"Religious Leaders Urge Congress to declare that U.S. occupation of Iraq won't go on forever."

Three religious leaders asked Congress to declare officially that the U.S. occupation will end.

"Such a declaration requires no timetable," the leaders declared in an op-ed piece sent to U.S. media.

"It simply establishes that the official policy of our nation is to eventually depart from Iraq."

The authors of the statement were Bob Edgar, National Council of Churches (NCC) General Secretary, Joe Volk, Executive Director, Friends Committee on National Legislation, and Jim Winkler, General Secretary, Board of Church and Society, United Methodist Church.

The U.S. must not abandon the Iraqi people, the leaders said.

But "the United States military has been occupying Iraq and effectively controlling the political situation for more than two years."

"In May the Congress voted final approval for tens of billions of dollars to fund the Iraq war and occupation."

"Military leaders tell us that U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for years to come."

"We believe there is a way to change this dynamic, to shift the discussion from troop strength and weapons to how the U.S. may responsibly withdraw."

"It is of the utmost importance for the U.S. Congress to make this official."

"A declaration would ease growing concerns about U.S. imperial ambitions in the region and fears that the U.S. desires to secure the region's oil fields against the growing energy appetites of China and India," the op-ed piece declares.

"Wouldn't it be better to pursue new U.S. energy policies to liberate us from dependence on Middle East oil?"

"Wouldn't it be more responsible of us to protect our grandchildren from a big power war later this century rather than begin now to prepare them to fight that war over declining reserves of fossil fuel?"

"Let's ask Congress to set U.S. policy in the direction of energy independence and the prevention of the next big power war."

"Let's make it possible for our grandchildren and the world's grandchildren to live in peace, unafraid."

For the full text of the op-ed piece and NCC press release go to: http://www.ncccusa.org/news/050609Iraqwillend.html

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r109...xjkEZ3:e399267:

AMENDMENT NO. 38 OFFERED BY REPRESENTATIVE LLEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R-FL. 18TH)

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

SEC. 1111. UNITED STATES COMMITMENT TO IRAQ.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:

(1) The men and women of the United States Armed Forces fighting in Iraq are serving with bravery, distinction, and high morale.

(2) The men and women of the United States Armed Forces fighting in Iraq need and deserve the full support of the American people.

(3) The men and women of the United States Armed Forces fighting in Iraq are part of a large, multinational coalition, and are serving side-by-side with Iraqi national forces who have been trained by that coalition.

(4) Coalition and Iraqi forces, Iraqi civilians, foreign diplomats, and individuals from around the world who have come to the aid of the Iraqi people are under attack from terrorists who deliberately attack children, worshippers, and law enforcement figures, attack civilians at random, sabotage essential services, and otherwise attempt to terrorize the Iraqi people, the American people, and the citizens of other coalition countries.

(5) The terrorists will be emboldened to "wait out'' the United States if a target date for withdrawal is established and announced, especially if the terrorists perceive such withdrawal date has been established and announced as a result of their terrorist campaign against the coalition and the Iraqi people.

(b) Sense of Congress.-- It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) given the nature of the adversary the United States and its coalition partners face in Iraq and the difficult conditions under which the United States Armed Forces, coalition forces, and Iraqi forces find themselves, calls for an early withdrawal of United States and coalition forces are counterproductive to security aims of the United States and the hopes of the Iraqi people; and

(2) such calls for an early withdrawal embolden the terrorists and undermine the morale of the United States Armed Forces, coalition forces, and Iraqi forces, and put their security at risk.

© Policy.--It shall be the policy of the United States--

(1) to pursue a transfer of responsibility for Iraqi security to Iraqi forces; and

(2) not to withdraw prematurely the United States Armed Forces from Iraq, but to do so only when it is clear that United States national security and foreign policy goals relating to a free and stable Iraq have been or are about to be achieved.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 365 , the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) and a Member opposed each will control 30 minutes.

The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen).

Mr. Chairman, I did not arrive at the decision to offer this amendment lightly.

I discussed it with former staffers and current interns who have served recently in both civilian and military capacities in Iraq.

I discussed the situation with my husband, Dexter, a decorated Vietnam veteran who was wounded in combat and awarded a Purple Heart.

But it was my talks with my stepson Dougie, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, who is being deployed to Iraq in just 1 week, that had the most profound effect.

He helped me to fully comprehend the importance of our mission in Iraq and the impact of what we say here and do here with the impact it has at home and on our Armed Forces serving abroad.

[Page: H6156] GPO's PDF

Mr. Chairman, our mission is just.

It has far-reaching strategic and political ramifications.

It is helping to further U.S. security and foreign policy goals throughout the region.

For these reasons, and most importantly for my stepson, Dougie Lehtinen, his fiance, Lindsay Nelson, who is also a Marine officer who will ship out to Iraq also in a week, and to all of the members in our proud U.S. Armed Forces serving in Iraq, I am offering this amendment and I ask my colleagues to render their full support for it.

(For a breakdown of all this legislation that would benefit our troops "fighting and dying" in Iraq and Afghanistan which THIS CONGRESSWOMEN DOES NOT SUPPORT go to: http://capwiz.com/moaa/bio/sponsortrack/?id=180 and just click on the blue highlighted bill.)

Ros-Lehtinen goes on to say, "Iraq is one of the epicenters of the U.S. comprehensive strategy to fight terrorism worldwide."

"Our ability to project major armed forces to the very heart of the Middle East provides the United States and our allies in the war against terrorism the wherewithal to directly address the tactical and the ideological challenges of Islamic extremism."

"Our presence in Iraq further strengthens our leverage against current and emerging threats and it increases the deterrent value of U.S. power."

"Finally, through the promotion of incipient Iraqi democracy, we can continue our concerted efforts to counter root causes of Islamic extremist and terrorism in the region."

"The terrorists are fighting for their survival because freedom threatens them."

"Democratic governments deny terrorists the weapons, the funds and sanctuary they need in order to survive."

"Democracy denies them new recruits."

"The continuing presence of U.S. and coalition forces must be determined by the achievements of concrete objectives, not by arbitrary dates on the calendar."

"Some may argue that my amendment sets the threshold too high by stating that 'calls for an early withdrawal are counterproductive to security aims of the United States and to the hopes of the Iraqi people'.''

"However, as we have repeatedly argued in this Chamber, words matter."

"What we say here to condemn human rights violations, incitement and anti-semitism or expressing support for pro-democracy advocates throughout the world has a tremendous positive impact."

"In stark contrast, incessant calls for an established date for withdrawal from Iraq has a negative effect."

"They diminish the morale of the troops and serve to embolden the enemy."

"Do we want to send a message to the terrorists that their war of attrition is succeeding, that their commitment to violence, to hatred, and to terror is greater than our commitment to a democratic Iraq, to spreading freedom and fighting tyranny?"

"The amendment before us seeks to restate our commitment to the successful completion of our mission in Iraq."

"It establishes as U.S. policy the pursuit of transfer of responsibility for security to Iraqi forces, but cautions against withdrawing prematurely, calling for withdrawal to take place when U.S. national security and foreign policy goals relating to Iraq have been or are about to be achieved."

"Is this asking too much?

"Let us not waver on our commitment to our mission in Iraq."

"The Iraqi people have not wavered."

"Our men and women in uniform are not wavering."

"In fact, this weekend we saw newspaper stories reporting that soldiers are reenlisting at rates ahead of the Army's targets."

"Army officials say this is due in part to a renewed sense of purpose in fighting terrorism."

"Let us demonstrate to our forces that just as our Nation stood behind the greatest generation during World War II as they fought against tyranny, so too do we stand behind our forces in Iraq, a new great generation of heroes whose actions will not only help to make the world safer, but will alter the political landscape towards the irreversible path of freedom and democracy."

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r109...xjkEZ3:e399267:

I would say that what we DO ABROAD through OUR military forces has the greatest impact, however, because if a handful of rag-tags has fought George W. Bush's militray to a standstill, THEY are going to be the very first to know it, and so, spouting drivel back here about "lights at the end of the tunnel" and all that happy HORSE **** about our "brave" young "heroes" in Iraq is not going to do one bit of good for OUR American cause, when the world watching no longer believes it to be so, that OUR alleged and supposed coalition with Togo and Swaziland can beat these 200 or 300 rag-tags arrayed against us, over in Iraq, since over the last year or better, we have been unable to get the job done, by all appearances, over there in Iraq, and that brings me to a question of CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY for OUR troops in Iraq, and who does that really fall to, pursuant to OUR Constitutional scheme of things at the Federal level, here in OUR America.

This following from the Annotations to Article I of the United States Constitution should be informative on that subject:

THE POWER TO RAISE AND MAINTAIN ARMED FORCES

Purpose of Specific Grants

The clauses of the Constitution, which give Congress authority to raise and support armies, and so forth, were not inserted to endow the national government rather than the States with the power to do these things but to designate the department of the Federal Government, which would exercise the powers.

As we have noted above, the English king was endowed with the power not only to initiate war but the power to raise and maintain armies and navies.

Aware historically that these powers had been utilized to the detriment of the liberties and well-being of Englishmen and aware that in the English Declaration of Rights of 1688 it was insisted that standing armies could not be maintained without the consent of Parliament, the Framers vested these basic powers in Congress.

Care of the Armed Forces

Scope of the congressional and executive authority to prescribe the rules for the governance of the military is broad and subject to great deference by the judiciary.

The Court recognizes ''that the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society,'' that ''[t]he military constitutes a specialized community governed by a separate discipline from that of the civilian,'' and that ''Congress is permitted to legislate both with greater breadth and with greater flexibility when prescribing the rules by which [military society] shall be governed than it is when prescribing rules for [civilian society].''

Denying that Congress or military authorities are free to disregard the Constitution when acting in this area, the Court nonetheless operates with ''a healthy deference to legislative and executive judgments'' with respect to military affairs, so that, while constitutional guarantees apply, ''the different character of the military community and of the military mission requires a different application of those protections.''

In reliance upon this deference to congressional judgment with respect to the roles of the sexes in combat and the necessities of military mobilization, coupled with express congressional consideration of the precise questions, the Court sustained as constitutional the legislative judgment to provide only for registration of males for possible future conscription.

Emphasizing the unique, separate status of the military, the necessity to indoctrinate men in obedience and discipline, the tradition of military neutrality in political affairs, and the need to protect troop morale, the Court upheld the validity of military post regulations, backed by congressional enactments, banning speeches and demonstrations of a partisan political nature and the distribution of literature without prior approval of post headquarters, with the commander authorized to keep out only those materials that would clearly endanger the loyalty, discipline, or morale of troops on the base.

On the same basis, the Court rejected challenges on constitutional and statutory grounds to military regulations requiring servicemen to obtain approval from their commanders before circulating petitions on base, in the context of circulations of petitions for presentation to Congress.

And the statements of a military officer urging disobedience to certain orders could be punished under provisions that would have been of questionable validity in a civilian context.

Reciting the considerations previously detailed, the Court has refused to allow enlisted men and officers to sue to challenge or set aside military decisions and actions.

Congress has a plenary and exclusive power to determine the age at which a soldier or seaman shall be received, the compensation he shall be allowed and the service to which he shall be assigned.

This power may be exerted to supersede parents' control of minor sons who are needed for military service.

Where the statute requiring the consent of parents for enlistment of a minor son did not permit such consent to be qualified, their attempt to impose a condition that the son carry war risk insurance for the benefit of his mother was not binding on the Government.

Since the possession of government insurance payable to the person of his choice is calculated to enhance the morale of the serviceman, Congress may permit him to designate any beneficiary he desires, irrespective of state law, and may exempt the proceeds from the claims of creditors.

Likewise, Congress may bar a State from taxing the tangible, personal property of a soldier, assigned for duty therein, but domiciled elsewhere.

To safeguard the health and welfare of the armed forces, Congress may authorize the suppression of bordellos in the vicinity of the places where forces are stationed.

United States Supreme Court in Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 743-752 (1974).

This Court has long recognized that the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society.

We have also recognized that the military has, again by necessity, developed laws and traditions of its own during its long history.

The differences between the military and civilian communities result from the fact that "it is the primary business of armies and navies to fight or be ready to fight wars should the occasion arise." United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11, 17 (1955).

In In re Grimley, 137 U.S. 147, 153 (1890), the Court observed: [417 U.S. 733, 744] "An army is not a deliberative body."

"It is the executive arm."

"Its law is that of obedience."

"No question can be left open as to the right to command in the officer, or the duty of obedience in the soldier."

More recently we noted that "[t]he military constitutes a specialized community governed by a separate discipline from that of the civilian," Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83, 94 (1953), and that "the rights of men in the armed forces must perforce be conditioned to meet certain overriding demands of discipline and duty . . . ." Burns v. Wilson, 346 U.S. 137, 140 (1953) (plurality opinion).

We have also recognized that a military officer holds a particular position of responsibility and command in the Armed Forces:

"The President's commission . . . recites that 'reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity and abilities' of the appointee he is named to the specified rank during the pleasure of the President." Orloff v. Willoughby, supra, at 91.

U.S. Supreme Court
CHAPPELL v. WALLACE, 462 U.S. 296 (1983)

No. 82-167.

Argued April 26, 1983
Decided June 13, 1983

Held:

Enlisted military personnel may not maintain a suit to recover damages from a superior officer for alleged constitutional violations.

The special status of the military has required, the Constitution has contemplated, Congress has created, and this Court has long recognized two systems of justice: one for civilians and one for military personnel.

The need for unhesitating and decisive action by military officers and equally disciplined responses by enlisted personnel would be undermined by a judicially created remedy exposing officers to personal liability at the hands of those they are charged to command.

Moreover, Congress, the constitutionally authorized source of authority over the military system of justice, has not provided a damages remedy for claims by military personnel that constitutional rights have been violated by superior officers.

Any action to provide a judicial response by way of such a remedy would be inconsistent with Congress' authority.

Taken together, the unique disciplinary structure of the military establishment and Congress' activity in the field constitute "special factors" which dictate that it would be inappropriate to provide enlisted military personnel a Bivens-type remedy against their superior officers. Pp. 298-305.

U.S. Supreme Court
PARKER v. LEVY, 417 U.S. 733 (1974)

Perhaps because of the broader sweep of the Uniform Code, the military makes an effort to advise its personnel of the contents of the Uniform Code, rather than depending on the ancient doctrine that everyone is presumed to know the law.

Article 137 of the Uniform Code, 10 U.S.C. 937, requires that the provisions of the Code be "carefully explained to each enlisted member at the time of his entrance on active duty, or within six days thereafter" and that they be "explained again after he has completed six months of active duty . . . ."

Thus the numerically largest component of the services, the enlisted personnel, who might be expected to be a good deal less familiar with the Uniform Code than commissioned officers, are required by its terms [417 U.S. 733, 752] to receive instructions in its provisions.

Article 137 further provides that a complete text of the Code and of the regulations prescribed by the President "shall be made available to any person on active duty, upon his request, for his personal examination."

July 25, 2005

"The Best Army We Can Buy"

By DAVID M. KENNEDY, NY Times

THE United States now has a mercenary army.

To be sure, our soldiers are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries.

But like those Hessians, today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits - a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify.

Neither the idealism nor the patriotism of those who serve is in question here.

The profession of arms is a noble calling, and there is no shame in wage labor.

But the fact remains that the United States today has a military force that is extraordinarily lean and lethal, even while it is increasingly separated from the civil society on whose behalf it fights.

This is worrisome - for reasons that go well beyond unmet recruiting targets.

One troubling aspect is obvious.

By some reckonings, the Pentagon's budget is greater than the military expenditures of all other nations combined.

It buys an arsenal of precision weapons for highly trained troops who can lay down a coercive footprint in the world larger and more intimidating than anything history has known.

Our leaders tell us that our armed forces seek only just goals, and at the end of the day will be understood as exerting a benign influence.

Yet that perspective may not come so easily to those on the receiving end of that supposedly beneficent violence.

But the modern military's disjunction from American society is even more disturbing.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks through the American Revolutionary War and well into the 20th century, the obligation to bear arms and the privileges of citizenship have been intimately linked.

It was for the sake of that link between service and a full place in society that the founders were so invested in militias and so worried about standing armies, which Samuel Adams warned were "always dangerous to the liberties of the people."

Many African-Americans understood that link in the Civil War, and again in World Wars I and II, when they clamored for combat roles, which they saw as stepping stones to equal rights.

From Aristotle's Athens to Machiavelli's Florence to Thomas Jefferson's Virginia and Robert Gould Shaw's Boston and beyond, the tradition of the citizen-soldier has served the indispensable purposes of sustaining civic engagement, protecting individual liberty - and guaranteeing political accountability.

That tradition has now been all but abandoned.

A comparison with a prior generation's war illuminates the point.

In World War II, the United States put some 16 million men and women into uniform.

What's more, it mobilized the economic, social and psychological resources of the society down to the last factory, rail car, classroom and victory garden.

World War II was a "total war."

Waging it compelled the participation of all citizens and an enormous commitment of society's energies.

But thanks to something that policymakers and academic experts grandly call the "revolution in military affairs," which has wedded the newest electronic and information technologies to the destructive purposes of the second-oldest profession, we now have an active-duty military establishment that is, proportionate to population, about 4 percent of the size of the force that won World War II.

And today's military budget is about 4 percent of gross domestic product, as opposed to nearly 40 percent during World War II.

The implications are deeply unsettling: history's most potent military force can now be put into the field by a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so.

We can now wage war while putting at risk very few of our sons and daughters, none of whom is obliged to serve.

Modern warfare lays no significant burdens on the larger body of citizens in whose name war is being waged.

This is not a healthy situation.

It is, among other things, a standing invitation to the kind of military adventurism that the founders correctly feared was the greatest danger of standing armies - a danger made manifest in their day by the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Jefferson described as having "transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm."

Some will find it offensive to call today's armed forces a "mercenary army," but our troops are emphatically not the kind of citizen-soldiers that we fielded two generations ago - drawn from all ranks of society without respect to background or privilege or education, and mobilized on such a scale that civilian society's deep and durable consent to the resort to arms was absolutely necessary.

Leaving questions of equity aside, it cannot be wise for a democracy to let such an important function grow so far removed from popular participation and accountability.

It makes some supremely important things too easy - like dealing out death and destruction to others, and seeking military solutions on the assumption they will be swifter and more cheaply bought than what could be accomplished by the more vexatious business of diplomacy.

The life of a robust democratic society should be strenuous; it should make demands on its citizens when they are asked to engage with issues of life and death.

The "revolution in military affairs" has made obsolete the kind of huge army that fought World War II, but a universal duty to service - perhaps in the form of a lottery, or of compulsory national service with military duty as one option among several - would at least ensure that the civilian and military sectors do not become dangerously separate spheres.

War is too important to be left either to the generals or the politicians.

It must be the people's business.

David M. Kennedy, a professor of history at Stanford and the author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945," is working on a book about the American national character.

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion."

"Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people."

"It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

--John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President

Source: Oct. 11, 1798; Address to the military

"China plays down chance of further revaluation"

By Mure Dickie in Beijing

Tue Jul 26, 7:00 AM ET

China's central bank has moved to cool expectations of further revaluation of the renminbi, insisting that last week's 2.1 per cent increase against the dollar had been calculated to leave the currency at a "reasonable and balanced" level.

In a "solemn declaration" that appeared to reflect worries about a possible resurgence of speculative capital inflows, the People's Bank of China said the revaluation and simultaneous scrapping of the dollar peg were initial moves in the reform of its currency regime.

"This certainly does not mean that the 2 per cent adjustment of the renminbi is a first step that will be followed by further adjustment," the central bank said.

Many investors and analysts have seen last week's renminbi appreciation, which was much smaller than had been demanded by the US and other trading partners, as a mere prelude to a more substantial but gradual revaluation.

Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank governor, reinforced such expectations on Saturday with remarks to Chinese state television aimed at explaining the "core content" of the revaluation and rate regime reform.

"We have made an initial adjustment to the exchange rate level of 2 per cent," said Mr Zhou, who is widely believed to have pushed for a greater revaluation than was unveiled last week.

However, the central bank insisted that Mr Zhou had meant the revaluation was an initial step in reform of the exchange rate regime, not in changing the level of the renminbi.

The central bank statement adds considerable weight to comments by Chinese scholars who have warned against assumptions of further renminbi revaluation.

It will also cause concern in the US, where manufacturers have demanded a Chinese revaluation of up to 40 per cent to address what they say is the unfair trade advantage conveyed by an undervalued currency.

John Snow, US treasury secretary who has won credit for helping persuade Beijing to change its rate regime, is likely to face renewed pressure from congressional critics if the move is not followed by a more significant revaluation soon.

The central bank said the scale of Thursday's revaluation had been calculated "in accordance with a reasonable and balanced exchange rate".

The scale had been decided mainly by China's trade surplus and need for structural adjustment and with reference to the impact on domestic companies, and it "basically comes close to achieving general balance in commodities and services", the bank said.

However, the statement alone is unlikely to end expectations of further renminbi appreciation.

In Singapore, one-year non-deliverable dollar forwards (NDFs) were on Tuesday traded at levels implying a further rise in the Chinese currency against the US dollar, from its post-revaluation Rmb8.11 level to Rmb7.735 in a year's time.

On China's central bank-dominated foreign exchange market, the renminbi ended slightly weaker at Rmb8.1099 to the dollar, down from Monday's close of Rmb8.1097.

Some analysts have forecast renewed flows of speculative capital into China as individuals and companies seek ways to benefit from expected further revaluation.

"We continue to look for a total appreciation of the renminbi against the US dollar of 7 per cent by the end of 2005, and for a cumulative 15 per cent by the end of 2006," investment bank JP Morgan said in a research note.

Well, it's Wednesday morning, July 27, 2005, and the BIG NEWS up here this morning, THE REALLY BIG NEWS, is speculation that New York State Governor George Pataki won't run for another term of office, and so ....

Of course, that is speculation right now, based on what Pataki supposedly said last night at a private dinner for his "aides", but according to the news, Pataki has called a REALLY BIG PRESS CONFERENCE for noon today, and so, something will be coming out about something or other, or Pataki might do what he does at other news conferences and stand there like a deer caught in somebody's headlights, so, who knows?

And of course, the air itself is rife with speculation that this is a part of a plan by former WHIZ-KID and rising political star himself, New York State Republican "Boss" Stephen Minarik, who is said to be personally grooming present REPUBLICAN New York State Lt. Governor Mary O'Connor Donohue as part of his "TRIPLE HEADER", with her cast in the role of the next and first woman president of the United States of America, as the REPUBLICANS see it up here, or "TRIPLE THREAT" as the Democrats see it, at least according to REPUBLICAN WAGS up here, and, well, they should know, shouldn't they?

The REPUBLICAN "TRIPLE THREAT", of course, is intended to be a counter to a Democratic strategy to run Hillary Clinton as its first woman candidate for President of the United States, and the "TRIPLE THREAT", as it is called, is so, an alleged "triple threat" to the Democrats because not only does it have a woman running for president as a REPUBLICAN, that being Mary Donohue, but also has Kathleen Jimino, the present Rensselaer County Executive running as Vice-President, in a Dick Cheney-esque mode, and Rensselaer County District Attorney Patricia "Trish" DeAngelis as Attorney General, for what Minarik is said to believe is a slam-dunk irresistable triple-header for the American public to fall in love with, at first sight, and so ......

Pataki is said to be gracefully exiting the center stage, in the best interests of the PARTY, of course, which always must come first - MY PARTY, MY POLITICAL FRIENDS, MY FAMILY, MY COUNTRY!

SO!

Stay tuned!

"Judge's robes an ill fit for district attorney? - Patricia DeAngelis' star has risen quickly, but some question her pursuit of justice"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, July 26, 2005

TROY -- Patricia DeAngelis' courtroom career began when she was a little girl, banging her father's gavel in his Bethlehem Town Court and sentencing pretend criminals to prison.

Two years ago, at age 34, she abruptly became Rensselaer County's acting district attorney when her former boss, Kenneth R. Bruno, resigned to make more money as a lobbyist.

Now, the young district attorney is being handpicked once again.

Republican sources privately say that DeAngelis has been chosen as the dominant party's candidate for a new Rensselaer County judgeship authorized by the state Legislature last month.

The new judge will begin a 10-year term in January with the same $119,800 salary as the district attorney.

However, just as privately, dozens of people in the local legal community are questioning whether DeAngelis is cut out to wear a black robe.

They cite what they call a tendency for overzealous prosecution.

They question her honesty.

DeAngelis has a checkered history for a lawyer: Three reversals, one citing prosecutorial misconduct, in two years; an admonishment for prosecutorial misconduct before a grand jury in 1998; and, recently, a confidential letter of caution from the court system's Committee on Professional Standards for inappropriate behavior in the courtroom.

For weeks, DeAngelis has refused to answer questions or be interviewed for this story.

Last week, the would-be judicial candidate refused to respond to written questions provided by the Times Union.

E. Stewart Jones, a prominent Capital Region defense lawyer and a Republican with a Troy law practice, was one of the few attorneys willing to express a view for the record.

"That office has enormous power and justice is the obligation, but that responsibility has eluded her," Jones said.

"She does not have a balanced view of the role of the DA's office in a high-profile case."

"There is a lack of mature judgment."

He added, "She is vindictive and retributive and sees herself as an avenging angel."

"In an overly emotional state, she becomes reckless."

As a defense lawyer, Jones has criticized DeAngelis before.

He labeled as "barbaric" her 20-years-in-prison plea bargain for 16-year-old student Jon Romano, his client.

Romano was overtaken as he began firing a 12-gauge shotgun at Columbia High School in February 2004.

Months ago, Jones agreed to appeal -- for free -- one of DeAngelis' most controversial cases, the conviction of Troy boat salesman Jack Carroll, after he learned Carroll's family had spent $250,000 on other lawyers.

Carroll was first convicted in December 1997 for the rape and sexual abuse of his then-stepdaughter, but the state Court of Appeals dismissed the rape conviction and ordered a new trial for sexual abuse.

In their ruling, the state's top judges said DeAngelis had no evidence to prove rape.

They noted that she argued during the trial that Carroll never denied the charges and used witnesses to testify to that effect, after then-acting County Judge Richard E. Sise refused a defense request to play a taped telephone call where Carroll did just that.

Carroll was convicted of sexual abuse in January 2001 and is serving a 10- to 20-year sentence while appealing.

Relatives insist he is innocent.

Jones describes DeAngelis' actions in that case as being of "constitutional dimension."

"No one is ever held accountable in Rensselaer County for anything," said Troy attorney Michael Rourke, a Democrat who is running for a seat on the County Legislature.

"When you're a government attorney, your obligation is to justice, not to winning," Rourke said.

"The whole problem started with one district attorney who was inexperienced replaced by another district attorney who is inexperienced and there's no older lawyers around to give guidance."

County GOP Chairman Jack Casey, who also is a lawyer and the state Senate parliamentarian, did not return repeated calls for comment.

In April 2003, Ken Bruno elevated DeAngelis to a newly created $85,000-a-year position as deputy district attorney.

However, records of three annual county budgets since then indicate the position was never officially established in the county budget.

A Freedom of Information Law request from the Times Union seeking records about the position yielded only the forms Bruno penned to increase DeAngelis' salary.

The County Legislature, which normally approves new positions and lists them in budgets, never OK'd the deputy district attorney job.

No one ever offered any legislation seeking an approval, officials said.

By elevating DeAngelis, Bruno greatly lessened any chance his previous No. 2 lawyer, Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Loughran, would be chosen as his successor when Bruno resigned in June 2003.

At the time, Loughran, a major in the Army Reserve and 22-year service veteran, was deployed to Washington, D.C., with military intelligence.

A public affairs officer at the Reserve's Alexandria, Va., office said it's possible Loughran was deprived of a job opportunity.

The federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act of 1994 says soldiers on active duty must be restored to the status they would have achieved had they not been serving their country, Maj. Rob Palmer said.

"The burden of proof is on the employer that discrimination was not a motivating factor," he said.

"Suppose a position was created purely for patronage purposes, and this guy's being a Reservist played a role in the job not going to him -- that would be considered a motivating factor."

Loughran, now an assistant district attorney in Broome County, never made a complaint that might have triggered a federal investigation.

He declined a Times Union request for comment.

Another former employee is preparing to drag DeAngelis into civil court, alleging she was wrongfully fired for challenging DeAngelis' misdeeds.

Jennifer Sober, a former colleague and confidant of DeAngelis, was forcibly escorted from the courthouse last November.

Sober has filed a notice of her intent to sue.

She claims DeAngelis told her she made a deal with GOP officials to become district attorney in the middle of Ken Bruno's term because Bruno had to leave.

"The sum and substance was that Ms. DeAngelis told Jen there was a crisis having to do with Ken Bruno," Cheryl Coleman, Sober's attorney, said last week.

DeAngelis told Sober "that she had to become DA right away," Coleman said.

"And to do that, she had to make an agreement."

"The words Jen remembers Trish saying were, 'It can't wait'."

"Ken has to leave right now'," Coleman said.

What was Bruno's crisis?

It's unclear whether Sober knows firsthand.

Bruno's lawyer, Michael Assaf, vigorously denied his client was ever in trouble or in crisis.

"Any suggestion, statement or implication of improper, unethical or illegal conduct on the part of Mr. Bruno with regard to the appointment of Patricia DeAngelis to succeed him as Rensselaer County DA has no basis in fact and publication of any statement declaring or implying the same would be false and defamatory," Assaf said, in response to written questions Bruno demanded from the Times Union.

When Ken Bruno resigned, Gov. George Pataki quickly appointed DeAngelis acting district attorney, praising her as "highly qualified."

Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, Ken Bruno's father, described the then-seven-year prosecutor as "outstanding" with an "impressive" record of experience in criminal justice.

She was easily elected to a four-year term in November 2003.

However, among the cases DeAngelis has been slapped for mishandling was a 1998 prosecution of an Albany police officer accused of assault in a domestic altercation.

Rensselaer County Judge Patrick J. McGrath, a Democrat, until now Rensselaer's only county judge, eventually dismissed all charges against the officer, Thomas Winant.

McGrath wrote a scathing decision stating DeAngelis' behavior before the grand jury was tainted by her prompting witness testimony, allowing improper hearsay evidence and making comments when testimony didn't measure up to her expectations.

In the last 18 months, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court has reversed two of DeAngelis' convictions and another two achieved by prosecutors in her office.

Among those cases was Thomas Levandowski, a former Cambridge, Washington County, police chief who was convicted of rape in October 2002 and sentenced to 50 years behind bars.

On June 24, 2004, citing "prosecutorial misconduct," the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Levandowski, who later took a plea deal for time served on top of up to 12 years in a related matter.

"Defendant contends that the prosecutor's misconduct during the course of the trial was so pervasive as to deprive defendant of a fair trial," the judges said.

"We agree."

Then there is the case of Robert Gorghan, a Petersburgh man accused of rape and sex abuse whom DeAngelis succeeded in convicting in June 2001.

He was serving up to 25 years in state prison when appellate judges reversed his conviction, criticizing DeAngelis for "straying beyond the bounds of permissible conduct."

The higher court found that DeAngelis, while discussing the "force" used during the rape, improperly led jurors to think an unlicensed gun seized at the defendant's home years later might have been used in the crime.

The appeals court called it "an improper attempt to create an inference."

Earlier this year, the local Committee on Professional Standards, which polices lawyers, placed a letter of caution in DeAngelis' file.

Neither DeAngelis nor the panel would discuss that disciplinary action, which stays confidential unless the panel's sanction rises to the level of a censure or suspension.

Meanwhile, 10 out of 15 lawyers have left the Rensselaer County district attorney's office over the last two years.

Last week, both DeAngelis' former chief assistant, Joel Abelove, and her spokeswoman, Kitty Carley, resigned.

DeAngelis has taken her critics in stride.

After each reversal, she said she accepted the court's decision, but would continue efforts to tirelessly pursue justice for innocent crime victims.

DeAngelis' father, retired Bethlehem Town Justice Donald DeAngelis, had spoken about his daughter's spirit when she took her oath as district attorney in July 2003.

Remembering visits to Town Court, where the future prosecutor and her siblings would take turns sitting at their father's bench, the old judge recalled: "They'd bang the gavel and sentence each other to 100 years in jail."

The judge said he had no idea then DeAngelis was showing an interest in the law.

"I thought," he said, "she was more interested in the gum ball machine out in the hall."

And speaking of "PARTY", and POLITICAL FRIENDS, and "slime-jobs" and "smears" and of course, cover-ups, afterwards ......

"Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net - White House Effort To Discredit Critic Examined in Detail"

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; Page A01

The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.

Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004, the sources said.

It remains unclear whether Fitzgerald uncovered any wrongdoing in this or any other portion of his nearly 18-month investigation.

All that is known at this point are the names of some people he has interviewed, what questions he has asked and whom he has focused on.

Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003 to determine whether any government official knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a CIA employee to the media.

Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has said his wife's career was ruined in retaliation for his public criticism of Bush.

In a 2002 trip to Niger at the request of the CIA, Wilson found no evidence to support allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from that African country and reported back to the agency in February 2002.

But nearly a year later, Bush asserted in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, attributing it to British, not U.S., intelligence.

Fitzgerald has said in court that he had completed most of his investigation at a time when he was pressing for New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify about any conversations she had with a specific administration official about Plame during the week before Plame's identity was revealed.

Miller, who never wrote a story about the matter, is in jail for refusing to comply with a court order to testify.

Court records show Fitzgerald is seeking information about communications she had with the Bush official between July 6 and July 13, 2003, when the White House was attempting to discredit Wilson and his allegations.

Fitzgerald appears to believe that Miller's conversations may help him get to the bottom of the leak and the damage-control campaign undertaken by senior Bush officials that week.

Using background conversations with at least three journalists and other means, Bush officials attacked Wilson's credibility.

They said that his 2002 trip to Niger was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, but CIA officials say that is incorrect.

One reason for the confusion about Plame's role is that she had arranged a trip for him to Niger three years earlier on an unrelated matter, CIA officials told The Washington Post.

Miller's role remains one of many mysteries in the leak probe.

It is unclear whom, if anyone, she spoke to about Plame, and why she emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a story about the case.

Also murky is the role of Novak, who first publicly identified Plame in a syndicated column published July 14, 2003.

Lawyers have confirmed that Novak discussed Plame with White House senior adviser Karl Rove four or more days before the column identifying her ran.

But the identity of another "administration" source cited in the column is still unknown.

Rove's attorney has said Rove did not identify Plame to Novak.

In a strange twist in the investigation, the grand jury -- acting on a tip from Wilson -- has questioned a person who approached Novak on Pennsylvania Avenue on July 8, 2003, six days before his column appeared in The Post and other publications, Wilson said in an interview.

The person, whom Wilson declined to identify to The Post, asked Novak about the "yellow cake" uranium matter and then about Wilson, Wilson said.

He first revealed that conversation in a book he wrote last year.

In the book, he said that he tried to reach Novak on July 8, and that they finally connected on July 10.

In that conversation, Wilson said that he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source."

Novak told the person that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as a specialist in weapons of mass destruction and had arranged her husband's trip to Niger, Wilson said.

Unknown to Novak, the person was a friend of Wilson and reported the conversation to him, Wilson said.

Novak and his attorney, James Hamilton, have declined to discuss the investigation, as has Fitzgerald.

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published.

He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative.

He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used.

But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official he spoke to "asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties' if she travels abroad."

"He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered."

"If he had, I would not have used her name."

Harlow was also involved in the larger internal administration battle over who would be held responsible for Bush using the disputed charge about the Iraq-Niger connection as part of the war argument.

Based on the questions they have been asked, people involved in the case believe that Fitzgerald looked into this bureaucratic fight because the effort to discredit Wilson was part of the larger campaign to distance Bush from the Niger controversy.

Wilson unleashed an attack on Bush's claim on July 6, 2003, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," in an interview in The Post and writing his own op-ed article in the New York Times, in which he accused the president of "twisting" intelligence.

Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for allowing the 16 words to remain in Bush's speech.

As part of this effort, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the 16 words, even though both knew the agency did not think Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

Tenet was interviewed by prosecutors, but it is not clear whether he appeared before the grand jury, a former CIA official said.

On July 9, Tenet and top aides began to draft a statement over two days that ultimately said it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have permitted the 16 words about uranium to remain in Bush's speech.

He said the information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed."

A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input.

Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said.

He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement.

The prosecutors have talked to State Department officials to determine what role a classified memo including two sentences about Plame's role in Wilson's Niger trip played in the damage-control campaign.

People familiar with this part of the probe provided new details about the memo, including that it was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage who requested it the day Wilson went public and asked that a copy be sent to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to take with him on a trip to Africa the next day.

Bush and several top aides were on that trip.

Carl W. Ford Jr., who was director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the time and who supervised the original production of the memo, has appeared before the grand jury, a former State Department official said.

"Iraq Wants Quick Withdrawal of U.S. Troops"

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

17 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's transitional prime minister called Wednesday for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops and the top U.S. commander here said he believed a "fairly substantial" pullout could begin next spring and summer.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said at a joint news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the time has arrived to plan a coordinated transition from American to Iraqi military control throughout the country.

Asked how soon a U.S. withdrawal should happen, he said no exact timetable had been set.

"But we confirm and we desire speed in that regard," he said, speaking through a translator.

"And this fast pace has two aspects."

First, there must be a quickening of the pace of U.S. training of Iraqi security forces, and second there must be closely coordinated planning between the U.S.-led military coalition and the emerging Iraq government on a security transition, he said.

"We do not want to be surprised by a withdrawal that is not in connection with our Iraqi timing,"' he said.

Speaking earlier with U.S. reporters traveling with Rumsfeld, Gen. George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, said he believed a U.S. troop withdrawal could begin by spring 2006 if progress continues on the political front and if the insurgency does not expand.

Rumsfeld was planning to get a firsthand look at the training of Iraqi security forces by watching a demonstration by a group of Iraqi special forces soldiers using live ammunition at a training range run by American troops.

U.S. officials describe a variety of security forces being developed.

Foremost is the Iraqi army, comprised mainly of infantry battalions, although there also are to be four tank battalions.

The army now has about 77,000 soldiers, and it is scheduled to expand to about 85,000 by December.

It includes "intervention forces," to lead the Iraqi effort against the insurgency.

There are now about 94,000 police, most for standard traffic and patrol work.

That is to grow to about 145,000 by December, and it includes "special police" commando battalions as well as a mechanized police brigade that will be a paramilitary, counterinsurgency unit intended to deploy to high-risk areas using light armored personnel carriers.

The organization in charge of training and equipping Iraqi security forces is the Multinational Security Transition Command, headed by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who last week was announced by the Pentagon as the next commander of the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

He is to be replaced in Iraq by Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who spent more than a year in Iraq as commander of the 1st Armored Division.

The effort to build a reliable Iraq security force has been slowed by a number of problems.

One that can be traced to the earliest days of the U.S. military occupation was the virtual disintegration of the Iraqi army that existed when American troops invaded in March 2003.

Some say this was made worse by the decision of L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq starting in May 2003, to formally disband the Iraqi security forces.

Another problem has been infiltration of the security forces by insurgents.

In its report to Congress last week, the Pentagon acknowledged that this remains a problem and it still is unable to say just how much infiltration there is, despite efforts to improve vetting of recruits.

Rumsfeld said en route to Iraq on Wednesday that Iraqi leaders must take a more aggressive stance against what he called harmful interference from neighboring Syria and Iran.

He said he would be pushing the Iraqis to provide more people who can be trained by U.S. personnel to handle the growing number of detainees in the country, now estimated to number at least 15,000.

With a permanent Iraqi government scheduled to take power in January, following adoption of a constitution and an election in December, they need trained prison guards "so that as soon as it is feasible we can transfer responsibility for Iraqi prisoners to the Iraqi government," he said.

Rumsfeld has often criticized Iran and Syria for meddling in Iraq's affairs.

In his remarks Wednesday, he put the main onus on Iraqi leaders to do more to fix the problem.

"They need to be aggressively communicating with their neighbors to see that foreign terrorists stop coming across those borders and that their neighbors do not harbor insurgents and finance insurgents," he said in an in-flight interview with reporters accompanying him from Tajikistan.

"Another Scorcher for the Eastern U.S."

By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press Writer

23 minutes ago

PHILADELPHIA - As a large swath of the United States suffered through another miserably hot day, several western states and parts of the Midwest began to feel the relief of a cold front pushing out what had been days of triple-digit temperatures.

But for the East, the cooler temperatures weren't expect to arrive until Thursday.

A blistering heat wave gave Philadelphia summer school students the equivalent of a snow day Tuesday as temperatures climbed into the upper 90s and so many homeowners cranked up their air conditioners that their power grid set a record.

That likely means another early dismissal Wednesday for Philadelphia students stuck in summer school classrooms, many without air conditioning, officials said.

The demand for cooling was evident at PJM Interconnection LLC, which coordinates the movement of electricity between 13 states ranging from Illinois to North Carolina.

The power grid reported setting a record Tuesday with a peak load of 135,000 megawatts — enough to power 108 million homes under normal conditions.

"It was 120 (degrees) in the direct sunlight," said Walt Arrison, a surveyor at the construction site who kept a small key chain thermometer in his pocket.

Already the heat has been blamed for deaths across the country, including 28 in the Phoenix area alone, most of them homeless people.

At least four deaths have been blamed on the heat in Missouri, including a woman found Sunday in a home without air conditioning.

Two young children left in hot cars died in Oklahoma.

A 29-year-old hiker died Monday in Kentucky.

And a 48-year-old woman was found dead Tuesday in her non-air-conditioned apartment in Cincinnati.

Oppressive heat also posed health risks for animals.

Heat is being blamed for at least 1,200 cattle deaths in Nebraska.

At the Louisville Zoo, caretakers were creating shade and putting large chunks of ice out for the animals to lick, said Zoo Media Development Coordinator Diana DeVaughn.

"The other animals outside are relatively used to the heat," DeVaughn said.

"The elephants can completely submerge."

"The polar bears have water that's cooled down to 55 degrees."

"If they're hot, they can go swim."

"It's 9 feet deep."

Most humans weren't so lucky.

UPS delivery man Bryan Thompson, 37, of Baltimore, said he wasn't bother to monitor the weather forecasts because there's not much he can do about it.

"I don't need to know the heat index, the humidity and all that," he said.

"I just know it's going to be hot."
___

Associated Press writers Brett Barrouquere in Louisville, Ky., John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Taunya English in Baltimore contributed to this report.

I wish the US Congress had the wisdom and the fortitude to deal with this:


--------------------
Operation Coverup
--------------------


July 27 2005

Scandals metastasize. That is the pattern since Watergate. What starts out looking like a small, isolated incident gradually reveals itself to be part of a larger abuse of power. Meanwhile, an unraveling coverup adds new elements. Is that happening now with the scandal over White House leaks of the identity of a CIA agent?

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-...ll=la-home-oped

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0528,sutton,65764,9.html

The Republican Culture Gap

In the end, because it was that way in the beginning, Snuffysmith, the US Congress IS US, the sum and substance of the American people, OR SUPPOSEDLY SO, anyway, and so, their failures are OURS, each and every one of us, even though there is damn little or nothing that any of us right now can do about it, other than by doing what we are trying to do in here, which is be as intelligent as we can be at any given moment as individuals, and by sharing knowledge, and raising important questions, such as you have done right above here, with this article.

In all my years, and I am almost sixty, I have never seen things in OUR America like they are today, where everything now is so blatant, and patently childish, as is this present incumbent's White House, where vindictiveness and mean-spiritedness and getting even are the watch words of the day, and if they have to destroy lives and careers to have it their way, so what?

That's it: SO "expletive deleted"ING WHAT?

At the time of this nation's founding, from my reading of the notes of the various players such as James Madison, who was at that time relatively young, and quite naive, I don't think many of those people at that time, outside of Patrick Henry, who practically predicted the rise of George W. Bush and his crowd; I don't think those people ever conceived that the America of today could even exist, where probably 99.8999 percent of the population don't even know where America is on the face of the earth, let alone what it is, and therefore, how to keep it that way, or lose it forever, as the Romans did, when Julius Caesar was openly murdered in the Roman Senate, and the Roman Republic went up in the smoke and flames of a full-scale civil war.

Back then, those who sat in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention were, by and large, men learned of ancient history, and thus, the whims and foibles of human nature were well known to them, and what they put into place really required that we, their posterity, would be similarly learned, and the truth is that we are not, and not by a long shot, especially those who are in Congress today, who do not seem to have the slightest idea of what constitutional government is, here in OUR America, or rule by law, and not by man, for that fact.

It is about POWER, now, Snuffysmith, raw power, and here is where OUR United States Constitution fails us common folks miserably, because OUR United States Constitution gives us no protection whatsoever from what we have, which is a takeover of OUR government from within, by domestic enemies of OUR United States Constitution!

As I said in another thread, these are indeed dangerous times, for us, here in OUR America!

And Snuffysmith, thanks for participating in this on-going dialogue in here, about LIFE in OUR America!

And now?

Well, it's official ......

George Pataki no longer enjoys the trust or confidence of the people of the State of New York, and so, it is past time for him to go, and I am glad that he has finally gotten that message!

"Pataki Says He Won't Run for Re-Election"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 57 minutes ago

ALBANY, N.Y. - Republican Gov. George Pataki said Wednesday he will not seek a fourth term next year.

"It's the right thing to do," he told The Associated Press during an interview in his state Capitol office.

He formally announced his intentions later at a news conference.

"We've done a lot together, and yet there is always more to do," he said.

"But there is one thing I've understood from my very first day in public office: That as elected officials we are only temporary stewards of the people's trust."

When asked about a possible presidential run, Pataki, 60, said "That's for down the road."

"I'm not ruling anything in or out, but my goal is to be the best governor I can be for the next year and a half."

Recent polls in New York had shown Pataki trailing state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, in a possible 2006 gubernatorial matchup and the governor's approval rating had slipped to an all-time low among New York voters earlier this year.

Pataki said he felt it was the "right time" to step aside.

Pataki brought down Democratic icon Mario Cuomo in 1994 and helped pull New York through the horror of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"We've been through very tough times since 2001 and now I can look at the future of the state with the confidence that you should have," he said.

Earlier, Pataki began calling other elected New York officials to give them the news.

The governor broke the news to more than two dozen current and former aides and advisers at a dinner Tuesday night at the Executive Mansion in Albany.

"I salute his years of work and dedication to the people of New York, and wish him and his family the best," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered a front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

The governor was to meet with top financial supporters, who could bankroll a presidential bid, in New York City on Wednesday night.

Pataki had been under pressure from some fellow Republicans and others to make a decision about his re-election intentions to give the party a chance to be competitive against the high-profile Spitzer.

Melding a liberal social agenda that included support for gay and abortion rights with a tax-cutting, tough-on-crime conservatism, Pataki easily won re-election in 1998 and 2002 in a state where there are 5 million Democrats and 3 million Republicans.

In 1999, Pataki flirted with a possible run for the GOP presidential nomination, but finding few takers he quickly threw his support to George W. Bush.

A year ahead of Bush at Yale University during their undergraduate years, Pataki was included on the Texas governor's short list of potential running mates in 2000.

Aides to Rudolph Giuliani, the marquee Republican of New York politics, have said the former New York City mayor is too busy with private business interests to run for governor.

Giuliani has been leading in national polls looking at the race for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, New York City's Republican mayor, said earlier this week he has no interest in the governorship.

Without Pataki, Giuliani or Bloomberg, the New York GOP may be scrambling for a competitive candidate.

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, who moved back to his native New York five years ago, has said he would seriously look at running if Pataki bowed out.

There has even been some talk of the party turning to billionaire B. Thomas Golisano, who has already run three losing races for governor as the candidate of the Independence Party.

And while we're on the subject of public officials here in OUR America who no longer merit or warrant the public's trust, in them .......

"US aims to sharply cut Iraq force within a year"

By Peter Graff

1 hour, 35 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States hopes to sharply reduce its forces in Iraq by the middle of next year if all goes according to plan, its top commander on the ground said on Wednesday.

But underscoring the challenges faced by the new Iraqi government, al Qaeda in Iraq said it had killed two Algerian envoys kidnapped last week in a spate of attacks that are driving diplomats out of Baghdad.

At a briefing with visiting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, General George Casey said he expected troop cuts after a referendum on a new constitution due in October and an election for a new leader in December.

"I do believe that if the political process continues to go positively, if the developments with the (Iraqi) security forces continue to go as it is going, I do believe we will still be able to make fairly substantial reductions after these elections -- in the spring and summer of next year," he said.

It appeared to be the first time since the insurgency worsened in April that top Pentagon officials have suggested a timeline for withdrawal.

Casey's remarks came as a new poll showed most Americans think the United States will lose the war in Iraq.

Early this year Casey made a similar prediction, but U.S. officials have avoided suggesting a timetable since violence worsened sharply after the new government took power in April.

Hours later a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a Baghdad hospital, killing at least five people and wounding 10, police sources said.

Although many Iraqis resent the presence of U.S. troops, they fear an escalation in suicide bombings, shootings and kidnappings, and possibly civil war, if the Americans pull out before Iraqi forces can stand up to the Sunni-led insurgency.

Algeria confirmed on Wednesday that its two envoys were dead, after a statement posted on a Web site often used by the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they had been killed.

"The hostage-takers have cowardly assassinated our two representatives in Baghdad, Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, thus carrying out their despicable threats despite all the appeals..." President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's office said.

The authenticity of the statement from al Qaeda in Iraq claiming responsibility could not be verified and it was not accompanied by a video.

Earlier this month, the group said it had kidnapped and killed Egyptian mission chief Ihab el-Sherif.

AMERICANS DUBIOUS ON WAR

President Bush said in a primetime speech last month he would withdraw American forces as soon as Iraqis were prepared to take over responsibility for security.

But he said it would be dangerous to announce a timetable.

A British government memo leaked this month said Washington had a plan to cut the foreign presence in Iraq from more than 170,000 troops to just 66,000 by mid 2006.

London confirmed the memo was genuine but said it reflected only one possible plan.

During a joint news conference with Rumsfeld, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari repeated Iraqi assertions that the Americans should start to leave as soon as Iraqis are ready.

But he said no one wanted to see a surprise pullout.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published in USA Today said 32 percent of respondents believed the United States could not win the war in Iraq.

Another 21 percent said it was possible the United States could win but they did not believe it would.

Just 43 percent said they were confident of victory.

The poll was the first to report a majority of Americans -- 51 percent -- believed the government deliberately misled the public about the presence of banned weapons in Iraq.

Still, most believed it was right to go to war to topple Saddam Hussein.

Rumsfeld, making his tenth trip to Iraq since the war began, urged Iraqis to finish drafting their constitution by an Aug. 15 deadline.

"We don't want any delays," Rumsfeld told reporters.

"Now's the time to get on with it."

The committee drafting the constitution resumed work on Tuesday after Sunni Arabs -- the 20 percent minority community -- ended a six-day boycott that began when one of their committee members was gunned down last week.

The committee's chairman, Humam Hamoudi, said on Wednesday committee members would meet on Aug. 1 to decide whether to ask for a six-month extension.

This would push back the entire process by six months, meaning elections currently pencilled in for the end of the year would not happen until mid-2006.

That would be a severe blow to Washington, which is keen to keep Iraq to a tight schedule in its transition to democracy.

Violence in Iraq continued on Wednesday unabated.

Three Iraqis were killed and 37 injured when a mortar round fell on Baghdad's main Allawi bus station.

Iraq's defense ministry said seven of its soldiers had died in an attack by gunmen on Tuesday at a water purification station north of Baghdad.

The U.S. army said four American soldiers were killed over the weekend by a roadside bomb.

South of Baghdad, Iraqi police commandos claimed a success, capturing an Egyptian allied to Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's number two, during a raid.

They said the detainee, Hamdi Tantawi, was responsible for funding attacks in the area.

Casey said the level of attacks mounted by insurgents had not increased substantially over the past year.

"I wouldn't say it's necessarily a stalemate," he said.

"Insurgencies need to progress to survive."

"And this insurgency is not progressing."

(Additional reporting by Sami Jumaili in Kerbala and Mussab al-Khairalla, Waleed Ibrahim, Michael Georgy and Luke Baker in Baghdad)

end quotes

I wonder if this Casey knows anything at all about American history and how long OUR insurgency lasted, without progress for a lot of that time, and some very serious set-backs throughout much of it, but Casey probably knows none of this, as it would make him into a General Shinseki, if he did, and generals like General Shinseki, who was not a boot-licking lapdog, or a toady, or a sycophant, are not at all popular with this present incumbent's adminstration, and especially its Secretary of Defense, Donald "The Gasman" Rumsfeld, and so ......

"Perish the thought - Rensselaer County District Attorney DeAngelis' record does not qualify her to become a judge"

EDITORIAL, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, July 28, 2005

Judge Patricia DeAngelis.

Say that out loud a couple of times and feel the disappointment swell.

Ms. DeAngelis, 34, and just two years into her job as Rensselaer County district attorney, is on the fast track to a 10-year term as a county judge.

That should put a chill down the spine of anyone living, working or even passing through Rensselaer County.

Most people expect judges to be successful lawyers who are chosen because of their wisdom, maturity and mental acuity.

We expect a certain gravitas that most often is gained only through age and experience.

Ms. DeAngelis would bring none of that to the bench.

As a county prosecutor, Ms. DeAngelis has been something of a loose cannon.

Three times in the past two years she has seen convictions reversed on appeal, once with the higher court scolding her for prosecutorial misconduct.

She's also been admonished for prosecutorial misconduct related to a grand jury proceeding in 1998, when she was an assistant DA, and has been hit with a formal letter of caution from the court system's Committee on Professional Standards for inappropriate courtroom antics.

She's tried to make her bones as a hard-as-nails prosecutor who's tough on crime, but that's not gone well.

In one high-profile case she threw compassion to the wind in demanding a 20-year prison sentence for a troubled teenager who clearly needed mental health treatment rather than incarceration.

Her many critics in the area's legal community tend to use words such as overzealous and inexperienced when asked about her.

Nor can she claim a great record as the administrator of a significant county department.

Of the 15 assistant district attorneys she inherited, only five remain with the office.

Happy partings were few, and one has a pending wrongful termination lawsuit.

So what makes Ms. DeAngelis a prime candidate for black robes and a $119,800-a-year salary?

Loyalty to the local political machine known as the Bruno family, and its subsidiary, the Rensselaer County Republican Party.

Ken Bruno, son of Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, was the DA when Ms. DeAngelis began her swift climb to the top.

In 2003, he handed her the prosecutor's job when he left mid-term to become a lobbyist.

Two years later, the Bruno organization appears ready to again favor Ms. DeAngelis with a tasty patronage plum.

Exactly why the Brunos think she deserves it remains unclear.

The only thing we know for sure is that she hasn't earned it as a fair broker of justice for the people.

And since we are on the subject of REPUBLICAN "politics" ......

"President's job gets harder when 10 senators want it"

By Susan Page, USA TODAY

Wed Jul 27, 6:42 AM ET

Add to President Bush's list of worries: the 2008 presidential race.

That's not because he'll be running; he can't.

Vice President Cheney insists he's not, either.

But the administration has been forced to keep the next campaign in mind because numerous contenders, many of them in the Senate, have presidential bids on their minds as they debate everything from the Iraq war to the Supreme Court.

It's hard to be president when everyone else wants your job.

The combination of the early start and the big field of candidates makes it more difficult for Bush to maintain discipline among Republicans on renewing the USA Patriot Act.

It has undermined efforts to forge alliances with Democrats on Social Security.

And it is one of several factors contributing to other predicaments Bush and his second-term agenda face on Capitol Hill: John Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador in limbo; the administration's Central American trade accord and immigration proposals in dispute; the military's treatment of detainees under fire.

Never before have so many members of Congress started so early in exploring potential presidential campaigns.

Ten months after the last election, at least five Republican senators and five Democratic ones have taken such preliminary steps as hiring advisers with national experience, traveling to the early-contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire and talking up their prospects with interest groups.

"It does complicate matters" for the president, says Nicholas Calio, who served as top White House liaison with Congress for both Bush and his father.

"When senators are thinking they're going to run for president, there's always an agenda working within an agenda, and that agenda isn't usually his."

Orrin Hatch, a five-term Senate veteran from Utah, agrees.

"I've seen a lot of senators get presidential fever, and when that happens, there's a look that comes over them," he says, adding that he tried to avoid the syndrome when he sought the GOP nomination in 2000.

"You have to change your mind-set for what is best for your future plans ... and sometimes that means, you know, looking like you're thinking only of yourself."

National ambitions can make Republicans more likely to put distance between themselves and the White House on troublesome issues, or to sidestep the chance to speak up in the president's defense.

Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a prospective Republican candidate, has become one of the most outspoken critics of the war in Iraq and the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, telling U.S. News & World Report that the White House was "completely disconnected from reality."

Arizona Sen. John McCain, another contender, split with the administration during the debate over energy legislation by pressing for tough limits on the greenhouse-gas emissions linked to global warming.

On Monday, with two other Republican senators, he proposed legislation to regulate the military's treatment of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo.

Cheney himself has gone to Capitol Hill to lobby against that measure.

And among Democrats with big plans, the incentives to cooperate with the Republican president evaporate as fast as a summer rain in an Iowa cornfield.

The partisan voters who participate in primaries are more likely to reward confrontation than collaboration.

That may be a factor in some Democrats' calculations on whether to vote to confirm Bush nominee John Roberts for the Supreme Court.

Consider the arithmetic: Three members of the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Supreme Court confirmation and the Patriot Act's renewal, are openly weighing presidential bids.

So are two members of the Finance Committee, which deals with Social Security.

Not to mention five members of the Foreign Relations Committee, where Iraq is debated.

White House dreams present one more tool - or one more hurdle - to lobbyists.

A group of conservative leaders in Iowa, including the Iowa Family Policy Center and the Christian Coalition of Iowa, sent an open letter Friday to senators who are also presidential hopefuls urging them to support a prompt up-or-down confirmation vote for Roberts.

"Our members will be watching," it said.

Politics and policy

When the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security began identifying Democrats last year who might be willing to support Bush's Social Security plan, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh were on the list.

The reasoning: Bayh's political centrism and Clinton's background on the fiscal squeeze that entitlement programs face.

But the two senators, along with just about every other Democratic officeholder, blasted Bush's plan from the start.

"I would have thought Hillary would be much more amenable than she has been," says Derrick Max, executive director of the business-backed group.

Her "aspirations" are one reason why she hasn't, he says.

Senators dispute the suggestion that presidential ambitions affect their stance on policy.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican hopeful, says "I haven't seen that" in his actions or others'.

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, who has announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination, dismisses the notion that his tough stance on Bolton has anything to do with his future plans.

"Not a factor," he says.

Which is not to say they don't have presidential ambitions.

And plenty of company.

In Columbus, Ohio, on Monday, in a sort of 2008 campaign kickoff, four Democratic presidential hopefuls addressed the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

Democrats can't allow themselves "to be split between left, right and center," Clinton declared to applause.

The Senate's field of potential Democratic candidates includes John Kerry of Massachusetts, who won the nomination but not the election in 2004; Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, whose politics have a populist tilt; Bayh, the moderate former governor of a red state; and Clinton, who leads in national polls.

Biden is the party's top voice in Congress on foreign policy.

The potential Republican field includes Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader and a noted heart surgeon, and George Allen of Virginia, a former governor and son of a Washington Redskins coaching legend.

McCain and Hagel are Vietnam vets and Senate mavericks.

Brownback hopes to build support among conservative Christians.

Who's missing?

The most obvious presidential contender says he won't run.

"Not only 'no,' but 'hell, no,' " Cheney told Fox News Sunday in February when asked about a possible campaign.

That decision - and those close to Cheney take him at his word - has intensified jockeying for 2008.

The race is wide open in both parties; for the first time since 1952, neither a sitting president nor vice president is running.

Bush is the first second-term president since Woodrow Wilson who doesn't have a vice president in the race.

Vice presidents typically provide a reliable defense for the boss.

In 1968, Hubert Humphrey backed President Johnson's Vietnam policy against rising protests until five weeks before the election - loyalty that may have cost him a close race.

In 1988, George Bush offered his candidacy as, in effect, a third term for the popular President Reagan.

In 2000, Al Gore declined to defend President Clinton's personal behavior but did tout the administration's policy achievements.

For the past half-century, every time an incumbent vice president has sought the nomination, he's won it.

His presence in the race can make other challengers in the party think twice before breaking ranks with the White House, because they may have to deal with the president's heir down the road.

"The absence of long-term retaliatory power is a big factor in making senators much bolder in defying the president," says Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist who has spent sabbaticals in recent years working as a Senate aide for Hagel and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

(Baker is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.)

"Even people who have been uncommonly loyal will become much more footloose in pursuit of a nomination and very often give the president the back of their hand."

The price of disloyalty

Cheney dismisses any concern about ambitious senators looking out for their own interests.

Asked at a National Press Club appearance last month if his decision not to run was creating any difficulties for Bush, Cheney replied:

"No."

Period.

What about the moves by so many senators to run?

Not a problem, he said, though he warned GOP contenders that it would be smart to show loyalty to Bush.

"My judgment would be that it will be important in terms of deciding who the nominee is likely to be next time around," he said.

"I think there'll be a big discussion about what their role was or their impact in terms of supporting the president's policies."

Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman agrees.

He notes that nine of 10 GOP voters give Bush high marks.

"For them, the first test of 2008 (hopefuls) is going to be what they did in 2005 and what they did in 2006" to help Bush.

Presidential ambitions sometimes do fuel shows of loyalty.

McCain, a bitter rival of Bush for the 2000 nomination, campaigned by his side in 2004.

Frist, seeking Bush's mantle, has argued the president's case on many issues.

And Hagel, who has worked with Democrats on other matters, didn't join the bipartisan coalition of senators that averted a showdown over the use of the filibuster on judicial nominations.

By demurring, he avoided the cascade of criticism that followed from such conservative groups as Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.

"I can't find another rationale for (Hagel's absence) other than keeping his presidential options open," says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.

For senators, presidential bids are examples of hope trumping history.

Four of the last five presidents were governors - able to offer experience as chief executives rather than legislators.

The fifth, the elder Bush, was vice president.

In contrast, only two sitting senators have ever been elected to the White House: Warren Harding in 1920 and John Kennedy in 1960.

That's not for lack of trying.

Since JFK, more than 30 senators have entered presidential primaries.

None made it to the Oval Office.

That doesn't count the current crop.

On any given day in the Senate, they are easy to spot.

Allen was the chief Republican sponsor of a resolution that the Senate passed last month apologizing for its failure to pass anti-lynching legislation.

That could help Allen defuse criticism - raised in a televised debate when he ran for the Senate in 2000 - for displaying a Confederate flag in his home and proclaiming Confederate History Month when he was governor.

Or consider ethanol, the corn-based fuel additive important in Iowa, where the opening presidential contest is held.

Kerry was one of only two senators from the Northeast to back ethanol's interests in the Senate debate on the energy bill.

Fifteen other senators from the region, including Clinton, voted against them.

"It's obvious that people with future aspirations factor those into their agenda, and it probably shows up in their voting," says Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat from corn-growing Nebraska who lobbied for ethanol.

"There's no question that people running for president who have to go through the Iowa caucuses would rather not have a conversion on the road to Des Moines."

Sen. John Sununu, a Republican, is accustomed to seeing would-be presidents in his home state of New Hampshire, where the first primary is held.

On the Senate floor one day, he joked that he was going to form a caucus of senators who aren't running for president.

"There are two of us," he says.

Well done, Snuffysmith, well done, indeed!

A picture can be worth at least a thousand words, and boy, is that one above here ever one of those that a whole book could come right out of!

And speaking about tax dollars, and such like things .....

"Mortgage Rates Rise for 4th Straight Week"

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

1 hour, 42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Mortgage rates rose for a fourth consecutive week as financial markets responded to fresh evidence that the economy is picking up momentum.

In its weekly survey, mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose to a nationwide average of 5.77 percent this week.

That was up from 5.73 percent last week.

It marked the fourth consecutive weekly gain in the 30-year mortgage, the longest stretch of increases since mortgage rates rose for seven straight weeks in February and March.

But even with the increases, 30-year mortgages have stayed below 6 percent for all but two weeks this year.

These low rates have helped to power home sales with both new and existing home sales hitting record levels in June.

"Although inching upwards, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate for the month of July was lower than the annual averages since our survey began in 1971," said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac.

Rates on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, a popular choice for refinancing a home mortgage, averaged 5.34 percent this week, up from 5.32 percent last week.

For one-year adjustable rate mortgages, rates increased to 4.46 percent, compared with 4.42 percent last week.

It marked the highest level for one-year ARMs in three years, since they averaged 4.50 percent the week of July 19, 2002.

Nothaft predicted that home buyers will begin shifting out of one-year ARMs because "the uncertainty of future monthly payments may outweigh the savings realized in the initial rate period."

Rates on five-year hybrid adjustable rate mortgages averaged 5.27 percent, up from 5.26 percent last week.

The nationwide averages for mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points.

Thirty-year mortgages and 15-year mortgages each carried an average fee of 0.5 point this week.

One-year ARMs and five-year ARMs carried an average fee of 0.6 point this week.

A year ago, 30-year mortgages averaged 6.08 percent, 15-year mortgages were at 5.49 percent and one-year ARMs averaged 4.17 percent.

Freddie Mac does not have historical data on the five-year ARM, which it began tracking this year.
___

On the Net:

Freddie Mac: http://www.freddiemac.com

And while this following story might be apropo of nothing at all, I thought it was interesting, anyway, and so ...

"Oldest dinosaur eggs yet held hapless babies-study"

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

1 hour, 22 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Unhatched dinosaur eggs dating back 190 million years carried fully developed embryos that would have been born clumsy and helpless, scientists said on Thursday.

Their finding, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, suggests even the earliest dinosaurs tended carefully to their young.

It also raises questions about how the giant four-legged dinosaurs called sauropods evolved.

"These animals do not have any teeth, and since they are ready to hatch, that is strange," said Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto at Mississauga in Canada, who led the study.

"The only explanation for that is they must have been fed by the mother."

"That would be oldest evidence of parental care in the fossil record," Reisz added in a telephone interview.

"We are looking at the very beginning of dinosaur evolution."

"It does support the idea that parental care and possible altricial (helpless) young existed throughout the reign of the Dinosauria," paleontologist Jack Horner of the University of Montana agreed in an e-mail.

The eggs come from a dinosaur called Massospondylus, one of a group called prosauropods that later evolved into the giant sauropods such as apatosaurus, previously known as brontosaurus.

"Most dinosaur embryos are from the Cretaceous period (146 to 65 million years ago)," Reisz said in a statement.

The fossil eggs were found in South Africa in 1978, but scientists have only now been able to open and study them properly.

Reisz's team used tiny tools to do it.

"We have essentially miniature jackhammers."

"They are pencil sized," he said.

"And we use very delicate dental tools."

Working under a powerful microscope, Reisz's team had to design a vibration-free table to work on.

"When somebody slammed a door in the building, my technician who preparing this felt that," Reisz said.

When they got the eggs open, they could see the baby dinosaurs were just about to hatch.

In fact, egg fragments were all around, suggesting that at least one did.

And the babies did not look like the parents.

Adult prosauropods were slender and two-legged.

The babies looked more like the dinosaurs that developed later, and they looked like the babies of animals such as birds and mammals, as opposed to the small but adult-proportioned young of reptiles.

"The head is quite large."

"The pelvic girdle is very small."

"That's where most of the muscles that would be used for locomotion are located," Reisz said.

"So we are suggesting this was a relatively helpless little hatchling."

Very few animals develop as this one appears to have, Reisz said.

"It starts out as a quadriped and becomes, as it grows up, as a biped."

"There are very few examples in nature that do this," he said.

One example, however, is a human baby.

"We start out as an awkward quadriped and we manage to become bipedal," he said.

Now the researchers can use computers to work out how these animals grew from a 6-inch (15-cm) long embryo into a 15 foot-(5-meter) long adult.

"This discovery is exciting in providing a major piece of the puzzle of how sauropodomorphs grew and reproduced," said biologist James Clark of George Washington University in Washington.

And this one, as well ......

"Statue of Emperor Found Among Rome Ruins"

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer

Thu Jul 28, 1:30 PM ET

ROME - A sewer might be no place for an emperor, but it is precisely from an ancient drainage system that archaeologists have dug-up a large marble sculpture of Constantine, one of Rome's greatest leaders.

Archaeologists found the 24-inch-tall head last week while clearing up a sewer in the Roman Forum, the center of public life in the ancient city, said Eugenio La Rocca, superintendent for Rome's monuments.

"We can't be sure of why it was put there," La Rocca said Thursday at a news conference during which authorities showed the bust to the media.

One possibility is that the sculpture of the man who reunited the Roman Empire in the early fourth century and ended years of persecutions against Christians was unceremoniously used later to clear a blocked sewer, he said.

La Rocca called the statue a rare find, saying that its insertion in the sewer probably saved it from the plundering the Forum suffered after the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century.

"Many portraits have been found in Rome, but these days it's not easy to find one, especially of this size and so well preserved," he said.

Experts confirmed that the sculpture portrays Constantine by comparing it to coins and two other giant heads of the emperor that are kept in Rome's Capitoline Museums, La Rocca said.

The Carrara marble head probably belonged to a statue of the emperor in full armor, and was erected in the part of the Forum built by the emperor Trajan after Constantine conquered Rome from a rival in A.D. 312.

The style and stern features used in all of Constantine's portraits also recall the traits of Trajan, who expanded the empire to its maximum size in the early second century.

"Trajan was the greatest emperor and Constantine considered him a model," La Rocca said

During his reign, which lasted from 306 to 337, Constantine tried to stop the fracturing of the empire and sought to restore it to its ancient glory.

Although not a Christian himself, he ended the frequent waves of anti-Christian persecutions by proclaiming religious freedom throughout his lands.

He also moved the empire's capital to Constantinople — today's Istanbul — closer to the Eastern borders threatened by the barbarian invasions.

La Rocca said that restorers will now take charge of the work, which will probably be put on display next year in a museum being built in the Roman Forum.

From the Annotations to Article I of the United States Constitution, Powers and Duties of the Legislative Branch of OUR government, concerning the separation of powers of the Departments of OUR federal government consistent with the REPUBLICAN FRAME spelled out in the 1776 Constitution of Virginia, and the 1780 Constitution of Massachusetts:

When the colonies separated from Great Britain following the Revolution, the framers of their constitutions were imbued with the profound tradition of separation of powers, and they freely and expressly embodied in their charters the principle.

(Thus the Constitution of Virginia of 1776 provided: ''The legislative, executive, and judiciary department shall be separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to the other; nor shall any person exercise the powers of more than one of them, at the same time." Reprinted in 10 W. Swindler (ed.), Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions (1979), 52. See also 5 id., 96, Art. XXX of Part First, Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: ''In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end it may be a government of laws, and not of men.'')

To a great extent, the Constitution effectuated these principles, but critics objected to what they regarded as a curious intermixture of functions, to, for example, the veto power of the President over legislation and to the role of the Senate in the appointment of executive officers and judges and in the treaty-making process.

It was to these objections that Madison turned in a powerful series of essays.

(The Federalist Nos. 47-51 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 323-353 (Madison).)

Madison recurred to ''the celebrated'' Montesquieu, the ''oracle who is always consulted,'' to disprove the contentions of the critics.

''[T]his essential precaution in favor of liberty,'' that is, the separation of the three great functions of government had been achieved, but the doctrine did not demand rigid separation.

Montesquieu and other theorists ''did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or controul over, the acts of each other,'' but rather liberty was endangered ''where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department.''

That the doctrine did not demand absolute separation provided the basis for preservation of separation of powers in action.

Neither sharply drawn demarcations of institutional boundaries nor appeals to the electorate were sufficient.

Instead, the security against concentration of powers ''consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.''

Thus, ''[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition."

"The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.''

Institutional devices to achieve these principles pervade the Constitution.

Bicameralism reduces legislative predominance, while the presidential veto gives to the Chief Magistrate a means of defending himself and of preventing congressional overreaching.

The Senate's role in appointments and treaties checks the President.

The courts are assured independence through good behavior tenure and security of compensation, and the judges through judicial review will check the other two branches.

The impeachment power gives to Congress the authority to root out corruption and abuse of power in the other two branches.

And so on.

A DISABLED AMERICAN VETERAN'S REPLY, BASED UPON THIS CONSTITUTIONAL LANGUAGE ABOVE, TO RUSH LIMBAUGH's CALL THAT UNITED STATES SENATOR JOHN FORBES KERRY SHOULD BE DENIED ASSESS TO BACKGROUND RECORDS ON A UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT NOMINEE PUT FORTH TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE FOR CONSIDERATION BY PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

SO!

In answer to the Rush Limbaugh Show on Clear Channels WORLDWIDE RADIO the other day, IF John Kerry IS a United States Senator, and he is, THEN .....

Pursuant to OUR United States Constitution, which is not something that either Clear Channels or Rush Limbaugh can strip us of, AS A UNITED STATES SENATOR, John Kerry has vested directly in him, HIS OFFICE, his official "public identity", A RESPONSIBILITY, to us, the American people, to see that corruption DOES NOT enter into ANY of the DEPARTMENTS of OUR government over here, and that would start with the JUDICIARY, and the time to start that process of rooting out corruption in the DEPARTMENTS of OUR government is RIGHT EXACTLY NOW - at the CONFIRMATION STAGE, where those called, but not qualified, can be weeded out before they have a chance to do real harm, here in OUR America.

YOU KEEP CORRUPTION OUT OF GOVERNMENT BY HAVING A DILIGENT SENATE THAT DOES NOT LET IT IN, despite the very best efforts of the DOMINANT PARTY to have it be so, by whatever wiles, or threats, or inducements, are necessary for the DOMINANT PARTY to affect its ends, taking effective control of ALL DEPARTMENTS of OUR federal government, to our detriment, especially to the extent that Karl Rove is a direct policy-maker in OUR government.

That is the job of OUR United States Senate - to keep corruption out of OUR government, by not letting it in!

They are not there to be a lapdog to George W. Bush, licking his hand and curling around his feet, waiting for him to throw them a little treat!

They are not there to merely give him what he wants, to simply swoon and acquiesce, as though George W. Bush were the living re-incarnation of Caesar Augustus, himself!

OUR United States Senate is there to keep corruption OUT of OUR government, and by God, that is what they should be doing, 24/7, and especially so, in this case of a United States Supreme Court Justice nominated out of a process that included Karl Rove as one of its key policy people!

Right now, Karl Rove and other key administration people are embroiled in a very public controversy involving possible criminal conduct on the part of Rove and other key administration personnel, and there is a Federal Grand Jury taking testimony in the case, where a news reporter has been jailed for contempt, and that case is sure to at some point involve the United States Supreme Court, as it deals directly with the Office of the President, where Rove sits, and so, the idea of Karl Rove having any hand at all in picking the Supreme Court Justice who might well sit in judgment of Rove is very unsettling to me, anyway, and so, I have stated that here, for all the candid world to see!

Any attempts by this White House in particular to stonewall OUR Senate with regard to providing background on this nomineee should be looked at by EVERY American as an attempt to keep something important from public scutiny regarding this person's background, and therefore, ability, to remain above the taint of corruption that is constantly licking and curling at the bootheels of those who have public office, here in OUR America, and that alone should serve as a DISQUALIFIER!

"Sorry, but we have rules here!"

"When you feel you can be more open with the American people, ALL of the American people, and not just those who quaff from the cup of Rush Limbaugh, and his, then, come on back, and try again!"

"Thanks for coming!"

"NEXT!"

Another picture worth another thousand words, anyway, Snuffysmith, and that is a fact!

And what a statement!

Way back when, on April 5, 1921, Eamonn de Valera, the leader of a free Ireland seeking independence from British tyranny and oppression at that time gave an interview to the Illustrated News in which he said "One of our first government acts was to take over control of the voluntary armed forces of the nation (Ireland)."

"… The IRA is the national army of defence."

Thus, to the candid world watching, a tone and tenor was set, and out of that was to come INDEPENDENCE for the lower counties of Ireland, but not Ulster and those around her, and so, the troubles continued, and violence gave birth to violence, time and time again!

I was in Ireland myself, the lower counties, on the west coast, back in the early-1980's, and in the town where I was working, there was a monument to citizens of that town who had been summarily executed by the British in retaliation for some British troops, or "black and tans" or whatever, being killed in that area, and whatever it was, sixty years later or so, the Irish still remembered, like it was yesterday!

Retaliatory killings in Ireland during the "troubles" were actually a British-sanctioned tactic, and the Irish were the very first to know, as this little "clip" from September 22/23, 1920 for County Clare, where I was, attests:

In reprisal for Rineen ambush, the Royal Irish Constabulary run amok in Ennistymon, Lahinch and Miltown Malbay killing six people and burning 26 buildings, including Ennistymon and Lahinch Townhalls.

The people killed were John Keane, Dan Lehane, Tom Connole, P J Linnane (12 year old boy), Sammon (an East Clare farmer on holidays) and Pake Lehane (son of Dan & who has been present at Rineen).

Hopkinson comments that there was no follow up by the local IRA to the Rineen ambush and "thereafter West Clare was quiet".

end quotes

Thereafter, on September 26, 1920, notices put up in Kilkee, Co.Clare that if a Capt Lendrum was not returned by 29th, then the villages of Kilkee, Kilrush, Carigaholt, Kilmill and Doonbeg would be burned by the British.

On September 28, 1920, a Mr. Macready writes to a Mr. Wilson outlining a plan for official reprisals saying that "Where reprisals have taken place, the whole atmosphere of the surrounding district has changed from one of hostility to one of cringing submission."

The attitude of the British Establishment was then satirised by Lord Hugh Cecil as "It seems to be agreed that there is no such thing as reprisals, but they are having a good effect

end quotes

But they were wrong, of course, just as we were dead wrong about human nature in Viet Nam, and now in the middle east, where the cycle has started all over again, and is going to stay cooking for some time to come!

"Transcript suggests CIA involved in abuse"

Associated Press
Last updated: 7:47 a.m., Thursday, July 28, 2005

DENVER -- A National Guardsman testifying at a hearing for U.S. soldiers accused of killing an Iraq general said he saw classified U.S. personnel beat prisoners with a sledgehammer handle and mock the general's death, according to a transcript.

The transcript, obtained by The Denver Post, includes an exchange during the hearing that suggests the CIA was involved.

Sgt. 1st Class Gerold Pratt of the Utah National Guard said he saw unidentified U.S. personnel use the 15-inch wooden handle to hit prisoners.

"They'd ask you a question, and if they didn't like it, they'd hit you," he said, according to the transcript obtained this week by the Post under a court order.

Pratt testified at the hearing in March.

The hearing will determine whether three soldiers from Fort Carson will stand trial for the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush during an interrogation in 2003.

The soldiers have denied wrongdoing and say commanders sanctioned their actions.

Most identifying information in the transcript was redacted, but one exchange suggests CIA involvement.

"To your knowledge, SFC Sommer did not accompany any of these CIA folks?" defense attorney Capt. Michael Melito asked Pratt.

A CIA spokeswoman who declined to give the Post her name would not comment.

Pratt -- who had run logistics at the detention facility near Qaim, a city in Iraq's western desert -- said he recalled an official mocking the prisoners he was beating.

"Well, particularly after the general was killed. I don't remember the exact words, but he was mocking the fact that the general died," Pratt testified.

The Army said Mowhoush died of asphyxiation from chest compression.

Documents in the case said he was killed with an electrical cord, and a Pentagon investigation reportedly says a soldier sat on Mowhoush as he was restrained headfirst inside a sleeping bag.

Previous testimony indicated the Iraqi general's body was badly bruised and he may have been severely beaten two days before he was suffocated.

Charged with murder are Chief Warrant Officer Jefferson Williams, Spec. Jerry Loper and Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, who was not part of the hearing.

Final charges are pending against the fourth accused soldier, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer.

The hearing officer has forwarded the case report, and Fort Carson's commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Mixon, will make the final decision on whether the soldiers will be court-martialed.

The soldiers could get life in prison without parole if they are convicted of murder.

Williams' attorney, William Cassara, said he was sure other officials were involved in prisoner abuse.

"I have no doubts that other government agencies used methods of interrogation that were much worse," Cassara said.

"Shots to the Heart of Iraq - Iraqi civilian deaths fueling hatred of U.S."

By Richard C. Paddock, LA Times Staff Writer

Mon Jul 25, 7:55 AM ET

BAGHDAD — Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit.

The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car.

At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass.

Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other.

The sedan's driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments.

The soldiers drove on without stopping.

This kind of shooting is far from rare in Baghdad, but the driver of the car was no ordinary casualty.

He was Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit.

His passengers were unarmed hitchhikers whom he was dropping off on his way to work.

"The reason they shot us is just because the Americans are reckless," the general said from his hospital bed hours after the July 6 shooting, his head wrapped in a white bandage.

"Nobody punishes them or blames them."

Angered by the growing number of unarmed civilians killed by American troops in recent weeks, the Iraqi government criticized the shootings and called on U.S. troops to exercise greater care.

U.S. officials have repeatedly declined requests to disclose the number of civilians killed in such incidents.

Police in Baghdad say they have received reports that U.S. forces killed 33 unarmed civilians and injured 45 in the capital between May 1 and July 12 — an average of nearly one fatality every two days.

This does not include incidents that occurred elsewhere in the country or were not reported to the police.

The continued shooting of civilians is fueling a growing dislike of the United States and undermining efforts to convince the public that American soldiers are here to help.

The victims have included doctors, journalists, a professor — the kind of people the U.S. is counting on to help build an open and democratic society.

"Of course the shootings will increase support for the opposition," said Farraji, 49, who was named a police general with U.S. approval.

"The hatred of the Americans has increased."

"I myself hate them."

Among the biggest threats U.S. forces face are suicide attacks.

Soldiers are exposed as they stand watch at checkpoints or ride on patrol in the turrets of their Humvees.

The willingness of the assailants to die makes the attacks difficult to guard against.

By their nature, the bombings erode the troops' trust of the public; every civilian becomes suspect.

U.S. military officials say the troops must protect themselves by shooting the driver of any suspicious vehicle before it reaches them.

Heavily armed private security contractors, who number in the tens of thousands, also are authorized by the U.S. government to use deadly force to protect themselves.

One contractor who works for the U.S. government and saw a colleague killed in a suicide bombing said it was better to shoot an innocent person than to risk being killed.

"I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by six," said the contractor, who insisted that he not be identified by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The U.S. military says it investigates all shootings by American personnel that result in death.

But U.S. Brig. Gen. Don Alston, spokesman for the multinational force in Iraq, said he was unaware of any soldier disciplined for shooting a civilian at a checkpoint or in traffic.

Findings are seldom made public.

A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "making no new enemies" was one of the military's priorities.

At the same time, he said, "it's still a combat zone."

"There are going to be times when what the soldier needs to do and what the civilian feels he should be able to do come into conflict."

On June 27, the day he turned 49, Salah Jmor arrived in Baghdad to visit his family.

His father, Abdul-Rihman Jmor, is the chief of a Kurdish clan that numbers more than 20,000.

Salah had left Iraq 25 years ago for Switzerland, where he earned a doctorate in international relations and eventually became a Swiss citizen.

For a decade, he represented Iraqi Kurds at the United Nations Office at Geneva.

In 1988, he helped call the world's attention to Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons on Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja and the massacre of at least 100,000 Kurds in what is known as the Anfal campaign.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Salah Jmor was offered a post in the new Iraqi government.

But he turned it down, preferring to remain in Geneva, where he was an associate professor at the Center for International and Comparative Programs of Kent State University of Ohio.

The morning after he arrived in Baghdad, he decided to go with his younger brother, architect Abdul-Jabbar Jmor, to his office.

Abdul-Jabbar, 38, drove his Opel hatchback down the eight-lane Mohammed Qasim highway through central Baghdad.

It was 9:30 a.m. and many vehicles were on the road.

The Opel hatchback is a model favored by insurgents.

The brothers were in the fast lane as a U.S. military convoy of three Humvees was entering the highway from the Gailani onramp.

Neither of them saw the soldiers, Abdul-Jabbar said.

Abruptly, Salah slumped over into his brother's lap.

Abdul-Jabbar asked what was wrong and then saw blood pouring from Salah's head.

There was a single bullet hole in the windshield.

He saw the convoy moving ahead as he pulled over to the side of the road.

He said he had seen no signal to slow down and heard no warning shot.

The soldiers turned around and came back a few minutes later.

One said he was sorry, Abdul-Jabbar said.

Together they waited more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive.

"I asked them, 'Why didn't you shoot me?"

"I am the driver,'" Abdul-Jabbar recalled.

"But they didn't answer me."

Abdul-Jabbar said he and his family had supported the U.S. troops when they first invaded Iraq, but no longer.

"This kind of incident makes people hate the Americans more and more," he said.

"They don't care about the lives of the people."

"Each day they make new enemies."

Switzerland has requested an explanation of Jmor's killing.

In Washington, the State Department said the United States had sent its condolences to the Swiss government and Jmor's family and that the Pentagon had begun an investigation.

In Baghdad, Abdul-Jabbar said the family had met with the Swiss ambassador but had received no expression of condolences from the U.S. government.

No U.S. investigator has contacted the family, he added.

There is a strong tradition of revenge in Iraq's tribal culture.

The killing of such a prominent clan member could have triggered a bloodbath that would claim 200 lives, said the patriarch, Abdul-Rihman.

But the Jmors, a well-educated family of doctors and engineers, say they want the judicial process to hold Salah's killer accountable.

"People say if they kill my brother, I have to kill one of them," Abdul-Jabbar said.

"But I believe in justice."

"I can't just go kill them."

"The United States says it is the leader of justice in the world."

"Let us see that."

In Iraq, the U.S. military has redefined the rules of the road.

Military checkpoints — elaborate affairs with mazes of concrete barriers, razor wire and snipers' nests — have been set up at intersections all over Baghdad.

Signs are posted in English and Arabic saying "Deadly Force Authorized."

Cars that approach too quickly risk being fired upon by troops who shoot to kill.

At times, troops set up temporary checkpoints during raids or other military operations.

These can be even more dangerous for civilians because they can appear on city streets without warning.

Military convoys, usually made up of three Humvees, patrol the streets.

In each vehicle, a gunner stands with his upper body partially exposed and ready to operate a machine gun mounted on the roof.

For troops, it is among the most hazardous places to be in Iraq.

The military expects all vehicles to stay at least 100 yards from a convoy.

When cars come too close, troops signal them to move back, sometimes by waving a little stop sign and sometimes by holding up a clenched fist.

Some Iraqis say the fist can be easy to miss.

It also can be confusing for motorists in Iraq, where the normal signal for stop is an upraised open hand, as it is in the United States.

On the highway, traffic normally bunches up well behind the American Hummers.

But keeping the required distance from a convoy can be difficult when the military vehicles unexpectedly change course or merge onto a highway.

The U.S. rules of engagement call for "escalation of force" when a vehicle comes too close.

Soldiers are trained to give hand and arm signals first, then fire warning shots and ultimately shoot to kill, the senior U.S. official said.

"Nothing in the rules of engagement takes away the right of self-defense for him and his buddies if the soldier feels threatened," he said.

More than 1,770 U.S. troops have died in the Iraq theater since the March 2003 invasion.

Despite the rising number of civilian deaths, the official said escalation-of-force incidents had fallen by half in the past four months.

He declined to provide specific figures.

According to one European diplomat, the American military's emphasis on protecting its troops has made U.S. soldiers more likely to kill and injure civilians than are other members of the coalition, such as the British, who are stationed in southern Iraq.

"The U.S. has force protection as their No. 1 priority," said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified because his remarks did not have his government's prior approval.

"The British have it as a priority, but not by any stretch the absolute priority."

"I think that makes the U.S. soldiers more jumpy."

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the transitional National Assembly, said he personally knew three people, including Salah Jmor, who had been shot and killed by U.S. troops during traffic incidents.

Of the other two, one was an athlete, the other a doctor who had been called to her hospital to handle an emergency.

"I understand American soldiers are nervous."

"It's very dangerous," said Othman, who was a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council that helped run Iraq after the invasion.

"But the killings are undermining support for the U.S. government."

"It has helped people who call themselves the opposition."

"It has helped terrorism."

A recent case highlighted by the Iraqi government in its criticism of the U.S. was the June 24 killing of Yasser Salihee, 30, an Iraqi special correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers.

Salihee, a physician, had taken a rare day off and planned to take his wife and daughter swimming.

He went to get gasoline and was returning home at midmorning.

By then, U.S. troops were conducting a military operation in his neighborhood.

It appears he did not see them until it was too late.

The route he chose was not blocked off and there was no sign warning motorists to halt, witnesses say.

As he neared the scene of the military operation, a U.S. Army sniper fired at his car.

One bullet hit a tire.

The other hit Salihee in the forehead.

That bullet also severed fingers on his right hand, indicating he was holding up at least one of his hands at the time he was killed.

U.S. officials are investigating the shooting.

Salihee's widow, Raghad al Wazzan, said she accepted the American soldiers' presence when they first arrived in Iraq because "they came and liberated us."

She sometimes helped them at the hospital where she works as a doctor.

But not anymore.

"Now, after they killed my husband, I hate them," she said.

"I want to blow them all up."

Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and Paul Richter in Washington and special correspondent Asmaa Waguih in Baghdad contributed to this report.

end quotes

I wonder if George W. Bush will have her killed too?

Hi everybody!

Just dropping back into cyberspace after a brief respite.

Hope all the world's problems have been solved.

Welcome back, jeffmoskin!

Boy, were you ever missed!

We had Canadian Mounted Police and everybody out scouring around for you, after hearing reports of a BIGFOOT sighting somewhere near where we all thought you might be, or might have been, or could be, if you felt like being there, anyway ....

And here, you're kidding, right?

George W. Bush is still in power, and as a result, chaos and disharmony still rule this earth of OURS, and so, the world's problems are right now still escalating .....

"Two Security Contractors Killed in Basra"

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

42 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two British contractors guarding a consulate convoy were killed Saturday by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq, and prominent Sunni Arab leader escaped an assassination attempt on a Baghdad highway by assailants in military garb.

The bombing on the British diplomatic convoy took place on a highway on the outskirts of Basra, killing the two security contractors who worked for the British security firm Control Risks Group, the Foreign Office said.

Iraqi police Capt. Mushtaq Kadim said two Iraqi children were seriously wounded when a second device exploded five minutes after the convoy was targeted.

He said the attacks took place in the al-Qiblah district, southwest of Basra.

Britain has some 8,500 troops in Iraq, mostly based in the south of the country.

The British military headquarters is based in Basra, where Britain also has a consulate general's office with about 20 employees.

Sheik Khalaf Elaayan, head of the National Dialogue Council, a Sunni political group with members on the constitutional drafting committee, told The Associated Press he was in his car Saturday when gunmen wearing military uniforms like those "used by members of the Iraqi army' drove up alongside and opened fire.

Elaayan said that his bodyguard was injured in the attack, which took place near an Iraqi army checkpoint.

"I was surprised that the soldiers did not react or come to help us although the checkpoint was less than 100 meters from where the attack took place," he said.

Sunni leaders have accused the Shiite-led government of sanctioning attacks by Shiite military forces against the Sunni community.

Two weeks ago, a member of the National Dialogue Council who was participating in the constitutional committee was assassinated in Baghdad, along with another Sunni committee adviser and a bodyguard.

Mijbil Issa's death prompted a week-long walkout by his Sunni colleagues, who only returned to the committee process after getting assurances for additional security.

The U.S. leadership has placed high hopes on a constitution that will lay the foundation for a broad-based government.

There is an Aug. 15 deadline for the charter to be approved by the National Assembly, and it will then move to a public referendum in October.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government on Saturday confirmed the firing of one of the few top Sunni officials to urged Sunni Arabs to join Iraq's political process.

Adnan al-Dulaimi was dismissed July 24 as head of the Sunni Endowment, the government agency in charge of the upkeep of Sunni mosques and shrines, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's office said Saturday.

Al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press he was fired for defending Sunnis, who dominated Iraqi politics under Saddam Hussein but feel marginalized by the current U.S.-backed, Shiite-dominated government.

Drawing Sunnis into the political process is seen as key for legitimizing any Iraqi government.

"I think that the reason behind my dismissal is that they want to silence a voice that is speaking against unjustified practices against Sunnis such as arrests, torture in the prisons, and also for my calls to release innocent detainees and to save Iraq from sectarianism, insecurity and divisions," al-Dulaimi said.

"They wanted to keep me away from this important post from which I can defend our Sunni people," al-Dulaimi said.

Al-Dulaimi had been among a handful of Sunni Muslim clerics and officials who have urged fellow Sunnis to vote in the constitutional referendum slated for October and the general elections that will follow in December.

Most Sunnis boycotted the Jan. 30 balloting.

Tensions between the Sunni Muslim minority and the Shiite community has been on the rise, with recent reports of Sunnis being detained and killed by Shiite-led military forces.

Dozens of bodies — blindfolded, bound and shot — have been discovered around Baghdad and central Iraq, many of them Sunnis.

Earlier this month, 11 Sunni detainees died in police custody after suffocating inside a locked van in the midday heat.

A criminal investigation into the deaths are underway.

On Friday, about 1,000 Sunnis staged a protest near the heavily guarded Green Zone, accusing the Shiite-dominated government's security forces of killing Sunnis under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Al-Dulaimi had been outspoken in his criticism of the detentions and killings.

Most members of the minority Sunni Arab community, which forms the core of the anti-American insurgency, stayed home during the country's landmark Jan. 30 elections, either fearing insurgent attacks or heeding boycott calls by rebels and hard-line clerics.

That helped Shiites and Kurds win control of the new government, since only 17 Sunni members made it into the 275-member parliament.

Elsewhere, the bodies of two Baghdad International Airport employees and their driver, kidnapped earlier this week, were discovered Saturday in a field in southwestern Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.

Mahir Yassin, director of the airport's communication department, along with fellow employee Mahmoud Hamad al-Zawbaie, and driver Mahmoud al-Zawbaie were discovered Saturday in the Amil neighborhood, said police Capt. Talib Thamir.

The three had been kidnapped Wednesday from Baghdad's western Mansour neighborhood by assailants in two cars as they were heading to work.

Control Risks Group, which provides security for the consulate, said it could not comment until next of kin had been informed.

The company, which describes itself on its Web site as an international business risk consultancy, specializes in helping clients operate in "complex or hostile environments."

The company employs some 500 contractors in Iraq, a spokeswoman said.

Only one contractor working for the company has previously been killed in Iraq, in an attack some 15 months ago, she added.

Hi Livyjr...

Just wanted to give you a heads up....on August 1, I will start Volume 3 of "Life in OUR America"

Thanks!

An awesome butterfly!

Thanks for the heads up!

"To fight, you must be brutal ...."

"And ruthless!"

"And the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter ...."

"Into the very fibre of OUR national life,"

"Infecting Congress ...."

"The Courts ..."

"The policeman on the beat,"

"The man in the street ...."

- Woodrow Wilson, an American President in a time of war who just might have known what it is that he was talking about!

In order to rally people, governments need enemies... if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

- A thought circulating around out there on the internet ......

"Defense team says Saddam assaulted in court - Lawyers cite 'exchange of blows' with ex-Iraqi leader; U.S. denies incident"

NBC News and news services

Updated: 1:42 p.m. ET July 30, 2005

AMMAN, Jordan - Members of Saddam Hussein’s Jordan-based defense team claimed Saturday the former Iraqi president was attacked during a recent court appearance, a claim immediately disputed by the chief investigating judge of the tribunal.

A man burst out from those gathered in the courtroom Thursday and tried to hit Saddam as the ousted leader was leaving the courtroom after a 45-minute hearing, Saddam’s legal team said in a statement.

“There was an exchange of blows between the man and the president,” the statement said, also claiming the judge overseeing the hearing did nothing to stop the assault.

The lawyers said the attacker’s identity was known, but their statement did not give his name or say whether Saddam was hurt.

Speaking from his office in Rome, one of the attorneys on the defense team told NBC News that Saddam apparently wanted to take a break and get some air after court proceedings became heated.

"When he proceeded to walk out, one of the Iraqi guards apparently manhandled him back to his seat," said Giovanni De Stefano.

However, he added that the incident was "purely speculation at this point."

De Stefano said he would ask Iraqi authorities for any video footage of the incident on Monday, and then make a determination on whether or not to file assault charges against the Iraqi and American authorities.

Independent verification of the incident was not possible.

Only certain portions of Thursday’s hearing were televised.

Photographs released did not show any injuries to Saddam’s face.

Judge Raid Juhi of the Iraqi Special Tribunal denied Saturday any incident involving Saddam occurred and said the hearing was conducted in a calm and low-key atmosphere.

Juhi, however, did not attend the hearing, which was presided over by different judge.

During Thursday’s hearing, Saddam was questioned about repression of the Shiite uprising in 1991, which erupted after U.S.-led forces drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, Juhi said previously.

Badee Izzat Aref, the lawyer of Saddam’s one-time Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, who also is on trial, said Saturday he had been told the incident did occur.

“I’m threatening to quit Tariq Aziz’s case,” he said.

“I’m afraid he will face the same thing in the future."

"I demand that Tariq Aziz be transferred out of Iraq.”

Like Saddam, Aziz also is answering charges of involvement in the bloody quelling of a 1991 Shiite uprising that erupted after U.S-led forces drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait in the Gulf War.

Abdel Haq Alani, a London lawyer currently in Amman and working as a consultant for Saddam’s legal team, said he learned of the confrontation from Saddam’s lawyer, Khalil Dulaimi, who was with the deposed president in the courtroom at the time.

Saddam is expected to stand trial in September in what is expected to be the first of several trials for the former leader and his chief lieutenants.

NBC News producer Gene Choo and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Somehow, it just does not seem right, nor fitting, in the interests of justice, that Donald Rumsfeld is not having to stand trial along with Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz for crimes against humanity.

A miscarriage of justice, I think it is called!

Published on Saturday, July 30,2005 by CommonDreams.org

"War is Fun as Hell"

by Sheldon Rampton

Years of writing about public relations and propaganda has probably made me a bit jaded, but I was amazed nevertheless when I visited America's Army, an online video game website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

In its quest to find recruits, the military has literally turned war into entertainment.

"America's Army" offers a range of games that kids can download or play online.

Although the games are violent, with plenty of opportunities to shoot and blow things up, they avoid graphic images of death or other ugliness of war, offering instead a sanitized, Tom Clancy version of fantasy combat.

One game, Overmatch, promises "a contest in which one opponent is distinctly superior ... with specialized skills and superior technology ... OVERMATCH: few soldiers, certain victory" (more or less the same overconfident message that helped lead us into Iraq).

Ubisoft, the company contracted to develop the DoD's games, also sponsors the "Frag Dolls," a real-world group of attractive, young women gamers who go by names such as "Eekers," "Valkyrie" and "Jinx" and are paid to promote Ubisoft products.

At a computer gaming conference earlier this year, the Frag Dolls were deployed as booth babes at the America's Army demo, where they played the game and posed for photos and video (now available on the America's Army website).

On the Frag Dolls weblog, "Eekers" described her turn at the "Combat Convoy Experience": "You have this gigantic Hummer in a tent loaded with guns, a rotatable turret, and a huge screen in front of it."

"Jinx took the wheel and drove us around this virtual war zone while shooting people with a pistol, and I switched off from the SAW turret on the top of the vehicle to riding passenger with an M4."

Non-virtual Realities

The babes-and-bullets fantasy world celebrated in games contrasts markedly with the experiences that real soldiers are facing in Iraq.

A report by the Pentagon's own Mental Health Advisory Team—completed in January but only released last week—found that 54 percent of soldiers stationed in Iraq described morale in their individual units as "low or very low."

In recent testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, U.S. Undersecretary for Defense David Chu, who is in charge of personnel recruitment for the military, admitted that "there is a reduced propensity to join the military among today’s youth."

"Due to the realities of war, there is less encouragement today from parents, teachers, and other influencers to join the military."

Chu said parents and other "older advisers to young Americans" whose views on military service were shaped by the Vietnam War have become a chief obstacle to military recruiters, adding that he was also "lamenting the failure" of the media to report all of the "positive successes" of the military along with the news of bombings and growing insurgency.

In reality, as Editor and Publisher reported the day before Chu gave his testimony, the news media has actually been failing to report the horrors of war, as "few graphic images from Iraq make it to U.S. papers."

And as Newsweek war correspondent Joe Cochrane observed just three days before Chu gave his testimony, one reason for the lack of positive news from Iraq is that reporters no longer dare venture out from Baghdad's barricated Green Zone "unless they're embedded with U.S. soldiers."

"That wasn’t the case early last year, when foreigners could walk the streets outside the Green Zone, shop in local markets, and, most important to journalists, talk to the Iraqi people."

"Those days are long gone."

And even inside the Green Zone, the situation is scarcely better: "Heavily armed troops guard government buildings and hospitals, menacingly pointing their weapons at any one who approaches.

Soldiers manning checkpoints can use deadly force against motorists who fail to heed their instructions, so the warning signs say, and I have no doubt they’d exercise that right in a heartbeat if they felt threatened.

All this fear and tension, and inside a six square mile area that’s supposed to be safe."

Cochrane says he has "always been something of an optimist" but reached his "breaking point" during his recent visit to Iraq.

"Say what you will about whether the United States was justified to invade this country," he wrote.

"We’re well into the game, and it’s too late to argue over who got the ball first."

"But prior to April 2003, there were no suicide bombers in Baghdad, there was 24-hour electricity and people went out at night."

"Now, if you drive into town from the airport, there is a legitimate possibility you will get killed."

School Monitors

Military officials have also developed an elaborate PR strategy for outreach to schools.

In Fall 2004, the army published a guidebook for high school recruiters.

Colin McKay, a public relations pro in Canada, took a look at it and thought it could serve as a useful reference for anyone needing a "step by step guide to building influence in a school setting. ... It's full of practical student activities (tactics), promotional opportunities for Army reps (brand building), and a detailed explanation of how to track school performance, recruiter visits and identify potential recruits (research and evaluation)."

Specific advice included the following:

* "Be so helpful and so much a part of the school scene that you are in constant demand."

* "Cultivate coaches, librarians, administrative staff and teachers."

* "Know your student influencers. Students such as class officers, newspaper and yearbook editors, and athletes can help build interest in the Army among the student body."

* "Distribute desk calendars to your assigned schools."

* "Attend athletic events at the HS. Make sure you wear your uniform."

* "Get involved with the parent-teacher association."

* "Coordinate with school officials to eat lunch in the school cafeteria several times each month."

* "Deliver donuts and coffee for the faculty once a month."

* "Coordinate with the homecoming committee to get involved with the parade."

* "Get involved with the local Boy Scouts. ... Many scouts are HS students and potential enlistees or student influencers."

* "Order personal presentation items (pens, bags, mousepads, mugs) as needed monthly for special events."

* "Attend as many school holiday functions or assemblies as possible."

* "Offer to be a timekeeper at football games."

* "Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday is in January. Wear your dress blues and participate in school events commemorating this holiday. ... February ... Black History Month. Participate in events as available."

* "Contact the HS athletic director and arrange for an exhibition basketball game between the faculty and Army recruiters."

Grand Theft Privacy

The Pentagon's recruitment effort also entails massive information-gathering efforts aimed at both students and their parents.

Under a little-publicized aspect of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education program, the military has gained what the Chicago Tribune described as "unprecedented access to all high school directories of upperclassmen—a mother lode of information used for mass-mailing recruiting appeals and telephone solicitations."

Before No Child Left Behind took effect in 2002, 12 percent of the nation's public high schools—some 2,500—denied the military access to student databases.

According to the Washington Post, "Recruiters have been using the information to contact students at home, angering some parents and school districts around the country."

In addition, the Washington Post reported in June that the Pentagon has contracted with BeNOW, a private database marketing company, to "create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits."

The new database is described on a Pentagon website as "arguably the largest repository of 16-to-25-year-old youth data in the country, containing roughly 30 million records."

According to the military's Federal Register notice, the information kept on each person includes name, gender, address, birthday, e-mail address, ethnicity, telephone number, high school, college, graduation dates, grade-point average, education level and military test scores.

Questioned about the database, U.S. Undersecretary for Defense David Chu responded, "If you don't want conscription, you have to give the Department of Defense, the military services, an avenue to contact young people to tell them what is being offered."

"And you would be naive to believe in any enterprise that you're going to do well just by waiting for people to call you."

"Then why not simply restrict the data fields to name, address, telephone number?" a reporter asked.

"The information that goes beyond that comes off of commercial lists."

"Anybody could buy that information."

"We're not, this is not a government file."

"This is off a commercial file, commercial providers."

"So we're not intruding—And typically that information has come off of forms people have voluntarily filled out to a commercial source."

"So I don't see the—"

"They may not have intended it to be the property of the U.S. military," the reporter observed.

Privacy rights groups have been sharply critical of the database.

According to a joint statement by a coalition of eight privacy groups, the database violates the Privacy Act, a law intended to reduce government collection of personal data on Americans.

The database plan, they wrote, "proposes to ignore the law and its own regulations by collecting personal information from commercial data brokers and state registries rather than directly from individuals."

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, one of the signers of the joint statement, also issued its own separate statement.

"The Privacy Act and the DOD's internal regulations require the agency to collect information directly from the citizen where possible," it explained.

"However, the database would be largely populated from other sources, including from state motor vehicle department databases, school enrollment data, and commercial information vendors."

"The main commercial vendors that sell students' data, American Student List and Student Marketing Group, were both pursued recently by consumer protection authorities for setting up front groups that tricked students into revealing their personal information."

Privacy groups also warned that data collected by the Pentagon could be used for other purposes besides military recruiting.

According to the Washington Post, "The system also gives the Pentagon the right, without notifying citizens, to share the data for numerous uses outside the military, including with law enforcement, state tax authorities and Congress."

Defense Department spokesperson Ellen Krenke said the Pentagon does not do this, but the Federal Register notice says the military retains the right to do so.

John Stauber is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy.

And of course, NATURE has absolutely no power whatsoever that MAN, and REPUBLICAN MAN, especially, cannot tame, and be the master of .....

"Study: Warming Making Hurricanes Stronger"

By JOSEPH B.VERRENGIA, AP Science Writer

1 hour, 10 minutes ago

Is global warming making hurricanes more ferocious?

New research suggests the answer is yes.

Scientists call the findings both surprising and "alarming" because they suggest global warming is influencing storms now — rather than in the distant future.

However, the research doesn't suggest global warming is generating more hurricanes and typhoons.

The analysis by climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows for the first time that major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent.

These trends are closely linked to increases in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during the same period.

"When I look at these results at face value, they are rather alarming," said research meteorologist Tom Knutson.

"These are very big changes."

Knutson, who wasn't involved in the study, works in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J.

Emanuel reached his conclusions by analyzing data collected from actual storms rather than using computer models to predict future storm behavior.

Before this study, most researchers believed global warming's contribution to powerful hurricanes was too slight to accurately measure.

Most forecasts don't have climate change making a real difference in tropical storms until 2050 or later.

But some scientists questioned Emanuel's methods.

For example, the MIT researcher did not consider wind speed information from some powerful storms in the 1950s and 1960s because the details of those storms are inconsistent.

Researchers are using new methods to analyze those storms and others going back as far as 1851.

If early storms turn out to be more powerful than originally thought, Emmanuel's findings on global warming's influence on recent tropical storms might not hold up, they said.

"I'm not convinced that it's happening," said Christopher W. Landsea, another research meteorologist with NOAA, who works at a different lab, the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory in Miami.

Landsea is a director of the historical hurricane reanalysis.

"His conclusions are contingent on a very large bias removal that is large or larger than the global warming signal itself," Landsea said.

Details of Emanuel's study appear Sunday in the online version of the journal Nature.

Theories and computer simulations indicate that global warming should generate an increase in storm intensity, in part because warmer temperatures would heat up the surface of the oceans.

Especially in the Atlantic and Caribbean basins, pools of warming seawater provide energy for storms as they swirl and grow over the open oceans.

Emanuel analyzed records of storm measurements made by aircraft and satellites since the 1950s.

He found the amount of energy released in these storms in both the North Atlantic and the North Pacific oceans has increased, especially since the mid-1970s.

In the Atlantic, the sea surface temperatures show a pronounced upward trend.

The same is true in the North Pacific, though the data there is more variable, he said.

"This is the first time I have been convinced we are seeing a signal in the actual hurricane data," Emanuel said in an e-mail exchange.

"The total energy dissipated by hurricanes turns out to be well correlated with tropical sea surface temperatures," he said.

"The large upswing in the past decade is unprecedented and probably reflects the effects of global warming."

This year marked the first time on record that the Atlantic spawned four named storms by early July, as well as the earliest category 4 storm on record.

Hurricanes are ranked on an intensity scale of 1 to 5.

In the past decade, the southeastern United States and the Caribbean basin have been pummeled by the most active hurricane cycle on record.

Forecasters expect the stormy trend to continue for another 20 years or more.

Even without global warming, hurricane cycles tend to be a consequence of natural salinity and temperature changes in the Atlantic's deep current circulation that shift back and forth every 40 to 60 years.

Since the 1970s, hurricanes have caused more property damage and casualties.

Researchers disagree over whether this destructiveness is a consequence of the storms' growing intensity or the population boom along vulnerable coastlines.

"The damage and casualties produced by more intense storms could increase considerably in the future," Emanuel said.
___

NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/

And then there is Iraq!

George W. Bush's Iraq!

What can be said for Iraq, beyond I'm glad that I'm past military age, and I am glad that I have no military age children, and I feel sorry for anyone who is an Iraqi in Iraq, right now, because their lives aren't worth a plugged nickle over there, while George W. Bush and his are in town, and they are the first to know that, and so ......

"Five U.S. soldiers killed in Baghdad bombings - Gunmen ambush convoy of Chalabi's political party; one dead, three injured"

July 30: Iraq was long considered one of the more liberal Arab states to woman, but now strict Islamic law is being embraced and may become the law of the land.

MSNBC News Services

Updated: 1:18 p.m. ET July 31, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Five U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in two separate incidents in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Sunday.

In the first attack Saturday around 1:40 p.m., a patrol hit a roadside bomb in the southern Dora neighborhood, killing a soldier from Task Force Baghdad, a statement said.

Two others were wounded in that incident.

Later that evening, around 11 p.m., four more Task Force Baghdad soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in southwestern Baghdad.

The names of all the soldiers killed are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Chalabi convoy attacked

Meanwhile, gunmen ambushed a convoy from Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi’s political party on Sunday, killing one security guard and wounding three, an aide to Chalabi said.

Entifadh Qanbar told Reuters a large convoy carrying an international delegation was attacked as it drove through the town of Mahawil on the way to the southern city of Kerbala.

Neither Chalabi nor other senior officials of his Iraqi National Congress party were in the convoy, Qanbar said.

A gunbattle broke out after the ambush and one INC guard was killed, Qanbar said.

Three guards were wounded when one vehicle flipped over.

The INC guards returned fire, killing some of the attackers, he said.

“One of the terrorists’ cars was left behind."

"There was blood all over the seats,” he said.

Qanbar said the delegation of visitors from India continued to its destination.

Police said earlier that at least one of Chalabi’s bodyguards was killed in the attack.

Chalabi survived an assassination attempt in the same area last year, when two of his guards were killed in an attack on his convoy.

A former ally of the United States who lobbied strongly in Washington for the invasion of Iraq, Chalabi has made political connections since returning from exile.

He also plays a key role in setting oil policy.

But he has struggled to gain popularity among ordinary Iraqis, who see him as one of the politicians who spent many years abroad and then returned to capitalize on the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Car bomb targets police

Violence continued Sunday when a car bomb exploded south of Baghdad, killing five civilians and wounding 10, including two policemen.

The bomb targeted a police vehicle as it was passing on a main road near the town of Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad, said police Capt. Muthanna Khaled Ali.

A day earlier, roadside bombs killed two British contractors in southern Iraq and at least seven people in the capital.

The Britons, who worked for the security firm Control Risks Group, were guarding a British consulate convoy in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Two Iraqi children were wounded when a second device exploded five minutes later, police said.

Britain has some 8,500 troops in Iraq, mostly in the south.

Its military headquarters is based in Basra, where Britain also has a consulate general’s office.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

The worst place you can ever find yourself, the very worst place, outside of Hell, itself, is in a combat zone with an inept, incompetent command structure, especially when that ineptness and incompetence starts at the very top, with the Commander-in-Chief, himself, and flows downhill from there, polluting everything in its path as it oozes ever downwards!

"Security costs slow Iraq reconstruction - Contract excesses also hamper progress"

By Renae Merle and Griff Witte

Updated: 7:18 a.m. ET July 29, 2005

WASHINGTON - Efforts to rebuild water, electricity and health networks in Iraq are being shortchanged by higher-than-expected costs to provide security and by generous financial awards to contractors, according to a series of reports by government investigators released yesterday.

Taken together, the reports seem to run contrary to the Bush administration's upbeat assessment that reconstruction efforts are moving vigorously ahead and that the insurgency is dying down.

The United States, Iraq and international donors have committed more than $60 billion to run Iraq and revive its damaged infrastructure.

But security costs are eating away a substantial share of that total, up to 36 percent on some projects, the Government Accountability Office reported yesterday.

The higher security costs are causing reconstruction authorities to scale back efforts in some areas and abandon projects in others.

Security costs limit progress

For instance, in March, the U.S. Agency for International Development canceled two electric power generation programs in order to provide $15 million in additional security elsewhere.

On another project to rehabilitate electric substations, the Army Corps of Engineers decided that securing 14 of the 23 facilities would be too expensive and limited the entire project to nine stations.

And in February, USAID added $33 million to cover higher security costs on one project, which left it short of money to pay for construction oversight, quality assurance and administrative costs.

"If we didn't have a bunch of extremists running around trying to derail the progress of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people and the coalition, the amount of money spent on security would be far less," said Lt. Col. Barry Venable, Pentagon spokesman.

"It is a fact of life, one which cannot be wished away."

Heather Layman, spokeswoman for USAID, said security accounts for an average of 22 percent of a project's cost in Iraq.

"We are making some really important and good progress in this challenging environment," Layman said.

"Security is part of the cost."

"But we're doing things like providing clean water and power and building schools."

The new reports were released to Congress yesterday.

They were compiled by the GAO and the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which was created to monitor the rebuilding process.

GAO investigators did find some bright spots: "The U.S. has completed projects in Iraq that have helped to restore basic services, such as rehabilitating oil wells and refineries, increasing electrical generation capacity, restoring water treatment plants, and reestablishing Iraqi basic health care services," the report's authors concluded.

In other areas, developments were less auspicious.

Despite $5.7 billion committed to restoring electricity service in Iraq, power generation was still at lower levels as of May than it had been before the U.S. invasion in 2003.

In one case, the GAO reported, the United States led an overhaul of an Iraqi power plant but then did not adequately train the Iraqis how to operate it.

A widespread power outage resulted.

Crude oil production has also dropped in the past two years, even with more than $5 billion in U.S. and Iraqi funds available for rebuilding.

Oil export revenues are needed to fund more than 90 percent of the nascent Iraqi government's 2005 budget, the State Department has said.

"It's quite clear that we've got massive amounts of taxpayer money funneled into Iraq, with very little oversight and a substantial amount of waste and abuse," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND).

"These are very discouraging reports."

Dorgan said the high costs associated with providing security are particularly troubling.

The government does not know how much it spends on private security contractors in total, the GAO said.

But it's more than expected.

"Contractor officials acknowledge that the cost of private security services and security-related equipment, such as armored vehicles, has exceeded what they originally envisioned," the GAO said.

The Pentagon estimates there are 60 private security firms with as many as 25,000 employees in Iraq.

Some elite personnel make $33,000 a month.

But there are no industry standards, and soldiers are not taught in advance how to interact with the armed contractors, according to the GAO.

Conflicts between contractors, military

The use of contractors has led to occasional conflicts with the military.

In May, the Marines detained 19 contractors for three days, claiming the contractors fired at them.

The contractors, who worked for Zapata Engineering of Charlotte, denied firing at the Marines and said they were roughed up while in custody.

At one point, an Army unit barred private contractors from their dining facilities after they refused to stop carrying their loaded weapons.

Soldiers also continue to mistakenly fire on security contractors, despite recently established procedures.

Between January and May, 20 such friendly-fire incidents were reported, though the actual figure is probably higher since some contractors have said they no longer report them, the GAO said.

The Department of Defense said it is developing a policy to improve coordination between military forces and contractors and a training strategy for deploying troops on contractor issues.

"Training materials would benefit both operational military forces and" contractors, the DOD said in a response attached to the report.

Award fees deemed unnecessarily high

In a separate report yesterday, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported that more money than necessary may be going into the pockets of government contractors involved in the rebuilding process.

A review by auditors of 18 reconstruction contracts found that the formula used for doling out special monetary awards, which are above and beyond basic fees, tended to skew them too high.

For instance, the inspector general's office found that a contractor that received an evaluation of "average" performance won award fees of $1.67 million but could have been given just $309,436 under another widely accepted awards system.

In a second case, a contractor won no award fees but ended up being paid $439,145 after it appealed because it hadn't received feedback on its work from the government.

U.S. officials responsible for contracting in Iraq said they were taking steps to improve the award fee process.

Difficulties with contractors also contributed to the challenging reconstruction task in Afghanistan, according to a separate GAO report released yesterday.

In 2004, USAID planned to build 286 schools by the end of the year, but because of contractor and security problems, it had finished only eight by September, the report said.

The agency did not always require contractors to establish clear objectives or hold them accountable for meeting the targets, the report said.

The reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan together represent the largest U.S. assistance efforts since World War II.

In Iraq alone, the GAO said the United States has allocated $24 billion and has spent $9 billion since 2003.

Old George W. Bush got it running out both ends, and some in the middle, is what it looks like from here ......

"U.S. evicted from air base in Uzbekistan - Amid tensions over dissident crackdown, military given 180 days to leave"

By Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson

Updated: 12:25 a.m. ET July 30, 2005

Uzbekistan formally evicted the United States yesterday from a military base that has served as a hub for combat and humanitarian missions to Afghanistan since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pentagon and State Department officials said yesterday.

In a highly unusual move, the notice of eviction from Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2, was delivered by a courier from the Uzbek Foreign Ministry to the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, said a senior U.S. administration official involved in Central Asia policy.

The message did not give a reason.

Uzbekistan will give the United States 180 days to move aircraft, personnel and equipment, U.S. officials said.

If Uzbekistan follows through, as Washington expects, the United States will face several logistical problems for its operations in Afghanistan.

Scores of flights have used K2 monthly.

It has been a landing base to transfer humanitarian goods that then are taken by road into northern Afghanistan, particularly to Mazar-e Sharif -- with no alternative for a region difficult to reach in the winter.

K2 is also a refueling base with a runway long enough for large military aircraft.

The alternative is much costlier midair refueling.

U.S. seeks alternatives

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld returned this week from Central Asia, where he won assurances from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that the United States can use its bases for operations in Afghanistan.

U.S. forces use Tajikistan for emergency landings and occasional refueling, but it lacks good roads into Afghanistan.

Kyrgyzstan does not border Afghanistan.

"We always think ahead."

"We'll be fine," Rumsfeld said Sunday when asked how the United States would cope with losing the base in Uzbekistan.

In May, however, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called access to the airfield "undeniably critical in supporting our combat operations" and humanitarian deliveries.

The United States has paid $15 million to Uzbek authorities for use of the airfield since 2001, he said.

Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said that the U.S. military does not depend on one base in any part of the world.

"We'll be able to conduct our operations as we need to, regardless of how this turns out."

"It's a diplomatic issue at the moment," Di Rita said.

Tensions over bloody crackdown

The eviction notice came four days before a senior State Department official was to arrive in Tashkent for talks with the government of President Islam Karimov.

The relationship has been increasingly tense since bloody protests in the province of Andijan in May, the worst unrest since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union.

Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns was going to pressure Tashkent to allow an international investigation into the Andijan protests, which human rights groups and three U.S. senators who met with eyewitnesses said killed about 500 people.

Burns was also going to warn the government, one of the most authoritarian in the Islamic world, to open up politically -- or risk the kind of upheavals witnessed recently in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, U.S. officials said.

Karimov has balked at an international probe.

As U.S. pressure mounted, he cut off U.S. night flights and some cargo flights, forcing Washington to move search-and-rescue operations and some cargo flights to Bagram air base in Afghanistan and Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan.

As relations soured, the Bush administration was preparing for a further cutoff, U.S. officials said.

Big test for Bush’s foreign policy

The United States was given the notice just hours after 439 Uzbek political refugees were flown out of neighboring Kyrgyzstan -- over Uzbek objections -- by the United Nations.

The refugees fled after the May unrest, which Uzbek officials charged was the work of terrorists.

The Bush administration had been pressuring Kyrgyzstan not to force the refugees to return to Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan has been widely viewed as an important test for the Bush administration -- and whether the anti-terrorism efforts or promotion of democracy takes priority.

"We all knew basically that if we really wanted to keep access to the base, the way to do it was to shut up about democracy and turn a blind eye to the refugees," said the senior official, on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomacy.

"We could have saved the base if we had wanted."

After the latest setback in relations, the Bush administration is going to "wait for a cooling-off period," the administration official said.

"We are assuming they mean it and want us out."

"We are now not sending someone to Uzbekistan."

The next test will be whether to withhold as much as $22 million in aid to Uzbekistan if it does not comply with provisions on political and economic reforms it committed to undertake in a 2002 strategic partnership agreement with Washington.

Last year, the administration withheld almost $11 million.

U.S. officials expect the Uzbek government will again be ineligible for funds.

"County to probe Medicaid - Comptroller and DA say state has done little to contain fraud"

By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, July 27, 2005

ALBANY -- Albany County Comptroller Mike Conners, claiming the state has done little to combat Medicaid fraud, announced Tuesday he and District Attorney David Soares plan to conduct a county-level probe.

The officials said they would look into possible abuses in areas of prescription drugs and other health services.

"In 2004, we spent over $346 million of federal, state and local money just in Albany County," Conners said at a news conference.

"We are trying to get a containment on this runaway spending."

Conners said it was time to "do something ourselves about Medicaid because it's not happening at the state level."

His auditors looked into the county's 2002 Medicaid prescription drug charges last year and uncovered more than $2.4 million in overcharges on a little more than $10.7 million of prescriptions purchased under Medicaid, he said.

Auditors compared what was paid per dose against an estimated average wholesale price list used in a federal probe to determine overcharges.

Conners said 146 of 150 drugs checked had problems.

The county is among several counties that have joined in a lawsuit against drug companies to recover overcharges.

The action is pending in federal court in Boston and could take years.

Last year, 37,392 county residents received benefits, 2,000 more than in 2003.

Each year the number rises, and Conners attributes it to the abundance of services provided by the county which draws new residents.

Soares vowed to prosecute "any case uncovered by the comptroller where there's indications of fraud."

"We are in dire need of Medicaid reform."

"We can't sit by and wait for that reform to take place."

They will ask county lawmakers to include in the 2006 budget salaries for an assistant district attorney and a forensics accountant for Conners' office.

They also want to purchase software, called Verify NY, that can detect wrongdoing and runs from as low as $16,000 to $205,000.

Conners estimated that if the level of fraud in Albany County was 2.5 percent in 2004, it would amount to $8.6 million of the total spending of $346 million.

If the fraud level last year was 5 percent, it would amount to $17 million.

By comparison, fraud in New York City is estimated at 10 percent.

The state is gearing up to tackle the problem.

Gov. George Pataki and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer promised last week to beef up anti-fraud efforts in reacting to a New York Times series that faulted officials for not addressing waste and theft associated with the $44.5 billion state Medicaid program.

The program, the nation's largest, provides health services to the poor.

"The governor has submitted a plan which we are implementing and which we think will be effective," said Bill Van Slyke, spokesman for the state Department of Health.

"Certainly we are interested at looking at ways that local governments can add to our fight against Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse."

County governments have limitations, he said.

Albany County Social Services Commissioner Elizabeth Berlin said the responsibility for Medicaid audits rests with state health officials.

"While local districts may wish to review Medicaid expenditure information, they do not have the authority to conduct provider audits," she said.

Conners disagrees, citing an attorney general's opinion that held "the power to prosecute Medicaid fraud claims lies with county district attorneys."

Closing volume 2...continue on to volume 3
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