Ground Zero Illnesses Clouding Giuliani’s Legacy

The New York Times
Ground Zero Illnesses Clouding Giuliani’s Legacy
By ANTHONY DePALMA

Anyone who watched Rudolph W. Giuliani preside over ground zero in the days after 9/11 glimpsed elements of his strength: decisiveness, determination, self-confidence.

Those qualities were also on display over the months he directed the cleanup of the collapsed World Trade Center. But today, with evidence that thousands of people who worked at ground zero have become sick, many regard Mr. Giuliani’s triumph of leadership as having come with a human cost.

An examination of Mr. Giuliani’s handling of the extraordinary recovery operation during his last months in office shows that he seized control and largely limited the influence of experienced federal agencies. In doing that, according to some experts and many of those who worked in the trade center’s ruins, Mr. Giuliani might have allowed his sense of purpose to trump caution in the rush to prove that his city was not crippled by the attack.

Administration documents and thousands of pages of legal testimony filed in a lawsuit against New York City, along with more than two dozen interviews with people involved in the events of the last four months of Mr. Giuliani’s administration, show that while the city had a safety plan for workers, it never meaningfully enforced federal requirements that those at the site wear respirators.

At the same time, the administration warned companies working on the pile that they would face penalties or be fired if work slowed. And according to public hearing transcripts and unpublished administration records, officials also on some occasions gave flawed public representations of the nature of the health threat, even as they privately worried about exposure to lawsuits by sickened workers.

“The city ran a generally slipshod, haphazard, uncoordinated, unfocused response to environmental concerns,” said David Newman, an industrial hygienist with the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a labor group.

City officials and a range of medical experts are now convinced that the dust and toxic materials in the air around the site were a menace. More than 2,000 New York City firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems. Seventy percent of nearly 10,000 recovery workers screened at Mount Sinai Medical Center have trouble breathing. City officials estimate that health care costs related to the air at ground zero have already run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and no one knows whether other illnesses, like cancers, will emerge.

The question of who, if anyone, is to blame for not adequately protecting the workers could finally be decided in United States District Court in Manhattan, where thousands of firefighters, police officers and other recovery workers are suing the city for negligence.

City officials have always maintained that they acted in good faith to protect everyone at the site but that many workers chose not to wear available safety equipment, for a variety of reasons.

Mr. Giuliani has said very little publicly about how his leadership might have influenced the behavior of the men and women who worked at ground zero. Mr. Giuliani, whose image as a 9/11 hero has been a focus of his run for president, declined to be interviewed for this article. His representatives did not respond to specific questions about the pace of the cleanup, the hazards at the site and Mr. Giuliani’s reticence about the workers’ illnesses.

Moreover, many of the people who ran agencies for Mr. Giuliani or who handled responsibility for the health issues after he left office would not comment, citing the pending litigation.

In the past, Mr. Giuliani has said that quickly reopening the financial district was essential for healing New York and the nation. The cost of Wall Street’s going dark was enormous, and Mr. Giuliani has said he was forced to balance competing interests as he confronted a never-imagined emergency, and he acknowledged that he and others made mistakes.

A Mayor in Control

From the beginning, there was no doubt that Mr. Giuliani and his team ruled the hellish disaster site. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all with extensive disaster response experience, arrived almost immediately, only to be placed on the sideline. One Army Corps official said Mr. Giuliani acted like a “benevolent dictator.”

Despite the presence of those federal experts, Mr. Giuliani assigned the ground zero cleanup to a largely unknown city agency, the Department of Design and Construction. Kenneth Holden, the department’s commissioner until January 2004, said in a deposition in the federal lawsuit against the city that he initially expected FEMA or the Army Corps to try to take over the cleanup operation. Mr. Giuliani never let them.

In this environment, the mayor’s take-charge attitude produced two clear results, according to records and interviews. One, work moved quickly. Although the cleanup was expected to last 30 months, the pit was cleared by June 2002, nine months after the attack.

And second, the city ultimately became responsible for thousands of workers and volunteers while, critics say, its health and safety standards went lacking.

“I would describe it as a conspiracy of purpose,” said Suzanne Mattei, director of the New York office of the Sierra Club, which has been critical of how the cleanup was handled. “It wasn’t people running around saying, ‘Don’t do this safely.’ But there was a unified attempt to do everything as fast as possible, to get everything up and running as fast as possible. Anything in the way of that just tended to be ignored.”

Records show that the city was aware of the danger in the ground zero dust from the start. In a federal court deposition, Kelly R. McKinney, associate commissioner at the city’s health department in 2001, said the agency issued an advisory on the night of Sept. 11 stating that asbestos in the air made the site hazardous and that everyone should wear masks.

Many workers refused. No one wanted to be slowed down while there was still a chance of rescuing people. Later on, workers said that the available respirators were cumbersome and made it difficult for them to talk.

Violations of federal safety rules abounded, and no one strictly enforced them. OSHA did not play an active role during the rescue phase, which is usually the case in emergency operations. But the agency remained in a strictly advisory position long after there was any hope of finding any survivors and at the point when, in other circumstances, it would have enforced safety requirements.

Agency officials said that enforcing rules and issuing fines would have delayed the cleanup, and contractors could have passed along the cost of the fines to the city.

With the city in charge, municipal employees were given video cameras to record recovery workers who were not wearing respirators. Violations were reported at daily safety meetings.

An official who was then with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who asked not to be quoted by name because he was not authorized to speak for the agency, said the focus in safety discussions was always on preventing accidents, not protecting workers from the toxic dust.

Remarkably, not one fatal accident occurred on the pile. But the city’s inspectors found that by late October, only 29 percent of ground zero workers were wearing the sophisticated respirators that were required by OSHA. Even Mr. Giuliani sometimes showed up without one.

The city’s handling of safety issues has been criticized by doctors, unions and occupational safety experts. Mr. Giuliani’s oversight of the operation was condemned in a 2006 book, “Grand Illusion,” by Wayne Barrett, a longtime critic of the former mayor, and Dan Collins. Mr. Barrett said in an interview that when it came to safety, Mr. Giuliani “said all the right things, but did all the wrong things.”

In their defense against the negligence lawsuit, city officials have maintained that they cooperated with federal officials to develop an effective safety plan. On Nov. 20, well into the cleanup, contractors and city agencies agreed to follow safety rules, and OSHA agreed not to fine them if violations occurred.

The agency ended up distributing more than 130,000 respirators. Workers’ unions tried to get members to wear them, but usage remained spotty without strict enforcement of the rules.

“What they were doing on paper wasn’t what they were doing in practice,” said Paul J. Napoli, one of the lawyers representing the more than 8,000 workers who have sued the city for negligence. He said that the construction companies were billing the city for their time and materials, and “safety slows things down.”

The four large construction companies that had been hired to clear debris worked around the clock. But that was not fast enough for the city, especially after the rescue operation formally ended on Sept. 29. One reason for the push may have been concern that unnecessary delays would have added to the cost of the cleanup.

Two days after the rescue efforts ended and the full-scale recovery and cleanup began, Michael Burton, executive deputy commissioner of the Design and Construction Department, warned one of the companies in a letter that the city would fire individual workers or companies “if the highest level of efficiency is not maintained.”

Danger in the Air

Much has been said and written about Christie Whitman, then the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and her statement a week after the towers fell that the air in New York was safe. But even then, the air above the debris pile was known to be more dangerous than the air in the rest of Lower Manhattan.

In those first days after 9/11, Mr. Giuliani made it clear that workers needed to wear masks at ground zero because it was more contaminated than elsewhere. But as time went on, and workers failed to heed the warnings, the record indicates that his administration sometimes said otherwise.

Even after the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health found that workers were “unnecessarily exposed” to health hazards, officials played down the danger.

Robert Adams, director of environmental health and safety services at the Design and Construction Department, told the City Council’s environmental committee in early November that even unprotected ground zero workers would not experience long-term health risks. In an interview last week, Mr. Adams, now working for a consulting firm in Princeton, N.J., said that he still believed that based on the information available at the time, the right decisions were made.

Whatever they were saying publicly about the safety of the air, Mr. Giuliani and his staff were privately worried. A memo to Deputy Mayor Robert M. Harding from his assistant in early October said that the city faced as many as 10,000 liability claims connected to 9/11, “including toxic tort cases that might arise in the next few decades.”

The warning did not lead to a crackdown on workers without respirators. Rather, a month later, Mr. Giuliani wrote to members of the city’s Congressional delegation urging passage of a bill that capped the city’s liability at $350 million. And two years after Mr. Giuliani left office, FEMA appropriated $1 billion for a special insurance company to defend the city against 9/11 lawsuits.

Some experts and critics have suggested that the only way the respirator rules could have been enforced after rescue operations ended would have been to temporarily shut down the site and lay down the law: No respirator, no work. And they say the only person who could have done so was Mr. Giuliani.

“They should have backed off on the night shift, when a very limited amount of work could be done,” said Charles Blaich, who was in charge of safety for the Fire Department at the time of the attack.

Mr. Blaich, who is now retired, said he considers Mr. Giuliani’s unwillingness to enforce respirator rules a failure of judgment, not a mistake, because no one had ever faced such a crisis.

“ ‘Mistake’ indicates there was a known procedure that wasn’t followed,” he said. “There just was not that much logistics in place to support another course of action.”

Help for the Sick

Millions of Americans saw television news reports of Mr. Giuliani attending firefighters’ funerals. They heard him call those who died heroes.

But they have not heard him say much about the medical problems of ground zero workers. Although he pushed Congress to protect the city from lawsuits, he has generally stood on the sidelines as New York’s delegation tried to get the federal government to pay for the treatment that sick workers need.

“I don’t think I ever saw the mayor at a 9/11 hearing on health,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Mr. Nadler, who was one of the first to criticize the city’s handling of ground zero, said it never occurred to him or to other Democrats in Congress to ask for Mr. Giuliani’s help to influence the Republican White House.

John T. Odermatt, who was Mr. Giuliani’s deputy at the city’s Office of Emergency Management, said that Mr. Giuliani had to make many decisions every day during the crisis, but the priority always was “clearly more about people than getting the site open.”

Mr. Odermatt, now speaking on behalf of Mr. Giuliani’s presidential campaign, said he did not know whether the former mayor had ever lobbied Congress on behalf of sick workers, and the campaign did not provide any information about Mr. Giuliani’s working to secure federal funds for treatment of ground zero responders. Many of those people are now sick, and they are angry.

Lee Clarke, director of health and safety for District Council 37, the city’s largest public employees’ union, said Mr. Giuliani used “very, very poor judgment” in rushing to reopen the financial district without watching out for the workers who cheered him at ground zero.

Ms. Clarke said that if those workers found themselves in a meeting with Mr. Giuliani today, “a number of them would be standing up, wanting a piece of Rudy.”



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Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says

The New York Times
Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says
By JAMES GLANZ

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.

Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.

The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry.

The report also covered alternative explanations for the billions of dollars worth of discrepancies, including the possibility that Iraq has been consistently overstating its oil production.

Iraq and the State Department, which reports the numbers, have been under relentless pressure to show tangible progress in Iraq by raising production levels, which have languished well below the United States goal of three million barrels a day. Virtually the entire economy of Iraq is dependent on oil revenues.

The draft report, expected to be released within the next week, was prepared by the United States Government Accountability Office with the help of government energy analysts, and was provided to The New York Times by a separate government office that received a review copy. The accountability office declined to provide a copy or to discuss the draft.

Paul Anderson, a spokesman for the office, said only that “we don’t discuss draft reports.”

But a State Department official who works on energy issues said that there were several possible explanations for the discrepancy, including the loss of oil through sabotage of pipelines and inaccurate reporting of production in southern Iraq, where engineers may not properly account for water that is pumped along with oil in the fields there.

“It could also be theft,” the official said, with suspicion falling primarily on Shiite militias in the south. “Crude oil is not as lucrative in the region as refined products, but we’re not ruling that out either.”

Iraqi and American officials have previously said that smuggling of refined products like gasoline and kerosene is probably costing Iraq billions of dollars a year in lost revenues. The smuggling of those products is particularly feared because officials believe that a large fraction of the proceeds go to insurgent groups. Crude oil is much more difficult to smuggle because it must be shipped to refineries and turned into the more valuable refined products before it can be sold on the market.

The Shiite militia groups hold sway around the rich oil fields of southern Iraq, which dominate the country’s oil production, the State Department official said. For that reason, he said, the Shiite militias are more likely to be involved in theft there than the largely Sunni insurgents, who are believed to benefit mostly from smuggling refined products in the north.

In the south, the official said, “There is not an issue of insurgency, per se, but it could be funding Shia factions, and that could very well be true.”

“That would be a concern if they were using smuggling money to blow up American soldiers or kill Sunnis or do anything that could harm the unity of the country,” the official said.

The report by the accountability office is the most comprehensive look yet at faltering American efforts to rebuild Iraq’s oil and electricity sectors. For the analysis of Iraq’s oil production, the accountability office called upon experts at the Energy Information Administration within the United States Department of Energy, which has long experience in analyzing oil production and exports worldwide.

Erik Kreil, an oil expert at the information administration who is familiar with the analysis, said a review of industry figures around the world — exports, refinery figures and other measures — could not account for all the oil that Iraq says it is producing. The administration also took into account how much crude oil was consumed internally, to do things like fuel Iraqi power plants and refine into gasoline and other products.

When all those uses of the oil were taken into consideration, Mr. Kreil said, Iraq’s stated production figures did not add up.

“Either they’re producing less, or they’re producing what they say and the difference is completely unaccounted for in any of the places we think it should go,” Mr. Kreil said. “Either it’s overly optimistic, or it’s unaccounted for.”

Several analysts outside the government agreed that such a large discrepancy indicated that there was either a major smuggling operation in place or that Iraq was incapable to generate accurate production figures.

“That’s a staggering amount of oil to lose every month,” said Philip K. Verleger Jr., an independent economist and oil expert. “But given everything else that’s been written about Iraq, it’s not a surprise.”

Mr. Verleger added that if the oil was being smuggled out of Iraq, there would be a ready market for it, particularly in smaller refineries not controlled by large Western companies in places like China, the Caribbean and even small European countries.

The report also contains the most comprehensive assessment yet of the billions of dollars the United States and Iraq spent on rebuilding the oil and electricity infrastructure, which is falling further and further behind its performance goals.

Adding together both civilian and military financing, the report concludes that the United States has spent $5.1 billion of the $7.4 billion in American taxpayer money set aside to rebuild the Iraqi electricity and oil sectors. The United States has also spent $3.8 billion of Iraqi money on those sectors, the report says.

Despite those enormous expenditures, the performance is far short of official goals, and in some cases seems to be declining further. The average output of Iraq’s national electricity grid in 2006, for example, was 4,300 megawatts, about equal to its value before the 2003 invasion. By February of this year, the figure had fallen still further, to 3,800 megawatts, the report says.

All of those figures are far short of the longstanding American goal for Iraq: 6,000 megawatts. Even more dispiriting for Iraqis, by February the grid provided power for an average of only 5.1 hours a day in Baghdad and 8.6 hours nationwide. Both of those figures are also down from last year.

The story is similar for the oil sector, where — even if the Iraqi numbers are correct — neither exports nor production have met American goals and have also declined since last year, the report says.

American reconstruction officials have continued to promote what they describe as successes in the rebuilding program, while saying that problems with security have prevented the program from achieving all of its goals. But federal oversight officials have frequently reported that the program has also suffered from inadequate oversight, poor contracting practices, graft, ineffective management and disastrous initial planning.

The discrepancies in the Iraqi oil figures are broadly reminiscent of the ones that turned up when some of the same energy department experts examined Iraq’s oil infrastructure in the wake of the oil-for-food scandals of the Saddam Hussein era. In a United Nations-sponsored program that was supposed to trade Iraq’s oil for food, Mr. Hussein and other smugglers were handsomely profiting from the program, investigations determined.

In reports to Congress before the 2003 invasion that ousted Mr. Hussein, the accountability office, using techniques similar to those called into play in its most recent report, determined that in early 2002, for example, 325,000 to 480,000 barrels of crude oil a day were being smuggled out of Iraq, the majority through a pipeline to Syria.

But substantial amounts also left Iraq through Jordan and Turkey, and by ship in the Persian Gulf, routes that could also be available today, said Robert Ebel, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Any number of adjacent countries would be glad to have it if they could make some money,” Mr. Ebel said.

Mr. Ebel said the lack of modern metering equipment, or measuring devices, at Iraq’s wellheads made it especially difficult to track smuggling there. The State Department official agreed that there were no meters at the wellheads, but said that Iraq’s Oil Ministry had signed a contract with Shell Oil to study the possibility of putting in the meters.

The official added that an American-financed project to install meters on Iraq’s main oil platform in the Persian Gulf was scheduled to be completed this month.

As sizable as a discrepancy of as much as 300,000 barrels a day would be in most parts of the world, some analysts said it could be expected in a country with such a long, ingrained history of corruption.

“It would be surprising if it was not the case,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, which closely follows security and economic issues in Iraq. He added, “How could the oil sector be the exception?”

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Support Our Troops. End The War. Edwards to Ask Antiwar Stand of Americans

The New York Times
Edwards to Ask Antiwar Stand of Americans
By LESLIE WAYNE

Stepping up his antiwar stance, John Edwards said yesterday that he would call for Americans to “raise their voices” on Memorial Day against the Iraq war and would say that patriotism required supporting the troops by bringing them home.

Mr. Edwards said in a telephone interview that, in a commencement speech to be delivered today at New England College in Henniker, N.H., he would call on Americans to “come together and speak out in a way that will end the war.”

Mr. Edwards, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, said he was not calling for rallies or antiwar protests, but rather for Americans to come up with their own ways of opposing the war.

“During the weekend, let us gather as patriots,” Mr. Edwards will say in his speech, according a statement released by his campaign. “Wherever you are — with your family, with your friends, at a barbecue, at a parade, wherever you are — let us raise our voices.”

In addition, the Edwards campaign suggested that opponents of the war print signs saying “Support the troops — End the war” and take them to Memorial Day parades.

In recent weeks, Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, has been positioning himself as firmly opposed to the war. He has called for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and has said that Congress should use the power of the purse to end the war.

But in his speech, he will challenge individual Americans to take action.

“As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can — by ending this war and bringing them home,” he will say, according to the statement.

He said yesterday that he wanted to “reclaim ‘patriotism’ ” from the Bush administration’s use of that term.

“George Bush has used patriotism as a moniker to justify what he has done,” Mr. Edwards said, adding, “It is abundantly clear that no American can stand on the sidelines anymore.”

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Fonda Gets Up Close And Personal With Colbert

comedycentral.com

Appearing on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" to discuss her up-coming film "Georgia Rules" actress and activist Jane Fonda managed to leave host Stephen Colbert speechless. While expressing admiration for her co-stars Fonda also noted, "We cannot elect men to office that are afraid of premature evacuation."

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Retired general says Iraq strain on National Guard will harm U.S. communities

AP
Retired general says Iraq strain on National Guard will harm U.S. communities

WASHINGTON — The National Guard isn't as strong as it should be because of the war in Iraq and American communities will suffer as a result, retired Air Force Gen. Melvyn Montano said Saturday.

Delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address, Montano said the strain means it will take longer for Greensburg, Kan., to recover from a devastating tornado that leveled the town a week ago.

"Crucial equipment used by the Guard for disaster relief is now in Iraq instead of standing ready to respond to crises here at home," said Montano, who was once adjutant general of the New Mexico National Guard.

"When the tornado struck Kansas last week, the Guard had half the number of Humvees and large trucks they usually would have at their disposal," Montano said. "The recovery process now will take longer."

Montano echoed Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, who clashed with the Bush administration this week. "I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response (to the tornado) is going to be slower," she said Monday. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace."

Sebelius later said the Guard was adequately equipped to handle the disaster, though possible flooding in another part of the state would have forced her to make hard choices about where to send aid.

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Iraq's top Shi'ite party changes name, platform

Reuters
Iraq's top Shi'ite party changes name, platform
By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's biggest Shi'ite party on Saturday pledged its allegiance to the country's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in a move that would distance it from Shi'ite Iran where it was formed.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said it had introduced significant policy changes and changed its name to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) -- dropping the word "Revolution".

Party officials told Reuters on Friday that the changes were aimed at giving the party more of an Iraqi flavor and to reflect the changing situation in the country since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

They said the party had been close to Sistani for some time, but a two-day conference on Baghdad that ended on Friday had formalized relations with the influential cleric.

"We cherish the great role played by the religious establishment headed by Grand Ayatollah Sayed Ali al-Sistani ... in preserving the unity of Iraq and the blood of Iraqis and in helping them building a political system based on the constitution and law," said Rida Jawad al-Takki, a senior group member, who read out the party's decisions to reporters.

The party pledged to follow the guidance of the Shi'ite establishment, he said.

Sistani, a reclusive figure who lives in the Iraqi holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, is the spiritual leader of Iraq's majority Shi'ites. He rarely makes public statements but his utterances are closely monitored by his followers.

Officials said the party, which was formed in Iran in the 1980s to oppose Saddam, had previously taken its guidance from the religious establishment of Welayat al Faqih, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran.

Islamic experts say the authority of the Faqih, who "surpasses all others in knowledge" of Islamic law and justice, is not limited to his home country, but extends to all Shi'ites who pledge obedience and believe in the Faqih.

The Faqih has the final word on matters related to Islam from political, social and religious issues.

SIIC's leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, is a powerful cleric who has good relations with the United States.

A key player in post-Saddam Iraqi politics, SIIC holds around a quarter of the seats in parliament occupied by the ruling Shi'ite Alliance of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Iraq and Iran fought a bitter war for eight years in the 1980s. Relations have improved since the fall of Saddam, although Iraqi leaders have to walk a delicate line between the United States and Iran, which are at loggerheads over Tehran's nuclear program and the violence in Iraq.

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U.S. drops plans to limit lawyer Guantanamo visits

Reuters
U.S. drops plans to limit lawyer Guantanamo visits
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Friday it no longer seeks to limit the number of meetings between Guantanamo prisoners and their lawyers, a proposal that had been strongly criticized by civil liberties and legal groups.

Administration attorneys told a U.S. appeals court the Defense Department, which runs the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, determined the proposed three-visit limit is "no longer warranted," based on "a current evaluation of resources and needs."

There have been no restrictions on the number of visits by attorneys with their clients at Guantanamo but last month Justice Department lawyers proposed limiting attorneys with existing clients at Guantanamo to just three visits.

Lawyers for the detainees had opposed the proposal for imposing an "arbitrary cap" and called it "antithetical to the attorney-client privilege." Civil liberties and legal groups denounced it for limiting attorney access to their clients.

There are about 385 prisoners at the Guantanamo prison. The first prisoners arrived more than five years ago after the United States launched its war on terrorism in response to the September 11 attacks.

The indefinite detentions and allegations of prisoner mistreatment at Guantanamo, which the U.S. military denies, have tarnished the U.S. image abroad and a chorus of allies has urged Bush to shut down the camp for foreign terrorism suspects.

The administration decision to drop the proposed limit on lawyer visits came ahead of an appeals court hearing scheduled for Tuesday to consider that and other proposed restrictions.

Guantanamo prisoners can ask the appeals court to review whether military tribunals have rightfully deemed them to be "an unlawful enemy combatant."

Justice Department lawyers said in a six-page court filing that the Defense Department still believes the other proposed restrictions are "warranted and appropriate."

One proposal would allow lawyer-client mail to be read by government officials who are not involved in the case.

Another proposed restriction would limit defense lawyers' access to classified information that was part of the tribunal record. They would get access only if the U.S. government determined they had a "need to know."

The appeals court is considering the procedures to govern the cases brought by the prisoners in light of an anti-terrorism law that President George W. Bush pushed through Congress last year.

That law took away the right of the prisoners to challenge their detention before U.S. district court judges in Washington, resulting in the dismissal of pending cases and a more limited review by the appeals court.

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World Bank board majority want Wolfowitz to resign

Reuters
World Bank board majority want Wolfowitz to resign
By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of countries on the World Bank board believe Paul Wolfowitz should resign as President of the World Bank, bank board sources from rich and developing nations said on Friday.

"It is now very clear that a majority of members think Mr. Wolfowitz must resign," said one board source from a developing country, which received instructions from its capital this week not to support Wolfowitz's continued leadership.

"We believe that the World Bank cannot continue under the leadership of Mr. Wolfowitz," the source told Reuters.

The bank's 24-nation board this week delayed a final decision until next week over Wolfowitz's future, which hangs in the balance over a pay and promotion deal he approved for his companion, Shaha Riza, a World Bank Middle East expert.

The high-paying promotion sparked calls by the bank's employee association for Wolfowitz to resign and has paralyzed the institution, the globe's largest poverty-fighting agency.

Wolfowitz has said he took the advice of the board's ethics committee on Riza and that the row is part of a smear campaign designed to undermine his leadership.

Asked how many member countries thought Wolfowitz should resign, the source told Reuters: "More than 50 percent."

But another board official from a developed country cautioned that Wolfowitz's departure was not yet a foregone conclusion and he should be given time to respond properly to findings by a panel that his actions in the Riza's promotion broke bank rules.

He is expected to present his response to the panel by the end of the day today.

It was unclear whether the meeting of the board will decide Wolfowitz's future by consensus or whether it may be forced into a vote, which would be an unusual move.

There is concern among some board officials that a vote could further divide the bank by pitting allies of the United States against Europe and its supporters.

IRAQ WAR ARCHITECT

The official said among the issues being weighed by member countries was whether Wolfowitz's continued leadership of the World Bank would damage its ability to raise funds for anti-poverty projects, hurt the morale of the staff and further damage the bank's reputation.

The row over Wolfowitz has stirred lingering unhappiness, mainly among European countries, about his nomination to the job in 2005 because of his role as architect of the Iraq war.

Despite the private disquiet among Europeans at the time, Wolfowitz's appointment to the bank was confirmed without dissent on March 31, 2005. He has remained a controversial figure, locking horns with the bank's membership on such issues as his good governance and anti-corruption campaign.

Board sources said Canada and Japan would support the United States in its backing for Wolfowitz together with countries in Africa, where Wolfowitz has focused much of his attention.

The sources said Europe's push for Wolfowitz to resign was supported by Brazil, South Korea, India, Russia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Exactly where China, Malaysia, Pakistan and Mexico stood remained unclear.

The White House has repeated almost daily that U.S. President George W. Bush has confidence in Wolfowitz, but this week referred the matter to the U.S. Treasury Department, which is responsible for U.S. World Bank policy.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has stressed that it is important to preserve the World Bank's standing in the world and that Wolfowitz deserved a fair process.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been quietly discussing the issue with her European counterparts as recently as Thursday, according to a European source.

Rice's access to European capitals provides an opportunity for the Bush administration to gauge how serious the opposition is to Wolfowitz's continued leadership.

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Vets facing higher risks of suicide

USA Today
Report: Vets facing higher risks of suicide

WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are at increased risk of suicide because Veterans Administration health clinics do not have 24-hour mental health care available, an internal review found.

The report by the Veterans Affairs Department's inspector general, which was scheduled to be released later Thursday, is the first comprehensive look at VA mental health care, particularly in the area of suicide prevention.

It found that nearly three years after the VA adopted a comprehensive strategy of mental health care, services were inconsistent throughout its network of 1,400 clinics. Many facilities lacked 24-hour staff, adequate screening for mental problems, or personnel who were properly trained.

With about one-third of veterans reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, it is "incumbent upon VHA to continue moving forward toward full deployment of suicide prevention strategies for our nation's veterans," the five-page executive summary stated.

The report comes as already-strained troops and veterans say they are suffering more psychological problems due to repeated and extended deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. In a study earlier this month, a Pentagon task force issued an urgent warning for improved care, citing a strained health system.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Iraq | Afghanistan | Va

In the VA's inspector general report Thursday, investigators echoed some of those concerns in citing a need for additional staffing and better training in VA facilities nationwide. It said about 1,000 veterans who receive VA care commit suicide every year, and as many as 5,000 a year among all living veterans.

Among the other findings:

•VA clinics and Pentagon military hospitals must improve their sharing of health information, particularly for patients who might return to active-duty status.

•VA should loosen criteria for inpatient PTSD care. Currently only veterans with "sustained sobriety" get treatment.

In a written response, Michael Kussman, the VA's acting undersecretary for health, concurred with many of the recommendations. He noted that the VA has recently installed suicide prevention coordinators in each medical center to better develop prevention strategies.

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Bush administration calls 2003 memo 'sensitive'

Here is the beginning of my post.


USA TODAY
Bush administration calls 2003 memo 'sensitive'

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is accusing a fired air marshal of disseminating sensitive information, nearly four years after the officer leaked an embarrassing but routine memo on reducing hotel costs.

The administration argues that ex-marshal Robert MacLean, 37, who is trying to win his job back, should have known the unlabeled memo that he received on his unsecured cellphone was considered "sensitive security information."

MacLean, who admits he gave the memo to a reporter, counters there was no way to tell that air marshal officials would designate the cost-cutting plan years later as sensitive national security information. He was fired in April 2006.

The Transportation Security Administration's expert on sensitive materials, Andrew Colsky, who gave a deposition in the case, could not recall the "sensitive" designation applied retroactively to previously disclosed information.

MacLean is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in California, to rule that the leak was legal under protections granted whistle-blowers under federal law. After the appeals court rules, MacLean can resume his challenge to his dismissal before a personnel board.

The "sensitive security" classification applies to unclassified information of a sensitive nature, which could harm federal operations if publicly disseminated. It has existed for years but has been used more frequently since the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

MacLean, who lives in Coto de Caza, Calif., acknowledges he gave a copy of the July 29, 2003, budget-cutting memo to a reporter. Once the memo became public, the air marshal program said it was a mistake and no flight assignments requiring overnight hotel stays were canceled.

"I felt the agency had gone out of control," MacLean said.

Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the Transportation Security Administration declined to comment. However, in a legal brief filed weeks ago, the department contended the memo was classified properly because it met TSA rules covering "sensitive security information" when it was issued.

Government lawyers cited TSA regulations that prohibit disclosure of "specific details of aviation security measures."

If the retroactive designation is upheld, lawyers say, it would instill new fears to those who want to release important information to the public.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represents whistle-blowers in national security cases, said, "This case just reeks of rotten eggs. I would say this is just the perfect example of retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-10-leaked-memo_N.htm?csp=34

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Senators who weakened drug bill received millions from industry

Here is the beginning of my post.


USA TODAY
Senators who weakened drug bill received millions from industry
By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Senators who raised millions of dollars in campaign donations from pharmaceutical interests secured industry-friendly changes to a landmark drug-safety bill, according to public records and interviews.

The bill, which passed 93-1, grants the Food and Drug Administration broad new authority to monitor the safety of drugs after they are approved. It addressed some shortcomings that allowed the painkiller Vioxx to stay on the market for years after initial signs that it could cause heart attacks.

However, the powers granted to the FDA in the bill's original version were pared back during private meetings. And efforts to curb conflicts of interest among FDA advisers and allow consumers to buy cheaper drugs from other countries were defeated in close votes.

• A measure that blocked an effort to allow drug importation passed, 49-40. The 49 senators who voted against drug importation received about $5 million from industry executives and political action committees since 2001 — nearly three quarters of the industry donations to current members of the Senate, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data compiled by two non-partisan groups, Center for Responsive Politics and PoliticalMoneyLine.

• Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he demanded removal of language that would have allowed the FDA to ban advertising of high-risk drugs for two years because it would restrict free speech. Roberts has raised $18,000 from drug interests so far this year, records show, and $66,000 since 2001. His spokeswoman, Sarah Little, said he "takes great pains to keep fundraising and official actions separate."

• Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., claimed authorship of a change that reduced the FDA's power to require post-market safety studies. He said he wanted to target drugs only if there was evidence of harm. Gregg has raised $168,500 from drug executives and PACs since 2001 and sided with them in four key votes.

• The bill's chief sponsors — Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., — agreed after consultations with industry officials and others to modify a proposal that all clinical drug studies be made public, said Craig Orfield, Enzi's spokesman. Under the change, only those studies submitted to the FDA would be available.

Enzi took in $174,000 from drug interests since 2001; Kennedy, $78,000. Their spokesmen said the money did not influence them.

Senators also voted down an amendment that would have made it harder for scientists who have accepted money from a drug company to advise the FDA on drug approval applications from that firm.

"It's not that money buys votes," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the lone vote against the bill. "But you have a culture in which big money has significant influence. Big money gains you access, access gives you the time to influence people."

Orfield, Enzi's spokesman, said compromise is necessary in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to overcome any single senator's objection. "Our objective is to get something that can pass," he said.

The pharmaceutical companies spend more money on lobbying than any other single industry — $855 million from 1998 to 2006, according to the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity.

"I don't think there is any lobbying group in town that has the clout of the drug industry," said Ron Pollack, director of Families USA, a left-leaning consumer advocacy group.

The biggest drug trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, praised the bill after it passed. The group's spokesman, Ken Johnson, said its critics "never point out that a great deal of this money is spent trying to defeat bills … that are designed to cripple this industry."

The bill, which now goes to the House, was based in part on the recommendations of a report by the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences. The Institute was asked by the FDA to examine drug safety in the wake of the scandal over Vioxx, which Merck withdrew from the market in 2004 amid evidence that the drug put users at increased risk for heart attack and stroke.

The report offered two dozen recommendations for improvement. Chief among those was that Congress should grant FDA the power to require a system of post-market surveillance, which the Senate bill would do. But two other key recommendations were not followed in the measure: That FDA should have the power to ban consumer advertising for the first two years of a drug's market life; and that FDA scientists who investigate post-market side effects should work in an office separate from those that approve drugs initially.

The bill "does not sufficiently address the underlying problems," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who in recent years held hearings featuring FDA whistle-blowers who said their concerns about drug safety were ignored.



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washingtonpost.com
The Cost of War, Unnoticed
Why Iraq and Afghanistan Haven't Squeezed the Average American's Wallet
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer

The global war on terror, as President Bush calls the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and related military operations, is about to become the second-most-expensive conflict in U.S. history, after World War II.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress has approved more than $609 billion for the wars, a figure likely to stand as lawmakers rework their latest spending bill in response to a Bush veto. Requests for $145 billion more await congressional action and would raise the cost in inflation-adjusted dollars beyond the cost of the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

But the United States is vastly richer than it was in those days, and the nation's wealth now dwarfs the price of war, economists said. Last year, spending in Iraq amounted to less than 1 percent of the total economy -- about as much as Americans spent shopping online and less than half what they spent at Wal-Mart. Total defense spending is 4 percent of gross domestic product, the figure that measures the nation's economic output. In contrast, defense spending ate up 14 percent of GDP at the height of the Korean War and 9 percent during the Vietnam War.

And this time, the war bill is going directly on the nation's credit card. Unlike his predecessors, Bush is financing a major conflict without raising taxes or making significant cuts in domestic programs. Instead, he has cut taxes and run up the national debt. The result, economists said, is a war that has barely dented the average American's pocketbook and caused few reverberations in the broader economy.

"This war is easier to manage because it's a very small portion of GDP compared to the past," said Robert D. Hormats, a managing director at Goldman Sachs and a former Reagan administration official who recently published a history of war financing. "Even the borrowing of money is relatively small compared to past wars, so the impact on the economy is relatively minor."

Like all debts, however, the bill for Iraq and Afghanistan will eventually come due. While it is unlikely to cause economic upheaval, such as the devastating inflation that followed the Vietnam War, economists foresee substantial increases in government spending to rebuild the nation's exhausted armed forces, care for its disabled veterans and cover rising interest payments.

Administration officials say those payments will be easier to afford because Bush's tax cuts strengthened the economy and boosted tax collections. But even many conservative economists are skeptical. Some worry that the bill for Iraq will come just as the baby-boom generation starts retiring, further straining a budget that will require deep cuts, higher taxes or bigger deficits.

"When you borrow to pay for the war, you feel it less," said Alan D. Viard, a former Bush White House economist who is now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "But if you do borrow, it may be future needs you're sacrificing. There's always a sacrifice."

Borrowing is common in wartime. According to Hormats, virtually every U.S. war has required some debt. The title of his book, "The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars," comes from a 1790 report by the nation's first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton wrote that the heavy debt that helped finance the Revolutionary War was "the price of liberty" and insisted that the new nation scrupulously repay it to preserve its ability to borrow in the future.

Hamilton won that argument, and the government's commitment to repaying its debts has become a bedrock American principle. At the same time, most wartime presidents have tried to cover at least part of the cost of their conflicts by means other than debt, Hormats writes, often pushing radical changes in fiscal policy aimed at restraining deficits and inflation.

To help pay for World War II, by far the nation's most expensive, Franklin D. Roosevelt expanded the number of taxpayers from 4 million to 42 million, tripled tax collections as a percentage of GDP and slashed spending on his treasured New Deal programs. As the military budget devoured more than a third of the economy, Roosevelt also called for mass sacrifice, rationing food and gasoline, capping prices and wages and exhorting Americans to spend any money they could spare on war bonds and stamps.

Heavy government spending on the Korean War set off a bout of inflation that neared 8 percent in 1951. To pay for the war, President Harry S. Truman raised the top tax rates to 91 percent for individuals and an all-time high of 70 percent for corporations, while imposing wage and price controls.

Lyndon B. Johnson, who tried to protect a 1964 tax cut and his Great Society programs while escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam, eventually signed both a tax increase and spending cuts in 1968 -- too late to avoid touching off more than a decade of inflation.

Bush, in contrast, has allowed domestic spending to rise and cut taxes repeatedly since taking office, adding more than $3 trillion to the national debt. He signed a huge stimulus package two months after marching on Baghdad in March 2003. A few months later, he signed legislation to create a Medicare prescription drug benefit, the biggest expansion of the federal health program for the elderly since its creation in 1965.

That combination is unprecedented, Hormats and others said.

"This may be the first war in history -- in the history of the world -- in which there was a tax cut rather than a tax hike," said Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton University economist who was vice chairman of the Federal Reserve in the Clinton administration.

Administration officials say the 21st-century economy is different from that of the 1960s, when the U.S. government had no easy access to cheap capital. To the extent that fighting in Iraq has contributed to higher oil prices, it has added to inflationary pressures, economists said. But they added that military spending alone has not done so. And the low cost of borrowing today makes a rising debt worth the investment "in the safety and security of Americans," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Though the administration has not cut domestic spending, it has managed to hold the budget for discretionary programs relatively flat in recent years, Fratto said. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, a tax increase to pay for the ensuing war could have devastated the economy, he said.

"Could it have been paid for by tax increases? I suppose it could have been," Fratto said. "But at what cost to the economy?"

Grover Norquist, a Bush adviser and anti-tax lobbyist, argued that the tax cuts have helped create millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in new wealth, which will ultimately make the debt easier to pay off.

"If you're going to finance a war, it's better to finance it through growth and higher revenue" than through raising taxes, Norquist said. "Would you be better off spending less money? Yes. But my argument is that economic growth that creates jobs is a fine policy whether we're at daggers drawn or at peace with the world."

Norquist was among the few analysts willing to offer a spirited defense of the administration. Many conservatives said they are troubled by Bush's inability to restrain non-military spending.

"In their defense, I think they would say they wanted to do that, but were basically unable to because Congress wouldn't comply," said Kevin A. Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Hormats called Bush's war financing "shortsighted," not only because of the potential fiscal consequences but also because it bypassed an opportunity to engage the support of the public, which has grown increasingly skeptical of the war.

"They tried to do this on the cheap and without a candid conversation with the American people about the cost," Hormats said. "But the irony is the great wartime leaders have seen it in the opposite way," theorizing that a call to sacrifice would "tie people to the war effort."

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton and who was among the winners of the 2001 Nobel prize for economics, said Bush has undertaken a "deceptive policy of saying you can have both guns and butter" -- a strategy similar to Johnson's in the early years of Vietnam. In December, Stiglitz co-authored a study that predicts the Iraq conflict alone will eventually cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion, counting military rebuilding and health care for wounded veterans.

"It's actually turning out to be a very expensive war," Stiglitz said. But "it has been designed to be a war the American people don't feel."

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Bush Changes Continuity Plan; Administration, Not DHS, Would Run Shadow Government

washingtonpost.com
Bush Changes Continuity Plan
Administration, Not DHS, Would Run Shadow Government
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush issued a formal national security directive yesterday ordering agencies to prepare contingency plans for a surprise, "decapitating" attack on the federal government, and assigned responsibility for coordinating such plans to the White House.

The prospect of a nuclear bomb being detonated in Washington without warning, whether smuggled in by terrorists or a foreign government, has been cited by many security analysts as a rising concern since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The order makes explicit that the focus of federal worst-case planning involves a covert nuclear attack against the nation's capital, in contrast with Cold War assumptions that a long-range strike would be preceded by a notice of minutes or hours as missiles were fueled and launched.

"As a result of the asymmetric threat environment, adequate warning of potential emergencies that could pose a significant risk to the homeland might not be available, and therefore all continuity planning shall be based on the assumption that no such warning will be received," states the 72-paragraph order. It is designated National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20.

The statement added, "Emphasis will be placed upon geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to increase survivability and maintain uninterrupted Government Functions."

After the 2001 attacks, Bush assigned about 100 senior civilian managers to rotate secretly to locations outside of Washington for weeks or months at a time to ensure the nation's survival, a shadow government that evolved based on long-standing "continuity of operations plans."

Since then, other agencies including the Pentagon, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA have taken steps to relocate facilities or key functions outside of Washington for their own reasons, citing factors such as economics or the importance of avoiding Beltway "group-think."

Norman J. Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an adviser to an independent Continuity of Government Commission, said the order "is a more explicit embrace of what has been since 9/11 an implicit but fairly clear set of assumptions."

He added, "My frustration is that those assumptions have not gripped the Congress in the same way."

Other former Bush administration officials said the directive formalizes a shift of authority away from the Department of Homeland Security to the White House.

Under an executive order dating to the Reagan administration, responsibility for coordinating, implementing and exercising such plans was originally charged to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and later DHS, the Congressional Research Service noted in a 2005 report on a pending DHS reorganization.

The new directive gives the job of coordinating policy to the president's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism -- Frances Fragos Townsend, who will assume the title of national continuity coordinator -- in consultation with Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, with the support of the White House's Homeland Security Council staff. Townsend is to produce an implementation plan within 90 days. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will continue to coordinate operations and activities, the directive said.

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Bush continues to NOT support the troops; threatens to veto another spending bill

BBC NEWS
US House passes Iraq funding bill
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill which would fund military operations in Iraq to the end of July.

Under the bill, further funding would be dependent on events in Iraq meeting certain, as yet undefined, benchmarks of progress.

President George W Bush said he would veto the bill but hinted a compromise was possible, saying the idea of setting benchmarks "made sense".

Mr Bush has already vetoed one bill linking funding to troop withdrawal.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the bill late on Thursday in a 221-205 vote.

Although the new bill has passed in the House, most Republicans oppose it. That makes it unlikely it will be passed in the Senate, where the Democrats have a very slender majority.

'No blank cheque'

The new bill would ring-fence about half of the money, $52.8bn, that Mr Bush has requested to fund the war in Iraq.

Lawmakers would then vote in July on whether to release this money on the basis of a report from Mr Bush on progress towards political, economic and security targets.

Mr Bush said such "piecemeal" funding would not work.

He has resisted any attempt to link war funding to withdrawal but is coming under increasing pressure from some Republicans, as well as Democrats, over progress in Iraq.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeated her assertion that Americans will not write a "blank cheque" for President Bush to fight the war in Iraq.

"This is a bill he should like," she said.

"It has his benchmarks, it asks for a progress report, he must have some confidence in what he is doing, and then leave it up to the Congress to make a judgment in July, what could be fairer than that?"

Republican Representative Jerry Lewis said the Democrats' unwillingness to fully fund the war in Iraq called into question their commitment to US troops.

"It is legislation that says to the troops we support you conditionally today but don't expect Congress to support you two months from now... Is this the message we want to send to al-Qaeda?"

Earlier on Thursday, the House of Representatives rejected a separate and largely symbolic bill calling for US troops to withdraw from Iraq within 180 days of the legislation being passed.

The vote, proposed by a group of anti-war Democrats, was rejected by 255 votes to 171.

'Speed up the clock'

Speaking to reporters prior to the votes but after he met defence officials at the Pentagon, Mr Bush reiterated his determination to strike down the legislation before Congress in its current form.

One message I have heard from people of both sides is that benchmarks make sense, and I agree
President George W Bush

"I'll veto the bill if it is this haphazard, piecemeal funding and I made that clear," he said. "We reject that idea. It won't work."

However, the president's statement that he would consider discussion on putting benchmarks in a war-funding bill represents a shift in his position.

"One message I have heard from people of both sides is that benchmarks make sense, and I agree," he said.

Mr Bush said he had asked his chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, to talk to congressional leaders "to find common ground" on setting benchmarks.

The idea of "benchmarks", which have been unspecified so far but may include targets for the Iraqi government to meet, began circulating on Capitol Hill after the first war funding bill was vetoed.

Mr Bush said the Iraqi government - which plans to take a two-month summer recess - needed to "speed up their clock" on measures designed to bring stability to the country.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6644455.stm

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Jeb Bush Lands $474,500 for 13 days of work per year job at Scandal Plagued Healthcare Company -- With a Little Help from Dad's Friends

Huffington Post
Shelley Lewis
Jeb Bush Lands Huge Paycheck at Scandal Plagued Healthcare Company -- With a Little Help from Dad's Friends

If you've been worried sick about what would become of ex-Governor Jeb "No Futuro" Bush since his big brother totally screwed his chances for ever being elected president, here's some great news. Jeb is now officially on the board of Tenet Healthcare, at an annual pay of $474,500--for 13 days of work per year.
It's a special board seat created just for Jeb, at the suggestion of an old Bush family friend and fundraiser. (Do they even have any family friends who aren't also fundraisers?)

As calculated by TheStreet.com, Jeb stands to collect a tidy $36,500 per day. All he has to do is sit on the board of a hospital chain so ethically challenged that even the Bush administration went after them.

Tenet was forced to pay 900 million dollars to settle a Medicare fraud charge last year. They also owed 80 million in back taxes, going back more than ten years. And there was a 10 million dollar SEC settlement. Also, multi-million dollar settlements to cardiac patients who claimed they got infections after surgery because of unsanitary conditions at a Tenet hospital in Florida. And there was that FBI raid of a Tenet hospital in Redding, California, when they were accused of running an open heart surgery mill. That led to another multi-million dollar settlement (but, as always, no admission of wrongdoing). And it was a Tenet hospital in New Orleans where three people were accused of killing patients in the wake of Katrina. And if that's not enough, read here.

By the way, former US attorney Carol Lam was prosecuting a Tenet owned hospital when she as fired. The case had gone to trial but the jury failed to reach a verdict and a mistrial was declared. Alberto Gonzalez's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, then wrote to Harriet Miers suggesting that Lam and several others be removed. Much more here at DailyKos.

When his appointment was announced, Jeb said, "As I have researched Tenet, I have been very impressed by the company's commitment to improving patient care as well as the board's commitment to strong corporate governance and transparency. I care deeply about the future of health care in this country, and I'm delighted to be affiliated with Tenet, a leading company in this field."

I guess $36,500 per day buys Jeb a big barrel of delight.

You didn't honestly think he was going to have to get a real job and work for a living, did you?

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George Bush's Gang That Can't Think Straight

Huffington Post
Susan Braudy
George Bush's Gang That Can't Think Straight

Here's another trenchant message from my friend Rick Angres in Santa Monica about our leaders.

First they send our troops into harm's way unnecessarily. Then they don't bother to give them enough armor to protect themselves. Then they laugh at the Geneva conventions that were designed to protect us as well as everybody else.

Then they don't bother to make sure that our wounded have adequate medical care. Then they say "you're not supporting our troops" to anyone who wants to get our men and women out of the line of fire.

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States and cities move to curb toxic substances the EPA hasn't

USA TODAY
States and cities move to curb toxic substances the EPA hasn't
By Traci Watson, USA TODAY

States and cities are taking steps to ban toxic substances found in consumer goods ranging from TVs to baby bottles, rather than waiting for the Environmental Protection Agency or other federal agencies to yank them off the market.

Federal agencies "are not protecting the safety of the American public," says state Rep. Ross Hunter, a Democrat who helped push a chemical ban through the Washington Legislature. "If the federal government won't do it, then the states are going to have to do it."

Charles Auer, head of the EPA division that oversees toxic chemicals, says the agency does take action when the law allows it to do so. The EPA has enacted "control measures that we think are adequate to protect health and the environment," he says.

From California to Maine, state and local officials have reacted to new scientific studies that hint at health dangers from widely used chemicals. Some examples:

•Washington last month banned a chemical called Deca-BDE, as long as substitutes can be found. The EPA is studying the chemical and has no plans to ban it. The chemical, commonly found in upholstery, helps keep items from catching fire and has been linked to liver problems in animals.

"We keep getting more and more scientific evidence of the kind of harm that it can cause to people," Hunter says.

•California's air-pollution agency last month set limits on formaldehyde fumes wafting from particle board and other wood products. Formaldehyde acts as a glue, but the EPA believes its fumes can cause cancer. No federal law allows the EPA to regulate fumes from finished products, agency spokesman John Millet says.

In January, state officials decided to ban the chemical perchloroethylene, which most dry cleaners use to launder clothes and other items. The EPA in July restricted use of the chemical but did not ban it.

"Our responsibility is to the citizens of California," said Dimitri Stanich, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.

•Maine's Legislature held a hearing last week on a bill to bar the sale of children's plastic products, such as baby bottles, containing a chemical called bisphenol A or others called phthalates. These widely used chemicals help give items their texture, but both have been linked to developmental problems in lab animals. The EPA is studying these chemicals and has not taken a stance on them yet.

"The federal law that controls (these chemicals) has terrible loopholes," says bill sponsor state Rep. Jon Hinck, a Democrat.

The main federal law about chemicals has drawn attention for being ineffective. The Toxic Substances Control Act makes it "costly and time consuming" for the EPA to get data about chemicals' safety, according to a 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog.

Since the law was passed in 1976, the EPA has banned or cut production of only five existing chemicals or groups of chemicals that were on the market when the law was passed, the GAO said.

The EPA defends its record on the chemicals that states and cities have tackled. Auer says that in some cases, there is too little scientific evidence to justify a federal ban. When the evidence is strong enough, the law gives the agency the power to act, he says.

Representatives of the chemical industry question states' ability to regulate chemicals on their own. They say weighing a chemical's risks and benefits is so complex and technical it's best left to the EPA.

"The resources and expertise available to the federal government would provide for better … decision making," says Steve Russell of the American Chemistry Council, a group of chemical manufacturers. Even so, he concedes, "We understand the inclination to act."



Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-07-epa-chemicals_N.htm?csp=34

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Democrats Plan to Withhold Funds, Force Withdrawal Debate; Bill Would Partially Fund Iraq War, Pressure Republicans to Abandon Bush Strategy

ABC News
Democrats Plan to Withhold Funds, Force Withdrawal Debate
Bill Would Partially Fund Iraq War, Pressure Republicans to Abandon Bush Strategy
By JAKE TAPPER

May 8, 2007 —

Later this week House Democratic leaders will introduce a new bill to fund the war in Iraq, a complicated bill -- or, bills, rather -- to match the complicated task Democratic leaders have in front of them.

They are attempting to end the war in Iraq through congressional pressure, without directly cutting off funding for the troops while simultaneously keeping a politically diverse caucus as united as possible.

Democrats Plan to Withhold Funds, Force Withdrawal Debate

"We're the Congress of the United States," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday after meeting with the Democratic caucus. "We're many members here. So when we're talking with the White House about something, they're speaking for one person, we're speaking for hundreds of people. We have to bring members (of Congress) together around a position that we can then discuss with the White House on that. And hopefully that will happen this week."

On Thursday, the House will vote on $95.5 billion in funding for the war, "with a significant portion of it fenced," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., explained.

Three months worth of funding for the war in Iraq -- approximately $30 billion, Hoyer said, plus $12 billion in ancillary spending -- would be available for the military immediately.

On July 13, the bill would require President Bush to report on the progress of various benchmarks to be met by the Iraqi government. Then in late July, Congress would vote on whether or not to unfence the remaining war appropriations, approximately $53 billion.

"This gives Congress the opportunity in mid-July to make an assessment as to what progress is being made," Hoyer said.

A senior Democratic aide said that the remaining $53 billion would unquestionably be given to the U.S. troops, but the July vote would allow Democrats continued input into how the war is being waged, including whether or not the money should be spent on withdrawing U.S. troops altogether.

House Democratic leaders are promising the anti-war voices among them -- from the House Progressive Caucus and House Out of Iraq Caucus -- the up-or-down vote on the war that they want.

Thus, the House will vote in July on whether the "fenced-off" $53 billion should be spent on redeploying U.S. troops out of Iraq.

Assuming that does not pass, members of Congress will then get to vote on whether or not to "unfence" the $53 billion for the military.

Republicans Criticize 'Slow-Bleed Strategy'

House Republicans derided the proposal, which is being drafted by Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

"This is the fourth iteration of the Democrats slow-bleed strategy," said Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., chair of the House Republican Caucus. "It is unconscionable to think that they want to fund a war 60 days at a time."

The bill actually funds the war effort for 90 days but strong criticism remains.

White House spokesman Tony Snow called the proposal "bad management," later adding, "We think it is appropriate to be able to give commanders what they are going to need, and also forces in the field, so that you can make long-term decisions in trying to build the mission."

A Democratic congressman, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the Democratic caucus, explained the political strategy of the vote to ABC News as a sort of war of attrition. He said, "The idea is to keep kicking the can down the road" before forcing Democrats to vote on whether to withdraw U.S. troops as soon as possible.

"Until then," the congressman continued, "the idea to keep Republicans voting again and again and again to keep this folly of a war going. All the while the president keeps getting less popular, the war keeps getting less and less popular, and Republican congressmen keep getting closer to their looming re-election campaigns. Democrats think it's a winning strategy, and I'm not sure Republicans would disagree."

Keeping Up the Pressure

Even after the July vote, Democrats see an opportunity to continue the pressure on the White House and their Republican colleagues.

House Democrats hope to pass all the appropriations bills in June with the exception of the Department of Defense Appropriations bill. That bill will serve as the next host of Democratic-led debates about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Democrats see Republicans as weakening in their stalwart support for the war. They point to comments by House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, indicating that when it comes to the "surge" strategy in Iraq, "by the time we get to September, October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B?"

They also point to the fact that on the last Iraq bill, which contained a timeline for U.S. troop withdrawal, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., voted "present" instead of standing by the president.

Last month, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., told The New York Times that if clear progress has not been made in Iraq by autumn, "a heck of a lot of us will start peeling away" from supporting the war.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., explained on Tuesday that when Republicans point to the fall as the time to assess progress, that's because the commander of multinational forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, "is going to report back in September. That will be a critical moment to see how the plan is working."

Spending Rises, Senate Demurs

Also included in this Thursday House funding package would be funding for children's health insurance, health care for veterans and current U.S. troops, recovery from Hurricane Katrina and an increase in the minimum wage.

On Friday, the House will vote for the billions in spending for various programs that Republicans previously derided as "pork" -- agricultural relief funding and other projects for specific regions of the country.

There is no discussion in the Senate of a similar bill to the bifurcated (or tri-furcated, rather) approach taken in the House. Senate Democrats need 60 votes to bring any bill to the floor, so they need to work more closely with their GOP counterparts.

"I think I'm safe in saying there is minimal to no enthusiasm among Republican senators for that proposal," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"We either need to vote for funding for the troops or not. A four-month period is a pretty short period anyway, in any event. To further divide that in half and bring the uncertainty that will be the result of that to the whole funding process would be highly confusing and disruptive," the senator concluded.

On Wednesday, McConnell will host Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten to discuss the Senate version of the Iraq funding bill.

"The Senate may have a different approach," acknowledged Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chair of the House Democratic Caucus. "And then we'll go to conference to deal with it. But the notion that you should know is that there will constantly be a relationship between the resources and a new policy."

Dean Norland contributed to this report.

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Kansas Tornado Renews Debate on Guard at War

The New York Times
Kansas Tornado Renews Debate on Guard at War
By SUSAN SAULNY and JIM RUTENBERG

CHICAGO, May 8 — For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards are ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado a flash flood or a terrorist’s threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, last Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks of the small farming town destroyed, Ms. Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.

“As you travel around Greensburg, you’ll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed,” Ms. Sebelius, a Democrat, said Monday. “The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don’t have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower.”

For nearly two days after the storm, there was an unmistakable emptiness in Greensburg, a lack of heavy machinery and an army of responders. By Sunday afternoon, more than a day and a half after the tornado, only about half of the Guard troops who would ultimately respond were in place.

It was not until Sunday night that significant numbers of military vehicles started to arrive, many streaming in a long caravan from Wichita about 100 miles away.

Ms. Sebelius’s comments about the slow response prompted a debate with the White House on Tuesday, which initially said the fault rested with her. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the governor should have followed procedure by finding gaps after the storm hit and asking the federal government to fill them — but did not.

“If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it,” Mr. Snow told reporters on Tuesday morning.

The debate was reminiscent of the Bush administration’s skirmishes with Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, also a Democrat, after Hurricane Katrina. But after an angry flurry of words, both sides seemed to back down a bit later Tuesday.

Ms. Sibelius said she now had enough equipment and personnel to deal with the problems in Greensburg, and the White House acknowledged that the governor had requested several items that the federal government supplied, including a mobile command center, a mobile office building, an urban search and rescue team, and coordination of extra Black Hawk helicopters.

Nonetheless, the governor and officials in other states again expressed concern that the problem could occur again as the stretched National Guard system struggled to respond to disasters at home while also fighting overseas.

As State Senator Donald Betts Jr., Democrat of Wichita, put it: “We should have had National Guard troops there right after the tornado hit, securing the place, pulling up debris, to make sure that if there was still life, people could have been saved. The response time was too slow, and it’s becoming a trend. We saw this after Katrina, and it’s like history repeating itself.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which came under strong criticism after Hurricane Katrina, seemed to respond more quickly in Kansas. Several of the agency’s mobile disaster recovery centers are in Greensburg assisting residents, and the agency said it had moved in 15,000 gallons of water and 21,000 ready-to-eat meals, enough to feed 10,000 people.

State officials said the problem with the National Guard’s response had more to do with equipment than personnel.

In Kansas, the National Guard is operating with 40 percent to 50 percent of its vehicles and heavy machinery, local Guard officials said. Ordinarily, the Guard would have about 660 Humvees and more than 30 large trucks to traverse difficult terrain and transport heavy equipment. When the tornado struck, the Guard had about 350 Humvees and 15 large trucks, said Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state’s adjutant general. The Guard would also usually have 170 medium-scale tactical vehicles used to transport people and supplies — but now it has fewer than 30, he said. On the other hand, General Bunting said, it had more cargo trucks than it needed.

The issue is not confined to Kansas.

In Ohio, the National Guard is short of night vision goggles and M-4 rifles, said a Guard spokesman, Dr. Mark Wayda. “If we had a tornado hit a small town, we would be fine,” Dr. Wayda said. “If we had a much larger event, that would become a problem.”

The California National Guard is similarly concerned about a catastrophic event. “Our issue is that we are shortchanged when it comes to equipment,” said Col. Jon Siepmann, a spokesman for the Guard in California. “We have gone from a strategic reserve to a globally deployable force, and yet our equipment resources have been largely the same levels since before the war.”

In Arkansas, Gov. Mike Beebe a Democrat, echoed the concerns of Ms. Sebelius. “We have the same problem,” Mr. Beebe said. “We have had a significant decrease in equipment traditionally afforded our National Guard, and it’s occasioned by the fact that it’s been sent to the Middle East and Iraq.”

He added: “Our first and foremost consideration is to guarantee that our soldiers have the resources, including equipment, to do the job and protect themselves. Having said that, my preference would be for the federal government to provide that equipment and not strip the state’s resources, which could adversely impact the state’s mission in times of crisis, which is what happened in Kansas.”

Last year, all 50 governors signed a letter to President Bush asking for the immediate re-equipping of Guard units sent overseas. But officials in several states, including Kentucky, Minnesota and Texas, said Tuesday that they were not facing equipment shortages.

National Guard units overseas are often assigned engineering missions, and the skills and equipment — bulldozers and trucks, for example — are also what might be required to deal with a natural disaster at home.

White House officials said that the Kansas National Guard had at its disposal in the Midwest and the Plains states, everything it needed. By Mr. Snow’s count, that included 83,000 National Guard soldiers; 99 bulldozers; 61 loaders; 246 dump trucks and 59 graders.

“There’s a lot of stuff available,” Mr. Snow said. “So, again, I think this is one where the equipment was available and everybody was moving as rapidly as possible.”

In Congressional testimony, senior National Guard officials have said that since Sept. 11 units under their command had equipment shortages as forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Responding to concerns that the National Guard would not have sufficient personnel or equipment to respond to natural disasters, Guard leaders and state officials developed plans to ensure that if a state is in short supply of people or gear when a hurricane or tornado strikes, it can borrow from other states.

But borrowing does not solve every problem, state officials said, and coordination can take time. The destruction from Hurricane Katrina ultimately required the help of 50,000 troops — and they came from all 50 states.

Training is another issue. At a Washington news conference in February, Ms. Sebelius said, “The Guard cannot train on equipment they do not have.” She added later: “And in a state like Kansas, where tornados, floods, blizzards and wildfires can seemingly happen all at once, we need our Guardsmen to be as prepared as possible.”

Two recent reports have raised questions about Guard preparedness. An independent military assessment council, the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, released a report in March that stated: “In particular, the equipment readiness of the Army National Guard is unacceptable and has reduced the capability of the United States to respond to current and additional major contingencies, foreign and domestic.”

Another report, released in January by the Government Accountability Office, concluded that the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have “significantly decreased” the amount of equipment available for National Guard units not deployed overseas, while the same units face an increasing number of threats at home.

Late Tuesday, in a statement, Ms. Sebelius repeated her message:

“I have said for nearly two years, and will continue to say, that we have a looming crisis on our hands when it comes to National Guard equipment in Iraq and our needs here at home.”

Susan Saulny reported from Chicago, and Jim Rutenberg from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Maureen Balleza, Steve Barnes, Malcolm Gay, Christopher Maag, Adam Nossiter, Libby Sander, Thom Shanker and Jennifer Steinhauer.

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Democrats slam Big Oil over $3 gasoline prices

Reuters
Democrats slam Big Oil over $3 gasoline prices
By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate's top Democrat on Tuesday accused big oil companies of shutting down refineries temporarily to raise gasoline prices and rake in"obscene profits."

Gasoline prices have topped $3 a gallon at service stations across the country because several oil refineries are offline due to maintenance or accidents, reducing gasoline production and making fuel supplies tight.

"It's outrageous ...Isn't it interesting every year about this time, a refinery goes down for repairs," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

"Is that coincidental? Or is it part of a plan that these multinational, huge companies who are making obscene profits in the tens of billions of dollars -- is this part of their game to keep the profits going?" Reid said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced seven congressional hearings in coming weeks on soaring energy prices and plans to put together a proposed package of energy bills by July 4 to address the issue.

"With Memorial Day travel and the start of summer driving only a few weeks away, drivers are paying a heavy price for the Bush administration's failure to enact a comprehensive energy strategy," said Pelosi.

"Years of Bush administration policies that have favored Big Oil over the consumers have resulted in record dependence on foreign oil," the California Democrat added.

The Energy Department's forecasting arm warned on Tuesday that gasoline inventories would remain low throughout the summer, putting upward pressure on fuel prices.

"The gas prices that we see across the country today are, for lack of a better description, awful," said Reid, who wants to roll together three bipartisan bills already approved by Senate committees that deal with energy problems.

The bills would cut future U.S. gasoline demand and improve the fuel economy of cars and trucks.

Pelosi said House committees will seek ways to combat gasoline price gouging and develop clean alternative fuels. They also will examine the broad economic impact of foreign oil dependence and look at technology to boost energy efficiency.

Pelosi said the coming energy package would provide economic incentives to develop and use clean alternative fuels. It also will encourage innovation to create new jobs and help small businesses and enhance technology-driven efficiency.

Republicans criticized Democrats for promising relief while not doing much to tackle high energy costs.

House Republican Leader John Boehner said Democrats have opposed "common sense energy solutions" such as blocking legislation to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

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