base, which many human rights groups say should be closed. Nearly all the prisoners at Guantanamo, in Cuba, are being held without charge and some have been held for more than three years.

"The detainees' death reveals the mistreatment at Guantanamo and the extent human rights are breached," said Katib al-Shimary, lawyer for Saudi detainees at Guantanamo. "Their suicide, that is if they did commit suicide, is a response to the oppression and injustice they lived in."

"I hold the U.S. authorities responsible for their deaths," Shimary told Saudi-owned satellite television Al Arabiya.

The lawyer said U.S. authorities did not allow him or any other foreign lawyers to meet detainees, adding that he had not been informed of the death of the two Saudis.

The U.S. military said guards at the camp found the three Arab men not breathing in their cells shortly after midnight and attempts to resuscitate them failed.

The three detainees had taken part previously in extended hunger strikes and been force-fed. They all left suicide notes but no details were made public.

Saudi Arabia has freed at least eight detainees handed over to it from Guantanamo, saying they had completed their jail sentences. In May, the kingdom said it had received 15 Saudi detainees and that they would be put on trial in the kingdom if a review of their cases shows a trial was justified.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities were from Saudi Arabia, as is al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

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Iran sees problems in atomic offer from six powers

Reuters
Iran sees problems in atomic offer from six powers
By Tom Perry

CAIRO (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday gave its most negative assessment of proposals offered by six world powers aimed at persuading Tehran to give up sensitive nuclear work that the West fears is being used to make bombs.

Chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said the package offered to Iran last week, which includes both incentives and penalties, contained "problems". In previous comments, he had only referred to "ambiguities" that needed removing.

Details of the package have not been publicly announced and Iran has yet to identify specific items to which it objects, but the deal is premised on the demand Iran abandons uranium enrichment, a step Tehran has previously said was unacceptable.

Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, insists it only wants to enrich uranium to low levels to make fuel for power plants. The West accuses Iran of seeking to purify uranium to the much higher levels needed to make atomic bombs.

"These proposals contain some positive points. At the same time there are problems and ambiguous points," said Larijani, speaking through an Arabic translator after talks at the Arab League in Cairo.

European powers -- Britain, France and Germany -- drew up the package that was approved by the United States, China and Russia. It was delivered to Tehran by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Tuesday.

Some details from the proposals or early drafts have leaked from Western diplomats and other sources and they include offering Iran a light-water reactor and guaranteeing nuclear fuel supplies.

But the offer also includes possible penalties if Iran rejects it, such as imposing travel bans on Iranian individuals, freezing assets and imposing an embargo on arms sales to Iran and some Iranian exports, such as refined oil and gas products.

Larijani, who heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council that has been entrusted with handling nuclear talks, said no deadline had been set for Iran to accept the package.

"It was said that Iran was given a limited time period to agree ... This is incorrect," he said.

"RIGHTS NOT NEGOTIABLE"

President Bush has said Tehran has weeks rather than months to respond and Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, whose country currently heads the EU, has said Iran has until the Group of Eight (G8) summit in mid-July.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters in Tehran that Iran would not be rushed and dismissed charges by some Western critics that Iran was stalling for time.

"We have not been given a deadline ... but that does not mean we are seeking to buy time," Hamid Reza Asefi told a weekly news conference in Tehran.

He also reflected the increasingly negative tone toward the proposals by saying some points in the package "should not exist" and said Tehran would respond with its own proposals.

When he was asked whether Iran would be willing to suspend enrichment during negotiations, as demanded, Asefi said: "We will not abandon our rights under any condition. Our rights are not negotiable. The initiative is in our hands."

Iran usually refers to uranium enrichment as a national right. Since announcing in April that Iran had enriched uranium in small quantities for the first time, top Iranian officials have often insisted Tehran would not now give up this work.

Some Iranian officials have hinted, however, that Iran might negotiate over its plans for industrial-scale enrichment.

Included in the proposals made to Iran is an offer by the United States to join European-led nuclear talks, provided Iran stops uranium enrichment first.

When asked about this part of the offer, Asefi said: "We welcome any negotiations that do not have preconditions."

In Iranian rhetoric "preconditions" also normally refer to the West's insistence that Tehran drop its atomic fuel work.

Analysts see the proposals as a way of giving Iran a last chance before Western powers lobby for tough action against Iran at the U.N. Security Council.

The European states were originally asked to draw up the proposals to help break a deadlock at the Security Council, where Russia and China had been reluctant to back a resolution they said could have led to sanctions or even military action. The United States and European states had backed the draft.

Washington has refused to rule out military action if diplomacy fails.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Tehran and Mohammed Abbas in Cairo)

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Al Qaeda in Iraq threatens large scale attacks

Reuters
Al Qaeda in Iraq threatens large scale attacks

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda in Iraq vowed on Sunday to carry out large-scale attacks that would "shake the enemy" after the killing of its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but did not name a successor.

The group, in an Internet statement, said its leading body held a meeting after Zarqawi's death to discuss strategy and renew a pledge to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"We plan large-scaled operations that will shake the enemy and rob them of sleep, in coordination with the other factions of the Mujahideen Council," said the statement posted an a Web site often used by Islamist militants.

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Judge may decide if eavesdropping is legal

Reuters
Judge may decide if eavesdropping is legal
By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The National Security Agency's domestic spying program faces its first legal challenge in a case that could decide if the White House is allowed to order eavesdropping without a court order.

Oral arguments are set for Monday at U.S. District Court in Detroit at which the American Civil Liberties Union will ask Judge Anna Diggs Taylor to declare the spying unconstitutional and order it halted.

The case goes to the heart of the larger national debate about whether President Bush has assumed too much power in his declared war on terrorism.

Bush said he authorized NSA intercepts soon after the September 11 attacks, allowing the NSA to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining warrants if in pursuit of al Qaeda suspects.

The ACLU sued the NSA on behalf of scholars, journalists and attorneys, claiming that warrantless wiretaps violate the U.S. Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA.

"The NSA has the capability of eavesdropping on anyone, anywhere, anytime," said James Bamford, an NSA expert and author who is supporting the ACLU suit.

Justice Department lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss the suit because it would reveal state secrets.

Regardless of how the judge rules on state secrets, the government lawyers say Congress granted Bush surveillance privileges by authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda following the September 11 attacks, and that he has the inherent right to order the wiretaps under presidential war powers.

"That is a total misunderstanding of the way the separation of powers are supposed to work in our democracy," said Ann Beeson, the lead ACLU lawyer in the case.

"It is very clear that when the framers (of the Constitution) set up the three branches of government they gave Congress the power to regulate what the president can do even during wartime and emergencies. If they hadn't done that we'd be back to the days of King George III," she said.

Some Republicans including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter differ with the White House and maintain that the post-September 11 authorization of the use of force did not alter FISA.

The committee is considering several bills that would either tighten or loosen congressional oversight of the NSA.

Verizon Communications and BellSouth Corp. have denied a USA Today report that they gave tens of millions of phone records to the National Security Agency. AT&T Inc., which was also named in the report, has not addressed the issue.

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General Wesley Clark Takes on President Bush on Iraq and 9/11

huffingtonpost.com
Cenk Uygur
General Wesley Clark Takes on President Bush on Iraq and 9/11

The Young Turks are broadcasting live from The Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas. We interviewed General Wesley Clark this morning. He spoke very frankly (must run in the family) about the failures of the Bush administration in Iraq. He also talked about the neo-conservative plan to invade Iraq going back to more than a decade.
Finally, he discussed the failures that led up to 9/11, which was refreshing because the neglect the Bush administration showed to addressing Al Qaeda before 9/11 is almost never mentioned.

Here's the General Wes Clark interview on The Young Turks. (Note: Requires Windows Media Player.)

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Poll: Many support troops, but not the war

USA TODAY
Poll: Many support troops, but not the war

WASHINGTON (AP) — Support the troops, oppose the war. The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that many Americans perceive the alleged atrocities against Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces as isolated incidents while saying the U.S.-led invasion was a mistake, a disconnect that sets this conflict apart from Vietnam.

The survey of 1,003 adults was completed Wednesday, shortly before the announcement that U.S. airstrikes had killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, and the Iraqi parliament's approval of candidates for ministers in charge of the army and police.

It remains to be seen how those events could affect opinion, especially among a public paying close attention to war dispatches.

Some 76% of those questioned said they were following reports about allegations that U.S. troops killed unarmed Iraqi civilians.

The military is investigating reports that a small number of Marines murdered 24 Iraqi civilians — including unarmed women and children — in the town of Haditha on Nov. 19. It also is conducting a probe of an incident in Hamdaniya following allegations that Marines pulled an unarmed Iraqi man from his home on April 26 and shot him to death without provocation.

Regardless of whether the allegations turn out to be true, 63% of those surveyed said they thought the killings of civilians were isolated incidents. That view was especially true among Americans over 35, whites and those living in the South, where the military has a strong presence.

"I think they're doing everything possible to avoid such things," said Christine Berchelmann, a retired nurse and Republican-leaning independent from San Antonio. "The people they are seeking out, they are in dwellings right in the middle of all these civilians. There are always going to be casualties."

Sixty-one% in the survey said the military is doing all it can to avoid killing Iraqi civilians.

While the AP poll found that most Americans are willing to give U.S. troops the benefit of the doubt, their misgivings about the war and the prospect of Iraq establishing a stable, democratic government are growing.

Fifty-nine% said the United States made a mistake in going to war, a new high and a significant jump from the 34% in December 2004.

"The biggest mistake was going into Iraq," said David Smith, 38, a salesman from Springfield, Mo., and Democrat who leans independent. "If hindsight was 20-20, they should have thought about the repercussions."

Despite President Bush's pronouncements about Iraq setting up a viable government, only 44% of those polled said it was likely they would see a stable government in Baghdad. It was a new low in the survey.

"I think this is the first time in recorded history where the American people wholeheartedly support the troops and support for the mission is waning," said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

The 15-term lawmaker cited the greater involvement of the National Guard and Reserves in the war. Some 25,000 members of the Guard and Reserve are in Iraq among the 132,000 U.S. troops.

"People have a neighbor or a cousin," Skelton said.

During Vietnam, growing opposition to the war paralleled disenchantment with American forces, many of whom had been drafted to serve. The conflict dragged on more than a decade, some 58,000 Americans were killed and the U.S. departed Saigon in April 1975 as the communists prevailed.

Capturing the public consciousness during Vietnam was the My Lai massacre, in which U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of innocent civilians in 1968.

In Iraq, the military has relied on an all-volunteer force of trained professionals.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said it is possible to oppose the war but "nonetheless see the military as divorced from that. The military is our sons and daughters and, of course, we wouldn't systematically engage in something that defiles American values."

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said he was not surprised by the view of the troops.

"These soldiers are the best we ever had. The American people understand it," said Kline, a member of the Armed Services Committee.

The survey also found that the war continues to take a toll on the public's opinion of Bush. Approval of the president was at 35%, essentially unchanged from his rating of 33% last month based on the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points.

His handling of Iraq and foreign policy and the fight against terrorism hit new lows: Just 33% approved of his actions on Iraq and 39% on the commander in chief's fight against terrorism.

People had an even lower opinion of the Republican-controlled Congress. Only 24% approved of the way it's doing its job, essentially unchanged from last month but still a new low.

Fifty-two% want Democrats to capture control of Congress in November, about the same as last month's poll.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-09-iraq-poll_x.htm?csp=34

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Data on nuclear agency workers hacked 9 months ago; Victims, Officials Not notified until now

Reuters
Data on nuclear agency workers hacked: lawmaker
By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A computer hacker got into the U.S. agency that guards the country's nuclear weapons stockpile and stole the personal records of at least 1,500 employees and contractors, a senior U.S. lawmaker said on Friday.

[Editors Note: And as reported in the NY Times, the stolen data includes: "names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and information on where the people worked and their security clearances."]

The target of the hacker, the National Nuclear Safety Administration, is the latest agency to reveal that sensitive private information about government workers was stolen.

The incident happened last September but top Energy Department officials were not told about it until this week, prompting the chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee to demand the resignation of the head of the NNSA.

An NNSA spokesman was not available for comment.

The NNSA is a semi-autonomous arm of the Energy Department and also guards some of the U.S. military's nuclear secrets and responds to global nuclear and radiological emergencies.

Committee chairman Rep. Joe Barton said NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks should be "removed from your office as expeditiously as possible" because he did not quickly notify senior Energy Department officials of the breach.

"And I mean like 5 o'clock this afternoon if it's possible," Barton, a Texas Republican, said in a statement.

Earlier this week the Pentagon revealed that personal information on about 2.2 million active-duty, National Guard and Reserve troops was stolen last month from a government employee's house.

That comes on top of the theft of data on 26.5 million U.S. military veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs has said.

A spokesman for Energy Secretary Sam Bodman declined comment on the call for Brooks' resignation but said the secretary was "deeply disturbed about the way this was handled internally" and would make it a priority to notify workers about the lapse.

The "vast majority" of those workers were contractors, not direct government employees, said the spokesman Craig Stevens.

According to Barton, the NNSA chief knew about the incident soon after it happened in September but did not inform Energy Department officials, including Bodman, until Wednesday.

"I don't see how you could meet with (Bodman) every day the last seven or eight months and not inform him," Barton said.

He said Brooks cited "bureaucratic confusion" to explain the reporting lapse.

"It appears that each side of that organization assumed that the other side had made the appropriate notification," Brooks told the House energy panel's oversight and investigations subcommittee, according to a record provided by Barton's office.

"Just as the secretary just learned about this week, I learned this week that the secretary didn't know," Brooks said. "There are a number of us who in hindsight should have done things differently on informing."

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