Crucial Lebanese cabinet talks on disarming Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon under a UN-brokered ceasefire have been put off

BBC NEWS
Lebanon falters over truce detail
Crucial Lebanese cabinet talks on disarming Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon under a UN-brokered ceasefire have been put off.

A truce between Israel and Hezbollah is due to come into force at 0500 GMT.

The postponement, amid reported divisions, seriously complicates the establishment of a stable ceasefire, the BBC's Nick Childs in Beirut says.

Israel's cabinet has backed the truce, but says its forces will not leave until peacekeepers are deployed.

Mark Malloch Brown, the UN's Deputy Secretary General, said it might take a month before a joint UN-Lebanese force was fully in place.

"It's going to be weeks, not days and may even, before you hit the full total, be a month or so," he told the BBC's Have Your Say programme.

An unrelenting barrage of rockets and shells from both sides of the border on Sunday suggest that Israel and Hezbollah will continue to attack each other until the deadline, the BBC's Adam Mynott reports.

The Israeli military have intensified their assault, determined to try to achieve a military success at the eleventh hour, our correspondent says.

Major tensions

Lebanon's cabinet indefinitely postponed its meeting.

The Security Council... emphasises the need to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis
UN resolution text

After five hours of discussions on Saturday, it had agreed to accept a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution with reservations.

The second gathering was meant to consider the details of implementation.

However, the issue of Hezbollah's disarmament and its military presence in southern Lebanon continues to cause major tensions within the fragile government, our correspondent reports.

He says that without a meeting and an agreed plan, it seems that the deployment of 15,000 Lebanese army troops to the south is unlikely to go ahead.

Even if the planned ceasefire happens, the prospects of continuing skirmishes on the ground will remain high, he adds.

Hezbollah, a member of the government, says it will abide by the resolution but retains the right to continue attacks until the last Israeli soldier has left Lebanese soil.

Crescendo of violence

At least 19 Lebanese people, including a mother and her three children, were killed in Israeli attacks on Sunday, Lebanese officials said.

Israeli emergency services reported that a Hezbollah rocket - one of some 250 fired during the day - had killed a civilian in northern Israel.

And the Israeli military said that five of its soldiers had died in fighting on Sunday.

The son of David Grossman, a well-known Israeli novelist and peace activist, was killed on Saturday while serving in Lebanon.

Staff Sgt Uri Grossman, 20, was killed by an anti-tank missile just days after his father joined an appeal by leading Israeli intellectuals for an end to the war.

Sunday's Israeli assault saw warplanes bomb petrol stations in Tyre, sending up thick clouds of smoke.

The BBC's Jim Muir described a crescendo of violence in the hills near the city as shells, bombs and rockets smashed into their targets.

And the sound of huge explosions reverberated across Beirut as the Israeli air force carried out a new raid on southern districts of the city.

Rescue workers said that several multi-storey buildings had collapsed.

News also came in of air strikes on targets in eastern Lebanon late on Sunday.

'Parallel withdrawal'

Hezbollah rockets hit Yaara in northern Israel, killing the civilian, and Haifa's city centre and suburbs also came under bombardment.


HAVE YOUR SAY
All Olmert has, like his fellow appeaser Chamberlain before him, is a piece of paper
Mark Robertson, Lisbon, Portugal

Earlier, Israel's cabinet voted 24-0 with one abstention to accept the UN resolution.

Speaking after the meeting, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stressed that Israeli forces would not leave Lebanon until the international force had been deployed.

"We desire... to leave parallel to the move south of the international forces with the Lebanese army," she told reporters.

More than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed in the conflict since Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers on 12 July in a cross-border raid. Israel's official death toll stood at 163 on Sunday, including 43 civilians.

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British airliner turned back over security scare

Reuters
British airliner turned back over security scare
By Michael Smith

LONDON (Reuters) - A British Airways flight to New York was turned back to London's Heathrow airport on Sunday because of a security scare over a mobile phone that did not belong to any of the passengers, officials said.

The phone was later found to be safe, as the government said the threat to Britain of a terrorist attack had been downgraded to severe from the critical level last week when police said they had foiled a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

Despite the downgrading, the Transport Department warned in a statement: "This (still) means that a terrorist attack is still highly likely."

British Airways said the captain of the airliner, which was carrying 217 passengers, had decided to return to London as a precautionary measure.

"A mobile phone was located on board the aircraft which none of the passengers appeared to own," it said in a statement.

Mobile phones were banned from flights departing from British airports under new tough security measures introduced after the disclosure of the alleged plot to smuggle bombs on to aircraft disguised as drinks.

Police said on Thursday they had foiled an attempt by would-be suicide bombers to blow up simultaneously up to 10 airlines flying to the United States. Twenty-four people were arrested.

Home Secretary (interior minister) John Reid said on Sunday another attempted terrorist attack on Britain was highly likely.

"We think we have the main suspects in this particular plot, but there could be others out there, perhaps people we don't know," Reid told BBC television.

"It is highly likely there will be another terrorist attempt. The threat of a terrorist attack in the United Kingdom is still very substantial," he said.

Reid said at least four plots had been thwarted since July last year when four Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people on London buses and trains.

The new security measures have caused chaos at airports on both sides of the Atlantic.

British Airways canceled 30 percent of its flights from Heathrow on Sunday in a growing dispute with airport authorities over how to apply the tougher security.

Airlines said cancellations and disruptions showed no sign of easing.

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US eases flight rules but says threat remains

Reuters
US eases flight rules but says threat remains
By John Crawley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Restrictions on U.S. airline travelers were eased slightly on Sunday, but Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the threat of an attack on airliners remained.

The Transportation and Security Administration, or TSA, said on its Web site it would allow passengers to bring up to 4 ounces (118 ml) of nonprescription liquid medication on board, including pain relievers and cough medicine.

It also said it would allow on board glucose gel and other medicines for low blood sugar treatments for diabetics.

The TSA had barred all liquids, except baby formula and breast milk, from flights last week because of a plot to bring down jetliners as they flew from London to the United States.

Plotters planned to use common chemicals often found in liquids to make explosives and detonate them using a common electronic device -- all of which were normally allowed on aircraft.

On Sunday, the TSA also said it would require all passengers traveling on domestic and international flights to remove their shoes for screening.

Until now, it had been recommended that passengers be asked to remove their shoes for X-ray screening before boarding. But the practice will become mandatory at all airports, the TSA said.

Since convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid of Britain tried to blow up a transatlantic American Airlines flight shortly after the September 11, 2001, hijack attacks, U.S. airport officials have paid closer attention to passengers' shoes.

But while the United States moved quickly last week to tighten security, Chertoff told CBS's news program "Face the Nation" that he knew of no suspects in the United States connected with the plot uncovered in Britain.

"As we speak right now we've not found any indication of active planning in the U.S. or plans to conduct operations within the U.S.," he said. "Nothing so far."

Britain has arrested about two dozen people in connection with the plot.

"Obviously, they believe they've picked up the main players, but it's a plot that's international in scope," Chertoff said on "Fox News Sunday." "We're still concerned there may be some plotters who are out there."

WAS IT AL QAEDA?


Chertoff said that although the plot to bring down multiple planes nearly simultaneously looked like an al Qaeda plot, it was not clear precisely what role the organization may have played in planning or organizing it.

"I think even traditionally, al Qaeda has not always carried out its plots with that kind of centralized control," he said on ABC's "This Week." "But if you look at this plot, it has the hallmarks of an al Qaeda-type plot -- very sophisticated. The idea of multiple terrorist attacks at the same time."

The homeland security chief also defended two controversial programs -- warrantless wiretapping and the SWIFT program to track financial transfers -- as necessary.

"Surveillance of communications, tracking the flow of money and transactions, that is -- those are the weapons of the modern war against terror," he said.

Chertoff said the latest efforts to protect airplanes would focus less on technology to detect explosives and more on intelligent questioning of air passengers by screeners. He said authorities have been honing screeners' skills in finding liquid explosives but the task is daunting.

"We've run six pilots on liquid explosive detection," he told "Fox News Sunday. "We have retrained 38,000 screeners in up-to-date techniques for spotting detonators and modern types of explosive devices. So it's not that we can't detect the chemicals. It's that the chemicals are very common, and there would be a lot of false positives."

(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz)

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Lieberman should drop out of election race: Dean

Reuters
Lieberman should drop out of election race: Dean

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman should bow out of the November's congressional race altogether after his defeat in Connecticut's Democratic primary, a top Democrat said on Sunday.

Lieberman, a three-term senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, lost to political newcomer Ned Lamont in Connecticut on Tuesday and said he plans to run as an independent in the November election.

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Lieberman should support his party -- and Lamont -- rather than running against him to defeat the Republicans.

"I know how hard this is for Joe, and he is a good person, but the truth is I lost one of these races and I got behind my party's nominee and I think that is what you have to do if you want to help this country," Dean, former governor of Vermont, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"The way to help this country is to limit Republican power."

Democrats see Lieberman's loss as a referendum on President George W. Bush and the Iraq war, while Republicans says it shows that Democrats are soft on national security issues.

Lamont defeated Lieberman by 52 percent to 48 percent in the August 8 primary but polls taken around that time showed Lieberman ahead in a three-way race with Lamont and the Republican candidate, former state legislator Alan Schlesinger, who is not seen as a strong threat.

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Bush Administration Knew About Liquid Explosive Threat, Yet Bush Still Calls It "New"

Huffington Post
Bush Administration Knew About Liquid Explosive Threat, Yet Bush Still Calls It "New"

From the President's Radio Address, August 12, 2006:

This plot is further evidence that the terrorists we face are sophisticated, and constantly changing their tactics... We're dealing with a new enemy that uses new means of attack and new methods to communicate.

From today's New York Times:

In 1995, a plot to bomb 12 American jumbo jets over the Pacific with a liquid explosive was discovered when the bomb makers accidentally set fire to their laboratory in Manila.

From the Associated Press:

As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology....Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks, and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short. ''They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using,'' Sabo said.

Thousands of YouTube viewers know about Mentos and Diet Coke — it's certainly not surprising that the Bush Administration should be aware of the explosive potential of certain liquids, even as we've been studiously taking our shoes off in airports. Now, in his first radio address since the terror plot was thwarted, Bush is calling the planned methods of execution "new." How many people out there listening will believe him? How many of them will be in the media?

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When President Bush described a war against ‘Islamic fascists,’ some American Muslims became very angry

Escalation in Terminology
When President Bush described a war against ‘Islamic fascists,’ some American Muslims became very angry.
By Lisa Miller
Newsweek

Aug. 12, 2006 - In our collective relief at having dodged a bullet this week, some of us may have missed the rhetorical bomb in our midst. Just hours after Tony Blair announced the arrest of two-dozen Britons on charges that they were planning to blow up planes using liquid explosives, President Bush made remarks of his own, thanking British authorities for their swift work and assuring Americans that their safety was his primary concern. “This nation is at war with Islamic fascists,” he said somberly, “who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.” Our terrorist enemy has been described in so much colorful language by so many, one more escalation in terminology may have been easy to overlook.

Except that this time Parvez Ahmed got really mad. That same afternoon, Ahmed, who is chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based advocacy group, released an open letter to the president, a letter that excoriated Bush for using language that “contributes to a rising level of hostility to Islam and the American-Muslim community.” He wrote, “The use of ill-defined hot-button terms such as ‘Islamic fascists’ harms our nation’s image and interests worldwide.” he wrote. The blogs went wild.

“Islamic fascist”—or “Islamofascist” as it’s popularly spelled on the Internet—is the latest explosive in the right’s semantic arsenal. It’s explosive because it instantly brings to mind the 20th century’s greatest horror, the Holocaust, because it offends the sensibilities of millions of people like Ahmed who hold Islam sacred, and because it infuriates people who believe that the Middle East conflict can be resolved at least partially through talking. It has been in wide use for about a year, mostly by hawkish conservatives who feel that five years of “war on terror” rhetoric has not gone far enough to identify who the enemy is—that is, terrorists who are Muslim—or to describe the radical Islamic movement in the Middle East as a global threat to a democratic way of life. To compare today’s terrorists to the last century’s fascists “gets at the incredibly aggressive nature of the conflict, the craziness of it,” explains William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. “You imply that these are not rationally calculating people in the way that we have become accustomed to.”

Republican Senator Rick Santorum, who will be fighting for his seat in November, uses the phrase repeatedly. “Islamic fascism,” he told the National Press Club in July “is the great test of this generation.” In June, political consultant Mary Matalin told Fox News that “You either believe we’re going to fight Islamic fascism or you don’t,” and a week later, after an Israeli soldier was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists, Rep. Eric Cantor (R- Va.) issued a statement saying that Israel “has every right to secure its citizens from these Islamic fascists.”

Even the president is more than a little familiar with the term. Nearly a year ago, in a speech before the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush defined “Islamofascism” as “a form of radicalism [that] exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision” and several months later he spoke of the Islamofascists becoming emboldened. On the extreme end of the spectrum, on the right-wing radio talk shows and blog circuit, “Islamofascist” has the flavor of an epithet.

Like many powerful weapons, this one had an inauspicious birth. Most academics trace the genesis of the term to the mid-1990s, when an historian named Walter Laqueur wrote a book called “Fascism: Past, Present, Future,” in which he suggested that the radical Islamic movements of the developing world resembled in some ways the facism of the mid-20th century. There followed, in the scholarly press and in European newspapers, a debate of this issue among political scientists. Yes, some agreed, elements of radical Islamic fundamentalism can look like fascism, the term born in Italy to describe a political movement that, according to Webster’s, “exalts nation above the individual,” stands for a centralized government and suppresses opposition. But in many important ways the two phenomena are very different. “What politicized Islam is doing,” explains Roger Griffin, professor of History at Oxford Brookes University in England and an expert on fascism, “is to preserve religion in a secular world. What Nazism was doing was to create an alternative to religion in a secular world.” In any case, the scholars agreed, the term “Islamic fascist” was touchy and should be used with great care.

Then 9/11 happened. Not a month later, the term made its mainstream debut with a column in The Nation by Christopher Hitchens, who wrote, “The bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face.” Soon the phrase was circulating.

Parvez Ahmed is angry because he feels the president is being disrespectful to the millions of moderate Muslims who live in this country, who condemn terrorism and who seek the government’s protection. But he’s especially angry because he thinks that the right’s adoption of the term at this particular juncture is not just historically inaccurate, it’s a cynical bid for votes. “This is an election year,” he told NEWSWEEK. “The president is down in the polls, he’s trying to appease his base. It’s a moment of political opportunism. It goes back to the idea that in some quarters it is good to perpetuate the myth of a clash between civilizations.”

Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank near Boston, has a related theory. Some of the right-wing evangelicals who voted for Bush have an apocalyptic world view—that is, they are expecting the end of the world based on Biblical prophesy. Santorum, Matalin, Cantor, even the president himself—they all know this, Berlet believes, and are positioning Islam as the evil force that will bring about the End. “I am creeped out” by the term “Islamofascism,” says Berlet. The term itself is creepy, no doubt, but, however you look at it, the reality it stands for is downright terrifying.

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The Better Way of Fighting Terrorism

Huffington Post
The Better Way of Fighting Terrorism
Cenk Uygur

There are two schools of thought in the country right now. One is the Republican idea that we are fighting against Islamic fascism (whatever that is) and that we need to go on the offense against Muslim states that support the Islamofascist terrorists. It's hard not to laugh as you say it.
Islamofascists?

The second school of thought is that we can fight terrorism better by isolating the terrorists from the rest of the Muslim population, finding them and neutralizing them. The idea here is that instead of fanning the flames of hate and helping the Muslim fundamentalists spread their ideology to others, we work with the majority of Muslims in rooting out the extremists in their midst.

I can see Republicans reflexively getting ready to shout now - you can't work with Muslims, they're all Islamofascists looking to destroy our way of life. Other than being painfully stupid, that is incomprehensibly wrong. A great majority of Muslims have nothing against our way of life. They have no desire to take over Kentucky or to make sure the people of Alaska don't have freedom.

The idea that Muslims are looking to take over the world and are on the precipice of dominating militarily as the Nazis did is so laughable that I can't quite believe they're saying it out loud. Nazi Germany took France in five days. Are Islamic fundamentalists about to roll their tanks in to Paris and Prague?

These conservatives want to pick a fight - not just with the Muslim terrorists - but with all of Islam. Hardly has there been a more dangerous idea. A majority of Muslim countries have absolutely no intention of taking over the West, even if it was remotely possible. But they will fight to the death if you needlessly invade them.

But there is a better way. And ironically, we are implementing the better way right now in Pakistan. Pakistan is a country that probably has more Muslim fundamentalists than any other nation on earth. They don't just have a WMD program, they have nuclear weapons. And they have spread their nuclear weapon technology to other countries. And to top it all off, Osama bin Laden is sitting comfortably in northern Pakistan.

If the Republicans were honest and they actually believed in their own so-called principles, the most ideal country on earth to attack would be Pakistan. They have a thousand times more WMD than Iraq and Iran combined (which is pretty simple, since that number is just about zero). And they shelter the biggest terrorists in the world. On the other hand, they don't have much oil and they are not a direct threat to Israel.

But the reality is our strategy in Pakistan, while lacking in intensity and focus, is roughly the correct one. We are trying to isolate the Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathizers in northern Pakistan while working with the Pakistani government. If we invaded, we would have nuclear war with a country that has hundreds of millions of Muslims. Instead, we cooperate with them and they help us to foil the bombings in the London airport.

If we had chosen the route of "going on the offense" against Pakistan, there is an excellent chance we would have lost ten airplanes full of passengers this week.

This strategy has its clear downsides. We have to put more pressure on Pakistan to find and turn over Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. We have to have tighter controls over their nuclear technology. But at least, this path is smart and doable.

And ironically, it is being pulled off by the very administration that is touting this nonsense war against Islamic fascists. It is clear that the administration doesn't even believe its own talking points. Otherwise, the 101st Airborne would be in Waziristan right now. So, why don't they apply this smarter strategy with the rest of the Muslim world?

I'm afraid it's because there are hardliners inside the administration that want to invade Iran - no matter what. So, they paint them as Islamic fascists and try to stir up more war fever. Just look at this ridiculous clip from Hannity and Colmes. It appears that Sean Hannity believes there is only one strategy for fighting against a couple of thousand terrorists spread out throughout the world - start a war with a couple of hundred million Muslims in select countries.

But, of course, there is a better way. The Democrats need to explain to Americans that war is not the only answer. The smarter strategy is to isolate the extremists and build up our relationship with moderate Muslims. Enlist the moderates to help us locate the terrorists and neutralize them - just like we did in the London plot we just foiled.

The American people are sick of war, just as the conservatives plot for even more wars. Democrats have to realize that pursuing the "isolate and neutralize" strategy against terrorists is not only sound policy but, at this point, also sound politics. People are eager for a better, smarter way of fighting terrorism. This is the time to finally offer it as an alternative to the endless wars the Republicans promise instead.

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Increasingly, Bush Escapes the Media Pack; Press Cuts Converge With Closed Events

washingtonpost.com
Increasingly, Bush Escapes the Media Pack
Press Cuts Converge With Closed Events
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- On one of the scariest days yet in the five-year battle with terrorists, President Bush prepared to make a speech to reassure the American people. But the White House press corps was 1,000 miles away in Texas.

Bush had left his ranch vacation and jetted north for a scheduled closed-door fundraiser. No press plane accompanied him. And so when news broke that Britain had broken up a major terrorist plot, the only ones there to convey the president's reaction were a handful of local reporters and a few pool journalists who ride in the back of Air Force One.

The idea that Bush could travel across the country without a full contingent of reporters, especially in the middle of a war, highlights a major cultural shift in the presidency and the news media. In the four decades since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, presidents traditionally have taken journalists with them wherever they traveled on the theory that when it comes to the most powerful leader on the planet, anything can happen at any time.

But increasingly in recent months, Bush has left town without a chartered press plane, often to receptions where he talks to donors chipping in hundreds of thousands of dollars with no cameras or tapes to record his words for the public. Barred from such events, most news organizations will not pay to travel with him. And so a White House policy inclined to secrecy has combined with escalating costs for the strapped news media to let Bush fly under the radar in a way his predecessors could not.

"A lot of it is a reflection of the times," said C-SPAN's Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents' Association. "The whole thing is changing."

For veterans of past administrations, the changes are striking. "When the president moved it was a big deal, and I can't even remember an occasion when we didn't take a charter," said Ed Rollins, who was Ronald Reagan's White House political director.

"Go back 20 or 25 years and say we're at war and the president is traveling around the country and there are only, what, three people with him?" asked Joe Lockhart, who was Bill Clinton's White House press secretary. "That would have been unthinkable."

In some ways, it may not seem to make much difference. Like presidents before him, Bush still always travels with a small media pool that includes wire services, television cameras and a single newspaper reporter who files a report to others left behind. The advent of instant video feeds, cable television, the Internet, e-mail and transcripts of the president's every public word has made it possible to cover Bush without being anywhere near him.

Yet fewer eyeballs on a president means less scrutiny, in the view of some media and government watchdog groups. Fewer reporters, they say, means fewer questions and fewer versions of what happens available to the public. News accounts written from a different time zone invariably miss context and texture. And in closing the doors of some fundraisers, the White House has reversed a policy adopted under Clinton after fundraising scandals raised questions about what donors are seeking when they hobnob with presidents.

Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition formed three years ago that includes groups such as the American Library Association, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and the Society of Professional Journalists, called the changing pattern of coverage "quite disturbing" and part of a "rising tide of secrecy" in Washington.

"It's another way of closing off responsibility and accountability and shutting themselves off from public view," she said. "I think the public would prefer that somebody be in the room who is not there for their own interests to be served."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said there is nothing insidious about closing fundraisers in private homes and noted that news organizations choose whether to pay for a plane follow the president. "It's really all about money," he said. "It used to be that media organizations had more dough."

Given the changes in communication technology, he added, "I think presidents are more widely available than at any point in American history." And he said he makes a point of finding ways for at least some reporters to see Bush when there are major developments. "If there is big news, we make sure the president's available," Snow said.

The cost of covering the president has risen dramatically at a time when the news media, anxious about economic pressures, are aggressively cutting costs. For a one-day trip to St. Louis, for instance, the White House billed The Washington Post $3,317. To go to Yuma, Ariz., for a day, the bill came to $3,795. A two-day trip to Europe cost $8,283, not counting hotel charges.

And so even for trips where there is a press plane, sometimes only a handful of journalists are on board. Newspapers that used to travel regularly, including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and others, now do so more sporadically. The Boston Globe no longer even has a White House correspondent, focusing on breaking exclusive stories rather than writing about the president's everyday activities.

"It's not like we're ignoring it completely," said Joe Williams, the Globe's deputy Washington bureau chief. "But the lineup we're using right now gives us flexibility to attack a broader range of stories than we would if we had a designated White House correspondent."

Bush is not the only one to find ways of escaping much public notice as he flies around the country. Vice President Cheney manages to leave Washington for days, and sometimes weeks, at a time without public announcement. Few in the capital even knew he was in Texas in February, for instance, until he accidentally shot a companion while hunting quail. And he has been in Jackson, Wyo., since July 29 without any national news media mentioning it.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide found out Cheney was there only because it spotted his plane and the radar dish that serves an anti-missile battery that protects his house when he's in town. "In the past, they've been kind of weird about it," said Thomas Dewell, the paper's co-editor. "They'd say, 'His airplane's here and the missile base is here, but we can't tell you if he's here.' " This time, he said, Cheney's office confirmed his presence when asked.

Cheney aides said they announce his movements only when he makes public appearances but will provide his whereabouts if reporters call to ask. The vice president, who has already headlined 81 fundraisers in this election cycle, plans to return to Washington on Sunday before heading out to events in Arizona, New Mexico, Montana and Idaho next week, his office said.

Clinton agreed to stop holding closed fundraisers in response to criticism of his campaign finance tactics. When a fundraiser was held in a private home, the White House permitted a single print reporter into the room to record the scene and the president's words for the rest of the pack. The Bush White House changed that, leaving fundraisers open if located in hotels or public spaces but closing them in private homes. "The thought was having the presence of reporters would disrupt the intimacy of the events," said Ari Fleischer, who was then White House press secretary.

Lanny J. Davis, who was White House special counsel during the Clinton fundraising scandals, expressed surprise that the change has not generated more criticism. "I marvel at their ability to get away with it," he said. "I have to grudgingly admit to some envy. I admire their chutzpah."

Bush has traveled out of the Washington area at least seven times this year without a press plane, including four times in the past month to closed Republican fundraisers -- in Milwaukee, in Cleveland, in Charleston, W.Va., and on Thursday here to Green Bay to raise $500,000 for House candidate John Gard. He also headlined a fundraiser in Texas yesterday that was closed to the media. That may serve the interests of candidates who want the money Bush can raise but don't want a public embrace with a president suffering low approval ratings.

Scully said he may raise the issue of closed fundraisers with Snow. "As we move into the fall campaign, if this happens more often, we're going to put pressure on Tony and others to open these events," Scully said. "He is the president. He is traveling at government expense. . . . We should be in there to hear what he has to say."

In the past, major media organizations felt it was important to be near the president even if they were kept out of the room, a "body watch" mentality sparked by the Kennedy assassination and reinforced over the years by any number of unexpected crises, including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"There's going to be a time when something's going to happen and the major national media's not going to be there," Lockhart said. "They're going to have to rely on technology. Will this have a major impact on our democracy? Smarter people than me will have to answer that."

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Ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft Helps Firms Get Homeland Security Deals

washingtonpost.com
Ashcroft Finds Private-Sector Niche
Ex-Attorney General Helps Firms Get Homeland Security Deals
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer

Former U.S. attorney general John D. Ashcroft, whose tenure saw the creation of a burgeoning homeland security industry, has emerged as the highest-ranking former Bush administration official to lobby for and invest in companies in that field.

Nearly two years after he left the Justice Department for a glass-and-marble office tower six blocks away, Ashcroft is building a lucrative consulting company helping security and other firms find business with federal agencies. Federal spending on homeland security is expected to reach nearly $60 billion in fiscal 2007, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

"It's a continuation of the aspiration I have that our nation have access to the best possible resources to fight terror, whether domestic or international," Ashcroft, founder of the Ashcroft Group LLC, said during a phone interview from his 150-acre cattle farm in rural Missouri, where he was spending a working vacation.

During his tenure, Ashcroft championed expanded federal powers to conduct surveillance in counterterrorism investigations. Now, he said, he wants the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to be aided by the tech world's "best of breed."

In all, Ashcroft's firm has 30 clients, many of which make products or technology aimed at homeland security, and about a third of which the firm has not disclosed, to protect client confidentiality. The firm also has equity stakes in eight client companies, a trend the company plans to continue as it gradually turns its focus toward venture capital.

Privacy experts and civil libertarians, who battled Ashcroft's policies to enlarge surveillance powers, warned that the types of businesses promoted by the former attorney general and other lobbyists are fast becoming a de facto branch of the government, beyond traditional oversight. They question whether the security offered by these firms, some of which specialize in analysis of government and private data, is balanced by adequate protection for civil liberties.

In an era of unprecedented collection and sharing of data between the government and the private sector, "we need checks and balances to match that paradigm shift," said Peter Swire, who served as a privacy counselor for the Clinton administration and now teaches law at Ohio State University.

Ashcroft's client list includes Nanodetex Corp. in New Mexico, which offers technology that can detect airborne pathogens such as anthrax or liquid explosives such as the type authorities say a group of terror suspects planned to use to blow up passenger jets between Britain and the United States. Another is Exegy Inc., a Missouri firm that does high-speed data mining.

Innova Holdings Inc. makes software that can remotely command robots and drones, or unmanned vehicles, the sort that police borders or fly above the mountains and valleys of Pakistan and Afghanistan searching for al-Qaeda cells. The company, which signed with Ashcroft's firm last week, has developed a technology for robots that will undertake a NASA repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Still another client is Dulles Research LLC, a small Northern Virginia firm that claims its technology can detect illicit networks like the group of men who went on to hijack four planes on Sept. 11, 2001. The firm says its technology detects the threat of terrorist behavior by analyzing people's actions -- not their identities, an effort to safeguard individuals' privacy.

"What network-analysis technology does is not look at the individual, but rather at the gravity and weight of relationships between people who appear to be doing something harmful to our interests or in opposition to the law," said Drew Eginton, Dulles Research's founder and chief executive.

For instance, he said, out of a data set that includes transactions of 20 million people with one another, "What you're looking for are the seven people who are doing something normal people don't do, simultaneously buying tickets to the same town with money orders, or sequentially visiting the same place one month apart using airline tickets that were paid with cash, or switching cellphones and every 60 days placing a 10-second voice mail to a person who went to that individual's school in Malaysia. We're looking for these very shadowy and unusual interactions that, based on a prior statistical case, predict the likelihood of trouble.''

Behavioral pattern analysis has a good track record in the world of credit card fraud, where "millions" of transactions can be analyzed to extract patterns of illicit behavior, said Jim Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

The problem with detecting terrorist patterns of behavior is that there are not millions of terrorist transactions that can be analyzed on which to base a reliable model, he said.

What is the recourse, Dempsey asked, for people who are wrongly identified and targeted?

But Eginton said the point of using statistical analysis is to avoid the "false positive."

"We do not have a mature and complete mathematical understanding of what these people and networks will do," he said. "But we do have an understanding."

Another Ashcroft client is ChoicePoint Inc., a data marketer that gathers public records and sells access to them. Though the company already had a contract with the Justice Department dating to 1998, last year it signed on with Ashcroft's firm to help it connect with "the right people within the agencies who could match up our capabilities with their needs," said James Lee, ChoicePoint's chief marketing officer.

When it comes to privacy, Ashcroft, a 54-year-old Republican and former U.S. senator and Missouri governor, said there are "real reasons" why the government should not be in the business of warehousing information. "The private sector does a better job of maintaining and developing information," he said. Another reason, he said, is Americans "don't want government to have access to any more information than necessary."

The Ashcroft Group complies with federal disclosure rules, Ashcroft said. It has disclosed the identities of 17 companies and two trade groups that it represents before Congress or the executive branch. The other clients, for which the firm does not do government work, are covered by non-disclosure agreements.

The firm reported receiving $1.4 million in lobbying fees in the past six months. But that is a small fraction of its earnings. It offers strategic consulting and is set to launch a service to help companies prevent and clean up data breaches.

These days, Ashcroft, whose forthcoming book discusses his experience as attorney general, is relaxed and energized. "Ninety percent" of the people who approach him, he said, thank him for his service. "I think that people have the sense," he said, "that regardless of whether they agree with me or not, they knew that I was doing what I thought I ought to do."

Staff researchers Richard Drezen and Robert Lyford contributed to this report.

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Republicans losing claim on terrorism issue due to failed policies and Bush making us less secure

washingtonpost.com
Whose Issue Is Terrorism?
The Parties Maneuver for Advantage on National Security
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer

The aggressive Democratic response to this week's foiled terrorist plot reflects a widely shared view among party strategists that intensified attacks against President Bush represent the best chance to offset what historically has been a clear Republican advantage whenever national security issues become more prominent, Democratic officials said yesterday.

Less than three months before midterm congressional elections, many Democrats are trying to simultaneously express skepticism about Bush's Iraq war policy and project a message of resolve and strength against terrorism.

This was a feat that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry did not accomplish in 2004. Democratic strategists said the combative rhetoric of the past 48 hours -- with party leaders saying that the Iraq war has left the country less prepared to meet the type of threats represented by the London plotters -- reflects lessons learned from studying the Massachusetts senator's defeat.

More than a dozen Democrats, for instance, criticized the GOP yesterday for refusing to implement all of the recommendations put forth by the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission. At the same time, Democratic leaders in Washington moved on several fronts to accuse Republicans of exploiting terrorism fears for political gain -- and to warn that Democrats will respond to weak-on-security attacks of the sort launched by Vice President Cheney on Wednesday.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said terrorism no longer works as a GOP issue. "If they are going to throw political bombs on the issue, we are going to answer loud and clear," Schumer said. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), in the same call, said Bush's policies on North Korea and the Middle East have made the United States less secure.

After Sept. 11, 2001, and again in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003, most Democrats calculated that the safest political ground was next to Bush, supporting his policies. Even after many Democrats had turned sour on the war, in December 2003 most elected officials struck a bipartisan note in hailing the capture of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But many Democrats have concluded that that strategy on national security offered little protection and merely helped Republicans reinforce their reputation as the stronger party in meeting foreign threats. This view was bolstered in 2004, when many Democrats thought Kerry waited too long as his personal credibility and national security credentials alike were challenged by the attacks of the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Democratic campaign aide Phil Singer, who helped organize the Schumer-Reid attack, said: "In the past, Democrats have not responded vigorously when attacked on security. . . . We will not let them Swift Boat us again."

Party strategists also concluded that voters want clarity, which has been elusive for Democrats. Democrats remain divided on many terrorism-related issues, but the twin calls for a new approach in Iraq and the implementation of the Sept. 11 panel's recommendations represent efforts to find common ground.

The politics of terrorism, however, remain uncertain this fall. The latest Washington Post-ABC News polls indicated that terrorism had dropped lower on the list of voters' concerns heading into the final three months of the campaign, trumped by such issues as gas prices and Iraq. Few candidates were talking about terrorism as a major part of their campaign plan before the London plot, other than to tout support for stronger homeland security measures, which virtually every lawmaker backs. Schumer twice cited the Washington Post-ABC poll -- which showed Democrats with an edge when people were asked which party they trusted to handle terrorism issues -- as evidence the political tide has turned.

Still, some Democrats are worried. For starters, as one strategist noted, many high-profile Democrats are seen as doves. Guests planned for tomorrow's morning political shows include Connecticut Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont, who vaulted from obscurity on an antiwar message; Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), the first senator to call for the United States to pull out of Iraq; and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war since the early days of the 2004 presidential campaign.

Other Democrats said the bigger problem may be that Republicans are more skilled in using terrorism for political gain. Earlier this year, Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, telegraphed that national security issues would be the foundation of the 2006 GOP strategy. The past week showed how Republicans intend to execute the Rove plan.

The Republican National Committee circulated a memo last weekend saying no issue motivates conservative voters more than terrorism. It also stated that nothing generates "more negative feelings" among these voters than mentioning Democratic positions on fighting terrorism. At the same time, RNC officials were polishing fundraising appeals that, using the name of former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and appealing to patriotism, asked for as much as $500 per person.

"Based on what we have seen, our base is very energized on this issue," said Brian Jones, an RNC spokesman.

Instantly upon Lamont's victory over incumbent Joseph I. Lieberman, a defender of the war, they began invoking the outcome of the Lamont-Lieberman primary to paint Democrats as defeatists and weak. The next day, Bush, Cheney and other administration officials were aware of the soon-to-be-thwarted plot in Britain.

Once the plot was revealed Thursday, Republicans pounced. National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds said last night that "national Democrats are stone-cold guilty of engaging in a reckless and irresponsible pattern of neglect for the security of citizens." In a memo sent moments later, GOP candidates were told that "in the days to come, you should move to question your opponent's commitment to the defeat of terror."

Also yesterday, drawing a clear link between Iraq and terrorism, Bush condemned the deadly bombing in Najaf. "The terrorists in Iraq have again proven that they are enemies of all humanity," Bush said. Bush has not commented on most previous terrorist strikes in Iraq. Taken together, the week's events seemed designed to highlight the continued threat to the United States and to question the Democratic commitment to defending the country, said a top GOP strategist who would speak only anonymously about internal planning.

The strategist, who is involved in GOP efforts to capitalize on the issue of national security, said one of the big challenges in the months ahead will be "making sure the terrorism issue sticks to Iraq." With some GOP candidates distancing themselves from Bush's Iraq policy, the strategist said, it has been difficult marrying the issues of terrorism and Iraq. This is disturbing to top GOP officials because support for the war is low, and dropping, and Iraq is a bigger issue in many of the campaigns than the less-defined effort against terrorism, the strategist said.

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Ceasefire agreed for Monday

Reuters
Ceasefire agreed for Monday
By Yara Bayoumy

BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Israeli and Lebanese leaders had agreed to a ceasefire at 0500 GMT on Monday to end a month-long war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Israeli forces pushed deeper into Lebanon on Saturday and up to 17 soldiers were reported killed in what would be Israel's worst single day for deaths, as the United Nations prepared to deploy a force of up to 15,000 to help enforce the truce.

The Israeli YNET News Internet site quoted an official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office as saying Israeli troops would start withdrawing from south Lebanon within a week or two when the U.N. force and the Lebanese army arrived in the area.

Olmert has backed a U.N. Security Council resolution passed on Friday that called for a ceasefire and set out proposals to implement it. He was expected to ask his cabinet on Sunday to formally approve the resolution.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said his government unanimously approved the resolution on Saturday, and Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his fighters would abide by it once Israeli forces also adhered to it.

"I am very happy to announce (Olmert and Siniora) have agreed that the cessation of hostilities and the end of the fighting will enter into force on 14 August at 0500 hours GMT," Annan said in a statement in New York.

"Preferably, the fighting should stop now to respect the spirit and intent of the Security Council decision, the object of which was to save civilian lives, to spare the pain and suffering that the civilians on both sides are living through."

At least 1,061 people in Lebanon and 135 Israelis have been killed in the war, triggered on July 12 when Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Helicopters lifted hundreds of Israeli troops into south Lebanon on Saturday as part of an expanding offensive. Israel's top military commander, Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, said the Jewish state had tripled its forces in Lebanon since Thursday.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said at least 11 soldiers were killed by Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon on Saturday. The army said it had killed more than 40 guerrillas in 24 hours. Hizbollah denied it had lost 40 fighters.

ISRAELI HELICOPTER SHOT DOWN

Hizbollah guerrillas shot down an Israeli helicopter in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army said. Israeli media said there were casualties but did not specify how many.

Arab television stations said 17 Israeli soldiers were killed on Saturday.

Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon killed up to 15 people in the village of Rshaf and four civilians in Kharayeb, security sources said. Raids in the eastern Bekaa Valley killed one civilian.

Hizbollah fired at least 65 rockets into Israel, wounding several people, Israeli officials said.

Nasrallah said Hizbollah would abide by the U.N. resolution and cooperate with the U.N. and Lebanese troops, but would carry on confronting any Israeli soldiers on Lebanese soil.

"As long as there is Israeli military movement, Israeli field aggression and Israeli soldiers occupying our land ... it is our natural right to confront them, fight them and defend our land, our homes, and ourselves," Nasrallah said.

President Bush welcomed the U.N. resolution, saying Hizbollah and its main allies Iran and Syria had brought an "unwanted" war to the region.

"(The resolution was designed) to put an end to Iran and Syria's efforts to hold the Lebanese people hostage to their own extremist agenda," said Bush.

France is widely expected to lead the planned U.N. force, which will expand the existing U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) but have a stronger mandate.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy made clear in an interview with Le Monde newspaper the mission of the new force would not include disarming Hizbollah by force.

Major General Udi Adam, head of Israel's northern military command, said some Israeli forces had reached as far as the Litani river in Lebanon.

Adam said at least 500 Hizbollah guerrillas had been killed in the war. Hizbollah has announced less than 100 deaths.

(Additional reporting by Jerusalem and United Nations bureaux)

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VIDEO: Going Up Against Ann Coulter on CNBC

Huffington Post
VIDEO: Going Up Against Ann Coulter on CNBC
David Sirota

I had the chance to debate Ann Coulter today on CNBC's Kudlow and Company - and wow, for one of the GOP's top icons, she was truly unimpressive. You can watch the video of the ensuing debate here in .mov format, and here on YouTube. I cited a bunch of facts that Coulter never bothered to even address, much less refute.

For instance, I said that I believed the GOP has overplayed its hand on national security, and that Ann Coulter's declarations calling for the bombing of office buildings in New York, the poisoning of a Supreme Court Justice and the murder of Rep. Jack Murtha make her and the Republican Party sound like terrorists - and the American public is revulsed. Coulter, of course, had no answer - first doing her best deer-in-the-headlights routine, then reverting to tired, cliched RNC talking points, and finally denying the basic facts about public opinion research on the Iraq War. Go check out the whole thing - frankly, if this is the best the Republicans have, Democrats are going to really carry election day come November. We are watching the very public implosion of the GOP - and boy is it fun to watch.

(Thanks to Media Matters and reader Ozy for getting the video online!)

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Senate Democratic Leaders Accuse Vice President Dick Cheney of Politicizing Terror Plot

ABC News
Cheney Accused of Politicizing Terrorism
Senate Democratic Leaders Accuse Vice President Dick Cheney of Politicizing Terror Plot
By LIZ SIDOTI
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Senate Democratic leaders on Friday accused Vice President Dick Cheney of playing politics with terrorism and contended that voters won't buy Republican arguments that the GOP is stronger on national security.

"They've run this play one too many times," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a conference call with reporters. "The American people simply do not recognize any validity in what they're saying."

Republicans, in turn, accused Democrats of political posturing.

"It sounds to me like Senator Reid is trying to accuse us of politicizing while he, himself, is politicizing the issue," said White House press secretary Tony Snow. "The comments that this administration has been making, including me, have been aimed at simply trying to get people to think seriously about, How do you achieve the goal of winning the war on terror? When you're in a war, the goal should not be how to get out. It should be how to win and then to get out."

Some Republicans suggested that Democratic rule could endanger the country.

"National Democrats are stone-cold guilty of engaging in a reckless and irresponsible pattern of neglect for the security of our citizens," said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Republicans' campaign committee.

Democrats sought to put Republicans on the defensive on what historically has been a GOP strength national security. The heated rhetoric came a day after the disclosure of a thwarted plot to blow up flights from Britain to the United States. Within hours of that news, each party accused the other of doing too little to deter the threat of attack.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Cheney and Senate Republicans of politicizing the issue.

"They shouldn't. We should all be uniting and be together at this point," said Schumer, the head of the Senate Democrats' campaign committee. "But if they're going to throw the political bombs on this issue, we are going to answer them loud and clear, and we believe we have the political high ground."

In a written statement, Reynolds said Democrats were sounding a "defeatist, surrender message" and catering to the party's liberal base "that prefers a flag that is lily-white to a flag that is red, white, and blue."

The nation's safety looms large as an issue in the midterm elections less than three months before the Nov. 7 contest. Both Republicans and Democrats are maneuvering for the political advantage.

On Wednesday, Cheney gave his assessment of anti-war challenger Ned Lamont's Democratic primary win over Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Iraq war supporter.

The vice president suggested that Lamont's victory might encourage "the al-Qaida types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task."

He portrayed the Democratic Party as preferring that the United States "retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home."

Snow said Cheney did not know when he made the call that British authorities were in the process of arresting the alleged plotters of the airplane bombing attacks. Snow said Cheney had been briefed on the plot, but the briefings did not indicate that action was imminent.

"The comments that were made after the Connecticut primary were in response to the Connecticut primary, and they were not in anticipation of a British action," said Snow, who also suggested Wednesday that the Lamont victory showed Democrats have the wrong position on the war on terror. "I can say that with absolute assurance not only with regard to me, but also the vice president."

Reid took issue with the vice president's comments, saying, "This situation isn't going well and anyone that suggests that the people of Connecticut are somehow supporting terrorists, I don't think that's credible and that's what Cheney suggested."

Democrats also criticized the RNC for e-mailing a fundraising appeal mentioning the war on terror hours after British authorities disclosed they had disrupted the plot.

The RNC blamed a low-level staffer for distributing the fundraising appeal, which the party said had been scheduled for release before news of the plot broke. The RNC said it stopped distributing the e-mail when it learned of the error.

Snow said it's unclear if Democrats and Republicans can come together and agree on the best policies to fight the war on terror.

"I don't know, in today's congressional climate whether we can do this," Snow said.

Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler contributed to this report from Crawford, Texas.

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Former Interior official pleads guilty in Abramoff probe

USA TODAY
Former Interior official pleads guilty in Abramoff probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Department of Interior employee pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor charge for failing to report gifts he received from influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

Roger Stillwell told a federal magistrate that he had been given hundreds of dollars worth of football and concert tickets from Abramoff, who at the time was lobbying for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Stillwell was with the Interior Department's insular affairs office, which handles issues involving the island government.

Documents filed as part of Stillwell's plea do not indicate whether he is providing authorities with evidence against others who might be involved in the case.

Stillwell received four tickets to a Washington Redskins game in December 2003 valued at $316 with an actual cost of $2,147, prosecutors said. He also accepted two tickets to a 2003 Simon and Garfunkel concert worth $166, prosecutors said.

Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys would say whether Stillwell provided Abramoff anything in return for the gifts.

"He recognizes that his decision on how to treat gifts from Mr. Abramoff was inexcusable. For that he has deep remorse," defense attorney Justin P. Murphy said in a prepared statement. Murphy said Stillwell had been friends with Abramoff and his family for many years before he took the Interior job.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay set sentencing for Oct. 26. Stillwell faces up to a year in prison.

So far, the Abramoff probe has resulted in guilty pleas by two ex-aides to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, a former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and Abramoff himself. A former White House official was convicted on unrelated charges.

Ney announced this week that he would abandon his re-election campaign, acting under pressure from party officials who feared he would lose to a Democratic challenger. He has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.

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After Fidel -- Snap, Crackle and Pop

washingtonpost.com
After Fidel -- Snap, Crackle and Pop
By Al Kamen

The Bush administration is preparing a large humanitarian aid effort should chaos occur in the transition to a post-Fidel Cuba, including the delivery of food, medicine, clothing, tents and such.

Folks at the Agency for International Development assumed they would take the lead on this because they, working with private relief organizations, traditionally do these things. But they weren't picked.

Turns out the Commerce Department, not heretofore known to have much expertise in disaster relief, will take the lead role. Buzz is that's because Commerce is headed by Cuban-born Carlos M. Gutierrez .

Supporters say he knows the island, though he left it 46 years ago, when he was 7. And, as former chairman and CEO of Kellogg Co., he knows how to manage things and to distribute food -- or at least breakfast food. He is also co-chairman of the U.S. Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. The well-regarded Gutierrez knows everyone in the Cuban emigre community -- though it's unclear whether that will help or hurt.

The effort, "is going to involve multiple agencies," a Commerce Department spokesman said, including the departments of State and Homeland Security, and "Gutierrez is a team player." Also, the spokesman said, "at AID's invitation" he's visiting a warehouse today in Miami "to see their preparations for regional relief." He's also taping a TV Marti interview there.

Well, coulda been a whole lot worse. They could have picked FEMA, or brought back Michael "Brownie" Brown as a special consultant.
Take the Initiative, Please

The spectacular British thwarting of a terrorist airline plot naturally dominated yesterday's news, but some administration officials hoped it wouldn't drown out all the other important news. For example, we got this notice yesterday from the State Department:

"SPECIAL BRIEFING: 2:00 p.m. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs Josette Sheeran Shiner ; Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Elizabeth G. Verville [and others from Justice and Treasury] will brief the media on The President's International Initiative to Combat Kleptocracy. This briefing is on-the-record, on-camera in the State Department Press Briefing Room, room 2209."

This initiative is coordinated with the Group of Eight major industrialized countries. It probably could have been rolled out at the recent G-8 meeting, but the meeting's host country, Russia, is one of the great kleptocracies of the world.
A Bridge Too Near

Speaking of the State Department, there was substantial buzz there a few days ago when Israel bombed a series of bridges in Lebanon. Apparently the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey D. Feltman , had traveled over one of the bridges just a few hours before it was hit.

Folks at the embassy were none too pleased.
Sturm Und Pang

A British Broadcasting Co. interviewer, chatting with major U.S. ally Jordan's King Abdullah , began: " Condoleezza Rice called it the birth pangs of a new Middle East, but it . . .''

"A new Middle East?" his highness interjected. "The way I'm looking at this new Middle East, I'm seeing what is happening in Somalia, I'm seeing what's happening in Gaza, I see what's happening in Lebanon, I'm seeing what's happening in Iraq. This is a new Middle East?"

Well, yes, it is.
A No. 3 for No. 2, but Who's No. 1?

William W. Mercer , formerly top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and more recently U.S. attorney for Montana, is said to be heading back to this area to become associate attorney general, the No. 3 job at the Justice Department.

Mercer would succeed Bush's Yale buddy and reported Skull and Bones member Robert D. McCallum Jr ., who's to arrive in Australia next week to fill the long-vacant ambassadorial post. The Australians, who with Britain are the staunchest members of the coalition of the willing, had been mighty annoyed at the 20-month vacancy, which occurred in part because the first couple of candidates couldn't clear the vetting process.
Rogan Redux

New job for another Loop Favorite. Former representative James E. Rogan (R-Calif.), a manager of the Clinton impeachment, is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger 's pick to be a judge on the Orange County Superior Court.

Rogan, targeted and defeated by Democrats in 2000, was appointed by Bush to head the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from 2001 to 2004 and then went into private law practice here and then in California.
Writing Fashion Statements

Matthew Rees , a former speechwriter for President Bush and for former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman William H. Donaldson and a senior adviser to former U.S. trade representative Robert B. Zoellick , is settling in at the Treasury Department as chief speechwriter and senior adviser to new Secretary Henry M. "Hank" Paulson Jr . Trust he'll be dressing to Treasury's now-documented high standards.

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