Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

Middle East - AP

"U.S. Troops Deaths in Iraq Rise to 1,500"

Thu Mar 3, 8:13 AM ET   

By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq rose to 1,500 after the military announced Thursday that a soldier was killed in action just south of the capital, an Associated Press count showed.

The latest fatality occurred Wednesday in Babil province, part of an area known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the frequency of insurgent attacks on U.S.- and Iraqi-led forces there.

Amid the violence, Iraq's government said it will extend a state of emergency across the country, except for Kurdish-run areas, until the end of March.

The emergency decree, first announced nearly four months ago, includes a nighttime curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and launch police and military operations when it deems necessary.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,362 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count.

That includes at least 1,030 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

February 25, 2005

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ

"Deaths Give Urgency to Search for Roadside Bombs - Combat engineers make their deliberate way down highways looking for signs of the unusual."

By David Zucchino, LA Times Staff Writer

BAQUBAH, Iraq — The chaplain and the medic noticed it first: a pile of freshly upturned soil at the side of the highway.

The two men were part of a combat engineer patrol searching for roadside bombs, the leading killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Riding inside a "Buffalo," an armor-plated vehicle equipped with a mechanical boom, they stopped to investigate.

A claw on the boom tore into the dirt and unearthed two artillery shells wired to a blast pack and a cellphone, the components of a remote-controlled bomb known as an IED, or improvised explosive device.

Soldiers detained two Iraqi men who had hurried away from the site as the patrol pulled up.

It was a moment of triumph Wednesday for the search team, the product of dogged patrolling of an IED-infested stretch of highway in the so-called Sunni Triangle 20 miles north of Baghdad.

Several times a day, every day, the "Apache Bomb Hunters" of the 467th Engineer Battalion slowly cruise the dust-streaked blacktops, exposing themselves to bombs, snipers and ambushes as they try to keep the roadways clear.

Other patrols speed up and down local highways, giving IED triggermen less time to detonate the bombs.

The engineers move deliberately, scanning the roadside for signs of such things as unusual mounds of dirt, garbage, brush or construction materials.

"Dirt, garbage, signs, cars, donkeys, gravel, vegetable carts, dead dogs — you name it and an IED has been found hidden in it," the battalion's operations sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Flanagan, said Thursday, minutes after the day's first patrol returned safely to its base camp.

Hunting roadside bombs is anxious, wearying work.

The patrols intersect prosaic scenes of Iraqi urban life: men waiting in gasoline lines, boys playing soccer, butchers slaughtering livestock, girls in dark head scarves walking home from school.

But virtually every day in Iraq, the commonplace is transformed by the tremendous explosion of a hidden IED.

Even before the first engineer patrol left the concertina wire and blast walls of Forward Operating Base Warhorse on Thursday, an IED triggered just after dawn killed a machine gunner in a truck from the same brigade a few miles to the northeast in the town of Muqdadiya.

An insurgent hiding in a ravine used a cellphone to detonate a "daisy chain" of several bombs made from artillery shells, commanders said.

Later Thursday, a tank driver with the brigade was wounded when a bomb, also fashioned from artillery shells, exploded beneath his Abrams tank near Samarra, about 50 miles northwest of here.

An Army explosives expert called in to investigate was killed when a second bomb was detonated by remote control.

The deaths underscored the urgency felt by the engineers as they scanned the roadsides in brilliant sunlight, trying to maintain their focus hour after hour.

The attacks have a certain rhythm, and over time the engineers learn to spot subtle shifts.

On Wednesday, for instance, medic Sgt. Leslie Johnson noticed that many shops were closed and that few people were on the roads.

Normally, the area is bustling, often with young men throwing rocks at passing patrols.

"After a while, you learn to sense when things just aren't quite right," Johnson said as he walked the roadway in helmet and flak vest, his finger beside the trigger of his automatic rifle as he protected fellow engineers who had stopped to inspect a culvert.

The differences had made Johnson suspicious, and so the fresh dirt mound drew his attention.

The battalion chaplain, Capt. Daniel Bell, had noticed the mound too, especially because the dirt interrupted the lines of new tire marks on the shoulder.

The chaplain had volunteered for the patrol.

He said he believed in ministering to his men at times of greatest peril.

Minutes before the mission, he had led the soldiers in prayer, reading from Proverbs 23:17:

"Be thou in the fear of the Lord all day long."

The Apache Bomb Hunters, an Army Reserve battalion from Memphis, Tenn., arrived in Iraq just five weeks ago, attached to the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.

They took over from an engineer unit that had detected and detonated more than 200 roadside bombs during its year in Iraq, said Flanagan, the operations sergeant.

One of that battalion's engineers was killed by an IED, he said.

"They gave us good advice," Flanagan said.

"They told us: Stay alert, trust your instincts, look closely for anything that seems out of place."

A driver on Thursday's patrol, Spc. Daniel Shobe, was scanning both sides of the road as he guided his armored Humvee across the asphalt, his automatic rifle tucked beside his seat.

He drove the vehicle in the middle of the highway in order to keep it as far as possible from the roadsides.

Oncoming traffic swerved to the shoulder.

Traffic headed in the same direction pulled over and stopped, giving wide berth to the heavily armed patrol.

Shobe was on just his seventh patrol, but already he had learned to control his anxiety.

He concentrates on the mission, he said, blocking out thoughts of explosions.

In the Humvee turret, Spc. Daniel Ragan swung his grenade launcher from side to side.

He also kept an M240 machine gun within reach.

It was his 20th patrol, and he was still trying to shake the sense of dread that sweeps over him before most missions.

"I was real nervous at first, a lot more than now," said Ragan, who like the other engineers wears no special protection beyond the helmets and vests worn by other soldiers.

"But I still have that feeling in the back of my mind that something bad could happen any second."

After almost four hours of searching, the patrol slowly made its way back to base.

The soldiers made a final search of Route Detroit, then swept down Route Danger and Route Taco.

They came to a brief stop at the gate of Camp Warhorse.

"Ah, home again," Shobe said.

"Feels so good every single time."

The men safely inside, the gate swung shut on the rest of Iraq, ordinary and implacable, and full of menace.

[Livyjr]

"Watergate scandal"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from Watergate Scandal)

The Watergate scandal (or just "Watergate") was an American political scandal and constitutional crisis of the 1970s, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

The need to break into the office for a second time was just the highlight of a number of mistakes made by the burglars.

Another one proved costly to them—and the White House—when police found the telephone number of E. Howard Hunt in Barker's notebook.

Hunt had previously worked for the White House while McCord, at the time of his arrest, was officially employed as Chief of Security at the Committee to Re-elect the President (official abbreviation CRP but usually referred to as CREEP); so this quickly suggested that there was a link between the burglars and someone close to the President.

At his arraignment, McCord identified himself as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The Washington, D.C., district attorney's office began an investigation of the links between McCord and the CIA, and eventually determined that McCord was in receipt of payments from CREEP.

President Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. "Bob" Haldeman were tape-recorded (a standard, but secret, Nixon practice) on June 23 discussing use of the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the FBI's investigation of the Watergate break-ins.

Nixon followed through by asking the CIA to slow the FBI's investigation of the crime—claiming, speciously, that national security would be put at risk.

White House - AP

"Bush: Stopping Bin Laden a 'Challenge'"

2 hours, 21 minutes ago

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush made rare mention of Osama bin Laden on Thursday, calling efforts to block the terrorist leader's hope of attacking America again "the greatest challenge of our day."

Bush insisted the so-far unsuccessful hunt for the al-Qaida founder is "keeping the pressure on."

The White House has sought to play down the significance of bin Laden to the global anti-terror battle, since the trail has gone cold on him more than three years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

As a result, Bush hardly ever utters the name of the man he once declared wanted "dead or alive" and repeatedly promised would be caught.

But bin Laden made the headlines again this week, as intelligence officials said that he has enlisted the help of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top al-Qaida figure in Iraq, to plan new attacks inside the United States.

At the ceremonial swearing-in for the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Mike Chertoff, Bush confirmed that contact between bin Laden and al-Zarqawi.

"We're on a constant hunt for bin Laden."

"We're keeping the pressure on him, keeping him in hiding."

"And today Zarqawi understands the coalition and Iraqi troops are on a constant hunt for him as well," Bush said at the Ronald Reagan federal building near the White House.

"Bin Laden's message is a telling reminder that al-Qaida still hopes to attack us on our own soil," he said.

"Stopping him is the greatest challenge of our day, and under Mike's leadership we will do everything in our power to meet that challenge."

Bush proclaimed progress in other areas of protecting the nation from attack, saying that the campaign against terrorist cells is succeeding and that "extraordinary measures" have been taken to beef up domestic protection.

Both points have been hotly disputed by others.

The president acknowledged there is much more to do.

"We cannot afford to become complacent," Bush said.

"As we adapt our defenses, the terrorists will adapt their tactics in response."

"... They continue to pose a great threat to the American people."

Earlier Thursday, Bush spoke by phone with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said they talked about the political process in moving from the Iraqi elections to the formation of a new government "and the importance of making sure that is an Iraqi process."

In particular, McClellan said the leaders discussed "the need for Syria and Iran to stop interfering in internal Iraqi affairs."

Adding a new beef with Tehran to worries about Iran's nuclear program, McClellan said the Bush administration has "increasing concerns about Iran trying to influence the shape of the transitional government," McClellan said.

"This must be an Iraqi process, free from outside interference, particularly by those in the neighborhood," he said.

Chertoff was first sworn in at the White House on Feb. 15 by Harriet Miers, the counsel to the president, hours after the Senate confirmed him by a 98-0 vote.

Chertoff, 51, has promised to balance protecting the country with preserving civil liberties as head of the sprawling agency that was created as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"Mike is wise and he is tough — in a good way," Bush said.

[Livyjr]

White House - AP

"Bush: Stopping Bin Laden a 'Challenge'"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush made rare mention of Osama bin Laden on Thursday, calling efforts to block the terrorist leader's hope of attacking America again "the greatest challenge of our day."

Bush insisted the so-far unsuccessful hunt for the al-Qaida founder is "keeping the pressure on."

The White House has sought to play down the significance of bin Laden to the global anti-terror battle, since the trail has gone cold on him more than three years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

As a result, Bush hardly ever utters the name of the man he once declared wanted "dead or alive" and repeatedly promised would be caught.

Top Stories - washingtonpost.com

"CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment"
Thu Mar 3, 7:28 AM ET

By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

In November 2002, a newly minted CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four U.S. government officials aware of the case.

The Afghan guards -- paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit -- dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said.

As night fell, so, predictably, did the temperature.

By morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.

After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic -- "hypothermia" was listed as the cause of death -- the guards buried the Afghan, who was in his twenties, in an unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said.

The captive's family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial.

He is on no one's registry of captives, not even as a "ghost detainee," the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said.

"He just disappeared from the face of the earth," said one U.S. government official with knowledge of the case.

The CIA case officer, meanwhile, has been promoted, two of the officials said, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the matter.

The case is under investigation by the CIA inspector general.

The fact that the Salt Pit case has remained secret for more than two years reflects how little is known about the CIA's treatment of detainees and its handling of allegations of abuse.

The public airing of abuse at Abu Ghraib prompted the Pentagon to undertake and release scathing reports about conduct by military personnel, to revise rules for handling prisoners, and to prosecute soldiers accused of wrongdoing.

There has been no comparable public scrutiny of the CIA, whose operations and briefings to Congress are kept classified by the administration.

Thirty-three military workers have been court-martialed and an additional 55 received reprimands for their mishandling of detainees, according to the Defense Department.

One CIA contractor has been charged with a crime related to allegations of detainee abuse.

David A. Passaro is on trial in federal court in North Carolina, facing four assault charges in connection with the death of Abdul Wali, a prisoner who died while at a U.S. military firebase in Afghanistan in June 2003.

The CIA's inspector general is investigating at least half a dozen allegations of serious abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, including two previously reported deaths in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and the death at the Salt Pit, U.S. officials said.

A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the agency actively pursues allegations of misconduct.

Other U.S. officials said CIA cases can take longer to resolve because, unlike the military, the agency must rely on the Justice Department to conduct its own review and to prosecute when warranted.

"The agency has an aggressive, robust office of the inspector general with the authority to look into any CIA program or operation anywhere," said a CIA representative who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"The inspector general has done so and will continue to do so."

"We investigate allegations of abuse fully."

The spokesman declined to comment on any case.

The Salt Pit was the top-secret name for an abandoned brick factory, a warehouse just north of the Kabul business district that the CIA began using shortly after the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001.

The 10-acre facility included a three-story building, eventually used by the U.S. military to train the Afghan counterterrorism force, and several smaller buildings, which were off-limits to all but the CIA and a handful of Afghan guards and cooks who ran the prison, said several current and former military and intelligence officers.

The CIA wanted the Salt Pit to be a "host-nation facility," an Afghan prison with Afghan guards.

Its designation as an Afghan facility was intended to give U.S. personnel some insulation from actions taken by Afghan guards inside, a tactic used in secret CIA prisons in other countries, former and current CIA officials said.

The CIA, however, paid the entire cost of maintaining the facility, including the electricity, food and salaries for the guards, who were all vetted by agency personnel.

The CIA also decided who would be kept inside, including some "high-value targets," senior al Qaeda leaders in transit to other, more secure secret CIA prisons.

"We financed it, but it was an Afghan deal," one U.S. intelligence officer said.

In spring 2004, when the CIA first referred the Salt Pit case to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, the department cited the prison's status as a foreign facility, outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. government, as one reason for declining to prosecute, U.S. government officials aware of the decision said.

The case officer who was put in charge of the Salt Pit was on his first assignment.

Described by colleagues as "bright and eager" and "full of energy," he was the kind of person the agency needed for such a dismal job.

The officer was working undercover, and his name could not be learned.

"A first-tour officer was put in charge because there were not enough senior-level volunteers," said one intelligence officer familiar with the case.

"It's not a job just anyone would want."

"More senior people said, 'I don't want to do that.'"

"There was a real notable absence of high-ranking people" in Afghanistan.

Besides, the intelligence officer said, "the CIA did not have a deep cadre of people who knew how to run prisons."

"It was a new discipline."

"There's a lot of room to get in trouble."

Shortly after the death, the CIA briefed the chairmen and vice chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the only four people in Congress whom the CIA has decided to routinely brief on detainee and interrogation issues.

But, one official said, the briefing was not complete.

The Afghan detainee had been captured in Pakistan along with a group of other Afghans.

His connection to al Qaeda or the value of his intelligence was never established before he died.

"He was probably associated with people who were associated with al Qaeda," one U.S. government official said.

The brick factory has since been torn down, and the CIA has built a facility somewhere else.

A team of federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia recently convened to handle allegations of detainee abuse is now taking a second look at the case.

The pace of the CIA investigations has tested the patience of some in Congress, as was evident two weeks ago when Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the Senate intelligence panel, asked CIA Director Porter J. Goss when the inspector general's inquiry would be complete and available to the oversight committees.

"I haven't asked him what day he's going to finish all these cases," Goss replied.

"Or a month?" shot back Levin.

"As soon as they are through," Goss answered.

". . . I know there is still a bunch of other cases."

In recent weeks, the ranking Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence panels have asked their Republican chairmen to investigate the CIA's detention and interrogations.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) has declined the request from Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.).

The CIA inspector general, meanwhile, recently completed a review of detention procedures in Afghanistan and Iraq and gave Goss 10 recommendations for improving administrative procedures for holding, moving and interrogating prisoners.

The recommendations included more detailed reporting requirements from the field, increased safeguards against abuse and including more CIA officials in decisions affecting interrogation tactics.

Two have been fully adopted, officials said.

Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

Top Stories - washingtonpost.com
 
"CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment"
Thu Mar 3, 7:28 AM ET 

By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

In November 2002, a newly minted CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four U.S. government officials aware of the case.
 
The Afghan guards -- paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit -- dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said.

As night fell, so, predictably, did the temperature.

By morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.

After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic -- "hypothermia" was listed as the cause of death -- the guards buried the Afghan, who was in his twenties, in an unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said.

The captive's family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial.

He is on no one's registry of captives, not even as a "ghost detainee," the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said.

"He just disappeared from the face of the earth," said one U.S. government official with knowledge of the case.

The CIA case officer, meanwhile, has been promoted, two of the officials said, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the matter.

This above, of course, is a glimpse into the "WORLD VIEW" of that "christian's CHRISTIAN", Mr. George W. Bush!

That is what he calls "democracy" in action!

That is what he is spreading in the world, at the same time that he is telling all of us, here in OUR America, and in the world as well, that he is "full of Jesus", and that "GOD", some god or other, anyway, wanted him to be not only president of America, but likely KING OF KING, and LORD OF LORDS, of all the world, and the solar system, was well, which, of course, IS a job suited for someone like him who is, well, "FULL OF JESUS"!

As to this following, it is also the world of George W. Bush, and don't worry, America, soon, you won't have to travel all the way to Afghanistan to get a dose of it yourself; likely, it will be coming to an American community near you, real soon!

If OUR George has his way, anyway, as is the case with this story directly above, where his views on "human rights" are hanging right out there for all the candid world to see!

washingtonpost.com Highlights

"A bitter winter for Afghans - Extreme cold leaves at least 300 dead; children vulnerable"

By N.C. Aizenman
Updated: 5:33 a.m. ET March 3, 2005

ALTAMUR, Afghanistan - Eight-month-old Gulmina was the first to die.

Her tiny chest heaved with every breath for more than a week in November, until her uncle Nasrullah Niazai realized she needed medicine and bundled her into a battered car for the two-hour drive to the nearest doctor.

But relief came too late, and the baby died soon after they returned home.

Next, in late January, Nasrullah's 18-month-old daughter, Shirina, fell ill.

This time he quickly recognized the signs of pneumonia and wanted to fetch help right away.

But by then, snowdrifts as high as 14 feet had completely sealed off this alpine village in Logar province, just 50 miles south of the capital, Kabul.

A second child was lost.

By last week, when the men managed to dig a path out of Altamur, Nasrullah had buried another relative: his uncle, Nawab Khan, a former anti-Soviet fighter in his late nineties who died of untreated respiratory illness.

"I walked eight hours through the snow to find a doctor for him," Nasrullah said.

"But no one would come back with me."

As Afghanistan struggles to cope with its harshest winter in years, more than 300 people have been reported dead from cold-related causes, while hundreds of thousands of people in villages across the mountainous central region remain cut off from help after weeks of freezing temperatures and steady snowfall.

Once the villagers are reached, Afghan and relief officials said, the death toll could rise substantially.

According to the Health Ministry, 226 children under the age of 5 have died of infectious diseases such as whooping cough and pneumonia this winter, and 29 people either froze to death or were killed by avalanches.

In some provinces, governors are reporting higher numbers of deaths, but they have not been confirmed.

According to the United Nations, even in warm weather, more than 700 children under 5 die from disease in Afghanistan every day.

But the unusually severe winter has brought a new level of hardship to a country where most people live in mud houses with no central heating or plumbing, and many live miles from the nearest clinic.

'It was very shocking'

In Logar, most of the 60 villages surrounding Altamur are still snowbound.

Late last month, a Red Crescent Society representative, Mohammed Zaman Asir, hiked to about 20 of those villages and gathered news about 20 more.

In that tiny corner of the country, Asir said he learned of 25 children who had perished from cold and disease, 19 pregnant women who had died during unassisted deliveries, six people who had disappeared, and two teenage boys who were attacked by wolves as they trekked toward a neighboring village in search of food.

"Everyone was coming up to me and saying, 'Help us,'" Asir said.

"It was very shocking."

In remote Ghowr province, one of the worst affected of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, a survey team from Catholic Relief Services recently visited 50 villages that had been cut off intermittently and learned of 173 children under age 5 who had died.

Afghan and international officials say they have responded aggressively to the potential humanitarian crisis.

The World Food Program, which had already stored 21,000 tons of food in remote areas in anticipation of winter, is working with the Afghan government and aid groups to clear roads and distribute food to tens of thousands of people.

U.S. and NATO forces have sent truck convoys and helicopters to deliver supplies.

The U.S. Embassy has freed up $100,000 in disaster relief funds on top of $600,000 that the U.S. government had already spent to provide blankets and cooking oil.

The United States has also contributed $126 million to the World Food Program's operations.

Much of the relief effort, however, has been organized by the Afghan government, earning praise from international officials.

"This is really significant," said Manoel de Almeida e Silva, the U.N. spokesman here.

"Three years ago, the government of Afghanistan would have had zero capacity to bring all its ministries, as well as the international side, together under such close coordination."

"I'm not saying the effort is perfect, or that they don't need a lot of assistance."

"But they are clearly taking the lead."

Still vulnerable

While it has not reached crisis proportions, the suffering caused by this winter's weather underscores how vulnerable Afghanistan remains, three years after U.S.-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban government and launched a multibillion-dollar international effort to rebuild the war-ravaged nation.

According to a report released by the U.N. Development Program last week, Afghanistan ranked a dismal 173rd out of 178 countries in human development during 2004.

The report said 29 percent of Afghans have access to health services, less than 40 percent of children receive vaccinations and 29 percent of adults can read and write.

That combination has made the harsh winter a particular challenge for families such as Logar's Niazai clan, which includes three brothers, their five wives and fifteen children.

The relatives share a three-room, mud-walled compound with a breathtaking view of jagged mountain peaks.

The beauty of the surroundings masks the difficulty of life here.

The land, never especially fertile, has been rendered virtually useless by a seven-year drought.

"Just soil and rocks, that's all there is here," said Sher Ahmad Khan Niazai, 43, the eldest brother.

To support the family, Nasrullah, 40, and the youngest brother have spent the last 20 years working in Saudi Arabia -- first as construction laborers, and more recently as owners of an auto mechanic shop.

The two take turns visiting Altamur, staying for six-month stretches every two years.

When 8-month-old Gulmina, whose father is currently in Saudi Arabia, began coughing and breathing with difficulty, Nasrullah felt responsible but not especially worried.

Unschooled and unfamiliar with respiratory diseases, he knew only that some of the children had suffered the same sickness last winter and come through it fine.

In retrospect, Nasrullah said last week, he should not have waited so long before taking Gulmina to the doctor.

He also said he wondered whether the medicine he ultimately obtained without charge at a provincial clinic was what she needed.

"I don't know what it was -- some syrup and an injection," he said.

"But you get what you pay for."

Not long after Gulmina died, a three-day storm blanketed Altamur with snow.

Like Afghans across the country, Nasrullah was overjoyed at first.

"I thought, 'Finally we will have water in the well,'" he said.

But then little Shirina began to develop the same symptoms as Gulmina.

It took six days before the snow had melted enough to allow Nasrullah to drive Shirina to the same clinic that had treated Gulmina.

By then, Shirina was gravely ill.

Soon, the family's car broke down and it began to snow again.

Twice, Nasrullah said, he and Shirina's mother carried her on foot to the doctor, walking eight hours through the snow each way.

Their efforts proved futile -- as did Nasrullah's attempt a week later to bring a doctor to his ailing uncle, Nawab Khan.

Nasrullah and his brother, Sher Ahmad Khan, recounted those events in the casual tone of men who have become accustomed to seeing loved ones die.

In 1983, their father and one of Sher Ahmad Khan's sons were killed during a Soviet bombing raid.

After the family fled to Pakistan, three of Sher Ahmad Khan's children died of polio in a refugee camp.

In 2003, polio claimed three more of the clan's children.

"We accept that this is the order of God," Sher Ahmad Khan said.

Nevertheless, the Niazai men have taken pains to keep Gulmina's death from her father in Saudi Arabia.

When he calls the family's mobile phone and asks to speak to her, they put one of the other children on the line.

"It's better for him to find out when he comes here."

"He will be very sad, but at least his wives and family will be around to comfort him," Nasrullah said.

As for his daughter Shirina, Nasrullah said:

"She already knew so many words."

"She could ask for tea and for candies and for her uncles."

"And she had such a smiling face."

"I will never forget it."

It was not possible to speak to Shirina's mother.

In keeping with conservative tradition, she spends most days in the inner rooms of the compound, shielding her face from even her brothers-in-law.

Nasrullah would not allow her to be photographed or interviewed in the presence of a male interpreter.

Instead, he spoke for her.

"Yes, of course she is very sad."

"Every mother is sad to lose a child," he said.

"But I tell her, 'Don't worry.'"

"'We will have more children.'"

"'Then, in two years, I will come back and visit them.'"

[Livyjr]

Spiro Agnew
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Agnew became a lightning rod for anti-war opinion when he publicly and angrily denounced critics of U.S. war policy in Vietnam.

He was known for attacking his opponents with unusual turns of phrase.

Among his most famous were "nattering nabobs of negativism", which his speechwriter William Safire claims to have written, and "effete corps of impudent snobs".

Both expressions refer to the press corps, whom both Agnew and Nixon considered to be their ideological enemies and which ultimately played an important role in Nixon's downfall.

White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan has been credited with coming up with "pusillanimous pussyfoots" and "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history".

On October 10, 1973, Agnew became the second Vice President to resign the office.

Unlike John C. Calhoun, who resigned to take a seat in the Senate, Agnew resigned after pleading nolo contendere (no contest) to a criminal charge of tax evasion, part of a scheme where he allegedly accepted $29,500 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland.

Agnew was fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation.

He was later disbarred by the State of Maryland.

And here, it seems, we have more evidence that time is indeed a loop that just keeps spinning around, so that what was, becomes that which is, all over again!

"U.S. Must Charge Padilla With Crime or Release Him"

Tue Mar 1, 8:47 AM ET

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

A federal judge in South Carolina ruled yesterday that the Bush administration lacks statutory and constitutional authority to indefinitely imprison without criminal charges a U.S. citizen who was designated an "enemy combatant."

Rejecting a series of arguments put forward by the government, District Court Judge Henry F. Floyd said the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla -- who the administration has said is a terrorist supporter of al Qaeda -- is illegal and that Padilla must be released from a naval brig in Charleston, S.C., within 45 days or charged with a crime.

In a strongly worded 23-page ruling, Floyd said "to do otherwise would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition, but it would also be a betrayal of this Nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and our individual liberties."

Floyd said he was not persuaded by key arguments put forward by the administration to justify its assertion that foreigners and Americans alike who are designated "enemy combatants" by the president can be detained without trial or some other form of judicial review.

Using a phrase often levied by conservatives to denigrate liberal judges, Floyd -- who was appointed by President Bush to the federal bench in 2003 -- accused the administration of engaging in "judicial activism" when it asserted in court pleadings that Bush has blanket authority under the Constitution to detain Americans on U.S. soil who are suspected of taking or planning actions against the country.

Floyd said the government presented no law supporting this contention and that just because Bush and his appointees say Padilla's detention was consistent with U.S. laws and the president's war powers, that did not make it so.

"Moreover, such a statement is deeply troubling."

"If such a position were ever adopted by the courts, it would totally eviscerate the limits placed on Presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties."[/b][/color]

This is the second time the government's handling of Padilla has been repudiated in federal court.

In December 2003, a federal appeals court in New York also held that Bush lacked authority to hold Padilla in a military brig and ordered him released.

But the Justice Department appealed the decision, and the Supreme Court ruled in June 2004 that Padilla's petition for release should have been processed in federal court in South Carolina, not New York.

The decision yesterday, which the government has vowed to appeal, was the shoe that dropped again.

One of Padilla's attorneys, Donna Newman, said the "court ruled that the president does not have the power to seize an American citizen on American soil and hold him indefinitely without a charge."

"That shouldn't be big news, but it is. . . ."

"It confirms our belief that the Constitution is alive and well and kicking."

"The system works."

Padilla, 34, was monitored by the FBI on a flight from Pakistan to Chicago's O'Hare airport in May 2002 and arrested on a warrant describing him as a material witness to an ongoing terrorism investigation.

After being questioned by investigators in New York and demanding a lawyer, he was officially designated by Bush as an enemy combatant and taken to the brig, where he has been for the past 32 months.

U.S. officials contended that Padilla was scouting sites to detonate a bomb that would release radioactive particles; they also said he had met with senior al Qaeda officials and would pose a grave threat to the country if released.

Floyd's ruling did not address the merits of these assertions; it merely concluded that the government faced "no impediments whatsoever" to trying Padilla on these charges in a civilian court.

In seeking to avoid that course, the Justice Department cited a June 2004 ruling by the Supreme Court upholding the military's detention of another designated enemy combatant, Yaser Esam Hamdi.

But Floyd said the two cases were distinct, because Hamdi was arrested in Afghanistan while carrying a weapon and Padilla was captured on U.S. soil in civilian garb.

A government assertion that Padilla was not "in" the United States because he was arrested at an airport was fatally flawed, Floyd said.

He also dismissed an administration contention that Padilla's circumstances were akin to the capture and detention of German saboteurs -- including at least one U.S. citizen -- on U.S. soil in World War II.

A Supreme Court decision in that case, Floyd said, involved whether they would be tried in a military or civilian court; the Padilla case "is concerned with whether [he] . . . is going to be charged and tried at all."

Staff writer Michael Powell and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

end quotes

The Constitution is alive and well!

Hmmmm!

Too bad George W. Bush doesn't know that!

Of course, he is not big on democracy, at all, and so, OUR Constitution IS A THREAT to him and his!

And being "FULL OF JESUS", as he is, and having been put on the throne of America by no less of a personage than "GOD", or some god, at least in George W. Bush's mind; in his mind, likely, such a puny earthly document as OUR Constitution just would not apply to such an august personage as himself, who is the annointed of some god or other down here on this earth of OURS!

And then, of course, there is the issue of whether or not George W. Bush can even read, or understand the Constitution ......

[Livyjr]

And here, it seems, we have more evidence that time is indeed a loop that just keeps spinning around, so that what was, becomes that which is, all over again!

"U.S. Must Charge Padilla With Crime or Release Him"

Tue Mar 1, 8:47 AM ET 

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

A federal judge in South Carolina ruled yesterday that the Bush administration lacks statutory and constitutional authority to indefinitely imprison without criminal charges a U.S. citizen who was designated an "enemy combatant."
 
Rejecting a series of arguments put forward by the government, District Court Judge Henry F. Floyd said the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla -- who the administration has said is a terrorist supporter of al Qaeda -- is illegal and that Padilla must be released from a naval brig in Charleston, S.C., within 45 days or charged with a crime.

In a strongly worded 23-page ruling, Floyd said "to do otherwise would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition, but it would also be a betrayal of this Nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and our individual liberties."

Using a phrase often levied by conservatives to denigrate liberal judges, Floyd -- who was appointed by President Bush to the federal bench in 2003 -- accused the administration of engaging in "judicial activism" when it asserted in court pleadings that Bush has blanket authority under the Constitution to detain Americans on U.S. soil who are suspected of taking or planning actions against the country.

Floyd said the government presented no law supporting this contention and that just because Bush and his appointees say Padilla's detention was consistent with U.S. laws and the president's war powers, that did not make it so.

"Moreover, such a statement is deeply troubling."

"If such a position were ever adopted by the courts, it would totally eviscerate the limits placed on Presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties."

"Bush has clear run at Syria" By Stephen Zunes
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)

The broader implications of the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, who was seen by many as the embodiment of the Lebanese people's efforts to rebuild their country in the aftermath of its 15-year civil war, are yet to unfold.

A Sunni Muslim, Hariri reached out to all of Lebanon's ethnic and religious communities in an effort to unite the country after decades of violence waged by heavily armed militias and foreign invaders.

The assassination took place against the backdrop of a growing political crisis in Lebanon.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Omar Karami and his pro-Syrian government resigned on Monday in the wake of unrest set off by the assassination of popular former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Thousands of flag-waving demonstrators in Martyrs' Square, who defied police and a ban on protests, cheered the announcement.

The announcement means Karami's cabinet will remain as the caretaker for the government until President Emile Lahoud appoints a new prime minister.

The new prime minister will consult with parliament to form a cabinet, which then must undergo a vote of confidence.

But some people are also calling for Lahoud's resignation.

Lahoud, a close ally of Syria, angered Hariri when his term as president was extended by three years last fall, secured by a Syrian-backed constitutional amendment, a move roundly condemned by the international community.

Washington was particularly virulent in its criticism, which can only be considered ironic, given that the US attempted a similar maneuver in 1958 to extend the term of the pro-American president Camille Chamoun.

The result was a popular uprising suppressed only when president Dwight Eisenhower sent in US Marines.

Hariri had his critics, particularly among the country's poor majority, whose situation deteriorated under the former prime minister's adoption of a number of controversial neo-liberal economic policies.

There were widespread charges of corruption in the awarding of contracts, many of which went to a company largely owned by Hariri, a multibillionaire businessman prior to becoming prime minister.

A number of treasured historic buildings relatively undamaged from war were demolished to make room for grandiose construction projects.

The size and sophistication of the explosion that killed Hariri, his bodyguards and several bystanders have led many to speculate that foreign intelligence units may have been involved.

Initial speculation has focused on the Syrians, who had previously worked closely with Hariri as prime minister.

That relationship was broken by the Syrians' successful effort to extend the term of Lahoud, with whom Hariri had frequently clashed as prime minister.

As a result, Hariri was poised to lead an anti-Syrian front in the upcoming parliamentary elections in May.

Hariri made lots of other enemies as well, however, including rival Lebanese groups, the Israeli government, Islamic extremists and powerful financiers with interests in his multibillion dollar reconstruction efforts.

A previously unknown group calling itself "Victory and Jihad in Syria and Lebanon" claimed responsibility for the attack, citing Hariri's close ties to the repressive Saudi monarchy.

As of this writing, however, there has been no confirmation that they were responsible for the blast nor that such a group even exists.

While Syria remains the primary suspect, no evidence has been presented to support the charge.

Damascus has publicly condemned the killings and denied responsibility.

Syria's regime, while certainly ruthless enough to do such a thing, is usually not so brazen.

They would have little to gain from uniting the Lebanese opposition against them or for provoking the US and other Western nations to further isolate their government.

The US, however, has indirectly implicated Syria in the attack and has withdrawn its ambassador from Damascus.

Syria's role in Lebanon

Syrian forces first entered Lebanon in 1976 at the invitation of the Lebanese president as the primary component of an international peacekeeping force authorized by the Arab League to try to end Lebanon's civil war.

The US quietly supported the Syrian intervention as a means of blocking the likely victory by the leftist Lebanese National Movement and its Palestinian allies.

As the civil war continued in varying manifestations in subsequent years, the Syrians would often play one faction off against another in an effort to maintain their influence.

Despite this, they were unable to defend the country from the US-backed Israeli invasion in 1982, the installation of the Phalangist leader Amin Gemayel as president, and the US military intervention to help prop up Gemayel's rightist government against a popular uprising.

Finally, in late 1990, Syrian forces helped the Lebanese oust the unpopular interim prime minister General Michel Aoun, which proved instrumental in ending the 15-year civil war.

(Given that General Aoun's primary outside supporter was Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the US quietly backed this Syrian action as well.)

The end of the civil war did not result in the end of the Syrian role in Lebanon, however.

Most Lebanese at this point resent the ongoing presence of Syrian troops and Syria's overbearing influence on their government.

The Bush administration, Congressional leaders of both parties, and prominent media commentators have increasingly made reference to "the Syrian occupation of Lebanon".

Strictly speaking, however, this is not an occupation in the legal sense of the word, such as in the case of Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara or Israel's occupation of Syria's Golan region and much of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank (including East Jerusalem), all of which are recognized by the United Nations and international legal authorities as non-self-governing territories.

Lebanon has experienced direct foreign military occupation, however: from 1978 to 2000, Israel occupied a large section of southern Lebanon and - from June 1982 through May 1984 - much of central Lebanon as well, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Lebanese civilians.

A more accurate analogy to the current Syrian role would be that of the Soviets in the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe during much of the Cold War, in which these nations were effectively client states.

They were allowed to maintain their independence and distinct national institutions, yet were denied the right to pursue an autonomous course in their foreign and domestic policies.

Currently, Syria has only 14,000 troops in Lebanon, mostly in the Bekaa Valley in the eastern part of the country, a substantial reduction from the 40,000 troops present in earlier years.

This does not mean that calls for an immediate withdrawal of Syrian forces and an end to Syrian interference in Lebanon's political affairs are not morally and legally justified.

However, the use of the term "occupation" by American political leaders is an exaggeration and may be designed in part to divert attention from the continuing US military, diplomatic and financial support of the real ongoing military occupations by Israel and Morocco.

In September of last year, the US - along with France and Great Britain - sponsored a resolution before the UN Security Council (UNSC) that, among other things, called on "all remaining foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon".

UNSC resolution 1559 was adopted with six abstentions and no negative votes and builds on UNSC resolution 520, adopted in 1982, which similarly calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces.

The Bush administration, with widespread bipartisan Congressional support, has cited Syria's ongoing violation of these resolutions in placing sanctions on Syria.

Ironically, however, no such pressure was placed on Israel for violating UNSC resolution 520 and nine other resolutions (the first being adopted in 1978) calling on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.

In fact, during the Bill Clinton administration, the US openly called on Israel to not unilaterally withdraw from Lebanon as required, even as public opinion polls in Israel showed that a sizable majority of Israelis supported an end to the Israeli occupation, during which hundreds of Israeli soldiers were killed.

Today, many of the most outspoken supporters of a strict enforcement of UNSC resolution 1559 - such as Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California - were also among the most prominent opponents of enforcing similar resolutions when they were directed at Israel.

In short, both Republicans and Democrats agree that Lebanese sovereignty and international law must be defended only if the government challenging these principles is not a US ally.

(Israel was finally forced out of Lebanon in May 2000 as a result of attacks by the militant Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah. Four months later, the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began. Militant Palestinians claim they were inspired by the fact that Israel ended its 22-year occupation not because of the US-led peace process and not because of the United Nations - which was blocked by the US from enforcing its resolutions - but because of armed struggle by radical Islamists. Though, for a number of reasons, such tactics are unlikely to succeed in the occupied Palestinian territories, the support of Islamist groups and their use of violence by large sectors of the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation can for the most part be attributed to the US refusing to support an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon through diplomatic means.)

What next?

Whether or not the Syrians played a role in Hariri's assassination, his death will likely escalate pressure by the Lebanese to challenge Syria's domination of their government.

Once centered primarily in the country's Maronite Christian community, anti-Syrian sentiment is growing among Lebanese from across the ethnic and ideological spectrum.

Ultimately, the country's fate will be determined by the Lebanese themselves.

If the US presses the issue too strongly, however, it risks hardening Syria's position and allowing Damascus to defend its ongoing domination of Lebanon behind anti-imperialist rhetoric.

While there are many areas in which the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad should indeed be challenged, such as its overbearing influence in Lebanon and its poor human-rights record, there is a genuine fear that increased US efforts to isolate the regime and the concomitant threats of military action against Syria will undermine the efforts of Lebanese and Syrians demanding change.

One major problem is that most charges against the Syrian government by the Bush administration and the Congressional leadership of both parties are rife with hyperbole and double standards.

For example, the US has demanded that Syria eliminate its long-range and medium-range missiles, while not insisting that pro-Western neighbors like Turkey and Israel - with far more numerous and sophisticated missiles on their territory - similarly disarm.

The US has also insisted that Syria unilaterally eliminate its chemical weapons stockpiles, while not placing similar demands on US allies Israel and Egypt - which have far larger chemical weapons stockpiles.

The US has demanded an end to political repression and called for free and fair elections in Syria, while not making similar demands of even more repressive and autocratic regimes in allied countries like Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

Contrary to US charges that Syria is a major state supporter of international terrorism, Syria is at most a very minor player.

The US State Department has noted how Syria has played a critical role in efforts to combat al-Qaeda and that the Syrian government has not been linked to any acts of international terrorism for nearly 20 years.

The Palestinian Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have political offices in Damascus, as they do in a number of Arab capitals, but they are not allowed to conduct any military activities.

A number of left-wing Palestinian factions also maintain offices in Syria, but these groups are now largely defunct and have not engaged in terrorist operations for many years.

Much has been made of Syrian support for the radical Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah.

However, not only has Syrian support for the group been quite minimal in recent years, the group is now a legally recognized Lebanese political party and serves in the Lebanese parliament.

During the past decade, its militia have largely restricted their use of violence to Israeli occupation forces in southern Lebanon and in disputed border regions of Israeli-occupied Syria, not against civilians, thereby raising serious questions as to whether it can still be legally considered a terrorist group.

Currently, the Bush administration has expressed its dismay at Russia's decision to sell Syria anti-aircraft missiles, claiming that it raises questions in regard to President Vladimir Putin's commitment against terrorism.

The administration has been unable to explain, however, how selling defensive weapons to an internationally recognized government aids terrorists.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Congressional leaders have also accused Syria of threatening the Arab-Israeli peace process.

However, Syria has pledged to provide Israel with internationally enforced security guarantees and full diplomatic relations in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Syrian territory seized in the 1967 war, in concordance with UNSC resolutions 242 and 338, long recognized as the basis for peace.

They have also called for a renewal of peace talks with Israel, which came very close to a permanent peace agreement in early 2000.

However, the right-wing US-backed Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has refused to resume negotiations and pledges it will never withdraw from the Golan, thereby raising questions as to whether it is really Syria that is primarily at fault.

Another questionable anti-Syrian charge is in regard to its alleged support of Saddam Hussein and its ongoing support of anti-American insurgents in Iraq.

In reality, though both Iraq and Syria were ruled by the Ba'ath Party, Syria broke diplomatic relations with Baghdad back in the 1970s and was home to a number of anti-Saddam exile groups.

Syria and Iraq backed rival factions in Lebanon's civil war.

Syria was the only country to side with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and contributed troops to the US-led Operation Desert Shield in reaction to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Syria, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2002, supported US-backed resolution 1441 demanding that Iraq cooperate with UN inspectors or else face "severe consequences".

The Syrian government has substantially beefed up security along its borders with Iraq, and US military officials have acknowledged that relatively few foreign fighters have actually entered Iraq via Syria.

Most critically, there is no reason that Syria would want the insurgents to succeed, given that the primary insurgent groups are either supporters of the old anti-Syrian regime in Baghdad or are Islamic extremists similar to those who seriously challenged the Syrian government in 1982, before being brutally suppressed.

Given that Assad's regime is dominated by Syria's Alawite minority, who have much closer ties to Iraq's Shi'ites than with the Sunnis who dominate the Arab and Islamic world, and that the Shi'ite-dominated slate that won the recent Iraqi elections share their skepticism about the US role in the Middle East, they would have every reason to want to see the newly elected Iraqi government succeed so US troops could leave.

Despite the highly questionable assertions which form the basis of the Bush administration's antipathy toward Syria, there have essentially been no serious challenges to the Bush administration's policy on Capitol Hill.

Indeed, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid have strongly defended President Bush's policies toward Iraq and Lebanon and helped push through strict sanctions against Syria based on these same exaggerations and double standards.

During the United State's 2004 election campaign, Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, criticized Bush for not being anti-Syrian enough.

Among the few dissenters is Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who expressed his concern to Rice during recent hearings on Capitol Hill that the tough talk against Syria was remarkably similar to what was heard in regard to Iraq a few years earlier.

One of only eight members of Congress to vote against the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act in the fall of 2003, he warned his fellow senators that the language was broad enough that the administration might later claim it authorized military action against Syria.

As long as the vast majority of Democrats are afraid to appear "soft" toward the Syrian dictatorship and as long as so few progressive voices are willing to challenge the Democrats, Bush appears to have few obstacles in his way should he once again choose to lead the country to war.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chair of the peace and justice studies program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of Tinderbox: US Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).

(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)

[Livyjr]

And speaking about being in or out of touch with reality, what have we here?

U.S. National - AFP

"Americans say Bush is out of touch, but are more optimistic about Iraq: poll"

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A majority of Americans say President George W. Bush has a different set of priorities to theirs and oppose his plan to reform the pension system but are more optimistic about Iraq, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

Bush's approval rating remained unchanged at 49 percent, while 53 percent felt efforts to bring order to Iraq were going well, up from 41 percent a month ago.

Those who disapproved of Bush's Iraq policy fell from 55 to 50 percent, while those who approved rose from 40 to 45 percent.

Middle East - AP

"U.S. Troops Deaths in Iraq Rise to 1,500"

Thu Mar 3, 8:13 AM ET   

By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq rose to 1,500 after the military announced Thursday that a soldier was killed in action just south of the capital, an Associated Press count showed.

The latest fatality occurred Wednesday in Babil province, part of an area known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the frequency of insurgent attacks on U.S.- and Iraqi-led forces there.

Amid the violence, Iraq's government said it will extend a state of emergency across the country, except for Kurdish-run areas, until the end of March.

The emergency decree, first announced nearly four months ago, includes a nighttime curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and launch police and military operations when it deems necessary.

The U.S. soldier killed Wednesday was assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and died "while conducting security and stability operations," the military said without elaborating.

As is customary, the name of the soldier was withheld pending notification of family.

U.S. troops are killed nearly every day in Iraq.

The latest death brought to at least 1,500 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the U.S.-led war in Iraq began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

At least 1,140 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department.

The figures include four military civilians.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,362 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count.

That includes at least 1,030 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

In another twist, alliance deputy and former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi was to meet Thursday with interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose party won 40 seats in the assembly.

It was unclear why the meeting between the two rivals was taking place.

Top Stories - The Christian Science Monitor

"After temporary gains, Marines leave Iraqi cities"

29 minutes ago

As a week-long US operation ends, residents and some troops worry that insurgents will soon return.

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

HIT, IRAQ - Walking in from the desert before dawn, the marines entering the ancient city of Hit bristled with armaments.

Flak jackets bulged with extra ammo clips.

Packs were heavy with spare mortar rounds and grenades.

Many of the men recalled the last time they entered the city in October, calling it a miracle that none was killed in a determined insurgent ambush.

Yet pulling out of the city five days later, every one of those mortars and grenades remained intact.

The 250 marines, most from Bravo Company of the 1st Marine Division's 23rd Regiment out of Houston, had fired fewer than 100 rifle rounds.

There were few signs of the fighters that made Forward Operating Base Hit one of the most mortared US positions in Iraq.

It was much the same story in a recent Marine offensive across Anbar Province, the center of Iraq's insurgency.

As part of "River Blitz," Marines took over trouble-spots like Hit, Haditha, Baghdadi, and Ramadi with hardly any shots being fired.

But from the upper ranks to the most junior boots on the ground, few believe the relative ease of this operation means the insurgency in Anbar is over.

Instead, the militants are fleeing before the marines arrive, only to return when the marines withdraw.

The temporary nature of the Marine takeovers is hampering US efforts to get local cooperation on security.

"They called it River Blitz, but it's been more like operation River Dance,'' says Sgt. Bob Grandfield, from Boston.

"This is what insurgents are supposed to do."

"Run away when we come in."

"If they fight, they know we'll just kill them."

"They're very perceptive, not stupid at all, and they probably saw tanks were moved here."

"So they left,'' says Lt. Col Stephen Dinauer from Verona, Wisc, commander of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, which headed up operations in Hit.

"It's frustrating, because we can't be everywhere at once."

While acknowledging that most top insurgents probably fled prior to the assault, Colonel Dinauer still rates operations in Hit (pronounced Heat) a success.

About 40 men were detained, and a number of weapons caches were uncovered.

He also believes that insurgents in the area have been "knocked back on their heels," preventing them from planning more attacks and making it easier to move troops around the province.

But while Marines conducted their offensive in Anbar, insurgents struck elsewhere.

A suicide car bomb in Hilla, south of Baghdad, killed 125 people - the deadliest single attack since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Wednesday, unknown gunmen in Baghdad shot and killed a judge involved in the trial of Mr. Hussein.

As the Marines involved in "River Blitz" pull out Anbar Province, a smaller US force is replacing them.

One senior marine said he feels "guilty about leaving" Hit because he worries that insurgents will seek reprisals on residents in the absence of local police.

These sentiments echo the scaled-back expectations among troops on the ground.

Gone is the talk about breaking the back of the insurgency that was floated before the November battle for Fallujah, where hundreds of militants were dug in and ready to fight.

Instead, the troops speak about a long, painstaking process of intelligence gathering, slowly constricting the corridor along the Euphrates river that has helped foreign militants move into Iraq from Syria and helped domestic militants move men and money.

And they speak about slowly finding a way to train and motivate Iraqi troops to replace the largely failed experiment with the Iraqi National Guard, which has been plagued by desertions, insurgent infiltration, and a refusal to fight because of fears of reprisals against their family members.

Patrolling Hit, a city of 100,000 people, the marines encountered no open hostility.

Little boys fascinated by their guns chased after them and young men peppered them with questions in broken English.

In five days in the city, one sniper was killed by the marines, and another man was killed after a drive by shooting.

In Anbar Province, that's about as quiet as it gets.

But there is also little open or obvious cooperation.

Just about an hour before the drive-by shooting, the owner of a house occupied by a team of marines was asked about insurgent activity in the area.

"There is no resistance in the entire city of Hit,'' he said.

"They left a long time ago."

In a brief meeting with marines to arrange the recovery of two insurgent bodies, a local sheikh told Maj. Derek Horst, "99.9 percent of our people are peaceful people."

"We don't want problems here."

Such reticence either masks sympathies with the insurgency, or more commonly fear of reprisals.

Last October, insurgents moved into the city, reduced the police station to rubble, and beheaded a few locals they deemed too close to US forces.

The city's police remain inactive.

Yet as marines left the meeting, another with long experience in the Hit area could hardly detain his disgust.

"This guy is one of our biggest problems here."

"In the past, he's been whipping people up to fight."

In some cities in Anbar, civilians have been killed for simply talking to Marines, and more than a few citizens of Hit on this trip told marine officers that they should either come into the city and stay, or don't come at all, because there are no guarantees of their safety when the troops leave.

The marines say they appreciate civilian fears, but are frustrated that locals don't secure their towns on their own.

"It's hard to understand sometimes why people don't stand up for themselves,'' says Sergeant Shawn Hudman of Austin, Texas.

[Livyjr]

White House - AP

"Bush: Stopping Bin Laden a 'Challenge'"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush made rare mention of Osama bin Laden on Thursday, calling efforts to block the terrorist leader's hope of attacking America again "the greatest challenge of our day."

Bush insisted the so-far unsuccessful hunt for the al-Qaida founder is "keeping the pressure on."

The White House has sought to play down the significance of bin Laden to the global anti-terror battle, since the trail has gone cold on him more than three years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

As a result, Bush hardly ever utters the name of the man he once declared wanted "dead or alive" and repeatedly promised would be caught.

"And today Zarqawi understands the coalition and Iraqi troops are on a constant hunt for him as well," Bush said at the Ronald Reagan federal building near the White House.

Bush proclaimed progress in other areas of protecting the nation from attack, saying that the campaign against terrorist cells is succeeding and that "extraordinary measures" have been taken to beef up domestic protection.

Both points have been hotly disputed by others.

Earlier Thursday, Bush spoke by phone with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said they talked about the political process in moving from the Iraqi elections to the formation of a new government "and the importance of making sure that is an Iraqi process."

In particular, McClellan said the leaders discussed "the need for Syria and Iran to stop interfering in internal Iraqi affairs."

Adding a new beef with Tehran to worries about Iran's nuclear program, McClellan said the Bush administration has "increasing concerns about Iran trying to influence the shape of the transitional government," McClellan said.

"This must be an Iraqi process, free from outside interference, particularly by those in the neighborhood," he said.

Top Stories - The Christian Science Monitor

"After temporary gains, Marines leave Iraqi cities"

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

HIT, IRAQ - Walking in from the desert before dawn, the marines entering the ancient city of Hit bristled with armaments.

Flak jackets bulged with extra ammo clips.

Packs were heavy with spare mortar rounds and grenades.

Many of the men recalled the last time they entered the city in October, calling it a miracle that none was killed in a determined insurgent ambush.

Yet pulling out of the city five days later, every one of those mortars and grenades remained intact.

The 250 marines, most from Bravo Company of the 1st Marine Division's 23rd Regiment out of Houston, had fired fewer than 100 rifle rounds.

There were few signs of the fighters that made Forward Operating Base Hit one of the most mortared US positions in Iraq.

It was much the same story in a recent Marine offensive across Anbar Province, the center of Iraq's insurgency.

As part of "River Blitz," Marines took over trouble-spots like Hit, Haditha, Baghdadi, and Ramadi with hardly any shots being fired.

But from the upper ranks to the most junior boots on the ground, few believe the relative ease of this operation means the insurgency in Anbar is over.

Instead, the militants are fleeing before the marines arrive, only to return when the marines withdraw.

The temporary nature of the Marine takeovers is hampering US efforts to get local cooperation on security.

"They called it River Blitz, but it's been more like operation River Dance,'' says Sgt. Bob Grandfield, from Boston.

"This is what insurgents are supposed to do."

"Run away when we come in."

"If they fight, they know we'll just kill them."

"They're very perceptive, not stupid at all, and they probably saw tanks were moved here."

"So they left,'' says Lt. Col Stephen Dinauer from Verona, Wisc, commander of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, which headed up operations in Hit.

"It's frustrating, because we can't be everywhere at once."

Vo Nguyen Giap!

The Vietnamese general who was the nemesis of the French, and then the Americans, he was a history professor!

Tet Offensive

Four-star General Vo Nguyen Giap led Vietnam's armies from their inception, in the 1940s, up to the moment of their triumphant entrance into Saigon in 1975.

Possessing one of the finest military minds of this century, his strategy for vanquishing superior opponents was not to simply outmaneuver them in the field but to undermine their resolve by inflicting demoralizing political defeats with his bold tactics.

This was evidenced as early as 1944, when Giap sent his minuscule force against French outposts in Indochina.

The moment he chose to attack was Christmas Eve.

More devastatingly, in 1944 at a place called Dien Bien Phu, Giap lured the overconfident French into a turning point battle and won a stunning victory with brilliant deployments.

Always he showed a great talent for approaching his enemy's strengths as if they were exploitable weaknesses.

Nearly a quarter of a century later, in 1968 the General launched a major surprize offensive against American and South Vietnamese forces on the eve of the lunar New Year celebrations.

Province capitals throughout the country were seized, garrisons simultaneously attacked and, perhaps most shockingly, in Saigon the U.S. Embassy was invaded.

The cost in North Vietnamese casualties was tremendous but the gambit produced a pivotal media disaster for the White House and the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

Giap's strategy toppled the American commander in chief.

It turned the tide of the war and sealed the General's fame as the dominant military genius of the 20th Century's second half.

John Colvin author of "Giap Volcano Under Snow"

This article appeared in the Vietnam Experience, Boston Publishing Company

Giap was prepared to take a gamble.

His divisions had been battered whenever they met the American forces in conventional combat and the VC- if not exactly on the retreat -was at least being pushed backwards.

Hanoi was perfectly aware of the growing US peace movement and of the deep divisions the war was causing in American society.

What Giap needed was a body-blow that would break Washington's will to carry on and at the same time would undermine the growing legitimacy of the Saigon Government once and for all.

In one sense, time was not on Giap's side.

While Hanoi was sure that the Americans would tire of the war as the French had before them, the longer it took, the stronger the Saigon Government might become.

Another year or so of American involvement could seriously damage the NLF and leave the ARVN capable of dealing with its enemies on its own.

Giap opted for a quick and decisive victory that would be well in time for the 1968 US Presidential campaign.

Giap prepared a bold thrust on two fronts.

With memories of the victory at Dien Bien Phu still in his mind, he planned an attack on the US Marines' firebase at Khe Sanh.

At the same time the NVA and the NLF planned coordinated attacks on virtually all South Vietnam's major cities and provincial capitals.

If the Americans opted to defend Khe Sanh, they would find themselves stretched to the limit when battles erupted elsewhere throughout the South.

Forced to defend themselves everywhere at once, the US~ARVN forces would suffer a multitude of small to major defeats which would add up to an overall disaster.

Khe Sanh would distract the attention of the US commanders while the NVA/VC was preparing for D-day in South Vietnam's cities but, when this full offensive was at its height, it was unlikely that the over-stretched American forces would be able to keep the base from being overrun and Giap would have repeated his triumph of fourteen years before.

It's highly doubtful that the NVA/VC expected to hold all or even some of the cities and towns they attacked, but the NLF apparently did expect large sections of the urban populace to rise up in revolt.

With a few exceptions, this didn't happen.

South Vietnam's city dwellers were generally indifferent to both the NLF and the Saigon Government but the VC clearly expected more support than it actually got.

The object of attacking the cities was not so much to win in a single blow as it was to inflict a series of humiliating defeats on the Americans and to destroy the authority of the Saigon Government.

When the US/ARVN forces finally drove the NVA/VC back into the jungle, there would be left behind a wasteland of rubble, refugees, and simmering discontent.

Stung by their defeats, the Americans would lose heart for the war and what was left of the Saigon Government would be forced to reach an agreement with the NLF and Hanoi which - after a time - would simply take over in the South.

This offensive would begin in January 1968 at the time of the Vietnamese Tet (New Year) holidays.

The village of Khe Sanh lay in the northwest corner of South Vietnam just below the DMZ and close to the Laotian border.

Khe Sanh had been garrisoned by the French during the first Indochina war and became an important US Special Forces base early on during the second.

Its importance lay in its proximity to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

From Khe Sanh, US artillery could shell the trail and observers could keep an eye on NVA traffic moving southwards.

If necessary they could call in air-strikes or alert CIA/Meo raiding parties across the border in Laos.

Special Forces working with local Montagnard tribesmen also harried NVA traffic in the area and were a definite nuisance to Hanoi.

In 1967, the Marines took over Khe Sanh and converted it into a large fire base.

The Special Forces moved their base to the Montagnard village of Lang Vei.

Towards the end of 1967, it was obvious that Giap was planning something.

Broadcasts from Hanoi were speaking of great victories and of taking the war into the cities of South Vietnam.

Two NVA divisions- the 325th and the 304th were spotted moving into the Khe Sanh area and a third was positioning itself along Route #9 where it would be able to intercept reinforcements coming in from Quang Tn.

The two NVA divisions near Khe Sanh had fought at Dien Bien Phu and the warning was clear.

Westmoreland picked up the gauntlet and began to reinforce the base despite predictions of upcoming bad weather which could hinder air support and interfere with vital supply planes.

Appearances to the contrary, Westmoreland had no intention of duplicating the French mistakes at Dien Bien Phu.

American airpower was capable of delivering devastating attacks on concentrations of enemy troops and - apart from anti-aircraft guns - was unopposed.

Helicopters and parachute drops by low-flying cargo planes reduced the dependence on re-supply by road.

By late January, some 6,000 Marines had been flown in to reinforce the Khe Sanh garrison and thousands of reinforcements had been moved north of Hue.

The NVA build-up also continued; 20,000 North Vietnamese were ultimately moved in around Khe Sanh but other estimates put the number at twice that.

Initially, Giap would position his artillery in the DMZ and then send his assauIt troops against the fortified hills surrounding Khe Sanh which the Marines had captured in the dogged fighting in 1967.

Having captured the hill positions, Giap reasoned, the NVA artillery could be moved onto the heights above the beleaguered base.

Then - as happened at Dien Bien Phu - waves of determined infantry would steadily grind away until the defenders were pushed into a corner and finally over-run.

The White House and the US media became convinced that the decisive battle of the war had begun.

TV news reports were so obsessed with Giap's threatened replay of Dien Bien Phu that day-to-day life at Khe Sanh became lead-story material even when it showed nothing other than anxious Marines waiting for something to happen.

The first attack began shortly before dawn on January 21st, when the NVA attempted to cross the river running past the base.

It was beaten back but followed by an artillery barrage which damaged the runway, blew up the main ammunition stores, and damaged a few aircraft.

Secondary attacks were launched against the Special Forces' defenses at Lang Vel and against the Marines dug-in on the hills surrounding Khe Sanh but these attacks were aimed more at testing the defenses than anything else.

The next day, helicopters and light cargo aircraft flew in virtually every few minutes replacing lost ammunition but the weather began turning worse.

The NVA began a concentrated artillery barrage and moved their troops forward to begin building a network of entrenched positions in which they could prepare for further assaults on Khe Sanh's outer defenses.

Anti-aircraft guns and the worsening weather made incoming supply flights difficult.

Air strikes and supporting US forces moved up to engage the NVA in running skirmishes around Khe Sanh were intensified and despite the weather, pounded the North Vietnamese hour after hour.

Electronic sensors of the types running along the McNamara Line surrounded Khe Sanh.

Seismic and highly sensitive listening devices enabled the Americans to monitor everything from normal conversations to radio communications.

Overhead, high-flying signal-intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft intercepted communications traffic over the entire front and to and from command centers in North Vietnam.

While the world was watching the drama unfolding at Khe Sanh, however, NVA and VC regulars were also drifting into Saigon, Hue, and most of South Vietnam's cities.

They came in twos and threes, disguised as refugees, peasants, workers, and ARVN soldiers on holiday leave.

In Saigon, roughly the equivalent of five battalions of NVA/VC gradually infiltrated the city without anyone informing or any of the countless security police taking undue notice.

Weapons came separately in flower carts, jury-rigged coffins, and trucks apparently filled with vegetables and rice.

There was also a VC network in Saigon and the other major cities which had long stockpiled stores of arms and ammunition drawn from hit-and-run raids or bought openly on the black-market.

It was also no secret that VC drifted in and out of the cities to see relatives and on general leave from their units.

Viet Cong who were captured during the pre-Tet build up were mistaken for regular holiday-makers or deserters.

In the general pattern of the New Year merry-makers, the VC's secret army of infiltrators went completely unnoticed.

Tet had traditionally been a time of truce in the long war and both Hanoi and Saigon had made announcements that this year would be no different - although they disagreed about the duration.

US Intelligence had gotten wind that something was brewing through captured documents and an overall analysis of recent events but Westmoreland's staff tended to disregard these generally vague reports.

At the request of General Frederick Weyand, the US commander of the Saigon area, however, several battalions were pulled back from their positions near the Cambodian border.

General Weyand put his troops on full alert - but due to a standing US policy of leaving the security of major cities to the ARVN - there were only a few hundred American troops on duty in Saigon itself the night before the attack began.

Westmoreland later claimed to have anticipated Tet but the evidence suggests that he was not prepared for anything approaching the intensity of the attack that came and that he was still concentrating his attentions on the developing battle at Khe Sanh where he thought Giap would make his chief effort.

In the early morning hours of January 31st, the first day of the Vietnamese New Year, NLF/NVA troops and commandos attacked virtually every major town and city in South Vietnam as well as most of the important American bases and airfields.

There were some earlier attacks around Pleiku, Quang Nam, and Darlac but these were largely misinterpreted as the enemy's main thrust by those who were expecting some activity during Tet.

Almost everywhere the attacks came as a total surprise.

Vast areas of Saigon and Hue suddenly found themselves "liberated" and parades of gun-waving NVA/VC marched through the streets proclaiming the revolution while their grimmer-minded comrades rounded up prepared lists of collaborators and government sympathizers for show trials and quick executions.

In Saigon, nineteen VC commandos blew their way through the outer walls of the US Embassy and overran the five MP's on duty in the early hours of that morning.

Two MP's were killed immediately as the action-team tried to blast their way through the main Embassy doors with anti-tank rockets.

They failed and found themselves pinned-down by the Marine guards who kept the VC in an intense firefight until a relief force of US 1O1st Airborne landed by helicopter.

By mid-morning, the battle had turned.

All nineteen VC were killed, their bodies scattered around the Embassy courtyard.

Five Americans and two Vietnamese civilians were among the other dead.

The commandos had been dressed in civilian clothing and had rolled-up to the Embassy in an ancient truck.

The security of the Embassy was not in serious danger after the first few minutes and the damage was slight but this attack on "American soil" captured the imagination of the media and the battle became symbolic of the Tet Offensive throughout the world.

Other NVA/VC squads attacked Saigon's Presidential Palace, the radio station, the headquarters of the ARVN Chiefs of Staff, and Westmoreland's own MACV compound as part of a 7O0 man raid on the Tan Son Nhut air-base.

During the heavy fighting that followed, things became sufficiently worrying for Westmoreland to order his staff to find weapons and join in the defense of the compound.

When the fighting at Tan Son Nhut was over, twenty-three Americans were dead, eighty-five were wounded and up to fifteen aircraft had suffered serious damage.

Two NVA/VC battalions attacked the US air-base at Bien Hoa and crippled over twenty aircraft at a cost of nearly 170 casualties.

Further fighting at Bien Hoa during the Tet offensive would take the NVA/VC death total in Saigon to nearly 1200.

Other VC units made stands in the French cemetery and the Pho Tho race track.

The mainly Chinese suburb of Cholon became virtually a NVA/VC operations base and, as it later turned out, had been the main staging area for the attacks in Saigon and its immediate area.

President Thieu declared Marshal law on January 31st but it would take over a week of intense fighting to clear-up the various pockets of resistance scattered around Saigon.

Sections of the city were reduced to rubble in heavy street by street fighting.

Tanks, helicopter gunships, and strike aircraft blasted parts of the city as entrenched guerrillas fought and then slipped off to fight somewhere else.

The radio station, various industrial buildings, and a large block of lowcost public housing were leveled along with the homes of countless civilians who were forced to flee.

The city dissolved into a chaos which took weeks to begin to put right.

The fighting within Saigon itself was pretty much over by February 5th but it carried on in Cholon until the last week of the month.

Cholon was strafed, bombed, and shelled but the NVA/VC held on and even mounted sporadic counter-offensives against US/ARVN positions within the city and against Tan Son Nhut airport.

B-52 strikes against communist positions outside Saigon came within a few miles of the city.

When the NVA/VC were finally driven out of Saigon's suburbs, they retreated into the surrounding government villages and fought there.

US and ARVN artillery and strike-aircraft bombed and shelled these supposedly pacified villages before troops moved in to reoccupy them.

The NVA/VC repeated this tactic again and again in a clear effort to make the Saigon Government destroy their own fortified villages and, by doing so, further alienate the rural population.

A month after the offensive began, US estimates put the number of civilian dead at some 15,000 and the number of new refugees at anything up to two million and still the battles went on.

Elsewhere in South Vietnam, the success of the Tet offensive was erratic.

Many of the attacks on the provincial cities and US bases were easily beaten back within the first minutes or hours, but others involved bitter fighting.

In the resort city of Dalat, the ARVN put up a spirited defense of the Vietnamese Military Academy against a determined VC battalion.

Fighting raged over the Pasteur Institute - which changed hands several times-and the VC dug themselves in the central market.

Fighting in Dalat went on until mid-February and left over 200 VC dead.

In cities like Ban Me Thuot, My Tho, Can Tho, Ben Tre, and Kontum, the VC entrenched themselves in the poorer sections and held out against repeated efforts to push them out.

The biggest battle, however, occurred at Hue.

The Buddhist crisis had left bitter feelings towards the Saigon Government in the ancient Vietnamese capital and, within a few hours of their attack, the disguised insurgents supported by some ten NVA/VC battalions had overrun all of the city except for the headquarters of the ARVN 3rd Division and the garrison of US advisors.

The main NVA/VC goal was the Citadel, an ancient imperial palace covering some two square miles with high walls several feet thick.

NVA troops assaulted the Citadel and ran up the VC flag on the early morning of January 31st but were unable to displace ARVN holding out in the northeast section.

Having overrun the city and found considerable support among sections of Hue's populace, the NVA/VC began an immediate revolutionary "liberation" program.

Thousands of prisoners were set free and thousands of "enemies of the state" - government officials, sympathizers, and Catholics were rounded up and many were shot out of hand on orders from the security section of the NLF which had sent in its action squad with a prepared hit-list.

Most of the others simply vanished.

After Hue was finally recaptured at the end of February, South Vietnamese officials sifting through the rubble found mass graves with over 1200 corpses and-sometime later-other mass burials in the provincial area.

The total number of bodies unearthed came to around 2500 but the number of civilians estimated as missing after the Hue battle was nearly 6000.

Many of the victims found were Catholics who sought sanctuary in a church but were taken out and later shot.

Others were apparently being marched off for political "re-education" but were shot when American or ARVN units came too close.

The mass graves within Hue itself were largely of those who had been picked up and executed for various "enemy of the people" offenses.

There is some doubt that the NVA/VC had planned all these executions beforehand but unquestionably it was the largest communist purge of the war.

US Marines and ARVN drove into the city and, after nearly two days of heavy fighting, secured the bank of the Perfume river opposite the Citadel.

Hue was a sacred city to the Vietnamese and apart from the ancient Citadel held many other precious historical buildings.

After much deliberation, it was reluctantly decided to shell and bomb NVA/VC positions.

Resistance was heavy and sending the Marines into the city without air and artillery support would have meant an unacceptable cost in lives.

To many, the battle for Hue reminded them of the bitter street-by-street fighting that occurred during World War II.

The NVA had blown the main bridge across the Perfume River.

US forces crossed in a fleet of assault craft under air and artillery cover which blasted away at the enemy-held Citadel.

Its walls were so thick that few were killed but the covering fire made the enemy keep their heads down while the Marines and soldiers hit the bank below.

While the ARVN, with US support, fought its way through the streets of Hue block by block, the Marines prepared to assault the Citadel.

On February 2Oth, American assault teams went in through clouds of tear gas and the burning debris left over from air and artillery attacks.

The NVA/VC were pushed into the southwestern corner of the Citadel and finally overwhelmed on February 23rd.

Enemy resistance in Hue was finally reduced to isolated pockets and sniper teams.

As the Citadel fell, NVA/VC units began retreating - some of them marching groups of soon to be massacred prisoners before them - into the suburbs while their rear guards fought holding actions with the advancing ARVN.

The fight for Hue ended by February 25th at a cost of 119 Americans and 363 ARVN dead compared to about sixteen times that number of NVA/VC dead.

The dramatic difference in fatalities makes the battle look a one sided affair.

But it wasn't!

The difference in casuaity figures came largely from the heavy use of artillery and aircraft back-up to devastate NVA/VC positions throughout Hue which reduced large sections of the city to body-laden piles of rubble.

Had the commanders decided to preserve the ancient and revered city US/ARVN casualties would have been much higher.

American wounded during the battle for Hue came to just under a thousand compared to slightly over 1,200 ARVN.

Nearly 120,000 citizens of Hue were homeless and, of the close to 6,000 civilian dead, many died in the bombing and shell-fire.

Contrary to many reports, large sections of Hue escaped relatively undamaged but after the battle they were forced to suffer days of looting by soldiers from the original ARVN garrison who had spent the previous weeks keeping their heads low.

Their commander - who had also sat out the city's Buddhist rebellion against Ky -was later accused of having known about the coming attack for days beforehand.

His defense was that he had allowed the NVA/VC battalions into Hue in order to spring a trap!

In the villages outside Hue, the battle went on for another week or so as the retreating NVA/VC took over the villages just long enough for them to be destroyed by bombing and concentrated artillery shelling.

Civilian deaths and refugees increased.

On February 5th, the fighting died out in Saigon and the Marines prepared for their river assault on the Citadel in Hue.

The electronic sensors around the besieged fire-base at Khe Sanh warned of enemy preparations to assault the entrenched positions on Hill 881, which was outside the main camp.

Intensive artillery fire broke up the assembling NVA troops but a second planned attack on Hill 881 had gone unnoticed until the Marines found themselves fighting off waves of oncoming North Vietnamese regulars.

For half an hour the beleaguered Marines battled the NVA in hand-to-hand fighting - even trusting their flak jackets enough to use grenades at close quarters - until the artillery could be brought to bear on the hill and the attackers forced to withdraw.

Two days later, the Green Beret's camp at Lang Vei was attacked by an NVA assault force led by ten Soviet-built, FT-76 light, amphibious tanks.

Despite a shortage of anti-tank ammunition three of the armored vehicles were put out of action before the NVA swarmed over the wire.

Because of the very real likelihood of an ambush, no relief force was sent and the Lang Vei commander, Captain Frank Willoughby, ordered his men into the jungle, and called down air and artillery strikes directly onto the camp.

Of the original force of twenty four Special Forces and 900 Montagnard, only Willoughby and seventy-three others managed to struggle into Khe Sanh.

The next day NVA troops overran nearly half of an outer Marine position at Khe Sanh before being blasted back by artillery, aircraft, and armor.

Giap's ambition to win a massive victory against the Americans was thwarted by massive aerial bombardments of NVA positions.

B-52's and strike aircraft dropped their loads with pin-point accuracy within a few hundred feet of Khe Sanh's perimeter.

During the course of the battle, tons of bombs and napalm were dropped around Khe Sanh.

Bad weather and increasing anti-aircraft fire inhibited the steady flow of incoming supplies but the vital cargo planes and helicopters kept coming despite losses.

The fortified hills around Khe Sanh were supplied by Sea Knight Helicopters, frequently accompanied by fighter escorts.

The battle settled down into a siege.

The NVA concentrated on shelling the base and trying to stop the supply planes with anti-aircraft fire while digging in around the camp.

Both sides employed teams of snipers to harass each other's movements.

The NVA launched further attacks on February 17th, 1&h, and 29th but massed artillery and air-strikes broke the first up fairly easily while the second involved heavy fighting.

In early April, relief forces reached the base.

A 1st Cavalry helicopter assault force landed near Khe Sanh as American and ARVN forces hit NVA positions along Route#9.

Khe Sanh was relieved on April 6th and, four days later, Lang Vei was reccupied.

Fighting continued around Khe Sanh for a time but Giap had long since given up any hope of overrunning the base.

The drive to relieve Khe Sanh had gone smoothly and without heavy resistance.

From this, many inferred that the whole siege of Khe Sanh had been a feint to cover preparations for the Tet Offensive in the South.

And to an extent, this was true but the evidence suggests that Giap's moves on Khe Sanh had a more deadly purpose than simply drawing American attentions away from the South at the critical time.

By the middle of February it was obvious that the battle for South Vietnam's cities was failing and that US airpower would deny the NVA another Dien Bien Phu.

Seeing the inevitable, Giap seems to have began a slow wind down of the siege before the US counter-attack began.

The After-Effects of Tet

The Tet Offensive and Khe Sanh may well have reminded Johnson and Westmoreland of the Duke of Wellington's dictum:

"If there's anything more melancholy than a battle lost, it's a battle won"

Giap had been frustrated at Khe Sanh and defeated in South Vietnam's cities.

NVA/VC dead totaled some 45,000 anc the number of prisoners nearly 7000.

But the shockwave of the battle finished Johnson's willingness to carry on.

Westmoreland was pressuring Washington for 206,000 troops to carry on the campaign in the South and to make a limited invasion of North Vietnam just above the DMZ.

As the battle for Hue died out, Johnson asked Clark Clifford (who had recently replaced a disillusioned McNamara as Secretary of Defense) to find ways and means of meeting Westmoreland's request.

Clifford and an advisor group looked at the war to date and among others, consulted CIA Director Richard Helms who presented the Agency's gloomy forecasts in great detail.

On March 4th Clifford told Johnson that the war was far from won and that more men would make little difference.

Johnson then turned to his chief group of informal advisors (which included among others, Generals Omar Bradley, Matthew Ridgway, and Maxwell Taylor; Cyrus Vance, Dean Acheson, and Henry Cabot Lodge).

Johnson soon found that they too, like Clifford, had turned against the war.

According to Thomas Powers, Johnson's "wise old men" had been told that recent CIA studies showed that the pacification programme was failing in forty of South Vietnam's forty-four provinces and that the NLF's manpower was actually twice the number that had been estimated previously.

Not only had Tet shown that the optimism of the previous year had been an illusion, but it now seemed that the enemy was far stronger than anybody had thought and that the long efforts to win Vietnamese "hearts and minds" had largely been a disaster.

If Tet wasn't a full-scale shock to the American public, it was at the very least, an awakening.

The enemy that Johnson and the generals had described as moribund had shown itself to be very alive and, as yet, unbeaten.

America and its ARVN ally had suffered over 4,300 killed in action, some 16,000 wounded and over 1,000 missing in action.

The fact that the enemy suffered far more and had lost a major gamble mattered little because the war looked like a never ending conflict without any definite, realistic objective.

The scenes of desolation in Saigon, Hue, and other cities looked to be war without purpose or end.

Perhaps the most quoted US officer of the time was the one who explained the destruction of about one-third of the provincial capital of Ben Tre with unintended black humor:

"It became necessary to destroy it," he said, "in order to save it".

For many, this oft-quoted statement was not just a classic example of Pentagon double-think but also a symbol of the war's futility.

Westmoreland became the parody "General Waste-mor-land" of the anti-war movement.

Being against the war became more-or-less politically respectable for liberal elements.

Robert Kennedy spoke of giving up the illusion of victory and Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy challenged Johnson for the Presidential nomination on a peace platform.

He was supported by thousands of students and young Americans opposed to the war.

Vocal elements of the extreme right largely supported the war but condemned the Administration for not going all out for victory.

The JCS backed Westmoreland but convinced him to settle for half of the over 200,000 additional troops he wanted to take the initiative.

The JCS then reported to the White House that the extra men were needed to get things back to normal following the battles of the Tet Offensive.

Johnson's dilemma was complete.

He couldn't meet the generals' manpower requests without either depleting Europe of American troops - which was unacceptable - or without calling up the active reserves which would have been a political disaster.

His most senior advisors had turned against the war and Johnson took another briefing from the CIA analyst whose gloomy reports had soured some of his most hawkish counselors.

A few days after this briefing, Johnson went on TV to announce a bombing halt of the North and America's willingness to meet with the North Vietnamese to seek a peace settlement.

Johnson then said that he was not a candidate for reelection under any circumstances and would spend the rest of his term in a search for peace in Indochina.

One of those present at the special CIA briefing which convinced Johnson that a change of course was inevitable was General Creighton Abrams, Westmoreland's deputy commander.

Shortly after Johnson's turnabout, Abrams replaced Westmoreland as head of US forces in Vietnam.

Westmoreland came home to become Army Chief of Staff - a move many saw as a kick upstairs - but, whatever the reasons behind the changeover, Abrams went to Saigon with a mission.

He was to institute a program of "Vietnamization", in other words, to take all necessary measures to enable the ARVN to bear the main burden of the fighting and gradually return the chief role of American troops to that of advisors.

Vietnamization had always been a feature of America's role in Vietnam but it had been on a back-burner since 1965 when it seemed that Saigon was incapable of doing the job.

Now things were to be returned to what they were supposed to have been from the beginning.

Vietnamization is usually credited to Nixon but it began in the wake of the Tet Offensive and Johnson's turnabout.

Giap's gamble had another side effect.

When the Tet Offensive began, many US officials believed that the NLF had offered the Americans a golden opportunity by fighting a pitched battle where it could be defeated in open combat.

In effect, the NLF was "leading with its chin" and the massive losses it suffered bear this out.

The VC was not broken by the Tet Offensive but it was severely crippled by it and, from then on, the North took on the main burden of the war.

Further fighting in 1968 and the increasing activity of the Phoenix Program further decimated the NLF's ranks and the role of the North grew even larger.

The northern and southern parts of Vietnam had ancient cultural and social differences and while the communist cadres at the center of the N LF had managed largely to suppress these natural antagonisms, there still were basic differences in goals and approach.

The N LF had gone into the Tet Offensive in the hope of giving a death-blow to the Saigon Government and, if it couldn't capture power directly, it could at least gain a coalition leading to ultimate authority.

The NLF's dream vanished in the rubble of South Vietnam's cities and it would be Hanoi that conquered Saigon.

Taken from the Vietnam Experience Ninteen Sixty-Eight.

This post has been edited by Livyjr: Mar 3 2005, 04:38 PM

[Livyjr]

Top Stories - washingtonpost.com
 
"CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment"
Thu Mar 3, 7:28 AM ET 

By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

In November 2002, a newly minted CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four U.S. government officials aware of the case.
 
The Afghan guards -- paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit -- dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said.

As night fell, so, predictably, did the temperature.

By morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.

After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic -- "hypothermia" was listed as the cause of death -- the guards buried the Afghan, who was in his twenties, in an unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said.

The captive's family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial.

He is on no one's registry of captives, not even as a "ghost detainee," the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said.

"He just disappeared from the face of the earth," said one U.S. government official with knowledge of the case.

The CIA case officer, meanwhile, has been promoted, two of the officials said, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the matter.

And here, it seems, we have more evidence that time is indeed a loop that just keeps spinning around, so that what was, becomes that which is, all over again!

"U.S. Must Charge Padilla With Crime or Release Him"

Tue Mar 1, 8:47 AM ET 

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

A federal judge in South Carolina ruled yesterday that the Bush administration lacks statutory and constitutional authority to indefinitely imprison without criminal charges a U.S. citizen who was designated an "enemy combatant."
 
Rejecting a series of arguments put forward by the government, District Court Judge Henry F. Floyd said the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla -- who the administration has said is a terrorist supporter of al Qaeda -- is illegal and that Padilla must be released from a naval brig in Charleston, S.C., within 45 days or charged with a crime.

In a strongly worded 23-page ruling, Floyd said "to do otherwise would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition, but it would also be a betrayal of this Nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and our individual liberties."

Floyd said he was not persuaded by key arguments put forward by the administration to justify its assertion that foreigners and Americans alike who are designated "enemy combatants" by the president can be detained without trial or some other form of judicial review.

Using a phrase often levied by conservatives to denigrate liberal judges, Floyd -- who was appointed by President Bush to the federal bench in 2003 -- accused the administration of engaging in "judicial activism" when it asserted in court pleadings that Bush has blanket authority under the Constitution to detain Americans on U.S. soil who are suspected of taking or planning actions against the country.

Floyd said the government presented no law supporting this contention and that just because Bush and his appointees say Padilla's detention was consistent with U.S. laws and the president's war powers, that did not make it so.

"Moreover, such a statement is deeply troubling."

"If such a position were ever adopted by the courts, it would totally eviscerate the limits placed on Presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties."

This is the second time the government's handling of Padilla has been repudiated in federal court.

In December 2003, a federal appeals court in New York also held that Bush lacked authority to hold Padilla in a military brig and ordered him released.

end quotes

The Constitution is alive and well!

Hmmmm!

Too bad George W. Bush doesn't know that!

Of course, he is not big on democracy, at all, and so, OUR Constitution IS A THREAT to him and his!

And being "FULL OF JESUS", as he is, and having been put on the throne of America by no less of a personage than "GOD", or some god, at least in George W. Bush's mind; in his mind, likely, such a puny earthly document as OUR Constitution just would not apply to such an august personage as himself, who is the annointed of some god or other down here on this earth of OURS!

And then, of course, there is the issue of whether or not George W. Bush can even read, or understand the Constitution ......

World - Reuters

"U.S. Charges Venezuela Backsliding on Human Rights"

Mon Feb 28, 5:09 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Human rights in Venezuela worsened last year after new government laws undermined media and judicial independence, the United States said on Monday in a report dismissed as "more lies" by Caracas.

The State Department 2004 world human rights report singled out the Venezuelan media legislation and a Supreme Court law which critics says allows the government to pack the nation's top tribunal with political allies.

"We saw unfortunately some real backsliding there," Michael Kozak, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said in a Washington press conference.

The report comes after U.S. officials recently stepped up attacks on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who they criticize as authoritarian and a threat to regional stability because of his ties to Cuba's President Fidel Castro.

Venezuela's government, a fierce opponent of what it calls U.S. "imperialist" policies, dismissed the comments.

"This State Department report is more of the same: more lies, more fabrications and more hypocrisy," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said.

Relations between the United States and Venezuela have become increasingly antagonistic since Chavez was first elected in 1998 promising to fight corruption and poverty in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

The former army officer presents his "Bolivarian revolution" for the poor as an alternative to U.S. capitalism and accuses the United States of trying to oust him, including through a short-lived 2002 coup which he survived.

Venezuela at the same time reiterates its key petroleum supplies to Washington are safe.

The U.S. government dismisses Chavez's charges, but it admits to financing local pro-democracy groups which helped organize a recall referendum in August.

Chavez won the vote.

Venezuela's National Assembly in November approved the media law the government said would improve broadcasting and protect minors from scenes of sex and violence.

Critics fear the law, which forbids the broadcasting of scenes or statements that incite disorder or threaten national security, will be used to crackdown on political opposition.

The National Assembly also passed a law expanding the Supreme Court and allowing the parliament, which is controlled by pro-Chavez supporters, to more easily appoint judges.

The government said the reforms aimed to end years of corruption.

[Livyjr]

February 17, 2005

OP-ED COLUMNIST

"Bush's Barberini Faun" By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

I am very impressed with James Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon.

How often does an enterprising young man, heralded in press reports as both a reporter and a contributor to such sites as Hotmilitarystud.com, Workingboys.net, Militaryescorts.com, MilitaryescortsM4M.com and Meetlocalmen.com, get to question the president of the United States?

Who knew that a hotmilitarystud wanting to meetlocalmen could so easily get to be face2face with the commander in chief?

It's hard to believe the White House could hit rock bottom on credibility again, but it has, in a bizarre maelstrom that plays like a dark comedy.

How does it credential a man with a double life and a secret past?

"Jeff Gannon" was waved into the press room nearly every day for two years as the conservative correspondent for two political Web sites operated by a wealthy Texas Republican.

Scott McClellan often called on the pseudoreporter for softball questions.

Howard Kurtz reported in The Washington Post yesterday that although Mr. Guckert had denied launching the provocative Web sites - one described him as " 'military, muscular, masculine and discrete' (sic)" - a Web designer in California said "that he had designed a gay escort site for Gannon and had posted naked pictures of Gannon at the client's request."

And The Wilmington News-Journal in Delaware reported that Mr. Guckert was delinquent in $20,700 in personal income tax from 1991 to 1994.

I'm still mystified by this story.

I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?

At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back.

Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.

Does the Bush team love everything military so much that even a military-stud Web site is a recommendation?

Or maybe Gannon/Guckert's willingness to shill free for the White House, even on gay issues, was endearing.

One of his stories mocked John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" with the headline "Kerry Could Become First Gay President."

With the Bushies, if you're their friend, anything goes.

If you're their critic, nothing goes.

They're waging a jihad against journalists - buying them off so they'll promote administration programs, trying to put them in jail for doing their jobs and replacing them with ringers.

At last month's press conference, Jeff Gannon asked Mr. Bush how he could work with Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality."

But Bush officials have divorced themselves from reality.

They flipped TV's in the West Wing and Air Force One to Fox News.

They paid conservative columnists handsomely to promote administration programs.

Federal agencies distributed packaged "news" video releases with faux anchors so local news outlets would run them.

As CNN reported, the Pentagon produces Web sites with "news" articles intended to influence opinion abroad and at home, but you have to look hard for the disclaimer: "Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense."

The agencies spent a whopping $88 million spinning reality in 2004, splurging on P.R. contracts.

Even the Nixon White House didn't do anything this creepy.

It's worse than hating the press.

It's an attempt to reinvent it.

E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

Spiro Agnew
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Agnew became a lightning rod for anti-war opinion when he publicly and angrily denounced critics of U.S. war policy in Vietnam.

He was known for attacking his opponents with unusual turns of phrase.

Among his most famous were "nattering nabobs of negativism", which his speechwriter William Safire claims to have written, and "effete corps of impudent snobs".

Both expressions refer to the press corps, whom both Agnew and Nixon considered to be their ideological enemies and which ultimately played an important role in Nixon's downfall.

White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan has been credited with coming up with "pusillanimous pussyfoots" and "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history".

On October 10, 1973, Agnew became the second Vice President to resign the office.

Unlike John C. Calhoun, who resigned to take a seat in the Senate, Agnew resigned after pleading nolo contendere (no contest) to a criminal charge of tax evasion, part of a scheme where he allegedly accepted $29,500 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland.

Agnew was fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation.

He was later disbarred by the State of Maryland.

"'N.Y. Times' Torches New Ari Fleischer Book"

By E&P Staff

Published: March 01, 2005 9:30 AM ET

NEW YORK Wasting no time in dismissing a book published just today, The New York Times on Tuesday reviewed “Taking Heat,” the memoir by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

Veteran Times critic Michiko Kakutani called it “tedious and tendentious” and a “sorry volume,” and that was just for starters.

Of course, Fleischer has a few unkind things to say about her newspaper in the book, as well.

Noting that the book takes many potshots at the press -- including her own paper -- Kakutani declared that “it reads like the very embodiment of the administration's disciplined, corporate-style message control.”

Describing the book in today's Washington Post, media critic Howard Kurtz wrote that Fleischer believes White House correspondents "are mostly liberal."

"Mostly negative."

"Mostly opposed to tax cuts."

"Mostly unwilling to give his president a break."

"Mostly interested in whipping up conflict."

"He portrays journalists as good human beings who, sad to say, are biased and defensive."

But to Kakutani, the book is “essentially a collection of talking points hastily pasted together with large slatherings of the vitriol and exasperation the author seems to have accumulated during his years as a 'piñata', his word for how he sometimes felt in the White House briefing room."

"In short, it's an extended exercise in Mr. Fleischer's spinning his own earlier spin."

She wonders why he takes so little note of the media's general post-9/11 acceptance of his own talking points.

“In fact, the main usefulness of this book may be that it sheds more light on this White House's mindset vis-à-vis the press," she observed.

"This is an administration, after all, that has preferred carefully choreographed photo ops and stage-managed town hall meetings to regular press conferences (the current President Bush has held fewer than 20 solo news conferences since taking office, compared with 83 held by his father during his four-year term), an administration that has tried to circumvent what it calls the ‘filter’ of the national press by courting regional media and having soldiers send form letters to local newspapers asserting that American troops had been welcomed 'with open arms' by Iraqis.”

[Livyjr]

Top Stories - washingtonpost.com
 
"CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment"
Thu Mar 3, 7:28 AM ET 

By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

In November 2002, a newly minted CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four U.S. government officials aware of the case.
 
The Afghan guards -- paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit -- dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said.

As night fell, so, predictably, did the temperature.

By morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.

After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic -- "hypothermia" was listed as the cause of death -- the guards buried the Afghan, who was in his twenties, in an unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said.

The captive's family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial.

He is on no one's registry of captives, not even as a "ghost detainee," the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said.

"He just disappeared from the face of the earth," said one U.S. government official with knowledge of the case.

The CIA case officer, meanwhile, has been promoted, two of the officials said, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the matter.

Shortly after the death, the CIA briefed the chairmen and vice chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the only four people in Congress whom the CIA has decided to routinely brief on detainee and interrogation issues.

But, one official said, the briefing was not complete.

The Afghan detainee had been captured in Pakistan along with a group of other Afghans.

His connection to al Qaeda or the value of his intelligence was never established before he died.

The pace of the CIA investigations has tested the patience of some in Congress, as was evident two weeks ago when Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the Senate intelligence panel, asked CIA Director Porter J. Goss when the inspector general's inquiry would be complete and available to the oversight committees.

"I haven't asked him what day he's going to finish all these cases," Goss replied.

"Or a month?" shot back Levin.

"As soon as they are through," Goss answered.

". . . I know there is still a bunch of other cases."

In recent weeks, the ranking Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence panels have asked their Republican chairmen to investigate the CIA's detention and interrogations.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) has declined the request from Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.).

Top Stories - AP

"Bush Reassures CIA Employees About Agency"

1 hour, 43 minutes ago

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

LANGLEY, Va. - President Bush sought to reassure CIA employees on Thursday that they would not lose influence under an intelligence reorganization that created a new overall director for intelligence services.

"The reforms will help the CIA do its job better," Bush told reporters after touring the spy agency.

The president spoke a day after CIA Director Porter Goss complained that the new law would create "ambiguities" between his authority and that of Bush's nominee to be National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Bush said he recognized that there were some ambiguities and some CIA employees were uneasy about the changes.

"I know there is some uncertainty," he said, but "I'm confident the process will work."

Bush also reiterated that the hunt for Osama bin Laden goes on even though the terrorist blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks has yet to be found.

"We spend everyday" trying to find the elusive al-Qaida leader, the president said.

Bush also repeated his demand that Syria move all of its forces out of Lebanon as soon as possible.

The Syrians have some 15,000 troops in Lebanon.

He said that "the message is loud and clear" from the United States, Europe and Russia that "it is time for Syria to get out."

Bush, who took questions from reporters with Goss at his side, said one of the reasons he came to the agency was to reassure employees that their work was "vital."

Bush's trip was seen as an effort to boost morale at the agency amid concerns about its role now that the agency's director will no longer be the lead U.S. intelligence officer.

The head of the CIA has enjoyed that position of primacy in intelligence affairs for over 60 years.

In a rare public appearance Wednesday in Simi Valley, Calif., Goss said the new law left him unclear on his own future role.

"It's got a huge amount of ambiguity in it," he said.

"I don't know by law what my direct relationship is with John Negroponte," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or other top officials involved with intelligence.

Goss, who has made few public comments beyond congressional testimony, also said he was overwhelmed by the many duties of his job, including devoting five hours out of every day to prepare for and deliver intelligence briefings to Bush.

"The jobs I'm being asked to do, the five hats that I wear, are too much for this mortal," Goss said.

"I'm a little amazed at the workload."

Goss said the legislation, which had been urged by a national commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, left him unclear on his future role.

Goss praised Negroponte, the career diplomat, who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate, will take over several of the duties currently assigned to Goss, including the presidential briefing.

"I hold him in the very highest regard," he said, noting that the two attended Yale at the same time.

"The intelligence community is going to be strengthened and unified and more effective than it has ever been."

"There are many parts" to the legislation overhauling the intelligence community that passed late last year, McClellan said.

"And we're moving forward on that to make sure that this is an integrated effort where everybody is focused on the same goal of doing all we can to protect the American people."

The relationship between Negroponte and Goss is one of the things "that we'll be working through as we move forward to implement the reforms that were passed in the legislation," McClellan said.

At the CIA, Bush will thank the employees "for their great work and thank them for what they do," McClellan said.

"They work 24-7 to protect the American people."

"They are the men and the women who are on the front lines in the war on terrorism, and many of them are often unheard of — or aren't heard from."

Goss' California remarks came during an hourlong address at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, before an audience of more than 200 that included former first lady Nancy Reagan.

Tickets to the event were sold to the public for $45.
___

Associated Press Writer Ryan Pearson in Simi Valley, Calif., contributed to this report.

[jeffmoskin]

Livyjr, you are on a posting FRENZY.

I cannot keep up.

However, there is a CONNECTION between the Watergate breakin people and George H W Bush.

Try this link:

http://www.tarpley.net/bush8b.htm

I dunno if this guy is tin foil hat material or not.

See what you think.

This post has been edited by jeffmoskin: Mar 3 2005, 06:51 PM

[Livyjr]

Livyjr, you are on a posting FRENZY.

I cannot keep up.

Well, yesterday, I sure was, and that's a fact.

It just happens sometimes, I guess.

Some days are slow news days, and others?

Well, yesterday was one of those, A ROLL!

Over in A.B.'s Corner, Mr. A.B. was talking about how life in the days before WWII seemed so simple, and while I was not yet on earth then, I have listened for hours as many older people have expressed similar sentiments, which does not mean life was perfect, of course, but it was simple, and pretty much predictable.

Now?

Well, obviously, jeffmoskin, you will form your own opinion, and I mine, but if yesterday is any indication, to me, at least, life these days is going ninty miles an hour compared to when I was young, and you could leave your house unlocked and go away for a week, and return and there everything would be.

Perhaps people were less covetous in those days, or maybe it really was that if you lived in the country, it was just too much trouble for the thieves to make it out your way, as compared to today, where the advent of the automobile in the possession of everyone has just made it all that much easier for people to get themselves to places where they have no right to be; such as in your neighbor's house, when your neighbor is away.

But then again, if you have a car, and you don't covet your neighbor's goods, or country, or oil .......

[Livyjr]

However, there is a CONNECTION between the Watergate breakin people and George H W Bush.

Try this link:

http://www.tarpley.net/bush8b.htm

I dunno if this guy is tin foil hat material or not.

See what you think.

And here, jeffmoskin, I am just returning from Mr. A.B.'s "Religion and Politics" thread, where I left a longish post on this thing called "POWER", and having just expressed those thoughts, I am in a reflective mood, or frame of mind right now, and so, I am going to hesitate to answer your query above, but I will say this, or maybe ask this rhetorically:

IS HISTORY REALLY HISTORY, or is everything just a bunch of nothing, instead?

WAS THERE REALLY A WORLD WAR II?

WAS THERE REALLY A VIET NAM WAR?

WERE THERE EVER REALLY NAZIS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, and were they really bad people?

Of course, none of this above can be "proven", and so, here is a dilemna we all face in here, and at this point, being a simpleton, as I am, I have to confess that I don't know this term "tin foil hat material", so I am not sure how to answer that, BUT ...

Is what the guy is talking about "feasible"?

Could it have been that George W. Bush was an "inside man", and so, was either privy to "inside deals", or actually involved in them?

I would say, from my own experience that the answer would be emphactically YES!

Elsewise, HOW would he have made it to the position of American president?

By the goodness of his heart?

[Livyjr]

And here, it seems, we have more evidence that time is indeed a loop that just keeps spinning around, so that what was, becomes that which is, all over again!

"U.S. Must Charge Padilla With Crime or Release Him"

Tue Mar 1, 8:47 AM ET 

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

A federal judge in South Carolina ruled yesterday that the Bush administration lacks statutory and constitutional authority to indefinitely imprison without criminal charges a U.S. citizen who was designated an "enemy combatant."
 
Rejecting a series of arguments put forward by the government, District Court Judge Henry F. Floyd said the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla -- who the administration has said is a terrorist supporter of al Qaeda -- is illegal and that Padilla must be released from a naval brig in Charleston, S.C., within 45 days or charged with a crime.

In a strongly worded 23-page ruling, Floyd said "to do otherwise would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition, but it would also be a betrayal of this Nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and our individual liberties."

Floyd said he was not persuaded by key arguments put forward by the administration to justify its assertion that foreigners and Americans alike who are designated "enemy combatants" by the president can be detained without trial or some other form of judicial review.

Using a phrase often levied by conservatives to denigrate liberal judges, Floyd -- who was appointed by President Bush to the federal bench in 2003 -- accused the administration of engaging in "judicial activism" when it asserted in court pleadings that Bush has blanket authority under the Constitution to detain Americans on U.S. soil who are suspected of taking or planning actions against the country.

Floyd said the government presented no law supporting this contention and that just because Bush and his appointees say Padilla's detention was consistent with U.S. laws and the president's war powers, that did not make it so.

"Moreover, such a statement is deeply troubling."

"If such a position were ever adopted by the courts, it would totally eviscerate the limits placed on Presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties."[/b][/color]

This is the second time the government's handling of Padilla has been repudiated in federal court.

The decision yesterday, which the government has vowed to appeal, was the shoe that dropped again.

A government assertion that Padilla was not "in" the United States because he was arrested at an airport was fatally flawed, Floyd said.

He also dismissed an administration contention that Padilla's circumstances were akin to the capture and detention of German saboteurs -- including at least one U.S. citizen -- on U.S. soil in World War II.

A Supreme Court decision in that case, Floyd said, involved whether they would be tried in a military or civilian court; the Padilla case "is concerned with whether [he] . . . is going to be charged and tried at all."

And here, jeffmoskin, I am just returning from Mr. A.B.'s "Religion and Politics" thread, where I left a longish post on this thing called "POWER", and having just expressed those thoughts, I am in a reflective mood, or frame of mind right now, and so, I am going to hesitate to answer your query above, but I will say this, or maybe ask this rhetorically: 

IS HISTORY REALLY HISTORY, or is everything just a bunch of nothing, instead?

WAS THERE REALLY A WORLD WAR II?

WAS THERE REALLY A VIET NAM WAR?

WERE THERE EVER REALLY NAZIS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, and were they really bad people?

Of course, none of this above can be "proven", and so, here is a dilemna we all face in here, and at this point, being a simpleton, as I am, I have to confess that I don't know this term "tin foil hat material", so I am not sure how to answer that, BUT ...

"Sen. Byrd's Nazi Comments Draw GOP Heat"

By Alan Fram
Associated Press
Thursday, March 3, 2005; 3:50 AM

Sen. Robert Byrd's description of Adolf Hitler's rise to power was meant as a warning to heed the past and not as a comparison to Republicans, a spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat says.

Nonetheless, two Jewish groups and a pair of GOP politicians chastised the senator on Wednesday, including one who recalled Byrd's Ku Klux Klan membership as a young man.

Byrd's comments, which he made Tuesday in the Senate, came during his speech criticizing a Republican plan to block Democrats from filibustering President Bush's judicial nominees.

"Terrible chapters of history ought never be repeated," said Tom Gavin, spokesman for Byrd.

"All one needs to do is to look at history to see how dangerous it is to curb the rights of the minority."

Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the Senate's No. 3 Republican, called for Byrd to retract his comments, saying they "lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate."

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the remarks "poisonous rhetoric" that are "reprehensible and beyond the pale."

The storm was the latest twist in the battle over Senate GOP efforts to free 10 nominated judges that the chamber's minority Democrats have blocked during Bush's first term.

The Senate confirmed 204 others.

In his comments Tuesday, Byrd had defended the right senators have to use filibusters -- procedural delays that can kill an item unless 60 of the 100 senators vote to move ahead.

He is a long-standing defender of the chamber's rules and traditions, many of which help the Senate's minority party.

Byrd cited Hitler's 1930s rise to power by, in part, pushing legislation through the German parliament that seemed to legitimize his ascension.

"We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men," Byrd said.

"But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends."

Byrd then quoted historian Alan Bullock, saying Hitler "turned the law inside out and made illegality legal."

Byrd added, "That is what the 'nuclear option' seeks to do."

The nuclear option is the nickname for the proposal to end filibusters of judicial nominations because of the devastating effect the plan, if enacted, would have on relations between Democrats and Republicans.

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Byrd's remarks showed "a profound lack of understanding as to who Hitler was" and that the senator should apologize to the American people.

He called the comparison "hideous, outrageous and offensive."

"With his knowledge of history and his own personal background as a KKK member, he should be ashamed for implying that his political opponents are using Nazi tactics," said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Byrd has repeatedly apologized for his Klan membership.

Now 87 and the Senate's longest-serving member at 47 years, he prides himself on his knowledge of history and makes historical references frequently during debates.

Brooks also attacked as "disgusting" Byrd's remark that "some in the Senate are ready to callously incinerate" senators' rights to filibuster.

The comment came amid several references by Byrd to the "nuclear option."

"There is no excuse for raising the specter of the Holocaust crematoria in a discussion of the Senate filibuster," Brooks said.

end quotes

And obviously, I disagree!

I think that Senator Byrd should raise this specter because specter it indeed is.

Of course, we are a polite people, and so, we cannot talk about history, as if we did, maybe, just maybe, people would be able to look at what was going on right now in OUR America, and say to themselves, "hey, wait a minute, this is that what was going on back then, and if we went to war to stop it in some other place, WHY SHOULD WE TOLERATE IT RIGHT HERE IN OUR OWN HOMELAND?"

And here, jeffmoskin, IS OUR DILEMNA, is it not?

For if there could only have been Nazis, just that once, in that small space known as Germany, then, and only Germans could have been Nazis, and no American could have believed in them, or actively supported them, financially, or materially ........

Well, I think maybe you see where we are left here, since .....

[jeffmoskin]

And obviously, I disagree!

I think that Senator Byrd should raise this specter because specter it indeed is.

Of course, we are a polite people, and so, we cannot talk about history, as if we did, maybe, just maybe, people would be able to look at what was going on right now in OUR America, and say to themselves, "hey, wait a minute, this is that what was going on back then, and if we went to war to stop it in some other place, WHY SHOULD WE TOLERATE IT RIGHT HERE IN OUR OWN HOMELAND?"

And here, jeffmoskin, IS OUR DILEMNA, is it not?

For if there could only have been Nazis, just that once, in that small space known as Germany, then, and only Germans could have been Nazis, and no American could have believed in them, or actively supported them, financially, or materially ........

Well, I think maybe you see where we are left here, since .....

I agree. Recently I posted a piece about my friend Peter who grew up in East Berlin and, as a 5-year old, watched his house take a direct hit from a 500 pounder. He was no Nazi; his mother was no Nazi; his father was shot by the Nazi's for refusing to serve in the Nazi Army.

Byrd's comments are right on point. If we do not oppose the corruption and violation of out Constitutional Guarantees, they will become null and void.

I just finished reading "Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man," by John Perkins. His central thesis is that, through American Institutions like the IMF and World Bank, the "Corporatocracy" encourages third-world countries to borrow three times what they really need for industial development in order to financially enslave them!

So, instead of forecasting that the building of a particular power plant (by Bechtel, of course!!!) will produce a 6% growth in GDP, those figures are intentionally inflated to 18% BY THE AMERICAN LENDERS. The extra money, of course, disappears through graft and corruption; the actual 6% growth is enjoyed by the wealthy class that will own and operate the power plant, and the crushing debt burden is dropped on the backs of the poor WHO CAN NEVER HOPE TO PAY IT OFF.

NOT EVER.

This is part of the plan, because with that country in a permanent state of indebtedness to the IMF and WB, we can get "favors and concessions" for our "Corporatocracy".

It wouldn't have been so depressing to read if it didn't ring true.

And, if these debtor nations ever should decide to renege or otherwise have a change in their government, there are the CIA "jackals" who are dispatched to kill off the uncooperative members.

This is what we did in Iran when Mohammud Mossedeq wouldn't play ball with British oil interests. Or Arbenz with United Fruit. Or Omar Torrijos over the Panama Canal. Or Allende with the Copper interests.

And recently almost with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Nope. Byrd's comments are right on point.

[Abu Beacon]

Livyjr, you are on a posting FRENZY.

I cannot keep up.

However, there is a CONNECTION between the Watergate breakin people and George H W Bush.

I have to echo jeffmoskin's comment. You really have been prolific in your postings and I do not know where you find the time to do all this.

As always, your comments are completely in harmony with the way I view things.

That must mean I think they are very good otherwise I would be in the position of criticizing myself. Livyjr and jeffmoskin, I think what you have to say is excellent! So keep your thoughts and words coming.

My schedule in regards to CGCS is to try to read the postings which I feel are of special interest to me. I'm sure they are all good but there are some time restraints. I usually reply to some of these.

Basically, the postings where I spend most of my time are the ones where I know I can find you and/or jeffmoskin, and to a lesser extent, one or two others. I do not always post a response, again this is because of time restraints, but this does not mean I do not read and consider the wise words contained in the message. Just thought you ought to know. I appreciate you both.

In one of the recent postings, the one in which you spoke of Senator Byrd, it raised some deep concerns. I am becoming more and more aware of just how dangerous this administration really is. Their agenda is not for the good of the American people.

The very fact that the president of the United States is willing and even anxious to travel around the country for 60 days, trying to sell his idea of dismantling the social security program, makes me wonder just what his agenda really is. I'm sure he knows that this " crusade " of his on the social security program is against the wishes of the people he swore to uphold and to be responsive to.

I would not be at all surprised if, in 2008, he would try to sell the idea that the world has become so dangerous, that we in America should reelect him for a third term since he and he only is able to cope with the dangerous times.

More on that later.

When you have a moment, I posted on the FDR Vs. George Bush thread, some comments by James Roosevelt, FDR's grandson. Very right on.

A.B.

[Livyjr]

And here is the print version of a news item I heard on the radio news yesterday!

And, of course, I suppose we should all be surprised at this news by now!

Yeah, right!

Got all them "fat-bottom" boys out there whose "style" just needs to be maintained!

By us, of course!

Right, Dick?

Automotive News

"Gas prices seen hitting record high this year - Soaring crude costs cited ahead of summer driving season"

MSNBC staff and news service reports

Updated: 12:00 p.m. ET March 4, 2005

NEW YORK - It could be a tough time for American motorists when they hit the road for the vacation season with gasoline prices poised to hit record highs.

The average pump price for self-serve gas is currently $1.92 a gallon, about 13 cents below the all-time record hit last May, and 22 cents higher than a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association.

Furthermore, oil prices are at their highest level in months and still rising.

The head of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries has said crude could get as high as $80 per barrel, up from about $54 currently.

“All of the dynamics are in place for U.S. motorists to pay new record high prices again this year,” said AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom.

Oil prices are roughly 44 percent higher than a year ago, rising sharply in recent weeks due to a combination of colder weather, the declining value of the dollar and the world’s tight supply-demand balance.

Instability in Iraq and underlying fears about terrorism have also played a part in the rally.

Gasoline future prices, which serve as a benchmark for most wholesale gasoline traded in the United States, hit an all-time high this week at the New York Mercantile Exchange, or Nymex, as problems at a number of U.S. refineries further added to supply worries.

It all adds up to a potential perfect storm at the corner pump, although the AAA’s Sundstrom said some gas stations “have overreacted to some of the media reports of $80-a-barrel crude and now the two-day run-up in the wholesale futures by posting 20-cent increases in their pump prices.”

Sundstrom said retailers should wait until they get supplies at their stations to see whether the price hikes seen on futures markets are fully passed through.

Sundstrom said the AAA had reports of the 20-cent price hikes at pumps in Cleveland, Ohio.

An analyst with the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Department of Energy, said he would not be surprised if prices broke the record this year, but added that it’s not a given.

“We may never see today’s record Nymex gasoline price translate into a record retail price because the Nymex price represents New York Harbor reformulated gasoline, and a lot can happen by May or June, when we are looking for a peak,” said Mike Burdette of the EIA.

The record average retail price as counted by the EIA is $2.064 a gallon, recorded in late May 2004.

This may all seem like gloomy news for the average American motorist.

But while gasoline prices are near record highs in nominal terms, when adjusted for inflation they are still well below the roughly $3-a-gallon peak seen in 1981.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

I have to echo jeffmoskin's comment.

You really have been prolific in your postings and I do not know where you find the time to do all this.

As always, your comments are completely in harmony with the way I view things.

That must mean I think they are very good otherwise I would be in the position of criticizing myself.

Livyjr and jeffmoskin, I think what you have to say is excellent!

So keep your thoughts and words coming.

When you have a moment, I posted on the FDR Vs. George Bush thread, some comments by James Roosevelt, FDR's grandson.

Very right on.

A.B.

Mr. A.B., good to hear from you, as always!

I think, like you, that I take this all as a very serious endeavor in here, what I say, and how I choose to say it, so as to not "ARGUE", but to try and inform, or provoke thought, instead!

And to me, this is a "God-send", really, that any of this could even be taking place, these discussions, I mean!

It is near miraculous to me, and I am an engineer!

It is not just that the hardware and software exists!

NO!

It is much more than that, because hardware and software put together, in and of themselves, do nothing, because they are incapable of doing anything, without the "human factor", and there is the miracle to me!

We are the "weak" and the "powerless" OUT THERE, the "disenfranchised", as it were, and all of a sudden, this "tool" becomes available, SO THAT YOU CAN SAY WHAT YOU JUST SAID, Mr. A.B., and across the intervening barriers of time, and space and culture, and God knows what other impediments to all of us actually communicating in here, WE ARE ACTUALLY IN HERE, COMMUNICATING!

A miracle, to me, anyway!

[Livyjr]

I agree. Recently I posted a piece about my friend Peter who grew up in East Berlin and, as a 5-year old, watched his house take a direct hit from a 500 pounder.

He was no Nazi; his mother was no Nazi; his father was shot by the Nazi's for refusing to serve in the Nazi Army.

Byrd's comments are right on point.

If we do not oppose the corruption and violation of out Constitutional Guarantees, they will become null and void.

Interesting, jeffmoskin!

Right now, I am reading "The Glorious Cause" by Robert Middlekauff, and much of what you say vis-a-vis the economic side of things goes back, and back and back in OUR own history, and actually figures in greatly to OUR own rebellion and Revolution against what was really English corruption!

And now, WE ARE ENGLAND!

Time is a loop!

Time is a loop!

Time is a loop!