Sunday, October 15, 2006
It Was Never About the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Huffington Post
Cenk Uygur
It Was Never About the Weapons of Mass Destruction
North Korea is proof positive that the Bush administration never cared about weapons of mass destruction. If that was really their main concern, clearly North Korea would have been their top priority. As it was, North Korea was so low on the priority list that we paid almost no attention to them for six years while they built and tested nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, we invaded a country that had no biological or chemical weapons, let alone even a hint of a nuclear weapons program. Cheney and the rest of the administration looked so far and so wide to find any evidence, questionable or otherwise, to link Iraq to WMD. If they were so concerned about WMD, why didn't they obsess about far, far clearer evidence of WMD in North Korea?
The answer is obvious. They never cared about weapons of mass destruction. That was just a convenient excuse to invade a country they wanted to invade since the first day they stepped into office. One of the main architects of the war, Paul Wolfowitz, pretty much admitted it to Vanity Fair, saying it was the most convenient reason they could use. Paul O'Neill explained that the White House was holding meetings on invading Iraq ten days after inauguration - and eight months before September 11th.
There are some that even argue that the Bush administration eased up on the weapons inspection requirements for North Korea (they argue that because it's true). There are some that argue that the Bush White House stopped an investigation of the financing behind nuclear weapons proliferation, which led to North Korea having the bomb.
But you don't have to believe any of that to understand the indisputable fact that the whole weapons of mass destruction excuse they used to attack Iraq was nothing but a clear and unequivocal lie. There isn't one person on earth that can justify an invasion of Iraq (and now a complete obsession with Iran) while totally ignoring North Korea - if you're real concern was weapons of mass destruction.
Some people are now using North Korea as an excuse to go further down the road of military action against Iran. What?! How does that make any sense? Iran doesn't have any WMD and couldn't possibly have any for another five years. North Korea has them now. So, why six party talks for North Korea and military options for Iran?
Why didn't we do six party talks for Iraq if they're such a great idea for North Korea? Because six party talks is another way of saying, "I don't really care and I just want to avoid this topic until my administration ends."
You might think all of this is painfully obvious (and you would be right). But then why are we still seriously talking about Iran's nuclear program as if that's the real reason we're interested in Iran. Could it be that we are obsessed with Iran and couldn't care less about North Korea because one has oil and the other has absolutely no natural resources.
It's definitely not about the weapons of mass destruction. That is now abundantly clear. So, you tell me what the difference is? Why did we invade Iraq and now threaten military action against Iran and couldn't care less about North Korea?
UN Sanctions: Bush's Election-Eve Conversion
Huffington Post
Craig Crawford
UN Sanctions: Bush's Election-Eve Conversion
You almost have to laugh at President Bush touting United Nations sanctions against North Korea as "swift and tough," considering how he once derided similar sanctions against Iraq as ineffective (when arguing for an invasion). Now that his own team is behind a nearly identical UN move against North Korea, suddenly he is on board with this approach?
There are just as many loopholes in the North Korean sanctions as there were in those against Iraq. And it was Saddam Hussein's exploitation of those loopholes that Bush often cited as the reason why he saw no purpose in a sanctions-based policy against the bad guys. The difference now is that White House political strategists want to look tough in the final weeks of an election campaign, even though they would be ridiculing these measures as wimpy diplomacy if Democrats had proposed them. How ironic that the UN Security Council, which Bush once mocked as nothing but a "debating club," is now his cover for looking like he is doing something meaningful.
Tip Off: New Book Says Comment By Porter Goss Alerted Journalist To CIA's Controversial Rendition Program
Newsweek
Tip Off
A new book says that a comment by former CIA director Porter Goss alerted a journalist to the agency’s controversial rendition program.
Oct. 12, 2006 - An unsolicited remark from Porter Goss, then chairman House Intelligence Committee, led a British journalist to unravel many of the details of the CIA’s controversial “extraordinary rendition” program, according to a new book. The disclosure of this highly sensitive operation later prompted a major leak investigation that roiled the agency.
The surprising role of Goss, who later became director of the CIA, in setting London-based reporter Stephen Grey on the trail of the rendition program is revealed in “Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program
Grey’s dogged legwork—which started by tracing the tail numbers of mysterious aircraft ultimately linked to the CIA—eventually enabled him to piece together the story of how agency officials were abducting terror suspects and flying them to secret prisons around the world.
Yet, in an ironic twist, Grey reports that his initial tip-off to what the CIA was doing came during a Dec. 14, 2001, interview he had with Florida Congressman Goss on Capitol Hill about the war on terror. At the time, Grey, a veteran reporter who wrote for The Sunday Times of London, asked the House Intelligence Committee chairman about the prospect that Osama bin Laden might be captured and turned over to the U.S. government.
“It’s called a rendition,” Goss replied. “Do you know that?”
“No,” Grey replied, according to a transcript of the interview that Grey made available to NEWSWEEK and portions of which are cited in “Ghost Plane.”
“Well, there is a polite way to take people out of action and bring them to some type of justice,” Goss then says. “It’s generally referred to as a rendition. It's what I would have preferred to do with [former Yugoslavian president Slobodan] Milosevic instead of bombing the hell out of a sovereign nation we're not at war with. It probably would have been smarter to think of a rendition."
Grey writes that it was this offhand comment by Goss that alerted him to the existence of the highly classified CIA program of “snatches and imprisonment that operates outside normal rules.”
“It gave me the germ of the idea,” Grey said in an interview. “This is where I heard about it. He set me on the trail.”
Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a spokeswoman for Goss, dismissed the idea that Goss had disclosed anything classified or sensitive when he made his remark about rendition to Grey.
“Although that may have been the first time Mr. Grey heard the term, it certainly is not the first time the U.S. government publicly discussed this decades-old tool,” she said in an e-mail response to NEWSWEEK.
“In the ’80’s, [director of Central Intelligence William] Webster discussed rendering terrorists with The Washington Post,” Dyck continued. “During public testimony in 2000, which is easily found on CIA’s public website, Director [George] Tenet openly touted the work done with foreign governments to render terrorists to justice including associates of Usama [sic] Bin Laden. And after 9-11, the U.S. has continued to publicly site [sic] renditions as a critical tool in the War on Terror.”
But the examples that Dyck cited in her response—as well as other public references to renditions prior to Goss’s comments to Grey—involved instances in which the practice was mentioned as a legal tool by which U.S. government agents in the FBI or the CIA apprehended suspects overseas and brought them back to the United States to stand trial in courts of law.
For example, Webster’s November 1989 comments to The Washington Post refer to the Justice Department’s efforts to apprehend suspects in the bombing of Pam Am Flight 103 over Scotland the previous year and bringing them back to stand trial in the United States. The paper’s report, based on an interview with Webster, reported that the Justice Department had created a new term—“rendition”—to describe the act of capturing and bringing back to the United States a “criminal suspect.”
Similarly, Tenet’s 2000 testimony on the CIA Web site refers to how the CIA, working with foreign governments worldwide, had “helped to render more than two dozen terrorists to justice.”
But as Grey documents in his book, and has been independently confirmed by numerous news organizations, as well as senior Bush administration officials, the CIA’s program after September 11 evolved into something very different and far more controversial. Under the post-9/11 CIA program, known as extraordinary rendition, agency officials have abducted terror suspects who had never been indicted for any crimes and then flown them to either secret agency prisons or to foreign countries such as Egypt or Syria where they have been allegedly interrogated using aggressive techniques that critics charge amounts to torture.
Rand Beers, a former top counterterror official in the Bush White House who later resigned and became a critic of the administration, says Goss, as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, would likely have been briefed about some classified aspects of the emerging extraordinary-rendition program at the time he made his comments to Grey.
To be sure, Goss made no explicit reference to the details of extraordinary rendition in his comments to the British journalist and even the little he did say involved talk about rendering suspects in order to “bring them to some type of justice.” Still, the disclosure that Goss may have played any role at all in the disclosure of the CIA’s secret programs may well be pounced on by critics, given his fierce condemnation of any leaks at all when he was CIA director.
In Senate testimony last February, before he resigned as director, Goss said leaks had caused “severe damage” to the agency’s operations and called for full-fledged grand-jury investigations to find the leakers. "It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand-jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information. I believe the safety of this nation and the people of this country deserves nothing less."
As part of an internal CIA probe into leaks about the CIA’s secret prison program, one senior officer, Mary O. McCarthy, was fired last April after agency officials said she acknowledged “unauthorized contacts with the media and discussion of classified information.” McCarthy’s lawyer, Ty Cobb, later denied she had been the source of the leak and no criminal charges have been filed against her.
Grey estimates in his book that there have been between 100 to 150 CIA renditions under the secret program, some of which have earned global notoriety. Indeed, in Italy prosecutors have filed criminal charges against more than a dozen suspected CIA officers accused of involvement in the rendition of an Islamic militant known as Abu Omar, who was allegedly apprehended off the streets in Milan and flown to Egypt. Prosecutors in Munich are conducting a similar inquiry into the case of Khalid al-Masri, a German citizen who was abducted while on vacation in Macedonia, held and questioned in a secret prison in Afghanistan and later released without explanation. A former German counterterrorism official recently told NEWSWEEK the abduction of al-Masri was a case of “mistaken identity” by the CIA; agency officials thought he was someone else.
Grey played a key role in assisting European governments and many Western journalists to discover the CIA’s role in these and other renditions through his investigative efforts. What Grey did was to take scraps of information about planes linked to the disappearances of Islamic militants around the world and vigorously trace the aircrafts’ origins. Local journalists in Sweden, for example, acquired the tail number of a plane believed to have been involved in the mysterious abduction of an Islamic militant in Stockholm in early December 2001. (Ironically this occurred only a few days after Grey interviewed Goss.)
Using the tail number and public databases—including databases maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration—Grey eventually was able to trace the ownership and licensing of the plane to companies and air-transport operations based at an obscure airport in North Carolina. Later, Grey acquired the numbers of other suspected CIA rendition aircraft, including a Boeing 737 passenger jet. He also managed to acquire unclassified flight-plan records tracking the movements, or at least the intended movements, of the suspected CIA planes around the world. By matching the dates of suspected renditions—or known disappearances—of Islamic militants with the flight plans of CIA planes, Grey not only put together detailed chronologies of how specific renditions apparently took place, but also built up a picture of how the agency moved suspects around the world, where they moved them to and how they apparently used sites in unlikely places—such as Eastern Europe—as part of the secret operation. The Washington Post later built on the raw information assembled by Grey to produce its now famous expose of alleged CIA secret prisons in Eastern Europe, which later triggered a major CIA leak investigation under Goss’s tenure as agency director.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15236104/site/newsweek/
Secret Service questions teen over Web threats; California girl quizzed over threats to Bush she posted on MySpace page
MSNBC.com
Secret Service questions teen over Web threats
California girl quizzed over threats to Bush she posted on MySpace page
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her Web page on MySpace.com.
She posted a picture of the president, scrawled “Kill Bush” across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She later replaced her page on the social-networking site after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.
It was too late.
Federal authorities had found the page and placed Wilson on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.
The 14-year-old freshman was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents. The incident has upset her parents, who said the agents should have included them when they questioned their daughter.
On Friday, the teenager said the agents’ questioning led her to tears.
“I wasn’t dangerous. I mean, look at what’s (stenciled) on my backpack — it’s a heart. I’m a very peace-loving person,” said Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. “I’m against the war in Iraq. I’m not going to kill the president.”
Her mother, Kirstie Wilson, said two agents showed up at the family’s home Wednesday afternoon, questioned her and promised to return once her daughter was home from school.
After they left, Kirstie Wilson sent a text message to her daughter’s cell phone, telling her to come straight home: “There are two men from the secret service that want to talk with you. Apparently you made some death threats against president bush.”
“Are you serious!?!? omg. Am I in a lot of trouble?” her daughter responded.
‘They yelled a lot’
Moments later, Kirstie Wilson received another text message from her daughter saying agents had pulled her out of class.
Julia Wilson said the agents threatened her by saying she could be sent to juvenile hall for making the threat.
“They yelled at me a lot,” she said. “They were unnecessarily mean.”
Spokesmen for the Secret Service in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., said they could not comment on the case.
Parents unhappy with questioning
Wilson and her parents said the agents were justified in questioning her over her MySpace.com posting. But they said they believe agents went too far by not waiting until she was out of school.
They also said the agents should have more quickly figured out they weren’t dealing with a real danger. Ultimately, the agents told the teen they would delete her investigation file.
Assistant Principal Paul Belluomini said the agents gave him the impression the girl’s mother knew they were planning to question her daughter at school. There is no legal requirement that parents be notified.
“This has been an ongoing problem,” said Ann Brick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco.
Former Govs. Pete Wilson and Gray Davis vetoed bills that would have required that parents give consent or be present when their children are questioned at school by law enforcement officers. A similar bill this year cleared the state Senate but died in the Assembly.
Julia Wilson plans to post a new MySpace.com page, this one devoted to organizing other students to protest the Iraq war.
“I decided today I think I will because it (the questioning) went too far,” she said.
9/11 Federal Aid Program Filled with Fraud
Huffington Post
9/11 Federal Aid Program Filled with Fraud?
So says the NY Daily News in
a report of a House Homeland Security subcommittee's study of the more than $21 billion program.
Nuggetty highlights:
FEMA, which dispensed $8.8 billion - 41% of the total federal 9/11 aid package - paid for free air conditioners and other clean-air devices to tens of thousands of New Yorkers who lived nowhere near Ground Zero or the toxic plume from the World Trade Center.
"They have no map of the city? They have no clue how far the plume went?" said an outraged King. "Then people went and used their vouchers to buy stereos and God knows what."...
payment of $300,000 by FEMA and the city to a photographer who took video and photos while flying over Ground Zero, only to turn around and use some of the material in a documentary featuring topless women.
House investigators found that the photog's background and lack of experience was never checked...
"uncomplicated" eligibility rules established by the Empire State Development Corp. and its subsidiary, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., for small business recovery grants ended up "favoring large companies."
Of course, we all know New York City isn't as crooked as New Orleans, which must be why this story isn't national news.
Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff
washingtonpost.com
Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff
By James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.
The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff funneled money from his clients to the groups. In exchange, the groups, among other things, produced ostensibly independent newspaper op-ed columns or news releases that favored the clients' positions.
Officers of the groups "were generally available to carry out Mr. Abramoff's requests for help with his clients in exchange for cash payments," said the report, issued by the Senate Finance Committee. The report was written by the Democratic staff after a yearlong investigation and authorized by the Republican chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).
Abramoff has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy and could go to prison as early as next month. Prosecution and defense lawyers jointly filed papers yesterday asking a judge to recommend that he be sent to a federal facility in Cumberland, Md., to make it easier for him to cooperate with the ongoing probe. The investigation has resulted in one conviction and seven guilty pleas -- including one from a lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), who is to appear today before a federal judge in the District.
The Senate report released yesterday states that the nonprofit groups probably violated their tax-exempt status "by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff's clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff's clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff's clients."
The report bolstered earlier revelations that Abramoff laundered money through the nonprofits to pay for congressional trips and paid Norquist to arrange meetings for Abramoff's clients with government officials including White House senior adviser Karl Rove.
The groups named in the report are Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became secretary of the interior; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a spinoff of the Heritage Foundation; and Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based religious group founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
E-mails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often with the knowledge of the groups' leaders, exploited the tax-exempt status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build support among conservatives for legislation or government action sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey.
A spokesman for Norquist, John Kartch, called the report "political nonsense" pushed by Democrats close to the midterm elections.
Norquist's attorney, Cleta Mitchell, had told the Senate panel that, as long as Americans for Tax Reform spends funds in keeping with its general purpose, "there is no 'abuse' of ATR's tax status." Officials with the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy denied wrongdoing. Citizens Against Government Waste said the group did not abuse its tax status and always adhered to long-held positions.
Amy Ridenour of the National Center acknowledged in an interview with investigators that donations can have some sway with think tanks but denied that they were made in exchange for positions.
Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), the Finance Committee's ranking Democrat, called on the IRS and the FBI to investigate. "These groups' dealings with Jack Abramoff certainly violated the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of the laws that give charitable and social welfare organizations a break for the good work they're supposed to do," Baucus said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Grassley said the chairman did not co-write the report because he had hoped it would include a broader range of groups that he believes also breached their tax status. A Baucus aide said the Democratic staff did not object to a broader review.
The Abramoff scandal has bruised the image of Norquist, a friend of Abramoff's since their days in the College Republicans. Often consulted by Rove, Norquist for decades has convened a key Wednesday morning strategy session for conservative leaders, lobbyists and Republican lawmakers.
Abramoff traded on Norquist's cachet, at one point referring to him in an e-mail as a "hard-won asset" of his lobbying empire. In exchange for Norquist's opposition to taxes on Brown-Forman products, Norquist recommended that a $50,000 donation be made to Americans for Tax Reform, according to an Abramoff e-mail.
"What is most important, however, is that this matter is kept discreet," Abramoff wrote to a colleague at the Preston, Gates & Ellis law firm. "We do not want the opponents to think that we are trying to buy the taxpayer movement."
The e-mails show that Abramoff and Norquist explicitly discussed client donations to Norquist's group in exchange for Norquist's support. The group's advocacy "appears indistinguishable from lobbying undertaken by for-profit, taxable firms," the report said.
Among those who agreed to donate money for an opinion piece was DH2, which in 2004 pushed for tax breaks for its customers.
E-mails show that DH2 understood that Norquist's help came with a price tag. The tab was sent to DH2's managing director, Robert S. Rubin.
"I told Rubin he needs to round up some $$$ for ATR," wrote lobbyist Michael E. Williams to his boss, Abramoff.
"Get the money from Rubin in hand," Abramoff replied, "and then we'll call Grover."
How much, Williams asked.
"50K," Abramoff wrote.
Abramoff e-mailed Norquist on Feb. 10, 2004: "I have sent over a $50K contribution from DH2 (the mutual fund client). Any sense as to where we are on the op-ed placement?"
Replied Norquist: "The Wash Times told me they were running the piece. . . . I will nudge again."
The Washington Times has published about 50 Norquist op-eds since 1993 but apparently none on mutual funds. Norquist did write a letter in April 2004 to a congressman praising him for sponsoring "legislation that would finally allow mutual fund shareholders to defer their capital gains tax" and pledging that his group "is committed to helping you pass this legislation."
Norquist wrote an op-ed piece, published in the Washington Times, as part of an extensive Abramoff campaign for Channel One, which broadcasts educational programming and advertising into public school classrooms. An Abramoff e-mail to Norquist offered him $1,500 for an op-ed, and another e-mail exchange suggested up to $3,000 to buy an "economic analysis."
The Council for Republican Environmental Advocacy, founded by Norquist and Norton, who resigned as interior secretary earlier this year, also appeared to have been used "as an extension of Mr. Abramoff's lobbying organization," the report said.
Abramoff directed his client Indian tribes to donate a total of about $500,000 to the group, telling them that the donation was a way to cultivate Norton at the Interior Department, which oversees the tribes and their casinos. E-mails show that Abramoff told the tribes that they would be CREA's "trustees" and that Norton would "host" a series of CREA dinners. Interior Department documents obtained by The Washington Post suggest that Norton was an invited guest at a CREA dinner, not a host.
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Conservatives Rally Against Bush Aide-Turned-Critic; Exposé of White House Scorn for Evangelicals Is Disputed
washingtonpost.com
Conservatives Rally Against Bush Aide-Turned-Critic
Exposé of White House Scorn for Evangelicals Is Disputed
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Conservative religious leaders described themselves as shocked yesterday by a new book's charge that Bush administration staffers privately dismissed evangelical Christian political activists as "nuts" and "goofy."
But their dismay was aimed at the book's author, former White House official David Kuo, rather than at President Bush or his senior advisers.
James Dobson, Charles W. Colson and other stalwarts of the conservative Christian movement defended the Bush administration and questioned the timing of the book's publication, a month before the midterm elections. Some suggested that Kuo had betrayed the White House.
"I feel sorry for him, because once you do something like this, you get your 15 minutes in the spotlight, but then after that nobody will touch you," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group in Washington. "These kiss-and-tell books do more damage to the author than to the people they attack."
Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in Bush's first term, alleges in the book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction
The book is being published at a pivotal moment not just for Republicans who are battling to maintain control of the House and Senate but also for conservative Christian voters, whose support for the GOP has dipped in recent polls.
At 7 p.m. Sunday, evangelical leaders including Perkins and Dobson plan to broadcast a 90-minute television special from a Boston church to hundreds of other churches across the country in an attempt to keep religious conservatives from sitting out the election.
Called "Liberty Sunday," it will "highlight specific cases and stories where people's religious liberties have been threatened because of homosexual activism and gay marriage in Massachusetts," said Family Research Council spokeswoman Bethanie Swendsen.
At the same hour, CBS's "60 Minutes" will broadcast the first interview with Kuo about his book, which is scheduled to go on sale Monday. CBS and the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, tried to keep a lid on the book's contents until the "60 Minutes" exclusive. But MSNBC host Keith Olbermann obtained a copy and began broadcasting excerpts Wednesday.
Conservative Christian leaders as well as present and former White House officials responded yesterday to the MSNBC report, noting that they had not yet seen the book itself.
White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters that the book's "assumption or insinuation seems to be that the administration takes lightly faith-based groups." That is "false," he said.
Asked whether the president's "faith-based initiative" was used for political purposes, Snow said flatly: "No." Snow also read from a letter Kuo wrote to Bush when he left the administration in December 2003, saying he was "proud of all the initiative has accomplished."
In the book, Kuo asserts that the faith-based office was hurriedly set up after Bush took office in 2001 by a transition volunteer who was given less than a week to roll out the initiative.
Kuo asserts that evangelical leaders were called "the nuts" by people in White House political strategist Karl Rove's office. "National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person, and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control' and just plain 'goofy,' " the book says, according to MSNBC.
Kuo previously has criticized the Bush administration for not carrying out the president's 2000 campaign promise to boost charitable giving at least $7 billion a year by extending charitable tax breaks to people who do not itemize income tax deductions.
In the book, he says the White House opted instead for cuts in the estate tax that eliminated the incentive for many wealthy people to make charitable donations. The "ultimate impact was to brutalize the very charities Mr. Bush once identified as his top priorities," Kuo says.
Beginning in 2002, the White House held ostensibly "nonpartisan" conferences about the availability of federal grants for religious charities. But Kuo alleges that the events were, in fact, designed to help vulnerable Republican incumbents.
Ken Mehlman, then the White House director of political affairs and now chairman of the Republican National Committee, "loved the idea and gave us our marching orders" to hold meetings in 20 congressional districts, the book says.
H. James Towey, who directed the faith-based office during Kuo's time there, said yesterday that "it sounds like he worked at a different White House than the one I worked for."
Towey added that he, not Mehlman, decided where to hold conferences. "If a congressman in a tight race invited me, I went," he said. "But that was true of Democrats as well as Republicans."
Dobson, the psychologist and radio host who heads the influential group Focus on the Family, issued a statement calling the book "a mix of sour grapes and political timing."
Colson, who founded Prison Fellowship Ministries, said he was "shocked and disappointed by what appears to be political timing to sell a book, and a very unfair characterization of the parties involved."
Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, a Christian women's group in Washington, said she sees "no reason to question the sincerity of this president" based on the accusations aired so far.
"So, in Rove's office people of faith are mocked? Well, who in Rove's office did the mocking? It's easy to make allegations like that if you don't give the name, date, time," she said.
Perkins of the Family Research Council said he would not be surprised if derisive comments were made behind Christian leaders' backs.
"I have no misconceptions about how people in the Republican Party and the establishment view social conservatives. They are dismissive. I see how they prefer to work with fiscal conservatives," he said. "Having said that, I see it really as a marriage of convenience. We are not without significant gains by working with this administration."
Conn. Republican Rep. Christopher Shays Blames National Guard For Abu Ghraib; Says Abu Ghraib Abuses Were Sex Ring, Not Torture
ABC News
Republican Shays Blames National Guard For Abu Ghraib
Conn. Republican Rep. Christopher Shays Says Abu Ghraib Abuses Were Sex Ring, Not Torture
The Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. - Republican Rep. Christopher Shays said Friday the Abu Ghraib prison abuses were more about pornography than torture.
The congressman, who is in a tough re-election fight, said a National Guard unit was primarily responsible for the abuses.
"It was a National Guard unit run amok," Shays said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It was torture because sex abuse is torture. It was gross and despicable ... This is more about pornography than torture."
In fact, the 372nd Military Police Company from Cresaptown, Md., is an Army Reserve unit not National Guard.
Shays sought to defuse controversy over previous comments suggesting the Abu Ghraib abuses weren't torture but instead involved a sex ring of troops.
"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture," Shays said at a debate Wednesday.
"It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked," added Shays. "And they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."
The lawmaker's comments were in a transcript of the debate provided by his opponent, Diane Farrell. Shays' campaign, contacted Friday, did not dispute the comments.
Abu Ghraib is the Baghdad prison where abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers led to an international scandal. Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were brutalized and sexually humiliated by military police and intelligence agents in the fall of 2003. At least 11 U.S. soldiers have been convicted in the scandal.
In the debate, the congressman had been asked what the government should do to restore the nation's moral image in the wake of torture accusations at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay.
Shays said Friday he wished he had more fully explained his views at the debate.
"I was maybe not as expansive as I needed to be," he said. "Of course, the degrading of anyone is torture. We need to deal with it."
Shays said his debate comments reflected the disturbing photos he has seen of Abu Ghraib abuses: "Naked Iraqis, naked Americans, Americans having sex ... gross and despicable pictures."
Shays is waging a bruising re-election fight against Farrell.
"Once again, Chris is trying to back away from an earlier statement because it's politically expedient," Farrell said Friday. "It's typical Chris."
Shays stirred controversy recently when he defended House Speaker Dennis Hastert's handling of a congressional page scandal, saying no one died like at Chappaquiddick in 1969 when Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy was involved.
Weldon faces probe on daughter's deals
Yahoo! News
Weldon faces probe on daughter's deals
By KIMBERLY HEFLING and LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
The FBI is investigating whether Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., used his influence to secure lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter, two people familiar with the inquiry said Saturday.
The inquiry focuses on lobbying contracts worth $1 million that Weldon's daughter, Karen Weldon, obtained from foreign clients and whether they were assisted by the congressman, they said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of the criminal investigation.
Weldon, a 10-term Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs, long has denied any wrongdoing, and his top aide said Saturday no one had notified him of an investigation.
"I think if there was an investigation, somebody would have contacted us," said Russ Caso, Weldon's chief of staff.
Caso said Weldon and his staff were "100 percent caught off guard" when they learned of the investigation, first reported late Friday by McClatchy Newspapers. This account cited two individuals with specific knowledge of the existence of the investigation; they declined to be identified because of the confidentiality of criminal investigations.
Caso, whose boss is in a tight race for re-election on Nov. 7 against Democrat Joe Sestak, tried to cast doubt on reports of the investigation. "Unidentified sources mean nothing," Caso said. "There's no substance in that story. It's a flimsy story."
Two people familiar with the investigation told the AP on Saturday that the inquiry was being handled by agents from the FBI's field offices in Washington and Philadelphia and was being coordinated by the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the FBI declined comment Saturday.
Those two people familiar with the investigation confirmed that federal agents were examining Weldon's work between 2002 and 2004 to help two Russian companies and two Serbian brothers connected to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. They had hired Solutions North America Inc., a company operated by Karen Weldon and Charles Sexton, a Republican ally of the congressman.
Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services committee, is a Russian speaker regarded by some as a foreign policy expert who has clashed at times with the Bush administration.
Over the last few days, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has mailed fliers to voters in Weldon's district accusing Karen Weldon of getting help from her father on lobbying projects.
Michael Puppio, Weldon's campaign manager, questioned the timing of the mailing and published reports about the investigation. He accused Democrats of "attempting to smear the congressman and his entire family" in the final weeks of the campaign.
Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the DCCC, said it's "bizarre, paranoid and absurd" for the Weldon campaign to imply there's a link in the timing of the mailing and the published reports.
The Weldon investigation comes at a critical time for Republicans who are fighting to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives in a midst of scandals.
On Friday, Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, which has touched on federal lawmakers, former aides and members of the Bush administration.
At the same time, an inquiry is under way on Capitol Hill into whether Republican House leaders or their top aides covered up questionable behavior of former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) toward teenage males who worked as House pages.
Bush Keeps Changing Reason For Iraq War
Yahoo! News
Bush keeps revising war justification
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.
Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.
But 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive "struggle between good and evil."
Republicans seized on North Korea's reported nuclear test last week as further evidence that the need for strong U.S. leadership extends beyond Iraq.
Bush's changing rhetoric reflects increasing administration efforts to tie the war, increasingly unpopular at home, with the global fight against terrorism, still the president's strongest suit politically.
"We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West," Bush said in a news conference last week in the Rose Garden.
When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Bush shifted his war justification to one of liberating Iraqis from a brutal ruler.
After Saddam's capture in December 2003, the rationale became helping to spread democracy through the Middle East. Then it was confronting terrorists in Iraq "so we do not have to face them here at home," and "making America safer," themes Bush pounds today.
"We're in the ideological struggle of the 21st century," he told a California audience this month. "It's a struggle between good and evil."
Vice President Dick Cheney takes it even further: "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us," Cheney tells audiences.
Except for the weapons of mass destruction argument, there is some validity in each of Bush's shifting rationales, said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution who initially supported the war effort.
"And I don't have any big problems with any of them, analytically. The problem is they can't change the realities on the ground in Iraq, which is that we're in the process of beginning to lose," O'Hanlon said. "It is taking us a long time to realize that, but the war is not headed the way it should be."
Andrew Card, Bush's first chief of staff, said Bush's evolving rhetoric, including his insistence that Iraq is a crucial part of the fight against terrorism, is part of an attempt to put the war in better perspective for Americans.
The administration recently has been "doing a much better job" in explaining the stakes, Card said in an interview. "We never said it was going to be easy. The president always told us it would be long and tough."
"I'm trying to do everything I can to remind people that the war on terror has the war in Iraq as a subset. It's critical we succeed in Iraq as part of the war on terror," said Card, who left the White House in March.
Bush at first sought to explain increasing insurgent and sectarian violence as a lead-up to Iraqi elections. But elections came and went, and a democratically elected government took over, and the sectarian violence increased.
Bush has insisted U.S. soldiers will stand down as Iraqis stand up. He has likened the war to the 20th century struggles against fascism, Nazism and communism. He has called Iraq the "central front" in a global fight against radical jihadists.
Having jettisoned most of the earlier, upbeat claims of progress, Bush these days emphasizes consequences of setting even a limited withdrawal timetable: abandonment of the Iraqi people, destabilizing the Middle East and emboldening terrorists around the world.
The more ominous and determined his words, the more skeptical the American public appears, polls show, both on the war itself and over whether it is part of the larger fight against terrorism, as the administration insists.
Bush's approval rating, reflected by AP-Ipsos polls, has slid from the mid 60s at the outset of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to the high 30s now. There were light jumps upward after the December 2003 capture of Saddam, Bush's re-election in November 2004 and each of three series of aggressive speeches over the past year. Those gains tended to vanish quickly.
With the war intruding on the fall elections, both parties have stepped up their rhetoric.
Republicans, who are also reeling from the congressional page scandal, are casting Democrats as seeking to "cut and run" and appease terrorists.
Democrats accuse Bush of failed leadership with his "stay the course" strategy. They cite a government intelligence assessment suggesting the Iraq war has helped recruit more terrorists, and a book by journalist Bob Woodward that portrays Bush as intransigent in his defense of the Iraq war and his advisers as bitterly divided.
Democrats say Iraq has become a distraction from the war against terrorism — not a central front. But they are divided among themselves on what strategy to pursue.
Republicans, too, increasingly are growing divided as U.S. casualties rise.
"I struggle with the fact that President Bush said, `As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.' But the fact is, this has not happened," said Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), R-Conn., a war supporter turned war skeptic.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia, said after a recent visit to Iraq that Iraq was "drifting sideways." He urged consideration of a "change of course" if the Iraq government fails to restore order over the next two or three months.
More than 2,750 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war, most of them since Bush's May 2003 "mission accomplished" aircraft carrier speech. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died.
Recent events have been dispiriting.
The United States now has about 141,000 troops in Iraq, up from about 127,000 in July. Some military experts have suggested at least one additional U.S. division, or around 20,000 troops, is needed in western Iraq alone.
Dan Benjamin, a former Middle East specialist with the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, said the administration is overemphasizing the nature of the threat in an effort to bolster support.
"I think the administration has oversold the case that Iraq could become a jihadist state," said Benjamin, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If the U.S. were to leave Iraq tomorrow, the result would be a bloodbath in which Sunnis and Shiites fight it out. But the jihadists would not be able to seek power."
Not all of Bush's rhetorical flourishes have had the intended consequences.
When the history of Iraq is finally written, the recent surge in sectarian violence is "going to be a comma," Bush said in several recent appearances.
Critics immediately complained that the remark appeared unsympathetic and dismissive of U.S. and Iraqi casualties, an assertion the White House disputed.
For a while last summer, Bush depicted the war as one against "Islamic fascism," borrowing a phrase from conservative commentators. The strategy backfired, further fanning anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.
The "fascism" phrase abruptly disappeared from Bush's speeches, reportedly after he was talked out of it by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidant now with the State Department.
Hughes said she would not disclose private conversations with the president. But, she told the AP, she did not use the "fascism" phrase herself. "I use `violent extremist,'" she said.
Ney convicted in lobbying scandal
Reuters
Ney convicted in lobbying scandal
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican congressman pleaded guilty on Friday in the Jack Abramoff political corruption investigation, becoming the first lawmaker convicted in an election-year scandal that has reached into Congress and the Bush administration.
Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio admitted he had illegally accepted trips, meals, drinks, tickets to concerts and sporting events and other items worth tens of thousands of dollars in return for official acts performed on behalf of the lobbyist Abramoff and his clients.
Ney, who abandoned his re-election race in August as the Justice Department investigated his links to the convicted Abramoff, said he was ashamed of the way his public service career was ending and will resign from Congress in the next few weeks.
But with the election less than a month away and with Democrats increasingly optimistic about winning control of Congress, the White House and House Republican leaders urged Ney to step down immediately.
"What Congressman Ney did was not a reflection of the Republican Party. It was a reflection of Congressman Ney and he ought to step down," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and other Republican House leaders said they will move to expel Ney immediately as the first order of business when Congress resumes its legislative work in November, if Ney has not resigned.
"Bob Ney must be punished for the criminal actions he has acknowledged," they said in a statement. "He betrayed his oath of office and violated the trust of those he represented in the House. There is no place for him in this Congress."
Appearing at a federal court a few blocks from the Capitol, Ney stood before the judge during the 30-minute hearing and said, "I plead guilty your honor."
IN ALCOHOL TREATMENT
He gave brief answers to the judge's questions and said he has been in an alcohol treatment program during the past month.
In a statement issued after the hearing, Ney said, "I have made mistakes of judgment and acted in ways that I am not proud of."
The Abramoff scandal and the scandal involving lewd computer messages sent by disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley to young male congressional aides have hurt Republicans as they seek to keep control of Congress in the November 7 elections.
The Abramoff scandal also has reached into the White House, with the conviction of former Bush administration official David Safavian and last week's resignation of Susan Ralston, an aide to top presidential political adviser Karl Rove.
Ney, who reached a plea deal with prosecutors last month, admitted he conspired to commit fraud and other offenses and that he filed false financial disclosure forms.
"I accept responsibility for my actions and I am prepared to face the consequences of what I have done," he said in his statement.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle told the 52-year-old Ney that he faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and that, as part of his plea deal, prosecutors recommended he get 27 months in prison.
Huvelle told Ney she was not bound by the government's recommendation and set sentencing for January 19.
Ney's lawyer, Mark Tuohey, requested that Ney be given treatment for his alcoholism while in prison.
Ney, who was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1994, said he will resign from Congress in the next few weeks once he makes sure "my staff members are OK and that any open constituent matters and obligations are taken care of."
Government appeals wiretapping decision
Reuters
Government appeals wiretapping decision
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Friday appealed a federal judge's ruling this summer that a controversial post-September 11, 2001, domestic spying program was illegal.
The Justice Department, in documents filed with a federal court in Cincinnati, argued that President George W. Bush had acted within the law in authorizing the surveillance of domestic wiretaps of international telephone calls.
In its appeal, the government stated that the federal judge's ruling "dismantles a tool that already has helped detect and disrupt al Qaeda plots."
It stated that U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's decision directly conflicts with the Supreme Court's direction to "proceed with great caution in resolving challenges in this extraordinarily sensitive context."
Nearly a year ago, media reports revealed the existence of the domestic spying by the National Security Agency.
Civil libertarians, including the ACLU, which brought the suit, have argued the government could gain the same type of intelligence information through warrants.
Judge Taylor ruled in August that NSA's five-year-old surveillance program, implemented as part of the government's war on terrorism, violates the civil rights of Americans because the government does not have to present justification for its monitoring in court and obtain a warrant.
In its appeal, the government argued the surveillance program was narrowly targeted and thus did not violate Americans' constitutional rights, while being an effective tool in stopping potential terrorist attacks.
The expedited appeal called for the government to submit its arguments to the appeals court by Friday, with a response due a month later.
The losing side is almost certain to appeal to the Supreme Court, which is likely to take up the case.
Earlier this month, an appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that the Bush administration's wiretap program can continue pending the government's appeal.
In late September, the House of Representatives passed legislation authorizing President George W. Bush's domestic spying program. But the measure stalled in the Senate and Congress is now on a long election-year recess.
Friday, October 13, 2006
North Korea Says Nuclear Test Successful; Russia said its monitoring services had detected a nuclear explosion.
Although this article is a few days old, the US Press, in general, and the President in particular, never seemed to point out that Russia says its instruments confirm that it was a nuclear device.
ABC News
North Korea Says Nuclear Test Successful
North Korea Says It Has Performed Nuclear Weapons Test, Calls Exercise a 'Great Leap Forward'
By BURT HERMAN
The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea faced a barrage of condemnation and calls for retaliation Monday after it announced that it had set off a small atomic weapon underground, a test that thrust the secretive communist state into the elite club of nuclear-armed nations.
The United States, Japan, China and Britain led a chorus of criticism and urged action by the United Nations Security Council in response to the reported test, which fell one day after the anniversary of reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's accession to power nine years ago.
The Security Council had warned North Korea just two days earlier not to go through with any test, and the Pyongyang government's defiance was likely to lead to calls for stronger sanctions against the impoverished and already isolated country.
White House spokesman Tony Snow called for "immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act" and said that the United States was closely monitoring the situation and "reaffirms its commitment to protect and defend our allies in the region."
South Korea's geological institute estimated that the test's power was equivalent to 550 tons of TNT, far smaller than the two nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in World War II.
The U.S. Geological Survey said it recorded a magnitude-4.2 seismic event in northeastern North Korea. Asian neighbors also said they registered a seismic event, but only Russia said its monitoring services had detected a nuclear explosion.
"It is 100 percent (certain) that it was an underground nuclear explosion," said Lt. Gen. Vladimir Verkhovtsev, head of a Defense Ministry department, according to Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency.
Although North Korea has long claimed it had the capability to produce a bomb, the test was the first manifest proof of its membership in a small club of nuclear-armed nations. A nuclear armed North Korea would dramatically alter the strategic balance of power in the Pacific region and would tend to undermine already fraying global anti-proliferation efforts.
"If the test (is) true, it will severely endanger not only Northeast Asia but also the world stability," Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso warned.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, facing his first major foreign policy test since his recent election, called for a "calm yet stern response."
South Korea said it had put its military on high alert, but said it noticed no unusual activity among North Korea's troops.
China, the North's closest ally and the impoverished nation's main source of food, expressed its "resolute opposition" to the reported test and urged the North to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks. It said the North "defied the universal opposition of international society and flagrantly conducted the nuclear test."
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair said the test was a "completely irresponsible act," and its Foreign Ministry warned of international repercussions.
The White House said a test defied world opinion.
"A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a provocative act in defiance of the will of the international community and of our call to refrain from actions that would aggravate tensions in Northeast Asia," Snow said.
Russia, which borders North Korea, had urged Pyongyang not to conduct a nuclear test. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov last week voiced concern about the environmental consequences for Russia. The Foreign Ministry warned that a test would add to regional tensions and undermine the international nuclear nonproliferation regime.
The North has refused for a year to attend six-party international talks aimed at persuading it to disarm. The country pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 after U.S. officials accused it of a secret nuclear program, allegedly violating an earlier nuclear pact between Washington and Pyongyang.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the underground test was performed successfully and there was no dangerous radioactive leakage as a result.
North Korean scientists "successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions," the government-controlled agency said, adding this was "a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation."
"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the ... people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," KCNA said. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."
South Korea said the test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (9:36 p.m. EDT Sunday) in Hwaderi near Kilju city on the northeast coast. South Korean intelligence officials said the seismic wave had been detected in North Hamkyung province, the agency said.
No increase in radiation levels was detected in Russia's Primorye territory, which borders North Korea, the Russian news agency Interfax quoted regional meteorological service spokesman Sergei Slobodchikov as saying. Vladivostok, a large port city on Russia's Pacific Coast, is about 60 miles from the short border with North Korea.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun convened a meeting of security advisers over the test, Yonhap reported. The Japanese government set up a task force in response, Kyodo news agency said.
A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in July after a series of North Korean missile launches imposed limited sanctions on North Korea and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program a demand the North immediately rejected.
The resolution bans all U.N. member states from selling material or technology for missiles or weapons of mass destruction to North Korea and it bans all countries from receiving missiles, banned weapons or technology from Pyongyang.
Speculation over a possible North Korean test arose earlier this year after U.S. and Japanese reports cited suspicious activity at a suspected underground test site.
South Korean stocks plunged Monday following North Korea's announcement of the test. The South Korean won also fell sharply. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, fell as low as 1,303.62, or 3.6 percent.
Markets in South Korea, the world's 10th largest economy, have long been considered vulnerable to potential geopolitical risks emanating from the North. The two countries, which fought the 1950-53 Korean War, are divided by the world's most heavily armed border.
The two Koreas, which fought a 1950-53 war that ended in a cease-fire that has yet to be replaced with peace treaty, are divided by the world's most heavily armed border. However, they have made unprecedented strides toward reconciliation since their leaders met at their first-and-only summit in 2000.
The South had planned to ship 4,000 tons of cement to the North on Tuesday as emergency relief following massive flooding there, but decided to delay it, Yonhap reported, quoting an unidentified Unification Ministry official.
South Korea had said the one-time aid shipment was separate from its regular humanitarian aid to the North, which it has halted after Pyongyang's missile launches in July.
Impoverished and isolated North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 23 million people since its state-run farming system collapsed in the 1990s following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.
Wall Steet Journal: Democratic Wins In Midterm Elections May Boost Economy...
wsj.com
Dem Control Might Help Economy, WSJ.com Survey Finds
Democrats wins in November might boost the economy, economist in the latest WSJ.com economists survey found.
Most economists said the economy would perform best in the coming years if Democrats take control of at least one chamber of Congress. Only 12 of the 35 who answered the question said the economy would perform best under continued Republican control of the House and Senate. The best scenario, the economists said, would be Democratic control of the House only. The economists were almost evenly split over whether the stock market would perform better with a continued Republican lock on Congress or some measure of Democratic control.
“The economy is doing very well,” said Allen Sinai of Decision Economics Inc. However, it “would do better if the geopolitical side wasn’t depressing Americans and injecting caution in business sentiment. The psyche of Americans is surprisingly low. New blood can improve sentiment.”
When asked what the new Congress should make its top priority, economists indicated their top two choices were health care and Social Security. Those two issues represent the difficulty of the aging U.S. population and growing entitlement spending. However, there wasn’t much optimism that much would be done to take on the issues in the near-term. “There just isn’t the political will to address these problems,” said Dana Johnson of Comerica Bank. – Phil Izzo
U.S. casualties surge amid worsening Iraq violence
Reuters
U.S. casualties surge amid worsening Iraq violence
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military casualties have surged in Iraq in recent weeks, with U.S. troops engaging in perilous urban sweeps to curb sectarian violence in Baghdad while facing unrelenting violence elsewhere.
At least 44 U.S. troops have been killed so far in October. At the current pace, the month would be the deadliest for U.S. forces since January 2005. After falling to 43 in July, the U.S. toll rose in August and September before spiking this month. The war's average monthly U.S. death toll is 64.
The number of U.S. troops wounded in combat also has surged, with September's total of more than 770 the highest since November 2004, when U.S. forces launched a ground offensive to clear insurgents from Falluja.
Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, briefing in Baghdad on Thursday, attributed the rising casualties to insurgent violence that coincides with the current Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as well as more aggressive operations in Baghdad.
"We assume it will still get worse before it gets better. We expect violence to continue to increase over the next two weeks, until the end of Ramadan," Caldwell said.
Caldwell said the 15,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad are focusing their efforts in the sprawling capital on curbing death squads and others responsible for sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites that the U.S. commanders believe could lead to civil war if left unchecked.
"Each time you conduct operations like that, you put your soldiers at much greater risk," Caldwell said.
Army Gen. George Casey, top U.S. commander in Iraq, said on Wednesday the level of violence over the past few weeks has been the highest of the war. There are 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
GRIM TOLL
There have been 2,757 U.S. military deaths since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The U.S. death rate and overall toll still remain far lower than in the Vietnam War, when 58,000 U.S. troops were killed.
The Pentagon said 20,895 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat, many maimed by grievous blast wounds from insurgent roadside bombs, the leading cause of American casualties. At least 6,000 others have suffered wounds in accidents and other noncombat situations.
At least tens of thousands of Iraqis also have died. A study published this week estimated 655,000 Iraqis have died due to the war. Casey offered an estimate of 50,000.
Cato Institute defense analyst Ted Carpenter described a dilemma faced by the U.S. military on casualties.
"It can hunker down and concentrate on force protection, in which case the casualties always decline," Carpenter said, but Iraq's violence might spiral out of control.
"Or it can go out and patrol more aggressively, in which case the casualties go up dramatically. So basically it's a choice of poisons for American policy-makers," Carpenter added.
U.S. commanders have declared the fight for Baghdad as the main effort of the war, demoting the longstanding counter-insurgency fight in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency.
Brookings Institution analyst Michael O'Hanlon said there has been a gradual increase in overall violence since the first year of the war as the insurgency grew in strength and sophistication.
But spikes in violence, he said, have been driven primarily by U.S. actions like the current operation in Baghdad.
On the current surge in casualties, O'Hanlon said: "We're not winning and we may even be starting to lose. That's what it should make you conclude."
Climate change inaction will cost trillions: study
Reuters
Climate change inaction will cost trillions: study
By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON (Reuters) - Failing to fight global warming now will cost trillions of dollars by the end of the century even without counting biodiversity loss or unpredictable events like the Gulf Stream shutting down, a study said on Friday.
But acting now will avoid some of the massive damage and cost relatively little, said the study commissioned by Friends of the Earth from the Global Development and Environment Institute of Tufts University in the United States.
"The climate system has enormous momentum, as does the economic system," said co-author Frank Ackerman. "We have to start turning off greenhouse gas emissions now in order to avoid catastrophe in decades to come."
The study said the cost of inaction by governments and individuals could hit 11 trillion pounds a year by 2100, or six to eight percent of global economic output then.
Most scientists now agree average temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius by the end of the century, driven by so-called greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.
Already at two degrees they predict a massive upsurge in species loss and extreme weather events like storms, droughts and floods, threatening millions of lives. Polar icecaps will melt, raising sea levels by several meters.
Beyond that, the world enters into the unknown with the possible shutdown of the life-giving Gulf Stream and possibly catastrophic runaway change due to so-called climate feedback.
By contrast, spending just 1.6 trillion pounds a year now to limit temperature rises to two degrees could avoid annual economic damage of around 6.4 trillion pounds, the Tufts report said.
CHALLENGE
The report came the day after oil major Shell said business should see the challenge of climate change as a chance to make billions of pounds due to the demand for new technologies and products to slash carbon emissions.
"For business, tackling climate change is both a necessity and a huge opportunity. We have to step up to the challenge," Shell UK chairman James Smith said.
The British government is in the closing stages of a ground-breaking global study of the economic costs of climate change which is expected to be published within the next two weeks stressing the massive costs of inaction.
During a debate in parliament on Thursday Environment Minister David Miliband said the problem was worse than previously thought and the sternest challenge faced by mankind.
"Preventing the transformation of the earth's atmosphere from greenhouse to unconstrained hothouse represents arguably the most imposing scientific and technical challenge that humanity has ever faced," he said.
"It is local, national and international. It will affect all of us as well as all our children," he added.
Britain is set to meet its Kyoto target of cutting carbon emissions by 12 million tones by 2012, but the government is under pressure from opposition parties and environment groups to introduce laws setting enforceable national reduction targets.
Troops worsen problems in Iraq: army chief
Reuters
UK troops worsen problems in Iraq: army chief
By Deborah Haynes
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top army commander said British troops in Iraq should be withdrawn soon because their presence was exacerbating security problems in the country, according to a British newspaper.
General Sir Richard Dannatt also told the Daily Mail in an interview published on Friday that Britain's Iraq venture was aggravating the security threat elsewhere in the world.
In unusually blunt comments for a serving senior officer, Dannatt said the troops should "get ... out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems".
Britain, Washington's main ally in Iraq, has around 7,000 soldiers deployed, mainly in the Shi'ite south.
The March 2003 U.S.-led invasion to oust former president Saddam Hussein has come under heavy criticism, as the civilian death-toll mounts and British and U.S. troops are increasingly in the firing line. Britain has lost 119 soldiers so-far.
Dannatt, who took over as Chief of the General Staff in August, suggested troops in Iraq had out-stayed their welcome.
"The military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in. Whatever consent we may have had in the first place, may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance. That is a fact. I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them."
Dannatt appeared to be suggesting the presence of British and U.S. troops in Iraq was fanning Islamic militancy -- something British Prime Minister Tony Blair has consistently denied.
POST-WAR FAILINGS
Putting himself directly at odds with Blair and President Bush, the general criticised the post-invasion planning by the U.S.-led coalition.
"I think history will show that the planning for what happened after the initial successful war fighting phase was poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning."
He continued: "The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro-West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East. That was the hope, whether that was a sensible or naive hope history will judge. I don't think we are going to do that. I think we should aim for a lower ambition."
U.S.-led forces and the Iraqi government face a challenge both from insurgency and sectarian fighting between Shi'ites and Sunni Muslims that has brought the country close to civil war.
A spokeswoman at Blair's office issued a statement in response to the Dannatt interview that was echoed by the Ministry of Defense.
"It's important that people remember that we are in Iraq at the express wish of the democratically elected Iraqi government, to support them under the mandate of a U.N. resolution," the Downing Street statement said.
The opposition Conservatives' defense spokesman, however, welcomed the general's intervention, while expressing surprise at his bluntness.
"We need urgent clarification now from ministers about whether there has been any change in the government's position," Liam Fox said in a statement.
Blair has insisted that British troops must remain in Iraq until the Iraqi government is able to take control of security.
Bush, however, said on Wednesday he was open to adjusting the U.S. strategy in the country after two senior Republicans suggested there were alternatives to his policy, described by critics as "stay-the-course".
In the headline-grabbing interview, Dannatt appeared more upbeat about Britain's mission in Afghanistan -- the country's other major deployment to a hostile zone -- saying that he had "more optimism" that "we can get it right in Afghanistan".
He also appeared to support a need to tackle militant Islam around the world.
"We can't wish the Islamist challenge to our society away and I believe that the army both in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably wherever we go next, is fighting the foreign dimension of the challenge to our accepted way of life," he said.
In a snapshot of the daily chaos plaguing Iraq, gunmen stormed a television station in Baghdad on Thursday and shot dead 11 staff in the biggest attack yet on media in the country.
Iraqi media organisations, funded by religious or political groups, are frequent targets for militant groups as attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents and sectarian death squads continue to convulse the country, killing an estimated 100 people a day.
Fight for Congress puts veterans in trenches
Reuters
Fight for Congress puts veterans in trenches
By Andrew Stern
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A political war of attrition has reduced a band of military veterans to about eight candidates who might help Democrats seize control of the House of Representatives.
Four weeks before a November 7 election that Democrats hope will return them to power in Congress, they're the only ones seen as possible contenders of the 50 "fighting Dems" first urged by the party to help storm Capitol Hill.
Rival Republicans, led by a self-declared "war president," have portrayed Democrats as soft on defense and less able to protect the United States, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or on the home front.
Significantly, many of the veterans were waylaid by the rigors of fund-raising and campaigning, and butted up against the advantages of incumbency, said Rothenberg Political Report editor Nathan Gonzales.
"The war is an issue, but a candidate's stand on the war may be more important than a candidate's direct involvement in the war," he said.
Democratic officials do not say they had a formal strategy to recruit candidates with military backgrounds to challenge Republican incumbents and gain the 15 additional seats needed to capture the House.
But the party encouraged and promoted those who came along, many of them political novices facing stiff odds against established incumbents.
Of all the "fighting Dems," Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who lost both legs in Iraq, appeared to have the best chance. A Reuters-Zogby poll showed her favored to win. Other political analysts called her race a toss-up.
At least nine veterans of the Iraq war were candidates at one time and two of them, Patrick Murphy and Joe Sestak, are in close races to replace Republican congressmen in Pennsylvania.
Republicans too had about 40 veterans seeking office, although only one of them was from the Iraq war.
IRAQ IN FOCUS
Democrats without political experience underscored their independence from Washington culture and most called for a quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, saying the war was a costly error borne by their military brethren and taxpayers.
One of the group facing sure defeat, former Naval intelligence officer John Laesch, got a boost when a Capitol Hill sex scandal erupted over salacious e-mails sent to congressional pages by Florida Rep. Mark Foley.
Laesch's opponent, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, warded off calls for his resignation over his handling of the scandal.
Duckworth was recruited by Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, to run in the largely suburban district bordering Chicago that has traditionally favored Republicans.
Voters there have shown signs of shifting allegiances in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Henry Hyde, much like a neighboring district that elected Democrat Melissa Bean in 2004.
A 38-year-old who was minutes from dying two years ago when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, Duckworth said her service hardened her resolve to challenge authority.
"Do I think every politician should be a former military member? No, of course not," she told Reuters. "But I think there should be some of us there (in Congress) because the next time, when we make a decision whether to send the finest of us out to war, I want that (decision) to be made by people who understand the true cost."
Fewer than one-third of congressional officeholders have military experience, compared to three-quarters 35 years ago.
One is 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, but his wartime heroism in Vietnam that was challenged by "Swift Boat" members calling themselves Veterans for Truth did not seem to resonate. Republicans cast themselves as stronger on defense, saying they were erecting a better bulwark against terrorism.
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