And while George W. Bush and that crowd down there with him in the "ten mile square" of Washington, D.C., or "liar's town", as it is more commonly known, these days, anyway, keep feeding us a line of B*** S*** about how safe we are, here in OUR America ......

"Security Breach Could Expose 40M to Fraud"

By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer

1 hour, 5 minutes ago

NEW YORK - A computer hacker may have accessed more than 40 million credit card accounts in what could be the largest in a series of recent security breaches involving consumer data, officials said.

MasterCard International Inc. announced Friday that the breach was traced to Atlanta-based CardSystems Solutions Inc., which processes credit card and other payments for banks and merchants.

All brands of credit cards could be affected.

The compromised data did not include addresses or Social Security numbers, said MasterCard spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin.

The data that may have been viewed — names, banks and account numbers — could be used to steal funds, but not identities.

Gamsin said she did not know how the virus-like computer script that captured customer data got into CardSystems' network, which MasterCard said was infiltrated by an "unauthorized individual."

Neither company would elaborate.

The FBI was investigating.

MasterCard said 14 million of its customers may have been exposed to fraud.

A spokeswoman for American Express said a small number of its cardholders were affected, but would not give an exact number.

Discover Financial Services Inc. wouldn't say whether its customers were affected.

Visa USA and a large issuer of cards, MBNA Corp., did not return calls for comment Friday.

The incident was the latest in a series of security lapses affecting consumer information.

The breach appears to be the largest yet involving financial data, said David Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"The steady stream of these disclosures shows the pressing need for regulation of the industry both in terms of limitation in the amount of personal information that companies collect and also liability when these kinds of disclosures occur," he said.

Under federal law, credit card holders are liable for no more than $50 of unauthorized charges, and many card issuers will even waive the $50.

Other companies that have been hit by security lapses recently include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and DSW Shoe Warehouse.

Federal lawmakers responded by drawing up legislation designed to better protect consumer privacy.

MasterCard announced the breach in a news release Friday, saying it was notifying its card-issuing banks of the problem.

CardSystems then released its own statement, saying it first learned of a potential breach on May 22.

The company said it was told by the FBI not to release any information to the public; its statement Friday had been vetted by the agency.

"We were absolutely blindsided" by MasterCard's announcement, CardSystems' chief financial officer, Michael A. Brady, told The Associated Press.

CardSystems, which has a processing center in Tucson, Ariz., has been in business for more than 15 years and handles transactions for more than 115,000 small to mid-sized businesses, according to the company's Web site.

The company says it processes transactions worth more than $15 billion annually.

Sobel said the fact that the latest breach involved a third party "indicates that this is a shadowy industry where the consumer never really knows who is going to be handling and using their personal information."

Earlier this month, Citigroup said UPS lost computer tapes with sensitive information from 3.9 million customers of CitiFinancial, which provides loans.

There have also been breaches involving other kinds of sensitive data.

ChoicePoint Inc. said in February that thieves using stolen identities had created 50 dummy businesses that pulled data including names, addresses and Social Security numbers on as many as 145,000 people.

In March, LexisNexis Inc. disclosed that hackers had commandeered a database and gained access to the personal files of as many as 32,000 people.

The company has since increased its estimate of the people affected to 310,000.

Information accessed included names, addresses and Social Security and driver's license numbers, but not credit history, medical records or financial information, corporate parent Reed Elsevier Group PLC said in a statement.
___

Associated Press writers Anick Jesdanun, Adam Geller, Harry Weber, Ted Bridis, Arthur Rotstein and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.

A very astute observation about this Conway, Mr. A.B., very astute, indeed!

He needs a war, and he wants us to give him one, with no questions asked, and to make us do that, he uses OUR troops as an emotional goad!

"Oh, you got to do it for them, or everything that they did will be for nothing!"

Well, guess what, Conway, it has been, right from the start!

And now is the time to push for an impeachment of George W. Bush, and a complete housecleaning down in there in the "ten mile square", which is now known as "liar's town", here in OUR America.

You know, Mr. A.B., you just have this kind of plain-speaking way about you that makes me wonder .....

What ever happened to the rest of us, here in OUR America, that we all, and especially the "leadership" (mocking tones are necessary when applying that word to anyone in one of those positions down in Washington, D.C., of course) don't know how to be and do the same thing!

CRAP .....

Is simply CRAP!

"A Republic, if you can keep it" - - - B. Franklin

Uh, who?

Ben who?

He's passe, jeffmoskin!

A nobody!

An absolute NOBODY, and anybody that listens to an old geezer like him is nuts, I think I heard somebody say, anyway!

I think Donald Rumsfeld said that!

No, wait a minute, let's see ....

Hmmmm!

Or was it Dick Cheney?

No, Dick Cheney called him an *******, that's right!

It was Donald Rumsfeld that said he was passe!

He was trying to pass for an intellectual when he said it, too!

SO!

I would guess that he heard it then from either Condoleeza Rice, or Scottie "BOY" McClellan, who are intellectuals, and I know that because George W. Bush said so, or was that Connie Rice that said George W. Bush was an intellectual, but that can't be ....

George W. Bush had never heard of Ben Franklin, I think he said, or if he had, it meant nothing to him, and so .....

BUT .....

That's not going to stop him from picking a United States Supreme Court Justice, unless he gets impeached, of course, first ....

"Bush Weighs Possible High Court Vacancy"

By NANCY BENAC and DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writers

Sat Jun 18,12:20 PM ET

WASHINGTON - President Bush's best bets for filling a potential vacancy on the Supreme Court include six solidly conservative federal judges, each of whom has unique qualities that could make all the difference.

The president might choose, for example, a gregarious Texan with whom he might click personally.

Or a courtly Virginian who has backed Bush in the fight against terrorism.

Or a former Marine long viewed as a leading candidate to become the first Hispanic on the high court.

Speculation about who is on Bush's short list changes daily.

So does the betting on when — or even if — an opening might come.

But with 80-year-old Chief Justice William Rehnquist battling cancer and eight of the nine justices over age 65, the White House wants to be ready.

Bush has gone about winnowing his list with trademark secrecy.

That has not stopped interest groups and court watchers from feverishly ranking and re-ranking their lists of contenders.

Any self-respecting list, however, must factor in the all-important caveat that Bush has shown a great penchant for disregarding conventional wisdom in his appointments.

Consider the selection of Dick Cheney as vice president on Bush's ticket in 2000.

"The president goes with his gut," said Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network, which is rallying support for the White House's judicial nominees.

"He's not afraid to fight for someone he believes in if he thinks it's the right person."

The latest thinking focuses on six judges on federal appeals courts.

Not one is a household name, but all are very familiar to observers who have scoured their resumes, writings and public utterances for clues as to how they would rule if they were named to the Supreme Court.

One name that consistently pops up is J. Michael Luttig, a Texan who was named in 1991 by the first President Bush to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va.

Luttig, then 37, became the youngest federal appellate judge.

At 51, he still has a boyish look and playful manner that belie his judicial experience on what is considered the most conservative of the appeals courts.

"I think the president would hit it off with him," Long said.

"They are both from Texas, have a similar sense of humor and share the same judicial philosophy."

Luttig's father was murdered and his mother shot in a 1994 carjacking in their driveway.

The judge is known to be particularly tough on criminals, but he has rejected occasional requests that he withdraw from capital cases because of his father's death.

If Luttig were nominated to the high court, liberals would be sure to pounce on his role in helping Clarence Thomas win confirmation to the Supreme Court when Luttig worked in the first Bush Justice Department.

J. Harvie Wilkinson III is one of Luttig's colleagues on the 4th Circuit.

The 60-year-old also figures prominently in Supreme Court speculation, particularly if Bush were to fill a vacancy in the chief justice's seat with an outsider rather than elevating one of the associate justices, such as Thomas or Antonin Scalia.

"There's something about the aura of the chief justice that raises the threshold," said A.E. Dick Howard, a Supreme Court expert at the University of Virginia.

"I think the list gets narrowed if you're talking about a chief justice."

With his courtly Southern manner, Wilkinson has the gravitas and demeanor of a chief justice.

He is known for a somewhat more moderate strain of conservatism than some of the other judges on Bush's short list.

But strategists involved in the confirmation process say there is some concern that Wilkinson is vulnerable to charges he has engaged in judicial activism from the right — using the courts to rewrite laws to his liking rather than simply interpreting them.

In a commencement address at Duke University's law school last month, Wilkinson seemed to be trying to allay that concern.

Not all "judicial interventions" are bad, Wilkinson said, citing the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling that integrated public schools as one example.

But he added: "What the past century suggests to me is that a call for the greater exercise of restraint on the part of the federal courts is not a rear-guard action but the vital vision for our future."

If Bush wants to make history by appointing the first Latino justice, Judge Emilio Garza of the 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, is a leading candidate.

Nearly 15 years ago, the first President Bush gave serious thought to appointing Garza, now 57, to the high court.

Strategists say the historic nature of such an appointment could be an important factor when Bush has a number of solid conservatives to choose among.

Garza would be sure to be questioned closely about his writings suggesting that the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion should be overturned.

Three others circulating as candidates for the court are Judges John Roberts of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Michael McConnell of the 10th Circuit; and Samuel Alito of the 3rd Circuit.

Roberts has been given more prominence of late.

Low-key, staunchly conservative and with a relatively short paper trail, Roberts is very much considered the safe, establishment candidate in Washington.

He has generally avoided weighing in on disputed social issues.

Abortion rights groups, however, have maintained that he tried during his days as a lawyer in the first Bush administration to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Others seen as plausible picks by the president, especially given his penchant for picking a wild card, include:

_former Solicitor General Theodore Olson.

_former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.

_Judge Edith Jones of the 5th Circuit.

_Judge Danny Boggs of the 6th Circuit.

_Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.

_Lawyer Miguel Estrada, who withdrew his nomination to the D.C. Circuit when he ran into a Democratic filibuster.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said he is confident that Bush would nominate someone who shares the president's conservative judicial philosophy.

"I like the nominees the president has put on the appellate bench and that will translate well to his appointments to the Supreme Court," Sekulow said.

Liberal groups already are voicing displeasure with virtually all of the names in circulation.

"Regrettably, the most often mentioned names certainly seem to be individuals in the mode of Justices Thomas and Scalia," said Ralph Neas, who directs the liberal People for the American Way.

"If you look at the last four and half years, the president's always chosen confrontation over collaboration."

"I hope he surprises me."
___

On the Net:

Biographies of several potential candidates are available at http://wid.ap.org/scotus/list.html

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

Wonder if Ben Franklin is related to Ben Laden?

Osama ben Franklin?

"Memos Show British Concern Over Iraq Plans"

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 5 minutes ago

LONDON - When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the then-U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida.

She wanted to talk about "regime change" in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.

President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein.

In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a clear and compelling military reason for war.

"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo.

"For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up."

"It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."

The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even though his government thought a pre-emptive attack may be illegal under international law.

"The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September," said a typed copy of a March 22, 2002 memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press and written to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

"But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW (chemical or biological weapons) fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up."

Details from Rice's dinner conversation also are included in one of the secret memos from 2002, which reveal British concerns about both the invasion and poor postwar planning by the Bush administration, which critics say has allowed the Iraqi insurgency to rage.

The eight memos — all labeled "secret" or "confidential" — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely).

A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.

The eight documents total 36 pages and range from 10-page and eight-page studies on military and legal options in Iraq, to brief memorandums from British officials and the minutes of a private meeting held by Blair and his top advisers.

Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert who teaches at Queen Mary College, University of London, said the documents confirmed what post-invasion investigations have found.

"The documents show what official inquiries in Britain already have, that the case of weapons of mass destruction was based on thin intelligence and was used to inflate the evidence to the level of mendacity," Dodge said.

"In going to war with Bush, Blair defended the special relationship between the two countries, like other British leaders have."

"But he knew he was taking a huge political risk at home."

"He knew the war's legality was questionable and its unpopularity was never in doubt."

Dodge said the memos also show Blair was aware of the postwar instability that was likely among Iraq's complex mix of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds once Saddam was defeated.

The British documents confirm, as well, that "soon after 9/11 happened, the starting gun was fired for the invasion of Iraq," Dodge said.

Speculation about if and when that would happen ran throughout 2002.

On Jan. 29, Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea "an axis of evil."

U.S. newspapers began reporting soon afterward that a U.S.-led war with Iraq was possible.

On Oct. 16, the U.S. Congress voted to authorize Bush to go to war against Iraq.

On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the Bush administration's case about Iraq's weapons to the U.N. Security Council.

On March 19-20, the U.S.-led invasion began.

Bush and Blair both have been criticized at home since their WMD claims about Iraq proved false.

But both have been re-elected, defending the conflict for removing a brutal dictator and promoting democracy in Iraq.

Both administrations have dismissed the memos as old news.

Details of the memos appeared in papers early last month but the news in Britain quickly turned to the election that returned Blair to power.

In the United States, however, details of the memos' contents reignited a firestorm, especially among Democratic critics of Bush.

It was in a March 14, 2002, memo that Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, told the prime minister about the dinner he had just had with Rice in Washington.

"We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq," wrote Manning, who's now British ambassador to the United States.

Rice is now Bush's secretary of state.

"It is clear that Bush is grateful for your (Blair's) support and has registered that you are getting flak."

"I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States."

"And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result."

"Failure was not an option."

Manning said, "Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed."

But he also said there were signs of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks.

Blair was to meet with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on April 8, and Manning told his boss: "No doubt we need to keep a sense of perspective."

"But my talks with Condi convinced me that Bush wants to hear your views on Iraq before taking decisions."

"He also wants your support."

"He is still smarting from the comments by other European leaders on his Iraq policy."

A July 21 briefing paper given to officials preparing for a July 23 meeting with Blair says officials must "ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."

"In particular we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective... A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise."

"As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point."

The British worried that, "Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."

"Further work is required to define more precisely the means by which the desired end state would be created, in particular what form of government might replace Saddam Hussein's regime and the time scale within which it would be possible to identify a successor."

In the March 22 memo from Foreign Office political director Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Straw, Ricketts outlined how to win public and parliamentary support for a war in Britain:

"[u]We have to be convincing that: the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for; it is qualitatively different from the threat posed by other proliferators who are closer to achieving nuclear capability (including Iran)."

Blair's government has been criticized for releasing an intelligence dossier on Iraq before the war that warned Saddam could launch chemical or biological weapons on 45 minutes' notice.

On March 25 Straw wrote a memo to Blair, saying he would have a tough time convincing the governing Labour Party that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq was legal under international law.

"If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the U.S. would now be considering military action against Iraq," Straw wrote.

"In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with OBL (Osama bin Laden) and al-Qaida."

He also questioned stability in a post-Saddam Iraq: "We have also to answer the big question — what will this action achieve?"

"There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything."
___

On the Net:

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/fcolegal020308.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/manning020314.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/meyer020318.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ods020308.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ricketts020322.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/straw020325.pdf

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

end quotes

Timeline?

Looks more like the anatomy of the BIGGEST CON JOB IN THE LAST CENTURY OF AMERICAN HISTORY, TO ME, ANYWAY!

How about Osama been gone, long time now, and if you think George W. Bush will ever catch him, well, .........

And somehow, these two articles just seem somehow connected, here, this thing about "growing up slow" .......

"Giant Extinct Birds Grew Up Slow"

Michael Schirber
LiveScience Staff Writer, LiveScience.com

Thu Jun 16, 9:55 AM ET

The moa, a large extinct bird from New Zealand, apparently had a decade-long adolescence.

This is unheard of in birds, but it may help explain how early hunters were able to wipe out the giant birds.

Moa, which have been extinct for several centuries, were ratites - a group of flightless birds that includes the ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, and kiwi.

The elephant bird of Madagascar is another ratite that has recently disappeared.

"Although moa had evolved from ancestral birds that could fly, they themselves were completely flightless and had actually lost all trace of their wings - not even retaining any vestigial wing bones," said Samuel Turvey of the Zoological Society of London.

There were 10 different moa species, ranging from turkey-size up to the giant Dinornis robustus, whose females weighed 530 pounds (240 kilograms) and stood 6 feet tall (2 meters) at the shoulder, but whose males were a third that size.

Most species of moa had stumpy leg bones, which would have made them very slow animals.

With no native land mammals on New Zealand, the moa filled in the niche of large herbivores like bison, rhinos, or giraffes - Turvey told LiveScience in an email message.

Recent research has shown that these lumbering giants took their time getting so big.

As reported in this week's issue of Nature, Turvey and his colleagues found cyclical growth marks - the equivalent of tree rings in animals - in the long bones from several moa specimens.

The marks, which tick off the changes in season, imply that the moa took nearly ten years to reach sexual maturity.

"It's remarkable because, although many other vertebrates (including humans) take several years to reach full size, all living birds become fully grown within a year of hatching - even the large living ratites such as ostriches, rhea and emu," Turvey said.

The rapid maturation of birds is thought to be because they need to start flying as soon as possible.

But the moa may have had the luxury of growing up at a leisurely pace, as they had few natural predators besides the giant Haast's eagle.

That all changed, however, when the first humans - the Maori - arrived in New Zealand about 700 years ago and began hunting the birds extensively - often only eating the best bits, like the 'drumsticks,' and leaving the rest.

"As moa took so long to grow up, they simply wouldn't have been able to replenish their populations rapidly enough to cope with this kind of hunting," Turvey said.

"They seem to have been wiped out almost instantaneously."

Visit http://LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more.

And speaking about "growing up slow" .....

"Breach at Harry's School Investigated"

16 June 2005

LONDON - Britain's defense minister ordered an investigation Thursday into security at the military school where Prince Harry is training, after a newspaper said one of its journalists, with a fake bomb and camera, gained access and videotaped the prince.

The Sun tabloid said one of its reporters posed as a student to get permission to use the library at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Surrey, where Prince Charles' younger son is an officer cadet.

The journalist spent some eight hours wandering the grounds and took video footage of Prince Harry, stills from which were published in the newspaper.

He also built what The Sun called a fake bomb, with wires, plasticine, a battery and clock in his car while at the academy, the newspaper said.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman confirmed that The Sun's report was accurate.

Defense Secretary John Reid said he had ordered "an immediate investigation into this serious security breach."

"I have instructed Sandhurst to change their procedures to prevent a recurrence," Reid said in a statement.

Reid didn't specify what the changes would be.

Prince Harry, 20, began his training at Sandhurst last month.

The Sun's stunt follows several recent lapses in royal security.

In September, a protester disguised as Batman climbed onto a ledge on the front of Buckingham Palace and remained there for several hours.

A comedian dressed as Osama bin Laden gatecrashed Prince William's 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle in 2003.

Later that year, a reporter from the Daily Mirror got a job as a servant at Buckingham Palace and took pictures of the royals' living quarters.

end quotes

Harry?

He's the one that was all tricked out in his Nazi regalia a bit ago, wasn't he?

Snockered too, he was, wasn't he?

(Voice from offstage, sounding something like Fergie: "Ahhh, cor, blimey, sod off the lot of ya!")

Nation / World

"Leaked files show Bush rushed war - Concern was expressed in Britain"

June 18, 2005

BY WARREN P. STROBEL
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

WASHINGTON -- Highly classified documents leaked in Britain suggest President George W. Bush and his national security team decided to invade Iraq much earlier than they have acknowledged and marched to war without dwelling on the potential perils.

The half-dozen memos and option papers, written in 2002 by top aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, buttress previous on-the-record accounts that portray Bush and his advisers as predisposed to oust Saddam Hussein when they took office -- and determined to do it at all costs after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Copies of the documents have rocketed around the Internet and been seized on by opponents of the Iraq war as evidence that the president and his administration were not leveling with the American people about their war preparations.

The documents indicate that by mid-March 2002, a year before the invasion of Iraq, top British officials already were so resigned to a war that they seemed preoccupied mostly with building international support and finding a legal justification.

That was just six weeks after Bush declared Iraq a member of the "axis of evil."

But Blair's advisers repeatedly expressed concern that the case against Hussein was weak and that the White House wasn't giving nearly enough attention to what would happen after he was toppled.

"The U.S. government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace."

"But as yet, it lacks a political framework."

"In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it," stated a July 21, 2002, briefing paper prepared for a meeting of Blair's advisers two days later.

"A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise," it stated.

Bush and Blair forcefully denied in a news conference this month that they had been fixated on war.

Neither the U.S. government nor the British government has disputed the memos' authenticity.

Time frame unclear

Precisely when Bush made the decision to invade Iraq remains murky.

The White House maintains it tried to avert war almost until the last minute.

Despite the outcry over the British documents, which have come to be known as the Downing Street memos, much of what they say was known -- or knowable -- at the time, said journalist James Mann, author of "Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet."

It's well documented that Bush began looking at military options for overthrowing Hussein's regime as early as November 2001, with formal military planning beginning early in 2002.

Knight Ridder Newspapers, for example, reported on Feb. 13, 2002, that the president had decided in principle on overthrowing the Iraqi leader and ordered "a combination of military, diplomatic and covert steps" to achieve that goal.

Six days later, then-Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., visited U.S. Central Command headquarters and, Graham said in a memoir, was told by Gen. Tommy Franks that despite ongoing operations in Afghanistan, "military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq."

Franks denied making the comment.

Richard Haass, the State Department's director of policy planning, told an interviewer that in an early July 2002 chat with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, he questioned putting Iraq at the center of the U.S. war against terrorism.

He said Rice advised him "essentially, that that decision's been made, don't waste your breath."

Contact WARREN STROBEL at wstrobel@krwashington.com

"Bush: Pulling Out of Iraq Not an Option"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

Sat Jun 18, 3:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday that pulling out of Iraq now is not an option, rejecting calls by some lawmakers and many people asked in polls to start bringing U.S. troops home.

"The terrorists and insurgents are trying to get us to retreat."

"Their goal is to get us to leave before Iraqis have had a chance to show the region what a government that is elected and truly accountable to its citizens can do for its people," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

"We will settle for nothing less than victory" over terrorists there, he said later.

Bush's radio address is part of a series of appearances and speeches in the coming weeks aimed at countering poll ratings that are near their lowest levels on both the Iraq war and the economy.

Bush said his administration is committed to success in both areas of concern for Americans.

About six in 10 in a Gallup poll taken in early June said the United States should withdraw some or all of its troops — the highest level of support for withdrawing U.S. troops since the war began.

On the economy, the president said he needs help from Congress to keep the nation on the right track.

With some of his signature domestic priorities experiencing difficulties on Capitol Hill, he urged support for his request for a free-trade agreement with Central American and Caribbean nations, an overhaul of Social Security and wide-ranging energy legislation.

And even as Bush just this week delayed another domestic priority — a massive rewriting of the tax code to simplify it — by two months, he said it must be done.

"We need to work together to ensure that opportunity reaches every corner of our great country," Bush said.

But it is the president's Iraq policy that has taken the biggest slide in the polls.

Once a mainstay of his public support, his handling of the Iraq war was backed by only 41 percent in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month — his lowest level of support yet on Iraq.

Bush acknowledged discontent over his decisions but signaled no shift in policy or timing for the American presence in Iraq.

"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror," he said.

"This mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight."

Amid continuing attacks and suicide bombings in Iraq, a few Republicans and Democrats — including one GOP lawmaker who voted for war in Iraq — introduced a resolution this week calling for Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by Oct. 1, 2006.

There have been nearly 1,100 violent deaths in Iraq linked to the insurgency since a transitional government took office seven weeks ago.

The administration insists no timetable can be set for bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq until enough Iraqi forces have been sufficiently trained to take over the fight against the insurgency.

Anything else, the administration argues, would only embolden the insurgency.

Bush also paid tribute to progress seen in Iraq this week.

Iraq's Shiite-led parliament and leaders of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority, which is believed to be the backbone of the insurgency, agreed on a process for drafting Iraq's constitution.

"Time and again, the Iraqi people have defied the skeptics who claim they are not up to the job of building a free society," he said.

"I am confident that Iraqis will continue to defy the skeptics as they build a new Iraq that represents the diversity of their nation and assumes greater responsibility for their own security."

"And when they do, our troops can come home with the honor they have earned."

After elections in January, writing a constitution is Iraq's next milestone in its fits-and-starts transition to democracy.

Later this year, the document is to put up for a vote in a public referendum and then a new government is to be elected.

"2002 Memos Undercut British WMD Claims"

Sat Jun 18,12:04 PM ET

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has been sharply criticized for publishing an intelligence dossier before the Iraq war claiming that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and could deploy some within 45 minutes.

No WMD were found after the war, and the official Butler inquiry said the intelligence used was drawn in part from "seriously flawed" or "unreliable" sources.

It also said the dossier, which helped Blair win the support of Parliament to join the U.S. in the conflict, had pushed the government's case to the limits of available intelligence and left out vital caveats.

Several of the eight leaked secret Downing Street documents from 2002 indicate concerns about weak intelligence and the difficulty of winning British public support for the war.

A March 8 memo from the overseas and defense secretary to the Cabinet office sketching out the options for dealing with Iraq says:

"Despite sanctions, Iraq continues to develop WMD, although our intelligence is poor."

"Saddam has used WMD in the past and could do so again if his regime were threatened, though there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD."

A July 21 briefing paper given to British officials preparing for a July 23 meeting with Blair says:

"Time will be required to prepare public opinion in the UK that it is necessary to take military action against Saddam Hussein."

It says "an information campaign" will be needed that gives "full coverage to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, including his WMD, and the legal justification for action."

No one thought that would be easy.

A March 22 memo from Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says: "But we are still left with a problem of bringing public opinion to accept the imminence of a threat from Iraq."

After the battle on Little Bighorn in 1876, Sitting Bull fled to Canada, where he was allowed to live in peace.

The "circumstance" of a "renegade" American Indian being treated well in Canada was a constant source of embarassment to the American government (which has not been a government "of the people" for a long time now, if it ever was, at all).

Finally, an American commission led by General Alfred Terry came to Canada to "entreat" (woo with lies) Sitting Bull and his small band of Souix to return to the United States, and "agency" (prisons not necessarily having actual walls) life.

Sitting Bull replied to General Terry's request by first reviewing all his tribe's experiences with the "Great White Father" (a term of respect given by Indians, but never earned by the one receiving the respect, in the case of Washington, D.C.), reminding him of the innumerable broken treaties and promises, and then, he continued:

"For 64 years, you have persecuted my people."

"I ask you what we have done to cause us to depart from our own country?"

"I will tell you!"

"We had no place to go, so we took refuge here."

"It was on this side of the boundary I first learned to shoot, and be a man."

"For that reason, I have come back."

"I was kept ever on the move until I was compelled to foresake my own lands and come here."

"I was raised close to, and today, shake hands with, these people."

[Here, Sitting Bull strides towards Canadian Commissioner Macleod and Superintendant Walsh, shakes hands with them, then turns to the American commissioners.]

"That is the way I came to know these people, and that is the way I propose to live."

"We did not give you our country, you took it from us!"

"Look how I stand with these people" [pointing to the Canadian North West Mounted Police].

"LOOK AT ME!"

"YOU THINK I AM A FOOL, BUT YOU ARE A GREATER FOOL THAN I AM!"

"This house, the home of the English, is a medicine house [the abode of truth] AND YOU COME HERE TO TELL US LIES!"

"WE DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THEM!"

"Now, I have said enough!"

"You can go back!"

"Say no more!"

"TAKE YOUR LIES WITH YOU!"

"I will stay with these people."

"The country we came from belonged to us; you took it from us; we will live here."

end quotes

What more could he have said?

Liars lie, as the eagle flies, and the fish swims!

It is the nature of all to be what they are, and when one sees the "eagle" who walks everywhere he goes, one might know something about that "eagle" .......

"Memos Show British Fretting Over Iraq War"

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer

40 minutes ago

LONDON - When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the then-U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. She wanted to talk about "regime change" in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.

President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein.

In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a clear and compelling military reason for war.

"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo.

"For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up."

"It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."

The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even though his government thought a pre-emptive attack may be illegal under international law.

The Sunday Times this week reported that lawyers told the British government that U.S. and British bombing of Iraq in the months before the war was illegal under international law.

That report, also by Smith, noted that almost a year before the war started, they began to strike more frequently.

The newspaper quoted Lord Goodhart, vice president of the International Commission of Jurists, as backing the Foreign Office lawyers' view that aircraft could only patrol the no-fly zones to deter attacks by Saddam's forces.

Goodhart said that if "the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority," the Sunday Times reported.

__

On the Net:

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/fcolegal020308.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/manning020314.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/meyer020318.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ods020308.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/ricketts020322.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/dowdoc/straw020325.pdf

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

"Unless we can talk about CASINOS," he continued.

Well, yes, jeffmoskin, now, there is that, especially up here in George Pataki's EMPIRE State of New York!

Can't have enough casinos, the REPUBLICANS all say, and you know, if they are saying it, it must be so!

It is said that because of his nobility and bearing, the Native Americans call George W. Bush, "Walking Eagle"!

His sidekick, his "bosom boy" Pataki, well, it is said that the Native Americans call him, "He Walks, Too"!

Probably for the same reason, eh?

And speaking of "WALKING EAGLE" himself, or "Custer", if you like, who has made Iraq the centerpiece of his war of terror ....

"Foreign fighters join hit list - Offensive near Syrian border kills 50 militants as Bush vows to stay course despite polls"

By JACOB SILBERBERG, Associated Press

First published: Sunday, June 19, 2005

KARABILAH, Iraq -- American and Iraqi forces battled insurgents near the Syrian border Saturday, killing at least 50 militants in two massive offensives to stanch the flow of foreign fighters from Iraq's western neighbor.

The U.S. military reported the deaths of two American soldiers, killed north of Baghdad during an attack as they were taking a captive to jail.

In Washington, President Bush said that pulling out of Iraq now is not an option, rejecting calls by some lawmakers and polls indicating many Americans are growing weary of the war.

In his weekly radio address, Bush said, "We will settle for nothing less than victory" over terrorists there.

Intelligence officials believe Iraq's western Anbar province is the main entry point used by extremist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq, to smuggle in foreign fighters.

Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.

Friday, about 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces backed by battle tanks launched Operation Spear in the desert wastes around Karabilah and Qaim.

The offensive entered its second day Saturday in Karabilah, a dusty, blistering hot town about 200 miles west of Baghdad.

It is considered an insurgent hub.

About 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began, Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.

Three U.S. troops have been wounded and about 100 insurgents have been captured, the military said.

Dozens of buildings in Karabilah were destroyed after airstrikes and shelling, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

"The goal is not to seize territory," said Marine Col. Stephen Davis, of New Rochelle.

"This is about going in and finding the insurgents."

Karabilah's streets were empty, and the military said about 100 people fled the town.

Troops searching the town found four Iraqi hostages beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a bunker, Davis said.

Some of the men were believed to be Iraqi border guards.

Troops searching the bunker found nooses, electrical wire and a bathtub filled with water for electric shocks and mock drownings, Davis said.

Later, Marines and Iraqi soldiers took fire outside a mosque and a small band of insurgents fled inside, Pool said.

Three militants were killed.

The U.S. military also reported incidents of insurgents breaking into homes and using families as human shields, resulting in injuries to 10 civilians.

U.S. and Iraqi forces also found a bomb-making factory in the town, Pool said.

It contained blasting caps, cellphones and other materials to make roadside and car bombs, he said.

Troops also found sniper rifles, ammunition and a mortar system.

A nearby schoolhouse believed to be used for training terrorists had instructions for making roadside bombs written on a chalkboard, Davis said.

A second offensive of similar size, Operation Dagger, was launched Saturday, targeting the marshy shores of a lake north of Baghdad.

About 1,000 Marines and Iraqi troops, backed by fighter jets and tanks, took part.

Operation Dagger seeks insurgent training camps and weapons caches in the Lake Tharthar area, 53 miles northwest of Baghdad.

On March 23, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed about 85 militants at a suspected training camp along Lake Tharthar and discovered booby-trapped cars, suicide-bomber vests, weapons and training documents.

The insurgents captured then included Iraqis, Filipinos, Algerians, Moroccans, Afghans and Arabs from neighboring countries, officials said.

The western region has been flush with insurgents in recent weeks.

Marines carried out June 11 airstrikes that killed about 40 of them after a nearly five-hour gunfight on the outskirts of Karabilah.

Insurgents in the area also killed 21 people believed to be missing Iraqi soldiers.

The bodies, including three that were beheaded, were found June 10.

Marines carried out two major operations near Qaim last month, killing 125 insurgents in Operation Matador and 14 in Operation New Market.

Eleven Marines were killed in those actions, which targeted insurgents using the road from Damascus, Syria, to Baghdad.

Iraqi troops did not participate in the earlier offensives.

This time, they fought alongside the Americans and used their language skills and local knowledge to spot foreign fighters, said Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the Second Marine Division.

Separately, the U.S. military said Saturday that two soldiers were killed and one was wounded after fighting with insurgents late Friday while transporting a detainee near Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad.

A civilian and the detainee also were killed, and five Iraqi police officers were wounded.

At least 1,719 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In other violence Saturday, insurgents killed at least four people in Baghdad, including two Iraqi soldiers and a 10-year-old girl, hospital and police officials said.

Twenty-one people -- including an Iraqi journalist -- were wounded in the suicide bombings and shootings.

The girl was killed and two people were wounded when a roadside bomb missed a passing American military convoy, said Dr. Muhand Jawad of Baghdad's Al-Yarmouk hospital.

Bush's radio address Saturday is part of a series of appearances and speeches in the coming weeks aimed at countering poll ratings that are near their lowest levels on both the Iraq war and the economy.

Bush said his administration is committed to success in both areas of concern for Americans.

About six in 10 in a Gallup poll taken in early June said the United States should withdraw some or all of its troops -- the highest level of support for withdrawing U.S. troops since the war began.

Once a mainstay of his public support, his handling of the Iraq war was backed by only 41 percent in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month -- his lowest level of support yet.

A New York Times/CBS News Poll released Friday showed only 37 percent said they approved of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq, down from 45 percent in February.

Also last week, there was a bipartisan call in the House to set a deadline for troop withdrawals.

The administration insists no timetable can be set for bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq until enough Iraqi forces have been sufficiently trained to take over the fight against the insurgency.

Anything else, the administration argues, would only embolden the insurgency.

end quotes

In Washington, President Bush said that pulling out of Iraq now is not an option, rejecting calls by some lawmakers and polls indicating many Americans are growing weary of the war?

I don't know about anyone else, but as for me, I'm growing weary of this damned incompetent fool down there in that White House telling us a passel of lies all the time, in a vain attempt to try and cover up his previous lies, the ones that got us into Iraq in the first place!

And you can be damned sure that getting out of Iraq right now is not an option for George W. Bush, because he has no way to do that, to get out, not right now, anyway!

Or looked at another way, he has all the chance right now of getting out of Iraq that Custer had of getting out of the valley of the Little Bighorn, once he made his now-famous "catstrophically successful" cavalry charge down in there, or them boys had down there at the Alamo in George W. Bush's "birth state" of Texas!

"Yahoo, ride-um cowboy", right, George?

"3 memos reveal U.S. unprepared for Iraq"

Associated Press

First published: Sunday, June 19, 2005

LONDON -- Long before the Iraq war began, Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers concluded that the Bush administration and the U.S. military weren't adequately prepared for rebuilding Iraq once Saddam Hussein was driven from power.

Today, as U.S. forces fight a deadly insurgency in Iraq, the concerns expressed about a postwar Iraq in three leaked secret Downing Street memos seem prescient.

A July 21, 2002, paper written for top government officials preparing to meet with Blair said:

"The U.S. government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace."

"But, as yet, it lacks a political framework."

"In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it."

In a March 14, 2002, memo, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, told the prime minister that President Bush "had yet to find the answers to the big questions" about an Iraq war, including: "what happens on the morning after."

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw questioned the stability of a post-Saddam Iraq.

"We have also to answer the big question -- what will this action achieve?"

"There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything," he said in a March 25, 2002, memo to Blair.

"Most of the assessments from the U.S. have assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's WMD threat," he said.

"But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better."

"Iraq has had no history of democracy, so no one has this habit or experience."

end quotes

George W. Bush and that crowd of his have no history of democracy, either, and so, not a single one of them has this habit, or experience, either!

And as to this: In a March 14, 2002, memo, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, told the prime minister that President Bush "had yet to find the answers to the big questions" about an Iraq war, including: "what happens on the morning after?"

The morning after?

Isn't there a pill for that?

I thought I heard George W. Bush say he had a pill for the morning after?

SO?

What was that all about, then?

What was the pill for?

"Iraqi Security Tactics Evoke the Hussein Era"

By Jeffrey Fleishman and Asmaa Waguih Special to The Times

Sun Jun 19, 7:55 AM ET

BAGHDAD — The public war on the Iraqi insurgency has led to an atmosphere of hidden brutalities, including abuse and torture, carried out against detainees by the nation's special security forces, according to defense lawyers, international organizations and Iraq's Ministry of Human Rights.

Up to 60% of the estimated 12,000 detainees in the country's prisons and military compounds face intimidation, beatings or torture that leads to broken bones and sometimes death, said Saad Sultan, head of a board overseeing the treatment of prisoners at the Human Rights Ministry.

He added that police and security forces attached to the Interior Ministry are responsible for most abuses.

The units have used tactics reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's secret intelligence squads, according to the ministry and independent human rights groups and lawyers, who have cataloged abuses.

"We've documented a lot of torture cases," said Sultan, whose committee is pushing for wider access to Iraqi-run prisons across the nation.

"There are beatings, punching, electric shocks to the body, including sensitive areas, hanging prisoners upside down and beating them and dragging them on the ground…."

"Many police officers come from a culture of torture from their experiences over the last 35 years."

"Most of them worked during Saddam's regime."

The ordeal described by Hussam Guheithi is similar to many cases.

When Iraqi national guardsmen raided his home last month, the 35-year-old Sunni Muslim imam said they lashed him with cables, broke his nose and promised to soak their uniforms with his blood.

He was blindfolded and driven to a military base, where he was interrogated and beaten until the soldiers were satisfied that he wasn't an extremist.

At the end of nine days, Guheithi said, the guardsmen told him, "You have to bear with us."

"You know the situation now."

"We're trying to find terrorists."

The Interior Ministry, responsible for the nation's internal security, acknowledges cases of mistreatment but denies that torture is common.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr is a Shiite Muslim, and some Sunni Muslim tribal leaders and politicians have accused the ministry of unfairly targeting Sunnis, who make up the bulk of the insurgency.

"There are no official accusations that the ministry's forces are carrying out widespread abuse and torture of detainees," said Col. Adnan Joubouri, a ministry spokesman.

"There was some abuse of authority, and those officials responsible are being punished."

U.S. officials, whose image on detainment issues has already been tarnished by the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, say they are troubled by the allegations of torture.

They worry that mistreatment by Iraqi police and national guardsmen, thousands of whom were trained by American instructors who sought to steer the departments away from Hussein's corrupt legacy, may be viewed as an extension of Abu Ghraib.

"We understand and we hear that [torture] is potentially happening, and this is an issue we are constantly talking about," said a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad.

"I think this is an issue no one can afford to ignore."

Stories of torture and abuse against suspected Shiite and Sunni criminals and rebels are unfolding in the midst of the campaign against a relentless insurgency.

Iraqi forces are frustrated by their inability to stop car bombings and ambushes that have killed more than 1,000 people in recent weeks.

Rising crime, a shaky court system, the lack of a constitution to define civil rights and an Interior Ministry underequipped to pursue well-armed rebel networks have made human rights less of an immediate concern for Iraqis than bringing order to the nation, Iraqi and U.S. officials say.

Having endured more than two years of violence since the U.S.-led invasion, many Iraqis favor tough measures to end the unrest.

The death penalty was recently reinstated, and for much of the country there is an unspoken acceptance — often rooted in harsh tribal justice — that intimidation and torture serve a purpose.

Such attitudes are complicated by sectarian strains between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Under Hussein, the minority Sunnis were the core of the ruling Baath Party and controlled the country.

The new Iraqi government is dominated by Shiites, who make up the majority of Iraq's population.

Each side blames the other for the bloodshed.

This dynamic poses an incendiary possibility: Accounts of torture in detention given by Sunni extremists might have been fabricated or embellished to help instigate a civil war against Shiites and the government.

The Human Rights Ministry says it has encountered made-up allegations of abuse.

"Ninety percent of detainees say that they confessed under torture," said Judge Luqman Thabit Samiraii, head of the 1st Iraqi Central Criminal Court.

"Yet 80% of them have no torture marks."

"But torture does exist during interrogations, I admit that."

The courts aren't always willing to explore abuse claims.

In a trial last month, Samiraii denied a defense lawyer's request to have four suspects medically examined to determine whether their confessions to the murder of an Interior Ministry official had been induced by torture.

The defendants, three of whom were sentenced to death, said they had been repeatedly beaten.

One of them said police had sodomized him with a metal rod.

Before the four men appeared in the courtroom, their confessions had been aired on the popular Iraqi television program "Terrorism in the Hands of Justice."

The show is the government's attempt to demystify the insurgency by portraying suspected rebels as brutish killers rather than revolutionaries.

Defense lawyers argue that some of the accused are coerced into giving confessions and that the program violates defendants' right to a fair trial.

"The Americans are occupying the country, but the Iraqi national guard and Iraqi police are violating the human rights of detainees," said Sattar Raouf, director of the Popular Committee for Culture and Arts, who has followed allegations of abuse.

"Intelligence and security forces are torturing people for confessions."

"You can go to the sixth and seventh floors of the Interior Ministry and find case after case like this."

The Interior and Justice ministries have been struggling over control of prisons and detention centers.

Interior operates in a secret realm of intelligence networks in which suspects can be jailed or vanish for weeks.

Sultan said his committee has found less abuse in centers under the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry.

He added that Justice has stricter oversight on inmate conditions and is less involved than Interior in interrogating suspects, including alleged insurgents.

A report this year by the international organization Human Rights Watch found that abuse had become "routine and commonplace" and that detainees were often beaten and held in violation of judicial process, including not receiving court hearings within 24 hours of their arrests.

The group stated that some detainees — many of whom are arrested based on tips by paid informants — waited months before a court appearance.

"One of the most common complaints made by detainees," said Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 90 current and former detainees in 2004, "was of police officials threatening them with indefinite detention if they failed to pay them sums of money."

The abuses reported by former detainees and human rights organizations echo some of the Hussein regime's tactics: poor legal protection, crowded cells, electric shock, threats of sexual abuse and hanging and beating prisoners for prolonged periods.

Abbas Jibouri said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that about 25 national guard members raided his house on the morning of May 8.

A 41-year-old farmer from the Maden area near Baghdad, Jibouri, whose account could not be verified, said he had been taken to a detainee center and later transferred to the national guard base at Rustumiya.

"There was always one man interrogating me and four or five others who punched me in different parts of my body," said Jibouri, a Sunni.

"They accused me of providing terrorists with weapons and money…."

"They gave me a list of 10 names and told me to give information about their being terrorists."

"One of the names belonged to my brother and another was a neighbor of mine who actually died a year or so ago."

Jibouri said he was beaten with pipes and given electrical shocks.

"I didn't know when it would end," he said.

At one point, Jibouri said, interrogators told him: "You [Sunnis] ruled the country for 35 years."

"We're going to retaliate now."

Jibouri was released after 10 days in custody.

He was not charged with a crime.

Guheithi, the Sunni imam, has been detained by American as well as Iraqi forces.

He said U.S. troops had arrested him in January 2004 and accused him of preaching holy war at his mosque.

He said he was held in solitary confinement for seven days and released.

American soldiers, he said, "didn't torture me, but an Iraqi man with them punched me hard several times."

Last month, Iraqi national guardsmen handcuffed Guheithi at the home of his brother in the Rasafa neighborhood of Baghdad.

"They were beating me and my brothers in front of our children," he said.

"They told me that I was helping the insurgents by sending trucks to Fallouja during the first [anti-insurgent] offensive in April 2004."

"They had piles of reports about me."

"I was actually only sending humanitarian aid to the people there, which I gathered from our mosque."

He said he was held for nine days in the Taji camp, which is used by U.S. and Iraqi forces.

"I stayed there with 19 other people in a very small room with no windows," said Guheithi, who added that he was often blindfolded and beaten.

"When they found that we had no information, they set us free…."

"I and other detainees about to be released had to swear that we were not terrorists and that we are going to participate in building a democratic country."

Times staff writer Carol J. Williams contributed to this report.

end quotes

BUILD A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY?

What a laugh!

What a hoot!

THAT IS DEMOCRACY?

OR IS IT BUSH-ISM, ON THE RISE?

"All the federales say, could have had him any day; they only let him get away, out of kindness, I suppose, although many say it is just gross incompetence and sheer stupidity, instead"!

"CIA has 'excellent' idea where bin Laden is -Time"

2 hours, 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director Porter Goss said he has an "excellent" idea where Osama bin Laden is hiding, but the al Qaeda leader will not be brought to justice until weak links in counterterrorism efforts are strengthened, Time magazine reported on Sunday.

In his first interview since becoming head of the CIA last year, Goss also told the magazine the insurgency in Iraq was not quite in its last throes, but close to it.

Goss did not say where he believed bin Laden was hiding, but intelligence experts have said the al Qaeda leader who has evaded an extensive U.S.-led manhunt is probably in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"I have an excellent idea of where he is."

"What's the next question?" Goss said in the interview.

"In the chain that you need to successfully wrap up the war on terror, we have some weak links."

"And I find that until we strengthen all the links, we're probably not going to be able to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice," Goss said.

"We are making very good progress on it."

He cited some of the difficulties as "dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play."

Goss added, "We have to find a way to work in a conventional world in unconventional ways that are acceptable to the international community."

Al Qaeda could strike the United States again, he said.

"Certainly the intent is very high."

"And we are trying to stay ahead of their capability."

"And so far, I think we have done pretty well carrying the war to them, as it were," Goss said.

Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, sporadically release taped messages that have been broadcast on Arab television or on the Internet since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Intelligence experts say the messages are partly to reassure followers that the leaders are still alive.

In the most recent message, a videotape broadcast by Arabic television Al Jazeera on Friday, Zawahri said reform in Muslim countries and "expelling the invaders" could not be accomplished except by fighting.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a key figure behind the insurgency in Iraq, is aligned with al Qaeda.

Vice President Dick Cheney has said the insurgency was in the "last throes."

President Bush says it would be wrong to set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq and that they will stay until local security forces are trained to take over.

Goss said, "I think they're not quite in the last throes, but I think they are very close to it."

"And I think that every day that goes by in Iraq where they have their own government and it's moving forward reinforces just how radical (the insurgents) are and how unwanted they are."

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said on Sunday that he did not believe that the insurgency was in the last throes.

"I don't think Americans believe that we should cut and run out of Iraq by any stretch of the imagination."

"But I think they also would like to be told, in reality, what's going on," McCain said on NBC's "Meet The Press."

"I think part of that is it's going to be at least a couple more years," he said.

Goss expressed relief the new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, was taking over what previously had been some of the key functions of the CIA director.

"I would almost equate it to getting rid of a 60-pound back sack, climbing up a big, steep trail," Goss said.

He said he planned to stay as CIA chief for a while.

"We've got a lot to do."

"We're in the process of rebuilding here."

"I think this is our moment."

"I'm going to be here as long as the moment lasts."

"And I think it is going to last a while because we have the opportunity to build," he said.

end quotes

SO?

Is the insurgency in the PENULTIMATE LAST THROES, then?

Or maybe the last throes just before the PENULTIMATE LAST THROES are reached?

Is that it, Porter?

Is that where we are?

Or isn't it the right moment, yet?

And as to Osama bin Laden, we all have an excellent idea of where he is, ourselves, the whole nation of us!

He's free!

That's where we all think he is!

SO?

Porter, how 'bout you?

What do you think?

Note from President Assad of Syria to President Bush of the USA

No problem, fellow Prez.

We just need to be shown how to do it.

As soon as you tighten your border with Mexico. Then we'll know how it's done.

As always,

President Assad

Right on, Mr. A.B.

Don't forget, the Mexicans only want to WORK!!!

Can you imagine if they wanted to BLOW US UP???

Well, I wonder what he will "suppose" about this, then ....

As for me, I think it stinks, but why should I be surprised?

"More Abu Ghraib photos coming - Pentagon readies as many as 144 images after recent court order"

By ERIC ROSENBERG, Washington bureau, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Sunday, June 19, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is preparing to release another batch of photos showing prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, a step that is likely to renew criticism of U.S. handling of detainees there.

As many as 144 photos and still images from four videotapes could be made public in coming weeks as soon as the Pentagon finishes editing them to conceal the identify of the victims.

The digital photos are from the same batch amassed by Army Spc. Joseph Darby, who was based at Abu Ghraib.

Darby turned the photos over to military investigators last year.

Later, some photos showing naked Iraqi prisoners being forced to simulate sex acts were published.

The ensuing controversy triggered wide criticism of U.S. policies at the prison.

To date, eight soldiers have pleaded guilty or been convicted at court martial in the scandal.

A federal judge in New York on June 2 ordered the government to prepare to release the rest of the Darby photos in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.

In issuing his order, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein of New York City gave the government until June 30 to get the photos ready by removing information in the pictures that might identify the victims.

David Kelley, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has asked Hellerstein for an extension -- until July 22 -- to get all the images, both video and pictures, ready for release.

The Bush administration is likely to pay a public relations penalty for failing to release all of the Abu Ghraib images sooner.

"There would have been short-term discomfort and pain but then it would have been over with," Nikolas Gvosdev, a senior fellow in strategic studies at The Nixon Center here and an analyst of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.

"These pictures may all be of the same event but they might convey the impression that the abuse is ongoing."

end quotes

The Bush administration is likely to pay a public relations penalty for failing to release all of the Abu Ghraib images sooner?

How is that?

I already think that this administration is the sickest, most perverted thing that I have ever heard of, and this latest news isn't going to change that impression one whit!

Compassionate Christianity my ***

These guys are just weirdos!

Real sick twists, and that is quite a statement about OUR America, that this is who we have given power over OUR collective lives to, here in OUR America!

The damage to this nation that this administration has done in such a short time will be a stain on this nation for years and years to come, and that will not be to OUR benefit, not at all!

Now, now, jeffmoskin, Mr. A.B.!

Don't you know that we are the safest that we have ever been, in the history of this nation, thanks to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and of course, "Con Job" Connie Rice, and well, yes, there's Scottie "BOY" McClellan, and yes, Frannie Frago Townsend, and Donnie Rumsfeld, ..... and, oh yeah, Porter Goss, who really does know where Osama bin Laden is, but lets him get away, just like a cat lets a mouse get away ....

And winging OUR way back to Lebanon, where the long "march of history" in that country continues ....

"Opposition Wins Majority in Lebanon Vote"

By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer

21 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The anti-Syrian opposition secured a majority in the Lebanese parliament Monday, breaking Damascus' long political hold on its tiny neighbor after opposition candidates swept all seats in the last round of elections, according to unofficial results.

A campaign official for anti-Syrian opposition leader Saad Hariri said the slate had won all seats in the north, guaranteeing the parliamentary majority.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Hariri was expected to announce the victory himself later Monday at a news conference.

As news of the win spread, women and children waved flags and danced on the streets of the northern port city of Tripoli.

Motorcades of cheering, honking supporters drove through Beirut, the capital, in celebration.

A pro-Syrian leader had earlier acknowledged the outcome from Sunday's final round of elections in northern Lebanon.

Final official results that were supposed to be announced by the Interior Ministry were delayed for several hours as officials counted the ballots.

The latest developments capped months of political upheaval since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Saad Hariri's father.

Mass anti-Syrian protests sparked by his murder led to the Syrian army withdrawing from Lebanon in April after a 29 year presence.

The opposition has blamed Syria and Lebanese security elements loyal to Damascus for blowing up Hariri's motorcade, killing him and 20 others on a Beirut street.

Syria has denied involvement.

Saad Hariri needed to win at least 21 of the 28 seats at stake in the north Lebanon balloting after Christian leader Michel Aoun and his allies made a strong showing in a previous round in central Lebanon last week, denying the opposition a majority.

The new 128-member parliament will face the challenge of healing the divisions and new sectarian tensions that resulted from the campaign.

"What happened is a hurricane that aims at destroying Lebanese unity, and this is the danger facing us all and we must avoid," said Mikhail Daher, a former opposition legislator who was defeated.

Daher, a Christian, blamed his loss in the mainly Muslim Akkar region on vote-buying and incitement of sectarian tensions by the Future Movement of Hariri, a Sunni Muslim.

And, while the victory shakes off Syria's long hold on the country, the opposition still has to deal with President Emile Lahoud, a staunch pro-Syrian who has rejected calls to step down.

The parliament also must elect a new speaker, nominate a new prime minister and approve a Cabinet that must tackle a high debt, deal with a U.N. investigation into the Hariri assassination and a divisive U.N. demand for disarming militias — a reference to the anti-Israeli Hezbollah guerrilla group.

The new government also will have to shape a new relationship with Syria, Lebanon's big neighbor to the east.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati's government was to move into a caretaker capacity late Monday when the outgoing parliament's mandate ends.

The pro-Syrian Suleiman Franjieh, a Christian former interior minister, admitted late Sunday that the battle was all but lost.

Franjieh, a close friend of the family of Syrian President Bashar Assad and one of his greatest defenders in Lebanon, said late Sunday on Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. television: "We bow to the will of the people."

The anti-Syrian faction also will have to work with other blocs in parliament.

Out of 100 seats decided in previous rounds of voting since May 29, Aoun and his allies had 21 seats.

The pro-Syrian Shiite Muslim groups Amal and Hezbollah, along with their allies, had clinched 35 seats.

Aoun, Hariri's rival who returned from 14 years' exile in May, thwarted the opposition's bid to quickly rack up a majority in earlier rounds of voting.

The former military commander was previously allied with the opposition but then broke away to link up with both anti- and pro-Syrian figures.

One apparent victim of the elections was the Christian-Muslim solidarity that emerged after Hariri's assassination.

The final round of the balloting was marred by sectarian divisions as both sides sought to rally their supporters in the battle for seats.

The election was bitterly fought, with rival candidates accusing each other of vote-buying and incitement.

Hariri's opponents accused him of trying to appeal to the north's slight Sunni majority against his top rival, the Christian Aoun, and of stirring up religious differences with tactics such as having clerics in mosques urge voters to back his ticket.

end quotes

HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM GEORGE W. BUSH AND KARL ROVE HAVING MINISTERS IN CHURCHES, UP IN THEIR PULPITS, URGING THEIR PARISHIONERS TO VOTE REPUBLICAN?"

Because they're Christians?

Then it is alright?

"Adelphia Founder Sentenced to 15 Years"

By ERIN McCLAM, Associated Press Writer

8 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison by a judge who blamed him for defrauding investors of his bankrupted cable company in one of the largest frauds in corporate history.

"Were it not for your age and health, I would impose a sentence far greater than I do today," U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand told the 80-year-old Rigas after the one-time high flying cable empire patriarch insisted he meant to do no wrong.

Rigas' son, Timothy, the company's former chief financial officer, was awaiting sentencing on Monday afternoon.

The pair had faced up to 30 years in prison each on their bank fraud convictions alone.

They were also convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy.

"Long ago, he set Adelphia on a track of lying, of cheating, of defrauding," Sand said of the elder Rigas.

"Regrettably for everyone, this was not stopped over 10 years ago."

"It got more urgent and culminated in one of the largest frauds in corporate history."

Before the sentence was handed down, Rigas acknowledged that "mistakes were made" in the way he ran the company.

"I may be convicted and sentenced," said Rigas, "but in my heart and conscience, I'll go to my grave believing truly that I did nothing but try to improve conditions" for the company and his family.

The judge said that if Rigas serves at least two years and is judged by prisons officials to have less than three months to live, prisons officials can ask the court to cut the sentence short.

The Rigases are among a slew of former corporate executives who have faced charges since the fall of Enron in 2001 touched off a parade of white-collar scandals.

The sentencing came just three days after another major white-collar conviction: A state court jury found former Tyco International Ltd. CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and former Tyco CFO Mark Swartz guilty of looting that company of $600 million.

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers faces sentencing next month after he was convicted of presiding over that company's record $11 billion accounting fraud.

Rigas founded Adelphia with a $300 license in 1952, took it public in 1986 and built it into a cable titan by acquiring other systems in the 1990s.

The company, which was then based in tiny Coudersport, Pa., collapsed into bankruptcy in 2002 after it disclosed a staggering $2.3 billion in off-balance-sheet debt.

It now operates under bankruptcy protection in Greenwood Village, Colo.

At the trial, prosecutors said the Rigases used complicated cash-management systems to spread money around to various family-owned entities and as a cover for stealing about $100 million for themselves.

Prosecutors also described a lengthy list of personal luxuries that they said the Rigases financed with money stolen from the company.

One prosecutor said John Rigas had ordered two Christmas trees flown to New York for his daughter at a cost of $6,000.

Prosecutors also said he ordered up 17 company cars and had the company buy 3,600 acres of timberland at a cost of $26 million to preserve the view outside his Coudersport home.

Rigas' lawyer told jurors those charges were ludicrous and that "if you saw this on 'Seinfeld,' you'd double up."

A second Rigas son, Michael, former executive vice president for operations, was acquitted of conspiracy and wire fraud.

However, jurors were deadlocked on 15 counts of securities fraud and two counts of bank fraud.

He is scheduled for a second trial in October.

Former Adelphia assistant treasurer Michael Mulcahey was tried with the Rigases but was acquitted of all charges.

"US leading indicators suggest US economy cooling"

Mon Jun 20,12:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Another sign of US economic cooling emerged as the Conference Board reported its index of leading economic indicators fell 0.5 percent.

The report marked the fifth straight month without an increase in the index, an indicator of economic activity in the coming six to nine months.

In April, the index was revised to show no change compared with the initial estimate of a 0.2 percent decline.

The report was weaker than the 0.3 percent drop expected on Wall Street.

Two other indexes in the report from the business research group were higher.

The coincident index, indicative of current conditions, rose 0.2 percent, while the lagging index rose 0.3 percent.

The leading index has now declined at a 2.2 percent annual rate over the last six months.

It has declined by 1.9 percent over the last 12 months.

Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said the United States is following a global cooling trend that may be linked to surging oil prices.

"The leading economic indicators are suggesting slower growth setting in during the third quarter," he said.

"This is not just a domestic phenomenon."

"Declines or slower increases appear in at least six of the eight countries for which the Conference Board calculates leading indexes."

"Energy prices are one factor driving this global trend."

"Of more concern is the level of confidence of both consumers and chief executives, which has been choppy."

Some analysts said the report was a clear indication of a slowing trend.

"While no one is forecasting a recession here, the fact is that the decline in the (index) is just what we had seen before the 2001 recession began," said Robert Brusca at FAO Economics.

"The main point of these comparisons is not to assert that a recession is coming but to show that the economy is responding to past Fed rate hikes and is slowing ... the Fed should be forewarned about future rate hikes and not ignoring signs of slowing."

But Morgan Stanley economists Ted Wieseman and David Greenlaw said in a note Monday that recent data may be indicating that a so-called soft patch in the US economy has passed.

"Economic data released the past week indicated that the sharp recent deceleration in factory activity may have come to an end, and also that consumers are perking up significantly after a disappointing May," they wrote.

"In addition, both inflation and inflation expectations remain generally well contained ... data on manufacturing activity, consumer spending and sentiment, and housing market strength provided further confirmation that the economy has returned to above-trend growth after the mild spring 'soft patch.'"

end quotes

I wonder what the "chicken entrails" index shows for the economy in the next three months?

Or that "goat liver" one that that other crowd somewhere is using?

Supposedly, by looking for white spots, or something, anyway, on the liver of a special goat that these priests sacrifice somewhere down there in the "ten mile square", they say, well, these priests can tell almost to the doller how much money any given "consumer" might have in his or her pocket at any given time, and ....

Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said the United States is following a global cooling trend that may be linked to surging oil prices?

WOW!

This guy must be one of them rocket-scientists that I have heard they got down there in Washington, D.C., to know stuff like that, as the rest of us are just too simple to be able to see straight, or something like that, anyway:

"Oil Prices Hit New Intraday High Near $60"

By BRAD FOSS, AP Business Writer

1 hour, 22 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Oil prices marched to new heights, hitting a new intraday high near $60 a barrel even as the president of OPEC said Monday the group will consider raising its output ceiling by half a million barrels as early as this week.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries raised its output target by that amount just last week.

The move appeared to have little impact on prices, which have risen by almost $12 a barrel in the past month because of concerns about limited refining capacity and rising demand for gasoline and diesel.

Light sweet crude for July delivery climbed 90 cents to settle at $59.37 a barrel, a record close on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where oil futures have been traded since 1983.

Gasoline prices in the U.S. average about $2.13 a gallon, an increase of more than 40 percent over the past two years, but government data released last week showed that demand is up almost 3 percent from a year ago over the past four weeks at nearly 9.5 million barrels a day — a growth rate that surprised many analysts.

"The economy has accepted $50 oil."

"We accepted $2 gasoline too," said oil tycoon Boone Pickens, who runs a billion-dollar hedge fund that invests in energy commodities and equities.

"I think within a year from now, you're probably looking at $3 gasoline and you're probably looking at something over $60 for oil."

While soaring jet fuel costs have been a major problem for the airline industry, higher energy prices have not taken as much of a toll on the broader economy as many analysts had previously feared.

In the first three months of the year, the U.S. economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate, according to the Commerce Department, slightly slower than the 4.5 percent pace a year earlier.

The prospect of another attempt by OPEC to cool prices did not impress brokers, who said the effort could actually backfire by highlighting the group's dwindling excess production capacity.

Still, "it looks like we might have difficulty holding these levels," said Mike Fitzpatrick, an oil broker at Fimat USA in New York.

"You're seeing a great deal of reluctance among buyers to pay these higher prices."

Oil analyst Andrew Lebow at Man Financial in New York said "once we're in this $55-$60 area, it's been kind of hard to justify."

"But it is what it is."

"It seems like we'll hit $60 at this point."

In London, Brent crude for August delivery settled 45 cents higher at $58.32 per barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.

OPEC President Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah said Monday that "if the prices continue to the end of this week at the same level, I will start consulting my colleagues to release the 500,000."

Asked by reporters in Kuwait what he meant by the end of this week, the minister said Friday.

Last week the oil cartel agreed to raise its official production ceiling to 28 million barrels, starting July 1, but that failed to soothe traders because OPEC's output is already exceeding that level as producers seek to cash in on high prices.

Including Iraq, which is not bound by the quota system, OPEC is pumping close to 30 million barrels a day, or about 35 percent of global demand.

Another development brokers were watching on Monday was the threat of a strike by oil workers in Norway, the world's third-largest exporter.

A strike could begin as soon as Wednesday because of a salary dispute, potentially slicing the country's daily output of 3 million barrels by a third.

"If you take off 1 million barrels a day in this market, it's going to get ugly," said oil broker Tom Bentz of BNP Paribas Commodity Futures in New York.

"Let's just hope it doesn't happen."

While Nymex oil futures are more than 56 percent higher than a year ago, they are still below the inflation-adjusted high above $90 a barrel set in 1980.

Analysts said unlike the record prices last year, which were driven largely by concern over geopolitical events in oil-producing countries such as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Venezuela, this year's trend has more to do with speculative buying, continued supply fears and limited excess production capacity.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures fell less than a penny to $1.6456 per gallon, while heating oil futures rose a penny to $1.6618 per gallon.
____

Associated Press Writers Edith Balazs in Budapest, Hungary, and Gillian Wong in Singapore contributed to this report.

end quotes

"The economy has accepted $50 oil."

"We accepted $2 gasoline too," said oil tycoon Boone Pickens, who runs a billion-dollar hedge fund that invests in energy commodities and equities.

"I think within a year from now, you're probably looking at $3 gasoline and you're probably looking at something over $60 for oil."

You tell 'um there, T-Boone!

Yeah, go for it!

How about $35 or $40 per gallon in one year, instead?

To Hell with this nickel-and-dime stuff, here, T-Boone, go for the big bucks, why don't you?

And you know, America, that of course, we're being gouged, BUT ....

But, of course, as good citizens of CORPORATIA, we are also glad that it is us that get to be screwed here in the name of speculation and corporate profits, instead of some other poor suckers who don't even live here, and so ....

"Sunni Arab Role May Snag Iraq Constitution"

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 26 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni Arabs submitted a list of 15 candidates for a Shiite-dominated committee drafting Iraq's constitution, but were having second thoughts Monday about a demand by legislators that they first win the backing of a larger Sunni group.

The demand appeared to be aimed at ensuring that the 15 candidates enjoy the widest possible support among the disaffected minority community to avoid any future opposition to the group — which could derail the drafting of the constitution.

"The issue must be dealt with in a transparent manner so we can have political figures who enjoy a genuine popular base," said Sunni Arab legislator and constitutional committee member Abdul-Rahman al-Noami.

Other Sunni Arabs, however, are divided over the endorsement process — with some complaining it could be time-consuming and others worried it would create further dissent.

The latest snag in efforts to give Sunni Arabs a bigger say in drafting the constitution will likely take days to resolve, further eroding the little time remaining for the charter to be drafted.

A deal last week ended a stalemate over Sunni Arab participation in the constitutional process.

It provided for creation of a five-member Sunni committee that would poll the community and produce a list of 15 candidates.

That five-member group was supposed to then present candidates for endorsement by a wider group of 70 community representatives.

But the Sunni committee submitted the list of 15 candidates on Sunday without first going to the larger group.

"There's no need for such a conference because it will just complicate things," said Nasir al-Ani, a key player in the negotiations that produced last week's deal.

The constitution must be drafted by Aug. 15 and approved two months later in a referendum.

If approved, it will provide the basis for general elections by Dec. 15.

Because the 15 Sunni Arabs are not elected members of parliament, they will join the 55 lawmakers in a parallel body, which will reach decisions by consensus and refer them to parliament for approval.

The 55 already include two Sunni Arabs and, beside the 15, will be joined by a single representative of Iraq's religious Sabian sect.

The Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has been reaching out to the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted January's elections.

They won just 17 of the National Assembly's 275 seats, but the United States and the European Union have been pressing al-Jaafari to engage them in the political process.

Sunni Arabs make up between 15 percent and 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people.

The Shiites and the Kurds, the two communities that the Sunni Arabs had oppressed for decades, account for up to 80 percent.

Kurds are predominantly Sunni Muslims, but are secular.

June 20, 2005

"Someone Else's Child"

By BOB HERBERT

It has become clearer than ever that Americans do not want to fight George W. Bush's tragically misguided war in Iraq.

You can still find plenty of folks arguing that we have to stay the course, or even raise the stakes by sending more troops to the war zone.

But from the very start of this war the loudest of the flag-waving hawks were those who were safely beyond military age themselves and were unwilling to send their own children off to fight.

It's easy to be macho when you have nothing at risk.

The hawks want the war to be fought with other people's children, while their own children go safely off to college, or to the mall.

The number of influential American officials who have children in uniform in Iraq is minuscule.

Most Americans want no part of Mr. Bush's war, which is why Army recruiters are failing so miserably at meeting their monthly enlistment quotas.

Desperate, the Army is lowering its standards, shortening tours, increasing bonuses and violating its own recruitment regulations and ethical guidelines.

Americans do not want to fight this war.

Times Square in Midtown Manhattan is the most heavily traveled intersection in the country.

It was mobbed on V-E Day in May 1945 and was the scene of Alfred Eisenstaedt's legendary photo of a sailor passionately kissing a nurse on V-J Day the following August.

There is currently an armed forces recruiting station in Times Square, but it's a pretty lonely outpost.

An officer on duty one afternoon last week said no one had come in all day.

Vince Morrow, a 10th grader from Allentown, Pa., was interviewed across the street from the recruiting station, on Broadway.

He said he had once planned to join the military after graduating from high school, but had changed his mind.

"It's the war," he said.

"Going over and never coming back."

"Before the war you'd just go to different places and help people."

"Now you go over there and you fight."

His mother, Michelle, said:

"I'd like to see him around awhile."

"It was different before the war."

"It's the fear of not coming home."

"Our other son just graduated Saturday and he was planning to go into the Air Force."

"They told him college was included and made him all kinds of promises."

"They almost made him sign papers before we had decided."

"We thought about it and researched it and decided against it."

Last week's New York Times/CBS News Poll found that the mounting casualties and continuing turmoil in Iraq have made Americans increasingly pessimistic about the war.

A majority said the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq and only 37 percent approved of the president's handling of the war.

What hasn't changed is the fact that the vast majority of the parents who support the war do not want their children to fight it.

A woman in the affluent New York suburb of Ridgewood, N.J., who has a daughter in high school and a younger son, said:

"I would not want my children to go."

"If there wasn't a war it would be different."

"I support the war and I think we need to be there".

"But it's not going well".

"It's becoming like Vietnam".

"It's a very bad situation."

" But we can't leave."

I don't know how you win a war that your country doesn't want to fight.

We sent too few troops into Iraq in the first place and the number of warm bodies available for Iraq and other military missions going forward is dwindling alarmingly.

The Bush crowd may be bellicose, but for most Americans the biggest contribution to the war effort is a bumper sticker that says "support our troops," and maybe a belligerent call to a talk radio station.

The home-front "warriors" who find it so easy to give the thumbs up to war endanger the truly valorous men and women who are actually willing to put on a uniform, pick up a weapon and place their lives on the line.

The president and these home-front warriors got us into this war and now they don't know how to get us out.

Nor do they have a satisfactory answer to the important ethical question: how do you justify sending other people's children off to fight while keeping a cloak of protection around your own kids?

If the United States had a draft (for which there is no political sentiment), its warriors would be drawn from a much wider swath of the population, and political leaders would think much longer and harder before committing the country to war.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

"U.S. Pressure Weakens G-8 Climate Plan - Global-Warming Science Assailed"

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005; Page A01

Bush administration officials working behind the scenes have succeeded in weakening key sections of a proposal for joint action by the eight major industrialized nations to curb climate change.

Under U.S. pressure, negotiators in the past month have agreed to delete language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions and set stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Negotiators met this week in London to work out details of the document, which is slated to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.

The administration's push to alter the G-8's plan on global warming marks its latest effort to edit scientific or policy documents to accord with its position that mandatory carbon dioxide cuts are unnecessary.

Under mounting international pressure to adopt stricter controls on heat-trapping gas emissions, Bush officials have consistently sought to modify U.S. government and international reports that would endorse a more aggressive approach to mitigating global warming.

Last week, the New York Times reported that a senior White House official had altered government documents to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science on global warming.

That official, White House Council on Environmental Quality chief of staff Phillip Cooney, left the administration last Friday to take a public relations job with oil giant Exxon Mobil, a leading opponent of mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The wording of the international document, titled "Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development," will help determine what, if any, action the G-8 countries will take as a group to combat global warming.

Every member nation except the United States has pledged to bring its greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2012 as part of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- who currently heads the G-8 -- is trying to coax the United States into adopting stricter climate controls.

In preparation for the summit, negotiators are trying to work out the wording of statements on climate change and other issues that leaders of all eight nations are willing to endorse.

The language is not final, but the documents show that a number of deletions have been made at U.S. insistence.

Although the new statement by G-8 leaders may not dramatically alter the other nations' policies on global warming, what it says could mark a shift for the United States.

(The other G-8 members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.)

U.S. officials pressed negotiators to drop sections of the report that highlight some problems tied to global warming, warn of more frequent droughts and floods, and commit a specific dollar amount to promoting carbon sequestration in developing countries.

One deleted section, for example, initially cited "increasingly compelling evidence of climate change, including rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures, retreating ice sheets and glaciers, rising sea levels, and changes to ecosystems."

It added: "Inertia in the climate system means that further warming is inevitable."

"Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans."

Instead, U.S. negotiators substituted a sentence that reads, "Climate change is a serious long term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe."

James L. Connaughton, who heads the Council on Environmental Quality, said the United States was in "extremely constructive discussions on preparing leadership text for the G-8 meeting" that would outline the world's climate change problem in a "succinct and strong" manner.

"It's very important to view [the deletions] in context," Connaughton said in an interview.

"The overall context is one of strong consensus about a shared commitment to practical action, as well as defined management strategies."

But environmentalists and Democrats criticized the administration for trying to water down the international coalition's initiative.

"The administration is pursuing a dangerous 'ostrich' policy: put your head in the sand and pretend nothing's happening," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said in an interview.

Some advocates are urging the seven other G-8 members to adopt their own global warming plan rather than accept a milder statement that they say would provide the Bush administration with political cover.

"The U.S. will just not budge," said Hans J.H. Verolme, director of the World Wildlife Fund's U.S. climate change program.

"We'd rather not have a deal than have a deal that lets George Bush off the hook."

Bush's top science adviser, John Marburger, said he is "impatient and frustrated" with such charges, because the administration is seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through technological advances and other voluntary measures.

"From the beginning, this administration has acknowledged the Earth is getting warmer and we're going to have to take responsibility for our emissions," Marburger said.

Critics claim the White House believes "climate change is not happening, which is not true."

Several officials involved in the negotiations said none of the document's wording is fixed, and it could change before the leaders adopt a final version for the summit.

Connaughton emphasized that the administration's suggested changes address the threat of rising temperatures and offer several proposals to mitigate climate change as well as air pollution.

"We are looking for economy of expression in a leadership text," he said.

The controversy follows recent charges by several climate specialists that Bush appointees are exerting undue political influence on federal global warming documents.

Last week, Rick S. Piltz, a policy expert and former Democratic congressional aide who worked until March in the federal office coordinating climate change, released documents showing that Cooney, the White House official, had edited the office's documents to highlight higher temperature's benefits and uncertainties surrounding global warming.

Before joining the administration, Cooney was an oil lobbyist.

In December, the administration issued new guidelines calling for federal officials to have final sign-off on a series of climate change assessment.

Several experts objected that the requirement undermines their independence, and senior scientist Eric Sundquist of the U.S. Geological Survey resigned as lead author on one report in protest.

In a May 12 letter from his personal e-mail account, Sundquist said the new rules may make it difficult "to communicate the best independent scientific judgment to decision makers."

NOAA Deputy Administrator James R. Mahoney, who is overseeing the government's 21 periodic climate assessments, said these concerns were unfounded because the government will publish the full reports before political appointees have a chance to alter them.

Researcher Eddy Palanzo contributed to this report.

"Durbin Defends Guantanamo Comments"

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005; Page A11

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) drew a White House rebuke yesterday for comparing the treatment of prisoners at the naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the interrogation tactics of the Nazis and the Soviet gulags.

But Durbin defended his comments and said conditions there were not worthy of a democracy such as the United States.

In a Senate floor speech Tuesday, Durbin cited an FBI report describing Guantanamo Bay prisoners chained to the floor in the fetal position without food or water and sometimes in extreme temperatures.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control," he said, "you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

By yesterday, Durbin found himself under attack from leading Republicans and their conservative allies.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, asked about the statement, responded by saying:

"I think the senator's remarks are reprehensible."

"It's a real disservice to our men and women in uniform who adhere to high standards and uphold our values and our laws."

Later, Durbin came under attack on the Senate floor from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Warner said Durbin had committed "a grievous misjudgment" by comparing what may have happened at Guantanamo Bay to some of the most murderous regimes in history.

Durbin said his comments had been misinterpreted as an attack on the U.S. military, adding he did not even know who was in charge of the particular interrogation cited in the FBI agent's account.

"Sadly, we have a situation here where some in the right-wing media say I've been insulting men and women in uniform," he said.

"Nothing could be farther from the truth."

Durbin conceded that the regimes he had cited had committed horrors far beyond the techniques he had condemned at Guantanamo.

But he said it was "no exaggeration" to suggest that the techniques cited by the FBI agent were not acceptable in a democracy.

"This is the kind of thing you expect from repressive regimes but not from the United States," he said.

end quotes

Hang in there, Senator!

Because I for one agree with you, that this sick, twisted, perverted stuff most certainly is the signature of a very repressive regime, and I don't hear Scottie "BOY" McClellan denying that this crowd is not one, themselves!

Scottie "BOY" just don't like that being common knowledge, I guess, as if it were any kind of secret in the first place, anywhere in the world, and here as well!

"Frist Defends Remarks on Schiavo Case"

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005; Page A17

Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader and a heart surgeon, acknowledged yesterday that Terri Schiavo had suffered devastating brain damage and said his assertion three months ago that she was "not somebody in persistent vegetative state" did not amount to a medical diagnosis.

Frist (R-Tenn.), appearing on three network TV shows, agreed with this week's autopsy conclusion that the Florida woman had suffered severe, irreversible brain damage.

"I never, never, on the floor of the Senate, made a diagnosis, nor would I ever do that," he told NBC's "Today" show.

Some Democrats and doctors criticized Frist's March 17 Senate speech in which he said he was commenting on Schiavo's highly publicized case "more as a physician than as a United States senator."

In that speech, Frist said he had reviewed videotapes of Schiavo and noted that her brother "said that she responds to her parents and to him."

"That is not somebody in persistent vegetative state. . . ."

"There just seems to be insufficient information to conclude that Terri Schiavo is [in a] persistent vegetative state."

"I question it based on a review of the video footage, which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office here in the Capitol," Frist said in the speech.

He said his comments were also partly based on a conversation with one of several neurologists who had evaluated Schiavo.

Frist's speech, made two weeks before Schiavo died, came as Congress held a rare Easter weekend session to order federal courts to review Florida court decisions saying that her feeding tube could be removed.

Among those criticizing Frist's actions were 31 of his Harvard Medical School classmates, who sent him a letter saying he had used his medical degree improperly.

Yesterday, Frist was touting legislation to provide a health information technology system for U.S. hospitals, co-sponsored by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

But correspondents for ABC, CBS and NBC first asked him about the Schiavo autopsy findings.

"I never said, 'she responded' " to stimulation, he told Matt Lauer on "Today."

"I said I reviewed the court videotapes -- the same ones the other doctors reviewed -- and I questioned, 'Is her diagnosis correct?'"

". . . I think it is big news that she had totally irreversible brain damage, and we now have that information."

" . . . All we were arguing for on the floor of the Senate was to get an accurate diagnosis before you withdraw the feeding tube from a live person."

On ABC's "Good Morning America," Frist said:

"Looking at the court-appointed tapes, I raised the question 'Is she in a persistent vegetative state or not?'"

"I never made the diagnosis, never said that she was not."

"I did say that certain tests should be performed to determine that before starving her to death."

"That was not done."

"The court acted."

"I respect the way they acted."

"I respect the pathologist's report yesterday."

"She had devastating brain damage," Frist said, "and with that, the chapter's closed."

end quotes

Frist?

He's the one that wants to be the next president, isn't he?

Got Karl Rove gonna work for him to make it happen, too, or so he thinks, anyway, and since America does what Karl Rove tells it to do, well, who knows, maybe that Frist will be right about that ......

Look at the bright side - - - Since all our manufacturing went to China, the cost of energy isn't that important to what is left of our economy.

Also, since we now OWN our 51st state of Iraq, the market value of their oil is increasing.

We have an unrealized capital gain.

[quote=Livyjr,Jun 20 2005, 07:49 PM]
"Frist Defends Remarks on Schiavo Case"

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005; Page A17

[b][color=red]Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader and a heart surgeon, acknowledged yesterday that Terri Schiavo had suffered devastating brain damage and said his assertion three months ago that she was "not somebody in persistent vegetative state" did not amount to a medical diagnosis.

Being a physician, I would asume that Frist would know that a completely accurate diagnosis of the extent of brain damage can only be done with an autopsy. There had been an accurate diagnosis on Teri, but his huge inflated ego would not allow him to accept other physiscians' diagnosis, which the autopsy verified. Aren't you pleased that he agreed with the autopsy report?

I fear that Frist, like Bush, listens to a "higher power"

Way back in 1787, when the United States Constitution was being debated, there was a lot of discussion about the Senate, and why we were having one in OUR federal government, when there was not really any model for it, outside of the House of Lords of England.

Now, in OUR contemporary age, we really do not receive the same kind of education that these framers of the Constitution had, which, in their case, was called "classical", in that it took in a fair swath of history, right on back to the Greek times and the "Amphictyonic Council", which most Americans today are likely completely ignorant of, because we are taught to be good consumers, instead of good gitizens.

Madison said about the Senate that it would be a body in government "sufficiently respectable for its wisdom and virtue", which was supposed to provide a safeguard for liberty!

I look at the actions of this Frist in connection with Terri Schiavo, where it certainly sounded like he was giving out a diagnosis to me, and I don't see either wisdom or virtue in Frist, just showmanship, and cheap partisan politics, instead!

Do you think he knows what an autopsy really is?

That's an unrealizable gain, isn't it, jeffmoskin, unless, of course, "Custer" Bush, or "WALKING EAGLE", as he is lovingly known among many of his most avid fans and supporters, can figure out how to get back out of Iraq without his tail feathers being singed right off up to his backside!

And speaking of "WALKING EAGLE, and his buddy Pataki, up there in New York State who is known as "HE WALKS, TOO", here is a real New York State story, for anyone who wonders if there is such a thing and professional ethics and integrity up here, where Pataki is trying real hard to "globalize" the state, which is to say, render its citizens SUPINE to these kinds of predators:

"Lies hid asbestos scandal - Ex-Schenectady man admits perjury to shield former bosses during Salvagnos' fraud trial"

By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, June 21, 2005

SYRACUSE -- A former Schenectady man, who worked for contractors convicted in the largest asbestos case in the nation's history, admitted Monday in federal court he lied at trial to protect his former bosses.

Kevin Pilgrim, 38, pleaded guilty to perjuring himself during last year's trial of Raul and Alexander Salvagno, who were found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy to violate the federal Clean Air Act and Toxic Substances Control Act.

The father and son, now serving lengthy prison terms, conducted illegal asbestos removal in up to 1,555 structures -- including colleges, schools and government buildings, most of them in the Capital Region -- and falsified up to 75,000 laboratory results, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found.

Pilgrim's guilty plea brings to a close the longest criminal environmental case in U.S. history.

He now faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when sentenced Oct. 14 by Judge Howard G. Munson in Syracuse.

A college pal of Alex Salvagno, also 38, Pilgrim was the first witness for the defense.

He testified he worked for the Salvagnos for four years at AAR Contractor Latham and Analytical Laboratories of Albany and never observed or participated in illegal asbestos activities, according to a statement released by Glenn T. Suddaby, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.

He further testified he never saw indoor snowstorms (an industry term when so much asbestos is improperly released into the air it appears to be snowing in the work area), never saw workers removing asbestos without wearing respirators, knew nothing of falsified laboratory reports and did not know that Alex Salvagno secretly co-owned Analytical Laboratories of Albany, a purportedly independent laboratory that performed analysis on AAR projects to verify that asbestos had been properly removed, the statement said.

After the trial, EPA investigators continued to look into the case and into Pilgrim's testimony.

In his guilty plea, he admitted his testimony was a lie.

He acknowledged illegal asbestos removal, observing indoor snowstorms, seeing AAR workers not wearing respirators at numerous projects and being aware that lab reports were falsified.

Pilgrim, who now lives in Midvale, Utah, said Alex Salvagno contacted him repeatedly by telephone to inform him of the government's case and prep him on what he should say.

"He was a very close personal friend of Alex Salvagno, and Alex simply talked him into it, against his better judgment," Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig A. Benedict said.

Pilgrim was promised nothing by his former boss, said Benedict, who prosecuted the case.

As a condition of release before and during trial, Alex Salvagno was ordered "to have no contact whatsoever with any witnesses ... especially former or present AAR or ALA employees, and so, on the stand, Pilgrim denied having had any such contact," Benedict said.

Alex Salvagno "called him numerous times to feed him information about the trial and this is what you have to say and this is how you have to respond," Benedict said.

Salvagno and Pilgrim were classmates at the Rochester Institute of Technology before Salvagno dropped out.

Pilgrim graduated from Union College with a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics.

While at Union, Pilgrim lived for a time with the Salvagnos.

Pilgrim held several positions at the Salvagno companies, including director of training at the laboratories, the prosecutor said.

"So, he best knew what the laws were because he had to teach people how to follow the law," Benedict said.

Pilgrim was also out in the field as a supervisor and at AAR as a project manager.

"He assisted in falsifying results and knew about it," Benedict said.

The five-month trial of Alex Salvagno and his 71-year-old father was the longest criminal environmental trial in U.S. history.

The jury found the Salvagnos ordered crews to do "rip and run" asbestos cleanups, exposing workmen to cancerous fibers.

Both companies are no longer functioning.

Alex Salvagno is serving 25 years in prison; his father, 19 years and 8 months, the longest terms ever meted out for environmental crimes.

They were also ordered to pay $25 million in fines and restitution.

"Dozens and dozens of abatement workers, their employees, now have a substantial likelihood of death or serious bodily injury from asbestos-related diseases," Benedict said.

Asbestos has been determined to cause asbestosis, a lung disease, and mesotheliioma, a form of cancer that is always fatal.

Why do they always have to listen to Cheney?

A.B.

Not to be picky, but --

The name, to be really accurate, is WALKIN' EAGLE.

Anyway, that's the way I heard it.

A.B.

At the present time, yes, most assuredly, it is an UNREALIZABLE gain.

But after the (forcible) admission of the 52nd and 53rd states (Syria and Iran) to OUR Amerika, the checkerboard looks a lot different.

Problem is, we don't have a big enough army.

Maybe we can outsource soldiering to India and China. We've outsourced everything else.

Hhhhmmm!

Well, I won't argue the point, Mr. A.B., because you just might be right!

SO?

Did you hear why he has to walk?

Is Cheney actually closer to God than George W. Bush is?

WOW!

That's something!

No wonder they have to listen to him, then!

God might punish them if they don't after all, because you know God, and that famous short temper of his .....

I was actually thinking of Mexico, myself, jeffmoskin, after what you said about all those Mexicans coming over our borders, anyway!

Hire them out by the bus load, to go and fight for George W. Bush in any number of places on the face of the earth, now, where he has enemies that need squashing, in the name of God, guts, glory, and the REPUBLICAN PARTY of OUR America, and the world, to boot!

We could call them Mameluks, maybe, or something catchy like that, and give them oodles and oodles of money .....

"NYRA's future is no sure bet - Racing organization still owes millions as deadline nears to meet guidelines to avoid federal prosecution"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Monday, June 20, 2005

ALBANY -- Facing a deadline that could determine its fate, the New York Racing Association remains on shaky ground as it works to break free of criminal charges and clear itself of tens of millions of dollars in debts.

Federal prosecutors will decide in the coming days whether to drop felony charges, seek a criminal trial or give NYRA more time to get its house in order as it struggles to get out from under a December 2003 indictment in a massive tax fraud scheme.

The period of deferred prosecution agreed to by the U.S. attorney is set to expire July 1.

NYRA, a nonprofit corporation, is eager to extend its exclusive state franchise to run thoroughbred races at the Saratoga, Aqueduct and Belmont tracks and to build a big video lottery terminal casino at Aqueduct.

The franchise expires at the end of 2007, and competitive bidding is expected next year to see who will get the state's horse racing business starting in 2008.

But NYRA has broken or failed to meet several conditions laid down by prosecutors -- which were seen as a way NYRA could get off the hook from prosecution.

NYRA still owes the state about $72 million in loans, even as it is losing millions of dollars annually.

Audits suggest it hasn't met the requirement that it provide a reasonable return to the state treasury.

And it hasn't complied with a state order to cough up $8 million for horsemen whose purses were shorted.

Although essentially the same governing board oversees NYRA as when it got into trouble with the law, a new management team is in place.

They have steered NYRA toward meeting many of the demands of authorities overseeing it.

For instance, they reworked a television contract to come up with about $14 million needed to resolve its improper use of horse owners' money.

NYRA had secretly diverted that money to cover operating expenses.

Over the past 18 months, it operated under the direction of a court-appointed monitor.

NYRA officials say they've made scheduled semiannual payments on $3 million in fines for its role in helping dozens of NYRA clerks file fraudulent income tax returns.

However, it has yet to honor several other specific provisions agreed to under the signature of former Chief Executive Officer Barry K. Schwartz.

These provisions include an agreement to comply with all federal, state and local laws, including tax laws; to provide its audited financial statements to the New York State Racing & Wagering Board and the New York State Comptroller's Office; and to find a qualified partner if it couldn't get a video lottery terminal casino up and running at Aqueduct in 2004.

"We approved a process they did not follow," said Michael Hoblock, chairman of the Racing & Wagering Board, referring to the VLT casino management contract NYRA entered into with MGM Mirage last week.

"As far as we're concerned," he added, "it's a no-bid" contract.

He said he is frustrated NYRA is withholding its financial records and added that NYRA hasn't explained why it failed to meet the 2004 deadline.

NYRA's contracts to demolish parts of the Aqueduct facilities and hire an architect for the VLT casino also didn't meet bidding procedures, Hoblock said, and should be rebid.

Even NYRA's own security consultants are concerned about the demolition contract.

According to a confidential report by SafirRosseti, the demolition firm hired to tear down part of Aqueduct -- Seasons Contracting -- was run by a man the New York District Attorney's Office charged with fraud in 1995 for allegedly working with two reputed mob family members to set up bogus minority business enterprises to win public contracts.

The district attorney's office could provide no information about the case Friday.

"Part of the issue here is whether NYRA is required to dot the i's and cross the t's or whether they only need to be in substantial compliance of all the laws and rules affecting them," said Bennett Liebman, a former Racing & Wagering Board commissioner now specializing in racing law at Albany Law School.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Eastern District, refused clarification and did not know if NYRA is current in its fine payments.

"We're studying the situation," he said.

A legal expert experienced with criminal prosecutions and with NYRA's predicament said the U.S. Attorney could bring a civil suit against NYRA -- alleging civil racketeering or fraud -- as a way to extend the monitorship beyond July 1.

Adding to the legal woes, NYRA's finances are in deep trouble.

NYRA officials say the association lost $10 million last year and is bound for losses this year.

NYRA also owes the account to pay purses for horse owners more than $8 million -- money that came from simulcast revenues and was supposed to be shared, according to Alan Foreman, a lawyer for the horse owners' association.

He said the state ordered the purse account problem to be settled, but NYRA said it would set a plan after the Belmont Stakes, which was run June 11.

Comptroller Alan Hevesi says NYRA calculated expenses inappropriately and shorted the state up to $15.3 million for two years.

And a new audit report expected soon will likely reveal up to $25 million more is owed, a source familiar with NYRA finances said.

Plus, NYRA owes $4.5 million in pension payments, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

The federal government attached liens to the three NYRA-run tracks last month because of the deficiency.

While meeting these obligations, NYRA also must continue making $500,000 payments to the federal government every six months to pay off its fines.

NYRA projects some of its liabilities can be met after its VLT parlor opens, although it will have to pay off MGM's $170 million loan to build the casino.

NYRA spokesman William Nader said the MGM contract was signed without the scrutiny of NYRA's new procurement officer, Michael Lagamma, hired to make sure NYRA complies with bidding requirements.

He would not say why the contract was not first cleared by Lagamma.

He said the MGM deal was agreed to three years ago, according to "the company's interpretation of the racing law at that point in time."

He would not say if the bidding procedure, in which NYRA did not advertise for bids, conforms with NYRA's current view of right and wrong.

NYRA Chief Executive Charles Hayward also wouldn't discuss the matter, except to say the procurement officer didn't examine the MGM deal because "it would seem immaterial to look at finished business," even though the contract wasn't signed until last week.

At a state Senate hearing last month, Hayward professed that NYRA is committed to best business practices and transparency.

He also told lawmakers he is optimistic that the association will be set free from the threat of prosecution.

"We have every expectation that NYRA will be successful in completing the deferred prosecution and that the indictment will be dismissed," he said.

On Friday, Hayward declined to say whether NYRA violated or honored the deferred prosecution agreement.

"Whether we fulfilled all the elements of the deferred prosecution agreement are (sic) going to be determined by the monitor, the U.S. Attorney and the judge," he said.

end quotes

I have to wonder, whether, outside of the LOOTERS, we have anyone else in BID-NESS up here, at all, and without the LOOTERS, would we even have an economy in this state?

"In New York State, corporate crime is OUR most important product!"